Mary Queen of England; the Diet of Spires had closed, and the title “Protestant” was about being assumed by those who differed from the Church of Rome.
Cortez had just discovered California, after conquering Peru; the Turks, then at the height of their power, had invaded Germany, and were threatening the rest of Europe.
By a bull of Pope Paul, the Indians natives of America were declared to be rational beings, and they were the only rational beings on this continent, for the first English settlement was not made at Jamestown (Virginia) until thirty years later.
Spain was the chief power of Europe, and Charles V. ruled Spain, and from him the comet is named.
The first accurately described appearance of the comet of Charles the Fifth was in the year 975, the next in the year 1264, and the last in 1556.

The probable aspect and character of the expected comet in not entirely matter of speculation. Nearly all historians who have written on events of the thirteenth century (some of whom were eye witnesses of the facts they relate,) mention the comet of 1264 as a great and splendid object.
The terms in which it is referred to indicate that, in apparent size and brilliancy, it must at all events have far surpassed any comet previously seen by the observers. Matthew Parris, the historian monk of St. Albans, says it rose in the east with great splendor, and its tail stretched past the mid-heaven towards the west.
It was observed by the Chinese astronomers also; but neither Matthew Paris nor the Chinese astronomers afford anything more definite as to its apparent magnitude. When seen in 1556 the apparent diameter of the nucleus was about half that of the moon, and the tail was of such length as to astonish and terrify beholders.
If the comet has not much diminished in brilliancy since the times when its bright nucleus and luminous train alarmed our forefathers-if, in fact, old age shall not have told upon its constitution, and time have thinned its flowing hair-the comet will present an imposing object on our bright autumnal evenings;
still it has been doubted whether it will equal in brilliancy Donati’s comet, which formed so splendid and conspicuous an object in the evening sky during it perihelion passage about Michaelmas, 1858.
Mr. Hind (an English astronomer) states that,when the comet shall have passed it perihelion and be receding from the sun, it will pass within the earth’s orbit near to that part traversed by the earth in the month of September; so that if the comet should be moving in that part of its orbit in the autumn, it will probably appear as a very large one, and at the beginning of September we should be distant from it about thirty-five Millions of miles.

In 1264, the distance of the comet from the earth seems to have been greater, or three-fifths of the mean distance of the earth from the sun. But although the reappearance of the comet supposed to be now on its way to visit us would establish its
identity with the comet of 975, 1265, and 1556, and the wondrous fact that we may add to the list of known comets a body which revisits our solar systems in a period of little short of three hundred years, a still more extraordinary comet is known as astronomers-namely, the comet which was observed, for the fourth time, in 1680, its apparitions being separated by no less then five hundred and seventy-four years.
This comet is considered (and , as Sir John Hersahell remarks, with the highest appearance of probability) to be identical with a magnificent comet observed at Constantinople and in Palestine, and referred by contemporary historians, both European and Chinese, to the year 1105; with the comet of the time of Justinian (539), which was seen at noonday close to the sun;
with the famous “Julian Star,” or comet of the year 43 B C, which was also observed in the day-time recorded by Pliny to have appeared after the death of Caesar, while the Emperor Augustus was celebrating the games of Venus Genetriz in Ceasars honours; and, finally, though on merely conjectural ground, with two other comets, mention of which occurs in the Siblline oracles and in a passage of Homer, and which are referred-as well as the obscurity of chronology and the
indications themselves will allow-to the years 618 and 1194 B C, “Halley’s comet,” the comet of 1682 (the only known periodical comet which is retrograde, that of the planets about the sun), may likewise be traced back in history to a very early period, the eleventh year before Christ, and is, perhaps, more remarkable than the “Julian Star.” for the terror it has occasioned.
It was believed to presage the success of the Norman arms at the battle of Hastings; and in 1456 this comet-shaped like a scimitar-frightened alike the Turkish and the Christian host, but was made memorable by the sanguinary defeat of the Crescent before Belgrade.
But the apparitions of the comet whose return is now expected were likewise omens of evil to the superstitious beholder; its appearance in 975, the year in which Edward the Martyr begun the brief reign that was so soon terminated by the Danes, was observed to be immediately followed by the death of John Zimisces, Emperor of the East; In 1264 it disappeared (on the 2d of October), when Pope Urban the Fourth died; and in 1556, Chas. the Fifth is said to have regarded it as a presage of his approaching death, a presage, which, according to some historians, contributed to his abdication of the imperial crown in favor of his son Ferdinand, he having already renounced the Spanish crown in favor of Philip.
But times and opinions have changed, and now the comet’s fiery train will not “Shed terror on gazing nations”. it is not by any means as a subject of antiquarian curiosity only, or on account of the brilliant spectacle which comets occasionally afford, that so much interest appertains to them.
To astronomers they have become, (as Sir John Hersahell remarks) through the medium of exact calculation, unexpected instrument of inquiry into points connected with the planetary system itself.