tacking and thereby revolutionized navigation. Nor was the King only a
patron. He invented a new type of vessel himself and thoroughly mastered
scientific gunnery. He was the first of national leaders to grasp the
full significance of what could be done by broadsides fired from sailing
ships against the mediaeval type of vessel that still depended more on
oars than on sails.

Henry's maritime rivals were the two greatest monarchs of continental
Europe, Francis I of France and Charles V of Spain. Henry, Francis, and
Charles were all young, all ambitious, and all exceedingly capable men.
Henry had the fewest subjects, Charles by far the most. Francis had a
compact kingdom well situated for a great European land power. Henry had
one equally well situated for a great European sea power. Charles ruled
vast dominions scattered over both the New World and the Old. The
destinies of mankind turned mostly on the rivalry between these three
protagonists and their successors.

Charles V was heir to several crowns. He ruled Spain, the Netherlands,
the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and important principalities in
northern Italy. He was elected Emperor of Germany. He owned enormous
oversea dominions in Africa; and the two Americas soon became New Spain.
He governed each part of his European dominions by a different title and
under a different constitution. He had no fixed imperial capital, but
moved about from place to place, a legitimate sovereign everywhere and,
for the most part, a popular one as well. It was his son Philip II who,
failing of election as Emperor, lived only in Spain, concentrated the
machinery of government in Madrid, and became so unpopular elsewhere.
Charles had been brought up in Flanders; he was genial in the Flemish
way; and he understood his various states in the Netherlands, which
furnished him with one of his main sources of revenue. Another and much