Mostly for cahn and [Bad username or unknown identity: iberiandoctor"], if either wants to use some historical factoids in potential Schiller/Verdi Don Carlos fanfiction, brought to you by the fact I just read a recent (2018) Charles V. biography.
Important reminder, not just for this but for any period, of just how much territory Charles inherited from all four grandparents
From Maximilian I., HRE: Austrian heartlands (these included Austria, a great deal of Switzerland and today's Southern Tyrolia)
From Mary of Burgundy: Burgundy (which consisted of the actual province Burgundy, today Franche-Comte, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands)
From Ferdinand of Aragon: Aragon, Sicily, Naples and Sardinia (all ruled by the House of Aragon since the high middle ages)
From Isabella of Castile: Castile and the new overseas territories. (Read: Latin America except for Brazil, which was Portuegese)
Hence: the Empire in which the sun does not set. Hence also a great many people people in it sideyeing a great many others, and that's before we get to the fact that just when Charles was starting his rule, a monk named Martin Luther got busy in Wittenberg. (Key factor.)
Now Charles, as mentioned before was raised in Flanders, unlike his younger brother Ferdinand, who was raised with Granddad Ferdinand. This, and the fact that his aunt Margaret was a brilliant governor of the Netherlands, and after her his sister Mary was very good as well, meant that while Charles lived, there might have been the occasional rumble as Protestantism started to spread in Flanders, but by and large, the Netherlands still felt the emotional connection to him; he was seen as one one of theirs. In fact, when Charles declared his abdication in Gent, the city where he was born, William of Orange (not that one, an earlier one of the same name, the Ur-William of Orange, even) was present and Charles, who was suffering from extreme gout, was leaning on him when entering the room. However, son Philip was seen as utterly Spanish, a complete foreigner, plus by the time Philip ruled, the religious strife was really kicking into high gear and Philip's reply of slamming down hard with the counter reformation and the hardcore laws in general settled it.
=> 80 years of the Dutch fighting for independence from Spain, a fight started by the same William of Orange whom Charles had leaned on during the abdication.
Back to the early days. Now Charles had been raised by Aunt Margaret in the tradition of a Duke of Burgundy, but the "Burgundy" part of Burgundy had been lost for the first time in the ongoing wars between Grandpa Max and France, then regained, then lost again and so forth in the endless wars between Charles and Francis I. If anyone of the European princes was Charles' arch nemesis, it was Frances. Their first personal conflict started when Grandpa Maximilian died and thus the election of a new Emperor was due. Now remember, unlike the various territories Charles inherited, the job office of Emperor was NOT inheritable per se. It had to be voted for by the various Princes Electors.
Rest of Europe: Do we really want the kid who inherited all that land to become HRE as well?
France: We certainly don't. Francis for HRE!
England: We're thinking Henry VIII. for HRE, mostly because Henry thinks he rocks that much. Also the Pope has just appointed him Defender of the Faith. No more faithful Catholic than Henry, ever! All the titles for Henry!
Duke of Saxony: You're kidding, right? Are any of you aware that more and more Germans are listening to ex-Brother Martin whom I happen to be shielding in my territories? That whoever gets to be Emperor should, like, maybe have a clue about German affairs? This doesn't mean a guy raised in the Netherlands and currently hanging out in Spain. I'm nominating myself.
Margaret of Austria: Gentlemen, calm down. Have some Fugger money. And some propaganda. Surely the Empire shouldn't be ruled by a Frenchman or Mr. Clueless Redbeard from accross the channel, but by another Habsburg. My nephew is the completely German offspring of a German dynasty, I swear.
Francis: Excuse you. Your nephew has one German grandparent and won't speak more German than Fritz will in the future, even using the "German is how I speak to my horses" simile Fritz will steal. Also, can it be that you still hold a grudge from when my Greatuncle ditched you?
Margaret of Austria: what I'm holding are more bags of money than you can count, and the future of the Habsburg dynasty.
Pope: It's just, the last time a HRE ruled over parts of Italy along with the German territories, my predecessors and those Emperors kept having showdowns.
Margaret: Won't happen this time. I raised my nephew as a devoted Christian, your Holiness.
=> Charles for Emperor.
Diet of Worms: Happens. Martin Luther: Shows up. New Emperor Charles: Not impressed. Seriously, he wasn't. This particular event is key to Luther's reputation - "here I stand, I can do no other" etc. - but Charles was just, like, meh. I expected more. Possibly one reason why he let Luther go instead of arresting him on the spot, something he would agonize over decades later. Another reason was that Charles was still young enough that having given his word about free passage for Luther meant something to him.
Charles: Okay. I'm absolutely for church reform. But no heresy! The famous Council of Trent will be largely on my initiative. My stated life goal was Christian unity in my Empire. I only thought I'd have to duke it out with the Turks, in the true spirit of my Spanish grandparents. Instead, this Luther thing got totally out of control in the German principalities, Francis and I were at each other's throats for decades and the bastard even teamed up with the goddam Turks, and three Popes in a row hated my guts.
Pope Clement: Can you blame me? Your troops sacked Rome! Charles: Not on my orders. I wasn't even in Italy at the time. The actual commander was even murdered before that happened. Pope Clement: You still benefited. And scared the hell out of me. Which is why... Henry VIII: Hey, Pope Clement, you're currently besieged by Charles' marauding troops in Rome, so I'm thinking this is the perfect time to ask you to declare my marriage to Charles' aunt Catherine of Aragon null and void! Charles:... Clement: ... Henry VIII: FINE. Don't blame for the consequences.
Pope Paul III: As for me, I was willing to work with you. One of my illegitimate sons married your illegitimate daughter, even. But then you had to go and look the other way when one of your people killed another of my illegitimate sons. Naturally, I hated you from this point onwards. Hey, Francis, I just recalled France is the first daughter of the Church, not Spain, and certainly NOT Germany, which gets more heretical by the second. Want to team up? Francis: With pleasure. Charles: WTF? He's tight with the goddam Muslims!
Overseas Territories: Are we not going to mention the terrible bloody story of the Conquistadores? selenak: Not in depth, but I have to share this with the class: 2018 Biographer of Charles: Look, colonialism = terrible, I entirely agree. But I would like to point out that Charles allowed a public dispute between Bartolomé Las Casas (Freedom for the Indios! J'Accuse!) and Selpudeva (forced conversion and slaves = legitimate life goals for conquest), listened to Las Casas at least somewhat and reformed his laws which now forbade enslaving the Indios. Both these men were among the top theologians of their time. That is to say, Spain under Charles had these debates about the ethics of coloniasm on the highest level, while it would be centuries more until such debates happened in the Protestant countries like England and Netherlands who weren't one jot better in their overseas colonialism and profited merrily from it while self righteously fostering the "Black Legend" about Charles and son Philip as the suppressors of every bit of Gedankenfreiheit. There was no English equivalent to Las Casas until the freaking tail end of the 18th century, was there! Overseas colonies: Considering Philip when starting to be short of cash went back on Charles' reformed laws, allow us not to weep for their reputation.
Charles: Speaking of reputations. Between my contemporaries Francis and Henry, I actually win at husbandry. I was famously devoted to my wife Isabel of Portugal, made her regent of Spain in my absences and never remarried after her death, despite Philip being my sole legitimate son. I may not have seen him for years at a time, due to the sheer size of the Empire and my constant travelling from one emergency to the next, but I wrote him "I don't have another son but you" and touchingly added "and I don't want another son, either" when he was a teenager. However, I will admit that my love life before and after my marriage was somewhat more unorthodox.
Germaine de Fox: I'm the second, MUCH younger wife of Ferdinand of Aragon, Charles' granddad. Ferdinand married me to get of out Habsburgs ruling Spain, remember? Sadly, our one son lived for less than a day. Ferdinand died when I was still in my later 20s. Which is when Charles came to Spain to inherit. He was 17. What can I say? We hit it off. For a time, until he was about 19, I was constantly at his side. And then I got pregnant, giving birth to an illigitimate daughter. He didn't acknowledge her, but in my last will I said he was the dad. Anyway, naturally her birth happened in secret and Charles then thankfully arranged for me to marry again, one of his vassals, the Margrave of Brandenburg. Small world, eh?
Johanna van der Gheynst: I was a Flemish ladies' maid; Charles and I had a fling, which resulted in my daughter Margaret, named after his aunt of course. He acknowledged her as his bastard, had her raised by his aunt and later by his sister. She's the one who married the Pope's bastard. She also governed the Netherlands for a time in the proud tradition female Regents. (Charles' biographer would like to point out that the Habsburgs were really into female regents in the 15th and 16th century.) As for me, Charles arranged a marriage and paid me a rent for the rest of my days. My grandson, Alessandro Farnese, is one of Philip II's most trusted generals. He will go in the same school together with Don Carlos, fictional Posa and Juan d'Austria.
Barbara Blomberg: I was Charles' last fling from when he had to attend the Diet at Ratisbon in his last decade. There is still a sign at the inn in Ratisbon pointing out where Charles and I had passionate, if short lived sex, mainly because my kid Juan de Austria became a hero. Charles had him brought to Spain and raised there under the cover name of Jeronimo. He met him a few times in his final years when he was retired into a monestary, but did not tell the boy he was his father. However, he asked his son Philip in his last will to take care of Juan and openly acknoweldge him as his brother, which Philip did. He also had Juan raised along with his own son Don Carles and with Alessandro Farnese at that school. Meanwhile, I, like my precessors, had been married off and settled down in the Netherlands. But when my husband died, I took a distinctly different approach.
Duke of Alba, writing a letter to Philip: Sire, we have a problem. I suggested to your half brother's mother that she should retire into a nunnery, because that's what ladies do. I even picked a nice Nunnery for her. But you know what she said? She likes sex too much for that and would prefer it if you paid her a rent so she can enjoy her retirement years with wine, men and song.
Philip: You're my most feared general and the Dutch are afraid of you - and you can't convince a single woman to retire into a nunnery?
Barbara Blomberg: I'm not Dutch. I'm a fun loving southern German, my son Juan d'Austria has just achieved the greatest Spanish victory in two generations at the battle of Lepanto against the Turks and has been hailed as a hero even by Protestants while all your other generals are loathed.
Alba: I'm off fighting with some more Protestants. If you really want to convince her, you should send her son to talk to her.
Juan d'Austria: Mom! Barbara: Son! Juan: Mom, we've never seen each other since I was a baby, and it's nice to finally meet my other brothers and sisters, but seriously, Philip isn't down with this free love for women approach when it comes to members of the royal family. And while I am a national hero, I'm also still a bastard. If I pick a really nice nunnery, will you go? Otherwise, I might not get the job I'm currently eyeing, which is replacing Alba in the Netherlands and trying a less heavy handed approach there. Barbara: Okay, for you. *enters a nunnery*
Juan d'Austria: dies young. Nation: *mourns* Barbara Blomberg: Dear sort of step son Philip II, I'm heartbroken, and also our deal is off. I'm not staying in a nunnery now my boy is dead. The only thing which can console me is a) a nice real estate for me and my other kids, and b) a return to wine, men and song! You don't want to say no to the grieving mother of the dead national hero, do you? Philip: ...you know what, fine. Contrary to my Schillerian reputation, I'm giving you a generous unconditional retirement rent, allow you to settle whereever you want and continue to live your life however you want.
Barbara: Thank you. I'm dying at age 70 with no regrets and a life fully lived. Some YouTube users are slutshaming me in their comments to my scene with Charles like you wouldn't believe. Ignore them.
*rewind to earlier, when Juan de Austria is still alive*
Juan: Schiller mentions me along with Alessandro Farnese as being present in some public scenes, but we don't get any lines. Which is possibly because it would have interfered with the plot of his play, because in reality, this happened:
Don Carlos: Juan, old schoolmate, I want to conspire against Dad and either want to engineer a coup or take off to the Netherlands, depending on whom you believe. In any event, I'm telling you all about it. Want to join?
Juan: I'm telling you yes, because I'm not suicidal and you are famous for your uncertain temper in real life. And then I immediately go and tell half brother Philip. Because guess what? I've sworn my oath to him, he was the one to welcome me into the family, and unlike fictional Rodrigo de Posa, I just like Philip better than you. Sorry. Adios, Carlos.
Schiller: And that's why he didn't get any lines in my play. Look, Philip is a tragic antagonist, and Domingo is scum, Alba is the Old Dessauer as a Spaniard and the Grand Inquisitor is all I loathe, but even the black Legend of Spain doesn't offer me negatives on Juan de Austria.
Black Legend: Sure we do! We claim Barbara Blomberg wasn't his real mother and that he was Charles' incest baby with either his sister Mary of Hungary or his daughter Margaret instead!
Schiller: Sorry. Even hardcore Protestant writers don't buy that one anymore in the 18th century. Not least because neither Charles' sister nor his daughter were either with him at the appropriate time or out of the public eye enough for a secret pregnancy, unlike Queen Germaine decades earlier, and incest accusations were the most popular 16th century thing ever against political opponents.
Black Legend: Well, if Charles did it with his stepgrandmother, that was incest too. Typical Habsburg.
Schiller: They weren't related by blood and only met when he was an impressionable late teen. He grew up with his sister. I'm sure you see the difference. Anyway: Charles and his love life don't fit in my drama where Carlos in love with this stepmother needs to be the only big taboo breaker. Also Charles is dead when my plot takes place.
Verdi: Not in one variation of my opera, he's not. Maybe that's why old Charles saves young Carlos - he sympathizes!
Historical background notes for Verdi opera and Schiller play
Important reminder, not just for this but for any period, of just how much territory Charles inherited from all four grandparents
From Maximilian I., HRE: Austrian heartlands (these included Austria, a great deal of Switzerland and today's Southern Tyrolia)
From Mary of Burgundy: Burgundy (which consisted of the actual province Burgundy, today Franche-Comte, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands)
From Ferdinand of Aragon: Aragon, Sicily, Naples and Sardinia (all ruled by the House of Aragon since the high middle ages)
From Isabella of Castile: Castile and the new overseas territories. (Read: Latin America except for Brazil, which was Portuegese)
Hence: the Empire in which the sun does not set. Hence also a great many people people in it sideyeing a great many others, and that's before we get to the fact that just when Charles was starting his rule, a monk named Martin Luther got busy in Wittenberg. (Key factor.)
Now Charles, as mentioned before was raised in Flanders, unlike his younger brother Ferdinand, who was raised with Granddad Ferdinand. This, and the fact that his aunt Margaret was a brilliant governor of the Netherlands, and after her his sister Mary was very good as well, meant that while Charles lived, there might have been the occasional rumble as Protestantism started to spread in Flanders, but by and large, the Netherlands still felt the emotional connection to him; he was seen as one one of theirs. In fact, when Charles declared his abdication in Gent, the city where he was born, William of Orange (not that one, an earlier one of the same name, the Ur-William of Orange, even) was present and Charles, who was suffering from extreme gout, was leaning on him when entering the room. However, son Philip was seen as utterly Spanish, a complete foreigner, plus by the time Philip ruled, the religious strife was really kicking into high gear and Philip's reply of slamming down hard with the counter reformation and the hardcore laws in general settled it.
=> 80 years of the Dutch fighting for independence from Spain, a fight started by the same William of Orange whom Charles had leaned on during the abdication.
Back to the early days. Now Charles had been raised by Aunt Margaret in the tradition of a Duke of Burgundy, but the "Burgundy" part of Burgundy had been lost for the first time in the ongoing wars between Grandpa Max and France, then regained, then lost again and so forth in the endless wars between Charles and Francis I. If anyone of the European princes was Charles' arch nemesis, it was Frances. Their first personal conflict started when Grandpa Maximilian died and thus the election of a new Emperor was due. Now remember, unlike the various territories Charles inherited, the job office of Emperor was NOT inheritable per se. It had to be voted for by the various Princes Electors.
Rest of Europe: Do we really want the kid who inherited all that land to become HRE as well?
France: We certainly don't. Francis for HRE!
England: We're thinking Henry VIII. for HRE, mostly because Henry thinks he rocks that much. Also the Pope has just appointed him Defender of the Faith. No more faithful Catholic than Henry, ever! All the titles for Henry!
Duke of Saxony: You're kidding, right? Are any of you aware that more and more Germans are listening to ex-Brother Martin whom I happen to be shielding in my territories? That whoever gets to be Emperor should, like, maybe have a clue about German affairs? This doesn't mean a guy raised in the Netherlands and currently hanging out in Spain. I'm nominating myself.
Margaret of Austria: Gentlemen, calm down. Have some Fugger money. And some propaganda. Surely the Empire shouldn't be ruled by a Frenchman or Mr. Clueless Redbeard from accross the channel, but by another Habsburg. My nephew is the completely German offspring of a German dynasty, I swear.
Francis: Excuse you. Your nephew has one German grandparent and won't speak more German than Fritz will in the future, even using the "German is how I speak to my horses" simile Fritz will steal. Also, can it be that you still hold a grudge from when my Greatuncle ditched you?
Margaret of Austria: what I'm holding are more bags of money than you can count, and the future of the Habsburg dynasty.
Pope: It's just, the last time a HRE ruled over parts of Italy along with the German territories, my predecessors and those Emperors kept having showdowns.
Margaret: Won't happen this time. I raised my nephew as a devoted Christian, your Holiness.
=> Charles for Emperor.
Diet of Worms: Happens.
Martin Luther: Shows up.
New Emperor Charles: Not impressed. Seriously, he wasn't. This particular event is key to Luther's reputation - "here I stand, I can do no other" etc. - but Charles was just, like, meh. I expected more. Possibly one reason why he let Luther go instead of arresting him on the spot, something he would agonize over decades later. Another reason was that Charles was still young enough that having given his word about free passage for Luther meant something to him.
Charles: Okay. I'm absolutely for church reform. But no heresy! The famous Council of Trent will be largely on my initiative. My stated life goal was Christian unity in my Empire. I only thought I'd have to duke it out with the Turks, in the true spirit of my Spanish grandparents. Instead, this Luther thing got totally out of control in the German principalities, Francis and I were at each other's throats for decades and the bastard even teamed up with the goddam Turks, and three Popes in a row hated my guts.
Pope Clement: Can you blame me? Your troops sacked Rome!
Charles: Not on my orders. I wasn't even in Italy at the time. The actual commander was even murdered before that happened.
Pope Clement: You still benefited. And scared the hell out of me. Which is why...
Henry VIII: Hey, Pope Clement, you're currently besieged by Charles' marauding troops in Rome, so I'm thinking this is the perfect time to ask you to declare my marriage to Charles' aunt Catherine of Aragon null and void!
Charles:...
Clement: ...
Henry VIII: FINE. Don't blame for the consequences.
Pope Paul III: As for me, I was willing to work with you. One of my illegitimate sons married your illegitimate daughter, even. But then you had to go and look the other way when one of your people killed another of my illegitimate sons. Naturally, I hated you from this point onwards. Hey, Francis, I just recalled France is the first daughter of the Church, not Spain, and certainly NOT Germany, which gets more heretical by the second. Want to team up?
Francis: With pleasure.
Charles: WTF? He's tight with the goddam Muslims!
Overseas Territories: Are we not going to mention the terrible bloody story of the Conquistadores?
2018 Biographer of Charles: Look, colonialism = terrible, I entirely agree. But I would like to point out that Charles allowed a public dispute between Bartolomé Las Casas (Freedom for the Indios! J'Accuse!) and Selpudeva (forced conversion and slaves = legitimate life goals for conquest), listened to Las Casas at least somewhat and reformed his laws which now forbade enslaving the Indios. Both these men were among the top theologians of their time. That is to say, Spain under Charles had these debates about the ethics of coloniasm on the highest level, while it would be centuries more until such debates happened in the Protestant countries like England and Netherlands who weren't one jot better in their overseas colonialism and profited merrily from it while self righteously fostering the "Black Legend" about Charles and son Philip as the suppressors of every bit of Gedankenfreiheit. There was no English equivalent to Las Casas until the freaking tail end of the 18th century, was there!
Overseas colonies: Considering Philip when starting to be short of cash went back on Charles' reformed laws, allow us not to weep for their reputation.
Charles: Speaking of reputations. Between my contemporaries Francis and Henry, I actually win at husbandry. I was famously devoted to my wife Isabel of Portugal, made her regent of Spain in my absences and never remarried after her death, despite Philip being my sole legitimate son. I may not have seen him for years at a time, due to the sheer size of the Empire and my constant travelling from one emergency to the next, but I wrote him "I don't have another son but you" and touchingly added "and I don't want another son, either" when he was a teenager. However, I will admit that my love life before and after my marriage was somewhat more unorthodox.
Germaine de Fox: I'm the second, MUCH younger wife of Ferdinand of Aragon, Charles' granddad. Ferdinand married me to get of out Habsburgs ruling Spain, remember? Sadly, our one son lived for less than a day. Ferdinand died when I was still in my later 20s. Which is when Charles came to Spain to inherit. He was 17. What can I say? We hit it off. For a time, until he was about 19, I was constantly at his side. And then I got pregnant, giving birth to an illigitimate daughter. He didn't acknowledge her, but in my last will I said he was the dad. Anyway, naturally her birth happened in secret and Charles then thankfully arranged for me to marry again, one of his vassals, the Margrave of Brandenburg. Small world, eh?
Johanna van der Gheynst: I was a Flemish ladies' maid; Charles and I had a fling, which resulted in my daughter Margaret, named after his aunt of course. He acknowledged her as his bastard, had her raised by his aunt and later by his sister. She's the one who married the Pope's bastard. She also governed the Netherlands for a time in the proud tradition female Regents. (Charles' biographer would like to point out that the Habsburgs were really into female regents in the 15th and 16th century.) As for me, Charles arranged a marriage and paid me a rent for the rest of my days. My grandson, Alessandro Farnese, is one of Philip II's most trusted generals. He will go in the same school together with Don Carlos, fictional Posa and Juan d'Austria.
Barbara Blomberg: I was Charles' last fling from when he had to attend the Diet at Ratisbon in his last decade. There is still a sign at the inn in Ratisbon pointing out where Charles and I had passionate, if short lived sex, mainly because my kid Juan de Austria became a hero. Charles had him brought to Spain and raised there under the cover name of Jeronimo. He met him a few times in his final years when he was retired into a monestary, but did not tell the boy he was his father. However, he asked his son Philip in his last will to take care of Juan and openly acknoweldge him as his brother, which Philip did. He also had Juan raised along with his own son Don Carles and with Alessandro Farnese at that school. Meanwhile, I, like my precessors, had been married off and settled down in the Netherlands. But when my husband died, I took a distinctly different approach.
Duke of Alba, writing a letter to Philip: Sire, we have a problem. I suggested to your half brother's mother that she should retire into a nunnery, because that's what ladies do. I even picked a nice Nunnery for her. But you know what she said? She likes sex too much for that and would prefer it if you paid her a rent so she can enjoy her retirement years with wine, men and song.
Philip: You're my most feared general and the Dutch are afraid of you - and you can't convince a single woman to retire into a nunnery?
Barbara Blomberg: I'm not Dutch. I'm a fun loving southern German, my son Juan d'Austria has just achieved the greatest Spanish victory in two generations at the battle of Lepanto against the Turks and has been hailed as a hero even by Protestants while all your other generals are loathed.
Alba: I'm off fighting with some more Protestants. If you really want to convince her, you should send her son to talk to her.
Juan d'Austria: Mom!
Barbara: Son!
Juan: Mom, we've never seen each other since I was a baby, and it's nice to finally meet my other brothers and sisters, but seriously, Philip isn't down with this free love for women approach when it comes to members of the royal family. And while I am a national hero, I'm also still a bastard. If I pick a really nice nunnery, will you go? Otherwise, I might not get the job I'm currently eyeing, which is replacing Alba in the Netherlands and trying a less heavy handed approach there.
Barbara: Okay, for you. *enters a nunnery*
Juan d'Austria: dies young.
Nation: *mourns*
Barbara Blomberg: Dear sort of step son Philip II, I'm heartbroken, and also our deal is off. I'm not staying in a nunnery now my boy is dead. The only thing which can console me is a) a nice real estate for me and my other kids, and b) a return to wine, men and song! You don't want to say no to the grieving mother of the dead national hero, do you?
Philip: ...you know what, fine. Contrary to my Schillerian reputation, I'm giving you a generous unconditional retirement rent, allow you to settle whereever you want and continue to live your life however you want.
Barbara: Thank you. I'm dying at age 70 with no regrets and a life fully lived. Some YouTube users are slutshaming me in their comments to my scene with Charles like you wouldn't believe. Ignore them.
*rewind to earlier, when Juan de Austria is still alive*
Juan: Schiller mentions me along with Alessandro Farnese as being present in some public scenes, but we don't get any lines. Which is possibly because it would have interfered with the plot of his play, because in reality, this happened:
Don Carlos: Juan, old schoolmate, I want to conspire against Dad and either want to engineer a coup or take off to the Netherlands, depending on whom you believe. In any event, I'm telling you all about it. Want to join?
Juan: I'm telling you yes, because I'm not suicidal and you are famous for your uncertain temper in real life. And then I immediately go and tell half brother Philip. Because guess what? I've sworn my oath to him, he was the one to welcome me into the family, and unlike fictional Rodrigo de Posa, I just like Philip better than you. Sorry. Adios, Carlos.
Schiller: And that's why he didn't get any lines in my play. Look, Philip is a tragic antagonist, and Domingo is scum, Alba is the Old Dessauer as a Spaniard and the Grand Inquisitor is all I loathe, but even the black Legend of Spain doesn't offer me negatives on Juan de Austria.
Black Legend: Sure we do! We claim Barbara Blomberg wasn't his real mother and that he was Charles' incest baby with either his sister Mary of Hungary or his daughter Margaret instead!
Schiller: Sorry. Even hardcore Protestant writers don't buy that one anymore in the 18th century. Not least because neither Charles' sister nor his daughter were either with him at the appropriate time or out of the public eye enough for a secret pregnancy, unlike Queen Germaine decades earlier, and incest accusations were the most popular 16th century thing ever against political opponents.
Black Legend: Well, if Charles did it with his stepgrandmother, that was incest too. Typical Habsburg.
Schiller: They weren't related by blood and only met when he was an impressionable late teen. He grew up with his sister. I'm sure you see the difference. Anyway: Charles and his love life don't fit in my drama where Carlos in love with this stepmother needs to be the only big taboo breaker. Also Charles is dead when my plot takes place.
Verdi: Not in one variation of my opera, he's not. Maybe that's why old Charles saves young Carlos - he sympathizes!