We are grateful that the year 2024 is almost over.
We are thankful for your patience. It has been a tough year. I am thanking God it is almost over. The fracture of my left foot took me by surprise. August obliged me to pause. However, my recovery stamina has persisted to be in a fast-track mood, completing weekly sporty mobility routines since November. Rehabilitation has been successful up to this day. Still, a couple of months of determined dedication are waiting to enhance the flexibility and motion process for running. Thanks to God. It is so good to be fine again. My enormous gratitude to orthopaedical doctor Palomo Pacas, who aided me through my foot repair procedure.

Today is the last episode of Season I of “Central America: A Quest for the Progression of Economic Value.” We will continue with Season II next year.
As we notified you last October 4^th, the saga “Central America: A Quest for the Progression of Economic Value” will last a year. We have segmented our dispatch research deliverables for you in three seasons. Season I finishes today. Season II will begin on January 24^th, 2025, and will finish on April 25th. Season III will start on May 23^rd  and will finalize on October 10th. We have updated our aspiring outline below:

The Reign of Charles V and his International Agenda, according to two of his main contemporary researchers.

Martin Rady. “Emperor Charles V”. (1)
According to Rady, Charles V Emperor spent all his life at war. Even during the period that he was a full-time resident of Iberia, while he was dedicating himself to learning Spanish, structuring his government administration, and parenting with his wife Isabella of Portugal; he was not static or immobile in terms of “military life.” Rady remarks that Charles V’s international agenda was also pivotal to warfare, forced upon him by others. His three main domains of conflict were: (1) The wars with France; (2) The confrontation with Islam (The Ottoman Turks and North African Muslims); and (3) The conflicts with the German Prince protestants of the Holy Roman Empire. Unbelievably, from these three priorities, according to Rady, the Protestant Reformation was the most remarkable issue for Charles V. Rady reports “The Reformation shattered a millennium and a half of Catholic Religious Unity.” Another issue was occurring in the Netherlands where his regents (his aunt Margaret and his sister Marie) were trying to keep the peace facing a rise of revolts. The sack of Rome only shows us that the Papacy was vulnerable with Charles V. For Rady, Charles V supported the Spanish and Papal Inquisition because of its public order effectiveness and immediate application before the law.

Indeed, Charles V attempted to suppress the Reformation through negotiations and by force (using Inquisitorial methods) but he also understood by experience, that he couldn´t force the German Protestant princes to modify their new religious beliefs overall. For Rady, passive resistance and evasion were the methods of the Protestant Schmalkaldic League princes. By 1550, Charles V already comprehended that tying Italy and the Netherlands to Spain was dynamically better than keeping the Germans fused to the Netherlands under one ruler after his abdication.

For Rady, there is no doubt that the New World represented not just an advancement of the world market growth, but also new sources for commercial expansion and augmentative wealth based on slavery (the extraction of bullions of gold and silver added new sources of funds for European warfare and construction of infrastructure otherwise never attainable). Rady also conveys that Charles V’s lack of money to finance his international agenda was profoundly analyzed by historian Leopold von Ranke (1795-1888). Von Ranke believed that the most important failure for Charles V was his decision to avoid the forging of the Holy Roman Empire into a German Monarchy, creating a worldwide empire with headquarters from Spain. This decision was disastrous for Germany, but it was worse for Spain. According to Von Ranke, Spain did not possess the wealth and workforce required to meet its new responsibilities in America. We aren´t so convinced of this particular view of information. The impact of the conquest of Spanish America was staggering, massive, and devastating for the local pre-Hispanic inhabitants. Look at the table below:

Rady also analyzes the division of the Spanish Habsburgs and Austrian Habsburgs as a “turning point” in European history. When Charles V linked the Netherlands to Spain, without knowing it provoked an “ Eighty years of war of needless bloodshed, that Charles V couldn´t foresee”. If the reign of Charles V marked the end of the Renaissance, then his international strategy indicated that a new era was coming for all the Europeans who decided to colonize Spanish America in such a short time.

William Maltby. “The Reign of Charles V” (2).
Maltby offers us new lines of thought about the international agenda of Charles V. Maltby privileges the idea that the new world expansion out of Europe was overseen by the crusading spirit from Spain. For Maltby, Charles V’s perception of the  Indies was completely different than what the Conquistadores pursued. “Charles´s attitude towards the New World was conditioned almost solely by financial considerations while supporting Fray Bartolomé de las Casas in his defensive strategy to improve the condition of the natives.” Charles V was clear about the implications of the new lands of Spanish America. He approved the Council of the Indies, and he appointed as its first-ever President Fray García Loaisa de Mendoza, who was his spiritual guidance and confessor. Charles V´s appointed Maximilian advisors were always communicating to him that his kingdom wasn´t only continental Europe but lands expanded greater and further away from the Atlantic. Despite this acknowledgment, Maltby insists on writing that Charles gave importance to these new lands only as a source of bullion. We disagree completely.

Even if the cosmovision of the Emperor was built around his traditional medieval commitment to fighting against the Muslim Infidel, the Spanish character of the conquest and colonization was designed towards the Habsburg Burgundian dynastic dominance in certain regions of America, while a Habsburg Castile dynastic dominance in other regions of America. Maltby states that the gradual Hispanicization of Charles´s European Empire answered the pursuit of Charles´s “Plus Oultre” strategy, but by dividing the House of Habsburg into two branches (Spanish and Austrian), Charles cut the cord to be perceived as a leader of universal peace and empire to defend the Catholic faith in Europe. It looks like Charles V didn´t want the Germans to come to Spanish America, but it also looks like Charles V had another strategy for America Conquest Inc.

Today we have shared the views of the international agenda of Charles V analyzed by two professors: Martyn Rady, Masaryk Professor Emeritus of Central European History at University College London; and William Maltby,  Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Missouri. But we will continue exploring the book views of Elliott, Kamen, Parker, Blockmans, Hare, Kann, Fichtner, Thomas, Robertson, Armstrong, Levy, Geevers, Tracy, López de Gómara, Lynch, Salmon, Brandi, Tyler, Fernández Alvarez, McElwee, Davies and many others who have written articles and academic papers.  Find our outline for Season II below. Print it and share it with your friends and peers.

Our closing episode of today is the opening episode for our next year´s efforts. Next year we will continue developing a comparative overview of the official history versus our hypothesis that Charles V or someone from the Habsburg-Trastámara (Castile-Aragon) dynasty came to conquer and colonize America. Regardless of the official history, we have identified a different rationale, philosophy, and purposes of the next generations of Habsburgs after the death of Charles V.

In summary: we are convinced that The New World represented a core business for Charles V, not a side dish as it has been taught to us for five hundred years. For Charles V, America Conquest Inc. was one of the most fundamental priorities in the expansion of his empire domains. We have envisioned that Charles V cut the cord of his European Holy Roman Empire by leaving it in the hand of his brother Ferdinand, with the specific purpose of isolating Spanish America from the German Nations’ conflicts with the Muslims and Protestantism. His goal was to keep the newly conquered lands in Spanish America under the Spanish Habsburg-Avis-Castile-Aragon-Valois descendants of his family. We also believe that the Spanish Habsburg and Austrian Habsburg families have always been cooperating in between since the Charles V era, even beyond our literate imagination.

The Spanish and Papal Inquisition: The Inquisition was a proven procedure that optimized results for the Spanish Crown using terror and fear in the Iberian communities. It was an efficient method for them given the circumstances of its design. The cruelty of the Inquisition can only be explained if we contextualize the 700 years of Muslim and Jewish Presence in Iberia. The Inquisition was validated by Charles V´s grandparents. Then it was transferred from the Spanish Inquisitors to the Emperor closest advisors. Later, it was believed blindly by his counselor team from the Low Countries. Adrian of Utrecht (his tutor, mentor, and later new Inquisitor General) adopted the available Spanish  Inquisition for political control and maintenance of the public order. I truly doubt that Charles at 16 years old could make any political decision when his grandfather, King Ferdinand II of Aragon, passed away. As an orphan, Charles V learned to depend on and delegate decision-making to his advisors, ministers, chancellors, confessors, and tutors; many of them coming from his father´s entourage, or from his grandfather Maximilian´s direct appointments as Adrian of Utrecht, Sauvage, Gattinara, Guillaume du Croy-Baron Chièvres, Aunt Margaret, Luis Cabeza de Vaca, Cardinal Cisneros,  García de Loaisa,  Count Palatine Frederick and Henry of Nassau, etc.. These advisors were the decision-making bridge required until Charles V learned how to rule Spain and Spanish America.

Charles V knew more about Spanish America than we know about him and his America Conquest Inc. The Spanish Control of America took place during the life of Charles V. It took them less than 66 years as of 1492. For us, this was Charles V´s major achievement. None of the rest of Continental Europe’s issues was as relevant as conquering and colonizing a land of at least thirty times the size of the Iberian Peninsula. Despite that Rady defends that Charles V did not contribute at all to the conquest, we aren´t so convinced of that. As a Burgundian, Charles V wasn´t the type of king who would leave the conquest of so new precious lands in the hands of ordinary adventurers either.

We also have interpreted the prohibition of slavery toward the Indians as the evident preoccupation of the Spanish rulers to implement a new slavery system called encomienda, which somehow was the same cruel bondage under a different name. But let´s ask ourselves why? The cruelty of the Spanish Inquisition had no limits. Why did they implement the “softest measures of domination in America after the brutality of the conquest”? Were the Habsburg royals already interacting with the Indians directly? How did they manage it? With undercover identities through the Missions of Catholic Priests? Look at the map below. Who of the Habsburgs came to America between 1500 to 1700 and why?. Did they come to lead and conquer directly? Or did one of them reach to defend the Indians of Central America?  

All these questions will be discussed next year as of January 24th, 2025. See you then.

Announcement.
With this episode, we close Season I of this saga. We wish you fantastic New Year celebrations and a blessed 2025. Next year, during January, we will take three weeks of vacation for our strategic mindset maintenance. Season II of the saga “Central America: A Quest for the Progression of Economic Value” will begin as of Friday 24th of January, 2025.  Do not lose sight, please! Stay tuned.

Musical Section.
Our selection of music during this saga will be fitted with songs and concerts that could have been listed on the most important Billboard during the 16th century. Today, we have selected Hans Neusidler’s lute. Neusidler moved to Nuremberg in 1530. Neusidler (1508-1563) was a prolific German composer of lute music. Yavor Genov is the interpreter of the beautiful performance below. Video uploaded by Brilliant Classics on YouTube.

Thank you for reading http://www.eleonoraescalantestrategy.com. It is a privilege to learn. Blessings.

Sources of reference and Bibliography utilized today. From this text are below.

1.Rady, M. The emperor Charles V. Routledge Taylor & Francis, 1988

2.Maltby, W. The reign of Charles V. Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.

Disclaimer: Eleonora Escalante paints Illustrations in Watercolor. Other types of illustrations or videos (which are not mine) are used for educational purposes ONLY. All are used as Illustrative and non-commercial images. Utilized only informatively for the public good. Nevertheless, most of this blog’s pictures, images, or videos are not mine. I do not own any of the lovely photos or images unless otherwise stated.