ith an emphasis not expected from so taciturn a youth. On the 8th of May he prepared the ban against Luther, but it was not published until the 26th. In accordance with the promise given by the estates in February, he spoke for them all. Had Charles had his way, he would have devoted himself for some time to the pressing internal needs of his country. The constitution especially needed improvement; the finances were so disordered, and the debt so large, that the monarch was hampered in whatever he did, and could provide for the foreign interests of the empire only by very careful management. Owing to the primitive development of means of communication, he could not keep watch over the whole empire, which he therefore decided to divide into districts. Already convinced that he must make Spain the centre of his dominions and the mainstay of his politics, he for that reason determined to make it his personal charge, and went thither in the summer of 1522. Once in Spain, remote from Germany and his hereditary Hapsburg estates, he at first purposed to make them almost entirely independent of him, although he was more dissatisfied with the conditions there than with those of any other part of his empire. Reserving to himself only the general policy of the empire as a whole, he gave his Austrian possessions to his brother Ferdinand, in 1522, making him, at the same time, his representative at the head of the imperial government. The Reichsregiment having been abrogated in 1525, he had Ferdinand chosen King of Rome at the next opportunity (1530). He kept a firmer hold on the government of the Netherlands, but established a permanent regency for them also (1522), selecting for this function two able and thoroughly loyal women: first (till 1530), the faithful Margaret, and next his sister Maria of Hungary, who held the regency till Charles himself abdicated. Naples had been ruled by viceroys under his grandfather, and he continued this policy. Wh...
