Wandering in La Vera: Meditations of an emperor

Charles V on his arrival. Few will understand me. Many will murmur: "How is it possible that he has left everything to isolate himself in such a remote place?" No one expected that I would leave my possessions and domains, the most extensive that any man has ever controlled. Nor did they imagine that I could ever give up the luxuries of the court and the opulent life in one of the world´s richest, most bustling cities. This weighs on my noble and the courtiers, who cannot bear the hardships and routines of living in a small town like Jarandilla, much less the austerity of monastic life that awaits us in Yuste. Everyone thinks that ambition, wealth, and glory are earthly virtues that move a king to hold on the crown and cling to the throne until his last breath. But no, they do not conceive that I am only a man, and that my work has been guided by a destiny superior to my own. I am a mortal, flesh and blood, who has fought for an empire that is more divine that human. That is the task to which I have dedicated my life: to strenghten the faith, rowing against the tide, sometimes even going against the papacy. I have tried to defend the faith from those who falsify it, and from those who wrongly try to reform it. And, of course, I did my best to spread it into the New World. My task is coming to an end. And now, stripped of greatness, I come to this quiet place, away from the madding crowd, to render an account... May God not condemn me, and may history not forget me.