Aged Rulers

For this one we stay in Europe and look at the careers of Charles V Habsburg, Edward III of England and Louis XIV of France.  We then compare to our modern politics. The distinction of one of these rulers is the word retirement.  

Transcript

The Aged Ruler

September 2023

“These fragments I have shored against my ruins”

TS Eliot

“It's paradoxical that the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn't appeal to anyone.” 

Andy Rooney

I called this one the Aged Ruler. Okay, not necessarily ruler. Not even the progressives claim rulership over the rest of us in our Republic. Despite wanting to dictate how we power our houses and cook our food and the food itself, the progressive goal, rulership in everything but name, does not utilize that term. And when we think of rulers, we tend to equate the word with heredity monarchies. The House of Saud rules most of the Arabian peninsula in something Caliphs and Sultans of old would understand. But we have, for the most part, evolved beyond the concept of the hereditary monarchy. 

I puzzle over the concept, still celebrated in books and movies, of the idea of royalty. If one wants to see royalty writ small, one can look to Malibu, California, in the person of Henry Windsor. At best, he is a former soldier who tragically lost his mother at a young age. At worst, a ne’er do well son living off of the family name, not unlike a prominent American figure; though the cake seems similar, they are of different recipes. The American version should be but isn’t a little more careful about using a famous name. Henry Windsor does not need to own such scruples. His use of his family’s prominence is in our faces. The comparison to Hunter Biden should put paid to any sense that being a Windsor or any other remnant of the ruling houses of Europe conveys royalty. Same with the Saudis. Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman is one part Lawrence of Arabia and two parts Tony Soprano. 

And speaking of mobsters, the rulers of today, and again, that term is not often applied, are more under the false patina of a Republic or Democracy. Putin’s official title, which should be Don, is president—the Same as Chinese ruler Xi Jinping. Raul Castro was general secretary of the Communist Party before succeeding his brother as president. The first title was apt, and the second window dressing. But Raul was that rare strongman, that gangster (the true essence of too many of these regimes) in that he retired. Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel y Bermúdez does not carry the same weight as the name of Castro, but he is now the ruler of Cuba despite Raul Castro being alive.  

And of the old houses of Europe, the Habsburgs were one of the most prominent and long-lasting. And of these, the most powerful was Charles V. I always like the following list involving Charles. Most of Europe’s monarchs had long titles, but many were either superfluous or nonexistent. For example, Henry VIII, Charles’s contemporary, still titled himself King of France along with England, though he only controlled a single French city, Calais. Charles’ titles were accurate. 

Charles lived from 1500 to 1558, youngish for us but not atypical lifespan for a 16th-century monarch. Henry lived to 55, and Francis I of France, Charles’s obdurate foe, was even younger than both dying at 52. Charles Holy Roman Empire, extending from Germany to northern Italy with direct rule over the Austrian hereditary lands and the Burgundian Low Countries, and Spain with its possessions of the southern Italian kingdoms of Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia. Oh, and he also ruled over vast parts of the New World. In the Americas, he oversaw the continuation of the long-lasting Spanish colonization and a short-lived German colonization. The personal union of the European and American territories of Charles V was the first collection of realms labeled “the empire on which the sun never sets.” Charles could never emulate his Holy Roman Forebear, Charles I, better known as Charlemagne, because, unlike the Frankish lands, all these territories had only one uniting entity: Charles himself. Spain, a key source of power and wealth for Charles, had only been recently united; many of its peoples thought of themselves as Aragonese or Castilian more than Spanish.   

In addition to being the most powerful man in Europe between Charlemagne, who lived 700 years earlier, and Napoleon, who lived 300 years later, Charles was unique in another aspect: he retired. As noted, dying before 60 was not rare, and ailments that we take a dose of antibiotics, or more invasively, hip or knee replacements, have added decades to our lifespans. But even in this context, Charles lived a vigorous life.  

In many regards, Charles was, to put it crudely, of the lucky sperm club. He inherited the Austrian and Netherlands territories, and indirectly his most vaunted title, from his father. From his mother, Spain, most of Italy, and eventually the Americas. But for all his advantages, he was unlucky in his times, preventing him from creating a union among his disparate territories. 

As ruler of Spain and Southern Italy, he had to contend with the Ottoman Empire, then at its zenith under Suleiman the Magnificent; that epitaph provides an insight into the power of that particular Ottoman Sultan. As Holy Roman Emperor, Duke of Austria, and defender of the Catholic Church, Charles had to fight the Reformation, Martin Luther, and his influence with the Northern German states. In all of these roles, he faced a France built by Louis XI, who died in 1483, that was more powerful and united under the Valois Dynasty than since the days of the Carolingians. And under Francis’ immediate predecessors, made Italy their target of conquest. All of this took its toll on Charles. On 25 October 1555, he surrendered his many titles and divided his vast heritage between his brother Ferdinand and his son Philip II. After his abdication, Charles V traveled again to Spain. He chose to retire to the Monastery of Yuste in Extremadura. He ordered a palace to be built adjacent to the monastery. It was to be decorated with tapestries and paintings by the excellent Venetian artist Titian. He had 50 servants. Despite his desire to distance himself from politics, he closely followed state affairs until his death on 21 September 1558.

Of the several portraits of Charles by Titian, two stand out for our narrative. 

The first portrait was crafted around 1530, early in Charles’s reign. It is called “Charles V with a dog.” Charles stands jauntily with one leg forward and is belted with a sword; he is garbed in light tannish, tight-fitting attire. His right hand is on his dagger, and the left is stroking a giant dog who looks at Charles with supplication. 

Though the famous jaw juts forward, the eyes are wide and clear.  

The other portrait I would mention was painted in 1548, five years before Charles’ Abdication. 

Tired. That is the word that immediately comes to mind. In this one, Charles is seated wearing black robes. In his 2014 book World Order, Henry Kissinger, a guy who knew a thing or two about rulers, writes of the painting: “The effort to fulfill his aspirations inherent in his office was beyond the capabilities of a single individual.” Kissinger adds, “A haunting portrait that reveals the torment of an eminence who cannot reach spiritual fulfillment or manipulate the, to him, ultimately secondary levers of hegemonic rule.”

I have mentioned that Charles’s age and infirmities led him to retire, something not done in European circles, but as noted, he also divided his vast possessions. To his brother, Ferdinand went the title of Holy Roman Emperor and the German Possessions (and indirectly, the fight with the Lutherans and the land war with the Turks. To his son Phillip II (of Armada fame) went the Italian possessions, Spain, the Americas, and most fraught, the Netherlands. In a future podcast, I will discuss the benefits and horrors of trying to control the Netherlands. 

Charles understood that ruling his possession was beyond, as Kissinger stated, a single individual.  

Charles has always been a fascinating figure for me, not just because of his unique place in European (and American) history but also because he was so reflective that he recognized his limitations and acted upon them even at the cost of his power. For the alternative, we will stay in Europe but go back some 200 years to the late 14th Century and Edward III.  

Born in 1312, Edward’s grandfather, Edward I, is considered by many to be the greatest English King of the Middle Ages. However, His father, Edward II, was considered one of the worst. Reining for 50 years, Edward III was crowned at age fourteen after his father was deposed by his mother, Isabella of France, and her lover, Roger Mortimer. Given his father’s preferred companions, including Piers Gaveston and Hugh Despenser, it is sometimes speculated whether Edward was his father’s son. Yet the physical similarities (Edward II may have been an idiot, but he was tall and handsome like his father and son) and the locations of the principal characters of the time suggest that Edward II was Edward III’s father. We do know for a certainty that Edward’s parentage was not that of William Wallace, as presented farcically in the movie Braveheart.  

At the age of seventeen, Edward III led a successful coup d'état against Mortimer, the country’s de facto ruler, and began his reign. After a successful campaign in Scotland, he declared himself the rightful heir to the French throne because his mother had been King Phillip IV’s daughter and sister to the last Capetian French King Charles IV. To gain what Edward felt was his birthright, he began the Hundred Years War (actually 116 years with several truces). Eventually, French Jurists chose Phillip, Count of Valois, who was a first cousin to Charles, negating Edward’s claim. Undeterred, in 1337, Edward invaded France and, at the battle of Crecy, scored a significant victory that cemented his reputation as a King of action and success. Though later historians would consider Edward a callous adventurer who inflicted a war upon two nations, his contemporaries considered him an ideal king. He was a warrior who loved hunting and fathered five tall sons, all of whom were warriors in their own right, especially his eldest son, the Black Prince, who won an even more significant victory at Poitier. Edward also founded the Most Notable Order of the Garter, bringing his court together in a union inspired by Arthurian chivalric attitudes. From its inception, the group consisted of twenty-six members, including Edward III and his son. The order met at the chapel in Windsor Castle, cementing their chivalric dedications. 

Despite victories such as Crecy and Poitier, Edward’s wars increased the financial burden on England.   

So here we go, speculative. What if, after a reign of 33 years, Edward abdicated in 1360, similar to Charles? That same year, he concluded a treaty where he withdrew his claim on the French Throne but received the highly profitable duchy of Gascony. His rein might be remembered for the glory. While Edward’s early reign had been energetic and successful, his later years were marked by inertia, military failure, and political strife. The day-to-day affairs of the state had less appeal to Edward than military campaigning, so during the 1360s, Edward increasingly relied on the help of his subordinates, particularly William Wykeham, who was often more interested in personal aggrandizement than running the kingdom.  

And despite the truce, the war with France flared up again in the late 1360s with a different outcome than in Edward’s early years. In addition to the deaths of many of Edward’s most trusted subordinates, the successful Black Prince died in 1376, denying Edward his heir and one of his most able commanders. 

After the death of his beloved wife Phillipa, Edward took as his lover the 18-year-old Alice Perrers. Edward would have been 53 at the beginning of the affair. Edward presented her with gifts, including land, manors, and jewels, and in 1371, these included those of the now-dead Philippa. They say there is no fool like an old fool, usually about an older man taking on a young paramour.  

So, instead of military glory and stability at home. 

The later years of Edward’s reign saw a conflict of the nobles with parliament, the rise of a very young paramour, and, because so much power was assembled by Edward’s 3rd son, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the eventual overthrow of Edward’s Grandson, Richard II, who ascended the throne as a minor.  

By his demise in 1377, all that was left for Edward’s successor was massive debts, a restive nobility and Parliament, Calais, and a small part of Gascony. Part of the peasant revolt in 1381 was wrought by labor shortages from the Black Plague of 1346-48, but much of it was due to massive taxation to support Edward’s spending. Excepting for a few short years under Henry V, Guant’s grandson, 15th-century England was not a prosperous place, and some of that rests at the feed to Edward III’s later years.  

I get the comparisons to Charles are inexact. 

Charles was near his life’s end and had a clear succession plan. He still had the income from the Americas, and Spain was the most powerful Kingdom in Europe. But Charles is the exception, a very lonely one. Monarchy is not like a country club membership. One does not simply resign.  

Another of those long-reigning monarchs was Louis XIV of France, the so-called Sun King, and compared favorably to the Roman Emperor Augustus by Voltaire. Louis XIV was king of France from 1643–to 1715. He ruled his country, principally from his grand palace at Versailles, during one of France’s most brilliant periods and who remains the symbol of absolute monarchy of the classical age. Internationally, he extended France’s eastern borders in a series of wars between 1667 and 1697. It might have continued its prosperity if Louis left the scene in 1700.  

But in the Final years of Louis XIV, In the War of the Spanish Succession, the anti-French alliance was reactivated by William of Orange before his death. The disasters of the war were so great that, in 1709, France came close to losing all the advantages gained over the preceding century. Additionally, Louis outlived so many of his family that his successor was not a son or even a grandson but a great-grandson aged five at the time. Knowing there would be a minority with others ruling for at least the next ten years, Louis had distrusted his nephew, Duke d’Orléans, and wanted to leave actual power in the hands of the Duke du Maine, his son, by Mme de Montespan. To accomplish this, he had drawn up a will to help destroy the monarchy. The Parlement of Paris convened to nullify the will after his death and rediscovered a political power that it used to prevent all reforms during the ensuing reigns, thus making the Revolution inevitable.

What if in history are always a bit risible? 

Back when it was funny, in a skit featuring no other than Kirk Douglas, Saturday Night Live speculated on what if Spartacus had a piper cub airplane. The answer would not have made much of a difference, though one imagines such a craft would have saved Spartacus from his crucifixion. I am Spartacus, indeed. And it is challenging to know the difference between too old and just plain incompetent. We know that Edward III was too old to rule for his last ten years. Charles knew his age. But Louis’s last great war, that of the Spanish Succession, was to prevent a reunion of Spain and Austria into the very entity Charles V possessed. 

And the thought of a Spanish Bourbon next to a French one? The concept is not without merit.  

So, given my proclivities to weave the past into the present, anyone who has seen our current president knows where I am going. In the new Wall Street Journal poll, 73 percent of Americans said the phrase “too old to run for president” captures Biden at least “somewhat well,” with even Democrats agreeing overwhelmingly. The results echo an Associated Press-NORC poll from last week, which found that 77 percent of Americans overall and 69 percent of Democrats said Biden was “too old to serve” another four-year term effectively. 

Writing for the Washington Post, no GOP outpost, Aaron Blake states, “Biden’s age problem is clearly bigger than it once was. But more specifically, it’s a growing perceived mental-sharpness problem, and the gap between him and former president Donald Trump on such questions has also expanded.” Now, let’s be clear. At 77, Trump is no spring chicken either, but as Peggy Noonan incisively noted, people age differently. Sadly, Jimmy Buffett passed away at 76, but Warren Buffet managed his hundreds of billion-dollar empire at 93. 

During the latest Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, he and his 99 partner Charlie Munger took questions for THREE hours.  

But with Biden, the decline is there. We also have 90-year-old Dianne Feinstein, who can no longer follow a committee meeting, and 80-year-old Mitch McConnell going into a catatonic state for several seconds during a press conference. Yet Nancy Pelosi, over 80, kept her caucus in thrall to her will.  

Pollster Nate Silver, no Trumpista he, wrote, “For me personally, I’d draw the line younger than both of them (Trump and Biden). As of last year, only two Fortune 500 CEOs (Warren Buffet and Roger Penske) were older than 77. No current U.S. governor is older than 78. And while there are quite a few old U.S. Senators, we’re seeing serious consequences from that, whether it’s Mitch McConnell repeatedly freezing up during press conferences or Diane Feinstein’s manifestly diminished capacities. For me personally, I’d draw the line younger than both of them. As of last year, only two Fortune 500 CEOs (Warren Buffet and Roger Penske) were older than 77. No current U.S. governor is older than 78. And while there are quite a few old U.S. Senators, we’re seeing serious consequences from that, whether it’s Mitch McConnell repeatedly freezing up during press conferences or Diane Feinstein’s manifestly diminished capacities.”

I must confess to dismay at the GOP’s lockstep allegiance to Trump. I do not believe all four indictments against the former president are warranted. 

But he made serious mistakes in all of these cases that left him open to these attacks, from the pressure on Georgia lawmakers to the grossly incompetent handling of toilet-adjacent classified documents in his home at Mar A lago. But I do not understand the Democrat’s equally dangerous fidelity to Biden. Part of it could be a fear of elevating the odious, cackling ninny Kamala Harris. Part of it is Democrats do not entertain incumbent challenges. And part of it is between the COVID Bill of March 2021, the elevation of Kentaji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, his unconstitutional student debt cancellation efforts, the bipartisan infrastructure bill, and the bloated boondoggle of Build Back Better in the guise of inflation reduction, the Democrats have gotten a lot, too much under this president. Biden has proven to be far less the moderate, Uncle Joe, unifier figure and far more Warren and Sanders in aviators. Of course, we saw this coming as Barry Sanders authored his economic plan, but that seemed lost in the COVID mix 2020.  

Here is the reality of Joe Biden for the Democrats. A bad fall, a McConnell type of freeze up, or an externality such as a stock market crash or China invading Taiwan, occurring in the months of August through November of 2024, and Donald Trump could be reelected, indictments and all. Another reality is Biden wins the 2024 election, given Trump’s massive disapprovals. When Trump is not being elected by the rump faithful in Iowa but has to win states such as WI, PA, and MI outright, the math changes fast. So Biden gets relected with Harris. As with so many 83 or 84-year-olds, he has a physical episode, and Harris is president. 

Another scenario is he hangs on, just as Wilson did in 1919, with a shadow presidency. As much as we have cited McConnell and Feinstein, the jobs differ. Presidents have 23 direct reports (think that is inflated? All the cabinet posts and his White House staff, go ahead, count them). They have to take phone calls and be alert at all hours. If Xi does invade China or Putin resorts to a tactical nuclear weapon, they will not have the courtesy to do so between 9 to 5 so that Biden has gotten his rest. Presidents have daily briefings and must sift through and command vast amounts of information. They must look across the table at Xi, Kim Jung Il, the Ayatollahs of Iran, and all of our allies, who each have their own interests.  

And Biden is showing signs of aging. He has already experienced two falls. During his visit to the awful tragedy of the Maui fire, Biden could not correctly read from the teleprompter. And when he went off script, he was incomprehensible. He then unbelievably compared his experience with a kitchen fire in his lake home to a devasting inferno that claimed the lives of hundreds. And though, at best, because we are not a monarchy, 2028 will see the end of Joe Biden’s presidency. But he should end it a lot sooner than that, like now. He is past it, and our election has come down to political chicken. Who will blink first, the party nominating the old guy with more baggage than the belly of a Boeing 747 or the older guy who cannot pronounce the word tragedy?  

And like Edward III or Louis XIV, this aged man does not have the good sense to leave the stage, to bow out with grace and humility. As with those European rulers, Biden loves the power and the prestige too much to let it go. Where are the Charles Habsburgs when we need them the most?