On the sixteenth day of January, 1556, in the presence of such of the Spanish nobility as were at the court, he executed the deeds by which he ceded the sovereignty of Castile and Aragon, with their dependencies, to Philip.[9]
The last act that remained for him to perform was to resign the crown of Germany in favor of his brother Ferdinand. But this he consented to defer some time longer, at the request of Ferdinand himself, who wished to prepare the minds of the electoral college for this unexpected transfer of the imperial sceptre. But, while Charles consented to retain for the present the title of Emperor, the real power and the burden of sovereignty would remain with Ferdinand.[10]
At the time of abdicating the throne of the Netherlands, Charles was still at war with France. He had endeavored to negotiate a permanent peace with that country; and, although he failed in this, he had the satisfaction, on the fifth of February, 1556, to arrange a truce for five years, which left both powers in the possession of their respective conquests. In the existing state of these conquests, the truce was by no means favorable to Spain. But Charles would have made even larger concessions, rather than leave the legacy of a war to his less experienced successor.
Having thus completed all his arrangements, by which the most powerful prince of Europe descended to the rank of a private gentleman, Charles had no longer reason to defer his departure, and he proceeded to the place of embarkation. He was accompanied by a train of Flemish courtiers, and by the foreign ambassadors, to the latter of whom he warmly commended the interests of his son. A fleet of fifty-six sail was riding at anchor in the port of Flushing, ready to transport him and his retinue to Spain. From the imperial household, consisting of seven hundred and sixty-two persons, he selected a hundred and fifty as his escort; and accompanied by his sisters, after taking an affectionate farewell of Philip, whose affairs detained him in Flanders, on the thirteenth of September he sailed from the harbor of Flushing.
The passage was a boisterous one; and Charles, who suffered greatly from his old enemy, the gout, landed, in a feeble state, at Laredo, in Biscay, on the twenty-eighth of the month. Scarcely had he left the vessel, when a storm fell with fury on the fleet, and did some mischief to the shipping in the harbor. The pious Spaniard saw in this the finger of Providence, which had allowed no harm to the squadron till its royal freight had been brought safely to the shore.[11]