The Schmalkaldic War was the short period of violence from 1546 until 1547 between the forces of Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire, commanded by the Duke of Alba and the Duke of Saxony, and the Lutheran Schmalkaldic League within the domains of the Holy Roman Empire.
Titian's Equestrian Portrait of Charles V (1548) celebrates Charles's victory at the Battle of Mühlberg.
John Frederick I of Saxony by Lucas Cranach the Younger.
Maurice of Saxony by Lucas Cranach the Younger
Don Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba, commander of the Imperial-Spanish forces in Germany, by Antonis Mor
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles V was Holy Roman Emperor and Archduke of Austria from 1519 to 1556, King of Spain from 1516 to 1556, and Lord of the Netherlands as titular Duke of Burgundy from 1506 to 1555. He was heir to and then head of the rising House of Habsburg. His dominions in Europe included the Holy Roman Empire, extending from Germany to northern Italy with rule over the Austrian hereditary lands and Burgundian Low Countries, and Spain with its possessions of the southern Italian kingdoms of Naples, Sicily and Sardinia. In the Americas, he oversaw the continuation of Spanish colonization and a short-lived German colonization. The personal union of the European and American territories he ruled was the first collection of realms labelled "the empire on which the sun never sets".
Portrait of Charles V, 1548
The entrance gate to the Prinsenhof, Dutch for "Princes' Court", in Ghent, where Charles V was born
A painting by Bernhard Strigel representing the extended Habsburg family with a young Charles in the middle
A 1519 portrait of Charles V by Bernard van Orley with the insignia of the Order of the Golden Fleece prominently displayed