How did Charles V and Philip II expand the Spanish state? They united separate Spanish kingdoms into a unified state. They supported Protestant rebels in the Netherlands. They carried on a successful war against Britain. They fought wars and tried to expand Catholicism.

Answer: the correct answer is they fought wars and tried to expand Catholicism.

Explanation: Upon becoming King of Spain, Philip II was the ruler of one of the largest empires the world had ever seen. During his long life, he attempted to expand the power of Spain, centralize the government, and protect the Catholic Church against Protestant reformers.

Charles V was Holy Roman Emperor from 1519, King of Spain (Castile and Aragon) from 1516, and Prince of the Habsburg Netherlands as Duke of Burgundy from 1506. Head of the rising House of Habsburg during the first half of the 16th century, his territories in Europe included the Holy Roman Empire extending from Germany to northern Italy with direct rule over the Low Countries and Austria, and a unified Spain with its southern Italian kingdoms of Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia. Furthermore, his reign encompassed both the long-lasting Spanish and short-lived German colonizations of the Americas. The personal union of the European and American territories of Charles V, spanning over nearly 4 million square kilometres, was the first collection of realms labelled "the empire on which the sun never sets".