CHAPTER XIV

ATTACKS BY FRENCH PRIVATEERS--CAUSE OF THE WAR WITH FRANCE--CHARLES
V.--RUIN OF THE ISLAND

1520-1556

The depredations committed by the privateers, which about this time
began to infest the Antilles and prey upon the Spanish possessions,
were a result of the wars with almost every nation in Europe, in which
Spain became involved after the accession of Charles, the son of
Juana, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella and Philip I, Archduke of
Austria.

The young prince had been educated amid all the pomp and splendor of
the imperial court. He was a perfect type of the medieval cavalier,
who could break a lance with the proudest knight in the empire, and
was worthy in every respect of the high destiny that awaited him. At
the age of twenty he became the heir to eight kingdoms,[33] the
recognized ruler of the Netherlands, lord of vast territories in
Africa, and absolute arbiter of the destinies of the Spanish division
of the New World.

Scarcely had this powerful young prince been accepted and crowned by
the last and most recalcitrant of his kingdoms (Cataluña), and while
still in Barcelona, the news arrived of the death of his grandfather,
Maximilian, King of the Romans and Emperor elect of Germany.