Chap 5&6 Reading of "Rulers of Evil" F. Tupper Saussy by Jörg Glismann

HIS NAME WAS Iñigo de Loyola. He was born in 1491 to a rich family, youngest of eight boys, one of thirteen children. His older brother had sailed to the New World with
Christopher Columbus. Iñigo served as a page in the court of King Ferdinand and
Queen Isabella of Spain. He became friends with Ferdinand’s Belgian grandson, Charles Habsburg, whose other grandfather was Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian. (The Holy Roman Emperor was a kind of secular pope who presided over the Christian kingdoms of the western world.) Charles was propelled to great authority before his twenty-first birthday by the deaths of his two grandfathers within a space of two years. From Ferdinand, Charles inherited Spain. From Maximilian, he inherited the Holy Roman Empire. Charles Habsburg was King Charles I of Spain, Emperor Charles V of Rome. He was the most powerful secular figure in Europe. And he was Iñigo’s friend.

In 1518, Iñigo was part of a legation negotiating for Charles with Spain’s traditional rival, France, at the court of the Duke of Najera in Valladolid. While the summit was in session, Catherina, the Emperor’s sister, was presented to the Najera court. Iñigo fell
in love with her. He was twenty-seven and she was eleven. (The Emperor was eighteen.) The match, however, was not to be.