Charles V's Empire

Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, King of Germany, Italy, and Spain, Lord of the Netherlands, and Archduke of Austria. Probably one of the most powerful European leaders in history. He gained rule over these dominions through inheritance, but the act of ruling these empires taxed him physically. Was there any plausible way to have a successor of his retain control over all these powerful European countries and the Spanish Empire? Or would he require a federation similar to the German Empire? This AHC aims to have a Europe dominated by one monarch

Bonus points for having German and Italian speaking colonies in the New World
:Maintaining either extremely hostile relations or an unlikely alliance with the Ottomans
:Having an official name for the empire
 
I started a thread along similar lines a while back:

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=351300

The two biggest problems are

1. getting elected Emperor was more of a curse than a blessing, and it effectively bankrupted Charles before he even got the title.

2. combating France was eating up all of his time and money (and was devastating Italy)

The solution I suggested was for Charles to get his planned marriage to one of Francis' daughters, produce a male heir; have Francis die and then Charles march in and get his son on the French throne. People argued the French nobles wouldn't accept this (salic law etc).

So here's an alternative:

Francis has a single son; Charles a single daughter. These two marry and their son inherits everything (whilst Charles' brother Ferdinand and his descendants provide a neat cadet branch).

You can have this either by getting Charles and Francis to be the bestest of best buddies and planning the whole thing out (even getting some sort of co-emperorship of the HRE, if such a thing is even possible), or have Charles utterly dominate Francis militarily, capture his son whilst still young and raise him as his own, and then win the inevitable civil war which ensues once Francis dies.

With both France and the various domains of Charles united under one crown, there would be no external enemy capable of threatening this new state.
 
Err... I find the idea of Charles wanting a Valois (that is King of France above all) to inherit his domains to be absurd at least.
 
Err... I find the idea of Charles wanting a Valois (that is King of France above all) to inherit his domains to be absurd at least.

Maybe, but it's probably the best/only way of keeping his domains together. Incorporating France would make the empire much more geographically coherent.
 
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