Charles V, the King of Spain, was elected Holy Roman Emperor in 1519 by a unanimous vote, defeating his principle rival Francis I, the King of France. The effect of his election was to unite the territories Charles had inherited from his maternal grandfather, Ferdinand, with those of his paternal grandfather, Maximilian, in the name of Habsburg. For the rest of their lives, Valois Francis and Habsburg Charles would be bitter enemies.
The ceremony for the coronation of the Holy Roman Emperor, established over many centuries, was a series of rituals, the first of which took place in Aachen, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. This presented some difficulties for Charles because at the time of his election he lived in Spain.
Charles lived in Spain but coronation was in Aachen, Germany.
The English Channel and the Imperial Crown
There was peace in Europe in 1519 because the Treaty of London, organised in 1518 by Thomas Wolsey, Cardinal Archbishop of York and Papal Legate, had been upheld. Any peace, however, between the Habsburg and Valois dynasties was fragile and was likely to be broken at any moment. Francis held military sway in northern Italy but Charles needed to establish communications between his vast territories now united under one sceptre in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain. There were two alternative routes, either through the Strait of Dover to the port of Flushing (Vlissingen) in the Netherlands or from Barcelona to Genoa and then through Millan to the Tyrol. Innsbruck to Aachen, however, was still another 450 miles overland, and by going that way he would always be vulnerable to attack from France, and in the Mediterranean he would also be threatened by the Turks.
Any French threat in the Strait of Dover, however, could be parried by the alliance with England, which was sealed by his aunt Catherine of Aragon’s marriage to Henry VIII. England possessed a powerful navy, and Uncle Henry would be flattered to be the first monarch to receive the Holy Roman Emperor elect as a guest. The original plan was for Charles to disembark at Southampton and travel overland, meeting up again with his ships at Dover, re-embarking there and so avoiding the Strait of Dover altogether.
Cardinal Wolsey placed himself in charge of the arrangements on the English side.