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In October 1541, Charles embarked from Palma with a fleet of 500 ships and 30,000 troops – and the Cortés father and son. But a storm destroyed the fleet; the Algerines counter-attacked, nearly capturing the emperor himself. Cortés and Martín almost drowned, losing all their jewels, but they survived.

Cortés’s presence focused the emperor’s mind on Spanish abuses. In 1542, Charles signed the New Laws, setting up the Council of the Indies, limiting the encomiendas and protecting the Indians, outraging the last Pizarro brother left in America. Gonzalo Pizarro galloped into Lima, clad in bejewelled black velvet and feathers, encouraged by his followers to declare himself king of Peru and marry Francisco’s eleven-year-old Inca heiress, Francesca, fusing Inca and Pizarro blood. The rebels defeated and killed the viceroy, but in April 1448 Charles’s new legate rallied imperial forces then captured and beheaded Gonzalo.^*

Yet the protection of the indigenous people, as suggested by El Protector de los Indios, Bartolomeu de las Casas, accelerated the import of African slaves. Juan Garrido, who had accompanied Cortés, was probably the first African to settle in the Americas.^* Three skeletons found in a mass grave at the Hospital Real de San José de los Naturales in Mexico City dating from the 1520s may have been the first slaves – they originated in Africa and show the broken bones and wear of physical labour; one had been shot dead with a copper bullet. Since the kings of Portugal held the rights to Africa, the Spanish slave trade was initially handled by Portuguese and pombeiro merchants.^* It became very profitable. As the Amerindians perished, the price of African slaves rose exponentially from four or five pesos in 1527 to fifty in 1536 to 200 in 1550. During Charles’s reign, 30,000 enslaved Africans arrived in Habsburg America.

America swiftly affected the world: its gold and silver funded the Habsburgs but ultimately flowed eastwards to India and China to pay for their luxuries. The decaying faces of popes and princes revealed that syphilis was ravaging Europe almost as fast as smallpox had decimated America.^* Foods from the New World conquered the old like culinary conquistadors: the Andean potato, easily cultivated, became an instant staple everywhere, particularly in Russia and Ireland. The sweet potato, transplanted by European traders, became popular in Africa and especially in China, where it helped propel Chinese population growth. Corn (maize), imported by European traders, changed farming in Asia, while in west Africa its resistance to drought and ease of storage helped concentrate power for local kings of Oyo and Benin. But it also helped slave traders to feed the enslaved on the crossings of the Sahara and the Atlantic. Chilis, vanilla, turkeys, tomatoes, pineapples and pumpkins followed in their wake. Tobacco became a global addiction, chocolate a popular drink (long before an English chocolatier made solid chocolate in 1847). Intellectually, the revelation of other civilizations with their own values and knowledge challenged European thought and ultimately inspired a new curiosity and openness.

The ‘twin’ monarchs – Habsburg and Ottoman – were now both exhausted by their duties, coarsened by power. Charles was fortunate in having a healthy and able son, Philip, who possessed the steely control and intense focus that he himself often lacked. After Philip had promised to remain a virgin until marriage, Charles arranged the boy’s consanguineous marriage to Maria Manuela, daughter of João II of Portugal and Charles’s sister, niece of the groom’s mother. Charles gave Philip sensible advice on politics: ‘Never do anything in anger’ and, best of all, ‘Trust no one; listen to everyone; decide alone.’ But his advice was less good on sex.