THE choice of the conclave which assembled after the obsequies of Pope Julius II had been performed fell on Cardinal John de' Medici, the second son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, who assumed the name of Leo X. Lorenzo, by creed a deist, had regarded the Church merely as a source for his son of lucrative emoluments, and dignities which might be crowned with the tiara. Leo, who was in his thirty-eighth year at the time of his election, was still only a deacon, and had to be ordained priest and bishop before his coronation could be performed; yet, besides some minor preferments, he enjoyed six rectories, fifteen abbacies, one priory, and one archbishopric: all of which had been procured for him, before he had completed his seventeenth year, through his father's influence with Louis XI of France and Popes Sixtus IV and Innocent VIII.

Innocent, although he had solemnly promised at his election not to bestow the purple on anybody under thirty years of age, had made John a Cardinal in his thirteenth year. In the house of his father, who was surrounded by men of kindred tastes and sentiments, the youthful Cardinal had imbibed a fine taste in ancient and profane literature, but very little respect for the doctrines of the Church. Amidst an extensive collection of the rarest specimens of art and virtù, he had become a first-rate connoisseur in such subjects; while the splendor of the Medicean palace and of the fetes and exhibitions in which Florence was unrivalled, had imbued him with that love of show and magnificence which characterized his pontificate.

During his exile from Florence he had relieved the tedium of his banishment and improved his acquaintance with mankind by visiting most of the principal cities in Germany (including the Netherlands) and France. Besides his accomplishments, Leo possessed the gentlest temper, the most winning manners. It was probably to these qualities, or the reputation of them, that he owed his election; though some have ascribed it to a fistula with which he was at that time afflicted, and which seemed to promise another speedy vacancy to the Papal throne. The Cardinals had had enough of two ferocious Popes, one of whom had endangered their lives by the dagger or the cup, the other by leading them up to the cannon's mouth. Leo, even before he left the Conclave, signalized his literary tastes by naming as his secretaries two celebrated writers, Pietro Bembo and Jacopo Sadoleto. The approach of holy week had compelled him to celebrate his coronation in a slight and hasty manner, and it was therefore repeated a few weeks later when he took possession of the Basilica of St. John Lateran, the peculiar Patriarchal Church of the Roman Pontiffs. The day selected for the ceremony was the anniversary of the battle of Ravenna (April 13th), and Leo figured in the procession on the same white charger which he had ridden on that occasion. The standard of the Church was borne by Alfonso of Ferrara, while Julius de' Medici carried that of the Knights of Rhodes. This splendid spectacle, with the accompanying fetes, cost 100,000 florins. Leo soon betrayed an indecent haste to enrich and advance his family and friends. His cousin Julius was immediately created Archbishop of Florence, and received soon after a Cardinal’s hat and the Legation of Bologna. Innocenzo Cibo and three other nephews of Leo, together with Bernardo di Bibbiena, his secretary, and Lorenzo Pucci, an adherent of the Medici family, were also speedily invested with the purple.

The policy of Leo at first seemed undecided. He appeared willing to put an end to the hostilities with France, and he earnestly dissuaded Louis XII from a fresh enterprise which he was contemplating for the recovery of the Milanese. But though Louis would willingly have abandoned his Council of Pisa, now transferred to Lyon, his heart was set on the Italian expedition; and it was with the view of releasing for it his troops on the Spanish frontier that he had concluded with Ferdinand the truce already mentioned, which, however, did not regard Italy. A little previously (March 24th, 1513) he had entered into an offensive and defensive alliance with the Venetians, who had been alienated from the Holy League by the arrogant pretensions of Maximilian; ceding to the Republic Mantua, whose Marquis he sacrificed, in return for the Cremonese and the Ghiara d'Adda. On the other hand, Maximilian's daughter, Margaret, concluded at Mechlin, April 5th, a counter treaty in the names of the Emperor, the Catholic King, the King of England, and the Pope, the parties to which not only agreed to pursue the war against the French in Italy, but also to make each a separate attack on France. Henry VIII was to invade Normandy, Picardy, and Guienne; Ferdinand, Béarn and Languedoc; the Pope, Provence and Dauphine; while Maximilian was to penetrate through Burgundy into the interior of the French Kingdom. But Henry VIII, who wished to wipe out the disgrace of the preceding year, was the only party who entered with sincerity into this treaty.

Ferdinand, as we have seen, had already made a truce with France, which, with his usual duplicity, he carefully concealed; and when called on to ratify the treaty of Mechlin, he declined to do so, on the ground that his minister had exceeded his instructions. Leo X had not the slightest intention to undertake so distant an expedition; and Maximilian was induced to join the league only for the sake of 100,000 gold ducats which the English King engaged to pay to him.

Louis XII resolved to hasten his attempt for the recovery of Milan before Henry should be ready for his projected invasion of France. The campaign that followed is one of the most extraordinary on record. In the course of a few weeks the Milanese was won and lost. Early in May a large French army under La Trémouille and Marshal Trivulzio crossed the Alps and entered Piedmont by way of Susa. Cardona, the Spanish Viceroy, who after his successful campaign in Tuscany had taken possession of several Milanese towns, retired on their approach, and took up a position near Piacenza; the Swiss, not being strong enough to oppose the advance of the French, also retreated upon Novara; while the Milanese subjects, disgusted with the brutality and avidity of that people, as well as by Maximilian Sforza’s want of spirit and capacity, rose on every side and welcomed the French, whom they had murdered by thousands only the year before.

The Duke of Milan found it necessary to take refuge in the Swiss camp, and immediately on his departure the French flag was hoisted at Milan. Meanwhile Genoa was attacked by a French squadron—the partisans of the Adorni and Fieschi rose, drove out the Doge Gian Fregoso, and restored the city to the suzerainty of France. The Venetians, on their side, had advanced to the Adda: and thus the whole of the Milanese, except Novara and Como, was reduced in the short space of three weeks.

The French, however, were destined to be deprived of their conquest as speedily as they had made it. The Swiss considered it a point of honor to maintain Maximilian Sforza in the duchy to which they had restored him; and Leo X, alarmed at the reappearance of the French in Italy, aided the Swiss with money, but secretly, in order not to break with Louis. La Trémouille and Trivulzio had laid siege to Novara, when the approach of a fresh army from Switzerland compelled them to raise it, and to retire towards Trecase, a village three miles off. But after the junction of these reinforcements the Swiss resolved on assuming the offensive. Before daybreak on the 6th of June, and covered by a wood which lay between them and the enemy, they advanced in silence upon his camp, and seizing, after a murderous struggle, the French artillery, an arm with which they themselves were unprovided, they turned it upon the French ranks. The victory was complete. In less than two hours a large and well-organized army, commanded by captains of renown, was completely beaten by a body of infantry unsupported by cavalry or guns. The only part of the gendarmerie in the French ranks which did its duty was the Walloons, under Robert de la Marck, Duke of Bouillon. His two sons, Jametz and Fleurange, had fallen covered with wounds, when Bouillon, by a desperate charge, recovered their bodies, and bore them off on the necks of his men's horses. Fleurange, so well-known by his name of “Le jeune Aventureux”, and by his Memoirs, one of the most original productions of that period, almost miraculously survived; though he had received no fewer than forty-six wounds! This battle decided the fate of Italy.

The French army was completely demoralized; after the passage of the Sesia, it is said that not a single cavalier retained his lance. They hastened to recross the Alps; and the inconstant Milanese were now obliged to entreat mercy of the victorious Swiss, by whom they were amerced in heavy fines. After the defeat of the French, Cardona began to gather the fruits of a victory whose dangers he had not shared. Pescara was dispatched with 3,000 foot to levy a fine upon the Genoese; and, although there was no declared war between Spain and Venice, Cardona proceeded to occupy Bergamo, Brescia, Cremona, and other places which the Venetians had abandoned, and which now felt the effects of Spanish avarice and ferocity. At the instance of the Cardinal of Gurk, the Emperor’s Lieutenant in Italy, who gave Cardona a reinforcement of Germans, that general after an abortive attempt on Padua, crossed the Brenta, burnt Mestre, Marghera, and Fusine, and advancing to the shore of the Lagoon, insulted Venice by a distant cannonade. He then retired to Verona, after defeating with great loss the Venetian commander Alviano, who had issued from Padua to intercept his march (October 7th, 1513).

Meanwhile Louis XII had need of all his forces to defend his own dominions. Louis had endeavored to avert the English invasion by means of his ally, the Scottish King, James IV; to whose gallantry also the French Queen Anne had appealed, as her knight and champion, according to the romantic ideas of that age. James sent some ships to the aid of France, and threatened to invade England with a large army; but he was only preparing his own destruction. The Scots were overthrown by the Earl of Surrey in the bloody and decisive battle of Flodden, in which their King was slain (September 9th, 1513); nor did his unfortunate attempt arrest for a moment the English preparations against France.

The war, however, went at first in favor of the French. The English admiral, the gallant Sir Edward Howard, was repulsed and killed in an attempt to cut some French galleys out of the port of Conquet (April 25th, 1513); and Préjean de Bidoulx, the French commander, venturing out of harbor, made a descent upon the coast of Sussex. He was, however, repulsed, and could not prevent the passage of an English army to Calais.

With a portion of this force the Earl of Shrewsbury and Lord Herbert (afterwards Earl of Somerset) laid siege to Térouenne, in Artois (June 17th). King Henry himself with the main body of his army landed at Calais, June 30th; but it was not till August 1st that he began his march to Térouenne. Whilst he lay encamped before that place, he was joined by the Emperor Maximilian with a small body of cavalry. That needy Sovereign, unable to discharge the obligations he had incurred by the treaty of Mechlin, was willing to make some amends by personal service; and he scrupled not to degrade the majesty of the Empire by declaring himself the soldier of the English King, and receiving as such a stipend of 100 crowns a day. The youthful Henry, however, bowed to the superior experience of his soldier and Maximilian in reality directed the operations of the campaign.

Térouenne made an obstinate defence. It was relieved by some Albanian Stradiots in the service of France, who penetrated to the town, bearing provisions and ammunition on their horses’ necks. But the campaign was decided in a singular manner. The French gendarmerie, while retiring from a skirmish with the English and German cavalry, perceiving on the hill of Guinegate two large bodies of infantry and some batteries of guns, were seized with a panic, clapped spurs to their horses, and never turned their heads till they gained their camp at Blangi (August 16th). Hence the French themselves gave to this affair the name of the Battle of the Spurs. Few French were killed, but many of their most distinguished captains were made prisoners, among them the Duke of Longueville, grandson of the famous Dunois.

Térouenne now surrendered and was razed to the ground. The alarm was great at Paris. Louis XII, who was laid up with gout, caused himself to be carried in a litter to Amiens, to concert measures for the defence of the Somme. But instead of pushing on to Paris, Henry, at the instigation of the Emperor, invested Tournay, a town very conveniently situated for Maximilian, but the possession of which could neither be of any service to the English, nor contribute much to the success of the war.

Tournay surrendered after a short siege (September 24th), and was retained by Henry; to the mortification of the Emperor, who departed before the end of the month. But Margaret, with her nephew Charles, repaired to Tournay, and dissipated in some degree by her arts and flattery the clouds which had begun to rise in Henry's mind. The match between Charles and Henry’s sister Mary was confirmed; and the English King agreed to advance 200,000 gold crowns for the preservation of their common conquests till the following summer, when, as Ferdinand's truce with Louis would have expired, a combined attack was to be made on France by Ferdinand, Maximilian, and Henry. After making this arrangement, Henry returned home (October 21st).

While these things were passing in the north of France Maximilian, relying on the strength of the English exchequer, had hired a large body of Swiss, as well as Duke Ulrich of Würtemberg with a few thousand cavalry, to invade Burgundy. This force marched straight upon Dijon, into which town La Trémouille, then Governor of Burgundy, had thrown himself. Unable to meet the Swiss in the field, La Trémouille attacked them by their weak point—their love of money; and by a treaty which he concluded with their commander, Jacob of Wattenwyl, Bailiff of Bern, he agreed that Louis XII should abandon the Council of Pisa, withdraw his pretensions to the Milanese, restore to the Roman See and to the Empire all that had been wrested from them, and engage to enlist no troops in Switzerland without the consent of all the Cantons. Such extravagant concessions were evidently made only to be disavowed; yet the Swiss did not stop to inquire what powers La Trémouille and Wattenwyl had to conclude a treaty which regulated the fate not merely of Dijon and Burgundy, but also of a great part of Christendom. Of the stipulated sum, La Trémouille could pay down only 20,000 crowns; and he gave as hostages for the remainder the mayor and four of the richest citizens of Dijon, together with his own nephew, De Mézières. Yet he advised Louis not to ratify the treaty, and to leave these hostages to their fate! The astonishment and indignation were universal. Maximilian and Henry VIII denounced the Swiss as villains and traitors, and they were not better received at home, while Louis XII was at first inclined to put La Trémouille on his trial. At length, however, he accepted the excuses of his general and paid the Swiss 50,000 crowns as an installment.

Thus ended the eventful campaigns of 1513. Before the end of the year Louis XII reconciled himself with the Pope, and by a treaty signed at the abbey of Corbie, October 26th, he agreed to renounce the Council of Pisa and acknowledge that of the Lateran; before which assembly his envoys formally made submission, December 31st, when Leo remitted all the ecclesiastical censures fulminated by his predecessor against the French realm.

The coalition, no longer animated by the impetuous spirit of Julius II, was now evidently falling to pieces; and Louis, to further his views upon Milan, sought the friendship of the Emperor and of the Catholic King. Maximilian was conciliated by the offer of Louis's second daughter, Renée, for one of his grandsons, either the Archduke Charles or Ferdinand, to whom Renée was to bring as her portion the French claims on the Milanese duchy. The death of Louis's consort, Anne of Brittany (January, 1514), who had employed herself in effecting this arrangement, opened up new bases for negotiation. Ferdinand now offered Louis, in his own name and that of Maximilian, the hand either of Maximilian's daughter, Margaret, Governess of the Netherlands, or of his grand-daughter Eleanor of Austria, sister of Charles and Ferdinand. Louis, who was very desirous of an heir, selected Eleanor, and a general truce for a year was provisionally signed, March 13th, with the view of preparing a regular treaty.

LUIS XII MARRIES LADY MARY

The death of the French Queen removed the only obstacle which had delayed the marriage of her daughter Claude and Count Francis of Angoulême, whose wedding was solemnized a few months after (May 18th, 1514). Louis now invested them with the Duchy of Brittany, without opposition from the Breton States, although, by the marriage contract of Louis and Anne, Brittany should have fallen to their second child Renée. Queen Claude died in 1524, whereupon Brittany, was not allowed to pass to her first-born son, the Dauphin Francis, but was in 1532 formally and definitively annexed to the French Crown.

The war continued in Italy in 1514, but its operations are not worthy to be detailed. Cardona and the Imperial captains resumed hostilities against the Venetians, and the ferocious Frangipani devastated the Friuli and the March of Treviso, inflicting great loss and misery on the inhabitants, but contributing nothing to the issue of the war. The French were driven from the few remaining places which they held in Italy. The citadels of Milan and Cremona capitulated in June; and on the 26th of August, the fortress of La Lanterna at Genoa, though deemed impregnable, was compelled to surrender.

During this period the policy of Leo X was vacillating and difficult of explanation, except that he followed wherever self-interest led. Leo had as much ambition as Julius II, but without the same nobleness of view or frankness of character. If he aimed like his predecessor at extending the dominion of the Roman See, it was only that he might enrich his family with the spoils; if he entertained the project of freeing Italy from the Barbarians, it was only in order that its various States might be united under the House of Medici. He pursued these schemes with the greatest duplicity, courting and betraying all parties in turn. Leo was much alarmed at the projected marriage between the Archduke Charles and Renée of France, which at no distant period would have cemented France, Spain, Austria, and the Netherlands into one colossal Power; and he used every exertion to prevent its accomplishment. The dissatisfaction of Henry VIII with the same project, which involved a breach of the contract between Charles and Henry's sister Mary, afforded Leo the means of frustrating it.

The scheme of an alliance between France and England appears to have originated at Rome between the Pope and the English ambassador Bambridge, Cardinal-Archbishop of York; and it was forwarded in England by Wolsey, now rapidly rising in his master's favor, and already Bishop of Lincoln and Tournay. Communications were opened between the French and English Courts through the Duke of Longueville, who had remained prisoner in England since the Battle of the Spurs. Wolsey, who facilitated the negotiations by persuading Henry to relax his pretensions, except in the case of his own see of Tournay, was rewarded with the Archbishopric of York on the death of Bambridge, who had been poisoned by a servant. The Duke of Longueville proposed a marriage between Louis XII, already engaged to Eleanor, and Mary of England; and Henry VIII, burning to revenge himself on his father-in-law, by whom he had been so often duped, listened eagerly to the proposal.

Louis XII on his side readily entered into a scheme which, while it relieved him from a formidable attack, secured him a youthful and charming bride. He consented to abandon Tournay; and on the 7th August, 1514, three treaties were signed at London. The first of these was an alliance, offensive and defensive, between England and France; the second stipulated a marriage between Louis XII and the Lady Mary, who was to have a dowry of 400,000 crowns; and by the third Louis engaged to pay Henry 100,000 gold crowns annually for a term of ten years, in satisfaction of the arrears of the debt of Charles VIII to Henry VII. The previous negotiations between Louis, Ferdinand, and Maximilian were thus upset, and Renée subsequently married Ercole II, Duke of Ferrara. Longueville espoused Mary at Greenwich by proxy for his master, August 13th; and on the ninth of October, Louis solemnized his nuptials in person at Abbeville, whence the new Queen of France was conducted with great pomp to the palace of the Tournelles at Paris.

Louis being thus freed from a dangerous enemy, his scheme for the recovery of the Milanese began to revive, and he talked of another expedition into Italy in the following spring. But this he was not destined to accomplish. Although only fifty three years of age his feeble health had long compelled him to observe a strict regimen, which was completely disturbed by the round of pleasure and dissipation into which his marriage with a youthful, lively, and handsome bride had plunged him.

The King’s dinner, usually served at eight in the morning, was deferred till noon, and instead of retiring to rest at six in the evening, he was frequently kept up till past midnight. The levity of Mary’s conduct found a severe censor in the Countess Claude. All her suite were sent back to England, except a few confidential attendants, among whom was Anne Boleyn, the future wife of Henry VIII; nor does the English King appear to have resented the proceeding. Louis's altered way of life soon undermined his constitution, and he was seized with a dysentery, which carried him off, January 1st, 1515, after a reign of seventeen years. He died regretted by the French people, and on the whole he deserved their love, for his rule had been mild and paternal, and no King since St. Louis had shown so much sympathy for his poorer subjects. Yet his foreign policy was not only injudicious but also frequently culpable. He betrayed most of his allies, and he gave many proofs of cruelty in his Italian wars, and especially in his treatment of Lodovico Sforza, Duke of Milan. Louis XII was the first King of France for some centuries who caused his head to be engraved upon the silver coin, whence his gros d'argent, or piece of 10 sols, obtained the name of teston (tester).

The death of Louis thwarted some ambitious projects of Pope Leo X, who had hoped, with the assistance of that Sovereign, to establish his brother Julian in the Kingdom of Naples, as well as to add Parma, Piacenza, Modena, Reggio, and perhaps all the Ferrarese, to the Florentine dominion of his nephew Lorenzo, thus uniting nearly all Italy under the sway of the House of Medici. When the sinking health of Louis frustrated all expectation of help from that quarter, Leo turned his thoughts towards the realizing of some part of his schemes by the aid of Ferdinand of Aragon and the Emperor. With this view he sent Pietro Bembo to Venice in December, 1514, to detach, if possible, that Republic from the French alliance and reconcile her with the Emperor; but the Venetians rejected the proposed conditions, and remained faithful to France. At the same time Leo concluded a separate treaty with the Swiss, whose Confederacy had this year received its thirteenth Canton (at which number it remained until its dissolution in 1798) by the accession of Appenzell.

ACCESSION OF FRANCIS I.

Such was the state of Italian affairs when the Count of Angoulême succeeded to the French throne with the title of Francis I. Born at Cognac, September 12th, 1494, Francis was now in his twenty-first year, but in appearance and manner seemed four or five years older. Handsome, of tall and graceful figure, he excelled in all martial exercises, while a natural elegance of manner recommended him to the fair sex. From his tutor, Arthur Gouffier de Boissy, a nobleman who had imbibed in Italy a love then rare for literature and art, Francis had derived a certain respect for learning, which he manifested by patronizing its professors, although his own reading was mostly confined to romances of chivalry. Indeed, all his qualities were showy and superficial : his ruling characteristics were sensuality and a levity amounting to caprice; yet, being brave, talkative, libertine, the French nation saw and loved in him her own image, and fancied that she was about to have a Sovereign of distinguished greatness.

After the death of Louis XII Mary declared that there was no prospect of her giving birth to an heir of the French Crown, and Francis entered upon an inheritance which, according to the scandalous chronicles of the time, he had himself put to hazard by his attempts on the Queen's virtue. Mary shortly after married the handsome and accomplished Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, her professed admirer, who had accompanied her to France, though not named among the embassy. Francis affected great indignation at this match, though in his heart perhaps not displeased at it, since it prevented the English princess from contracting a marriage which might have been disadvantageous to France; he even interceded with Henry in favor of the indiscreet lovers, and the English King forgave without much difficulty the temerity of his favorite Brandon.

With the accession of Francis I began in fact the reign of his mother, Louise of Savoy, to whom, in his pursuit of pleasure, he readily abandoned the cares of government. One of his first acts was to create Louise Duchess of Angoulême and Anjou, and to invest her with some of the prerogatives of royalty. Although but forty years of age, she was already in the twentieth year of her widowhood; and as during the reign of Anne of Brittany she had been kept at a distance from Court, she now resolved to compensate herself for the privations which she had endured. Her warm temper and propensity to gallantry are acknowledged by the gravest writers of the times, and she saw without displeasure the same disposition in her son, whose dissipations might serve to give her a firmer hold of power.

Anne of Brittany was the first Queen of France who surrounded herself with an establishment of Maids of Honor; but under her auspices the Court had been a school even of an austere and repulsive virtue. Louise, in whose eyes the manners of the previous reign were an odious restraint, retained, but perverted, the institution; the Court became a scene of license and debauchery; and it is from this time that we must date the influence of women in the political affairs of France—a characteristic almost peculiar to that nation. Antony Duprat, First President of the Parliament of Paris, foreseeing probably the future greatness of Louise, had attached himself to her in her retirement, and after the accession of Francis his fidelity was rewarded with the Chancellorship. Talented but arbitrary, the grand idea of Duprat’s life was to render the royal authority absolute. About the same time the office of Constable, vacant since the death of John of Bourbon in 1488, was bestowed on Charles of Bourbon, who was reputed to enjoy a place in the affections of Louise.

The middle and lower classes of the French people looked back with regret to the economical government of Louis XII; but the accession of Francis I was hailed with joy by the higher orders, who hoped to profit by his very faults and vices. The reign of a Prince, young, gay, fond of pleasure, ambitious of military glory, promised amusement and dissipation at home, enterprise and promotion abroad. The Italian claims of Louis XII, derived from his grandmother, Valentina Visconti, descended in due order upon her great-grandson, Francis I, who, after the death of his father-in-law, assumed the title of Duke of Milan, and determined to carry out Louis’s projected enterprise upon that duchy. The army was put on a new footing; every lance garnie was increased from six to eight men, and a large number of lance-knights were engaged under command of Charles of Egmont, Duke of Gelderland, and the La Marcks. The engagement of Pedro Navarro, the celebrated Spanish captain and engineer, was an acquisition almost equal to an army.

After the battle of Ravenna, the Viceroy Cardona had ruined Navarro's reputation with Ferdinand by imputing to him the loss of a field from which he had himself disgracefully fled; Ferdinand refused to pay Navarro's ransom, who had remained prisoner in France, and who, by birth a Basque, was easily induced to throw up his allegiance to the King of Aragon, his country’s conqueror. In the Cevennes and the Pyrenees he now raised a large body of men, whom he organized after the model of the redoubtable Spanish infantry.

With a view to his Italian expedition, and the safety of his own dominions during his absence, Francis concluded treaties with various Powers. The Archduke Charles of Austria, now fifteen years of age, had just assumed the government of the Netherlands in place of his aunt Margaret. Charles, aware of the hostile feelings which his maternal grandfather Ferdinand entertained towards him, readily entered into an offensive and defensive alliance with Francis (March, 1515), which was to be strengthened by a projected marriage between him and Renée, sister of the French King's consort. Charles engaged not to lend his grandfather Ferdinand any aid against France unless he terminated within six months his differences with the French Court respecting Navarre, by restoring John D'Albret to the throne of that country. Francis also renewed, April 5th, the treaty of Louis XII with Henry VIII, stipulating, however, that Milan and Genoa should not be reckoned among the allies of England; and he was careful to assume in the instrument the titles of Duke of Milan and Lord of Genoa. He also endeavored to effect with the Spanish King a renewal of the treaty of Orthez; but Ferdinand refused his consent unless Italy were now included in it, and Francis of course rejected a condition which would have defeated his darling project. Ferdinand now dispatched ambassadors into Switzerland, who, in conjunction with those of the Emperor and the Duke of Milan, and aided by the Cardinal of Sion and the anti-Gallican party among the Swiss, effected a renewal of the coalition between the Confederate Cantons and those Powers. In vain Francis endeavored to propitiate the Swiss, who insisted on the fulfillment of the whole treaty of Dijon; and in order to divert the French attack on Milan they even promised to invade Burgundy and Dauphine, whilst Ferdinand entered Guienne. The Venetians remained faithful to the French alliance; but the negotiations with the Pope did not lead to any satisfactory result, although Leo was now connected with the royal family of France. In February, 1515, a marriage between Julian de' Medici and Filiberta of Savoy, half-sister of Francis’s mother, had been celebrated at Rome with great pomp and splendid fetes, which were repeated at Turin. Yet all that could be obtained from Leo was a promise of neutrality; in spite of which he joined in July the Swiss coalition, which guaranteed Milan to Maximilian Sforza.

The French King was more fortunate in his negotiations with Octavian Fregoso, Doge of Genoa, who engaged to abdicate as soon as the French army should have passed the Alps; stipulating, however, for the Genoese the restoration of their privileges, and for himself the Dogeship of Genoa, the Order of St. Michael, a company of gens d'armes, and a large pension.

The French army had assembled at Lyon by the middle of July, whence Francis issued an ordinance constituting his mother Regent of the Kingdom during his absence. The French cavalry consisted of 2,500 lances, and 1,500 Albanian light horse, besides the King's household and numerous volunteers; the infantry amounted to 40,000 men, of which more than half were lance-knights; the artillery numbered seventy-two large guns and 300 smaller ones, and there was a body of 2,500 pioneers. The Swiss had occupied the passes of Mont Cenis and Mont Genèvre, then deemed the only practicable routes across the Alps; a body of 10,000 more was at Susa, and the rest of their army was cantoned at Coni, Saluzzo, and Pinerolo. At Saluzzo they had been joined by Prosper Colonna with a chosen body of Papal cavalry. The main body of the Roman and Florentine army, under Julian de' Medici, were by order of the Pope advancing very slowly by Modena and Parma, watching the turn of events.

The immense amphitheater of gigantic mountains which separates Italy from the rest of Europe, although so long fondly regarded by the Italians as marking the boundary between barbarism and civilization, has never proved an effectual barrier against the lust of conquest. The passage of the Alps by immense hosts has, from the earliest periods down to modern times, presented some of the most remarkable episodes in the history of war; and of all that are recorded, perhaps none is more extraordinary than that now effected by the captains of Francis. As it was impossible to force a passage over Mont Cenis and Genèvre, and as the Cornice Road between the Maritime Alps and the sea, besides a great loss of time, would have ultimately presented the same difficulties, Trivulzio, Lautrec, and Navarro, guided by chamois hunters and the shepherds of the Alps, explored a new route from Embrun by the valley of Barcelonette to Argentière and the sources of the Stura. A path hardly to be traversed by a pedestrian was, by the daring ingenuity of Navarro, made practicable for artillery. Enormous masses of rock were blown up with gunpowder; bridges were thrown across unfathomable abysses; heavy guns were hoisted immense heights, and swung with ropes from peak to peak. On the fifth day, the army with its artillery stood on the plains of Saluzzo, before the enemy were aware that it had begun to scale the mountains.

The French had with them only a few days' provisions, so that if the Swiss had known their route, and blockaded the passage, which was easy enough to do, the whole French army must have been inevitably starved. Meanwhile a small division, composed chiefly of cavalry, under the renowned captains La Palisse, Bayard, Humbercourt, and D'Aubigny, had penetrated more to the north by Briançon, Sestrières, and Rocca Sparviera, in the direction of Villafranca, over paths never before trodden by horses. So unexpected was their appearance that Prosper Colonna, who was dining in full security at Villafranca, was captured, together with 700 of his men, without striking a blow. The Swiss retired in consternation on Novara and Milan; the main French army advanced by Turin and Vercelli, while a corps of 8,000 detached to the south, recovered without bloodshed Genoa and all the country south of the Po.

The Swiss now found the whole burden of the war thrown upon them; for the Spanish Viceroy Cardona was kept in check near Verona by Alviano and the Venetians, while the Papal and Florentine army did not stir. The Swiss having retired to Gallerate, began to listen to the counsels of three of their leaders, who were in the interest of France; and in spite of all the attempts of the Cardinal of Sion to prevent it, they entered into a treaty with Francis. The French King engaged to pay the 400,000 crowns stipulated by the treaty of Dijon, and 300,000 more for the places which the Swiss had seized in Italy; to bestow on Maximilian Sforza the Duchy of Nemours in place of that of Milan, together with a pension, a company of gens d'armes, and the hand of a French princess; while the Swiss were to take service under the French Crown, on the terms which had been rejected by Louis XII. The Cantons of Solothurn, Freiburg and Bern, and the Republic of Upper Wallis, assented to this arrangement, but the rest determined to fight for Sforza.

BATTLE OF MARIGNANO.

Francis borrowed from his nobles and captains all the ready money and plate they could spare, in order to seal the treaty by paying a first installment. Meanwhile, however, another Swiss army of more than 20,000 men, under Rosch, Burgomaster of Zurich, arrived from Bellinzona, and gave a decided superiority to the Swiss arms. The new comers were indignant at a treaty which deprived them of their hopes of plunder, and they easily persuaded the greater part of their countrymen to enter into their views. In all haste they marched upon Buffalora to seize the French money which had been forwarded to Lautrec at that place, and he had the greatest difficulty in saving it from their grasp. After this disappointment, the Swiss occupied Milan.

Francis with his army was at the village of Marignano, or Malegnano, only about ten miles off; Alviano and the Venetians had advanced by forced marches to Lodi, and thus held Cardona and Lorenzo de' Medici in check, who had effected a junction at Piacenza. Everything promised a campaign on a grand scale; but the impetuous ardor of the Swiss, who had now been rejoined by the Cardinal of Sion, brought matters to a speedy issue. On the 13th of September, after a violent and almost frantic address from the Cardinal, the redoubtable horns of Uri and Unterwalden resounded through the streets of Milan; and though the day was far spent, the Swiss marched out by the Porta Romana to give battle.

As their columns advanced along the high road, flanked on each side by a ditch, the French artillery made large gaps in their ranks, which were instantly filled up. When the alarm was given, Francis was about to sit down to table, and he immediately rushed out to place himself at the head of his guard. The Swiss penetrated to the French artillery and captured several batteries. The battle raged till near midnight, when the moon having gone down and left all in darkness, the French and Swiss battalions bivouacked intermingled.

Francis slept on a gun-carriage. At day-break, he rallied his scattered divisions by trumpet signals, when about 20,000 lance-knights and all his gendarmerie gathered round him. The Swiss renewed the attack with vigor, and the fortune of the day still hung trembling in the balance, when about nine o'clock Alviano appeared on the field with a small body of Venetians. At the cry of “St. Mark!” the Swiss, fancying that the whole Venetian army was upon them, began to retire, but in such admirable order that the French were fain to leave them unmolested.

The slaughter had been great on both sides. The veteran Trivulzio, who had been present at eighteen general engagements, observed that what he had hitherto seen had been mere child’s play, but that this was a battle of giants. The Chevalier Bayard had displayed his accustomed valor. After the victory, Francis insisted on receiving the order of knighthood from his hand, than which no worthier could have bestowed it. The battle of Marignano subsequently formed the main stock of Francis I’s military renown; yet, with the exception of personal valor, we should look in vain for the foundation of it. So far from directing any of the movements, it is plain, from his boastful letter to his mother, that he had no conception of what was going on around him. He had not advanced beyond the tactics of Agincourt; he thought that the knights had done it all, not the infantry and artillery.

The Cardinal of Sion in vain attempted to persuade the Swiss to defend Milan; the day after the battle they began their homeward march, leaving only 1,500 of their number to hold the citadel for Sforza. The Cardinal fled into Austria. The citadel was taken October 4th, through the effects of a mine directed by Navarro. Sforza now abdicated the duchy in favor of Francis I, and retired into France, where a pension of 30,000 crowns was assigned to him; and he is said to have rejoiced at being delivered from the insolence of the Swiss, the exactions of the Emperor, and the impositions of the Spaniards. He died forgotten at Paris in 1530.

Francis seemed now in a position to prosecute with success his other claims in Italy; but he had as little idea of making use of his victory as he had of the manner in which it had been gained. The Italian republicans were the natural allies of France, and with the aid of Venice and Florence, Naples might easily have been conquered. But Francis’s chivalrous notions led him to despise the Florentines and Venetians as a mob of roturiers enriched by commerce; Louise had a poor ambition of allying herself with the Medici, the oppressors of Florentine liberty; and Duprat, who, it is said, entertained the notion of receiving the tonsure and obtaining a Cardinal’s hat, was also disposed to court Leo X. Francis blindly followed the guidance of his mother and her counselor; and thus the policy of Louis XII and D'Amboise was revived, and Italy was sacrificed to the Medici, as it had been before to the Borgias.

The victory of Marignano had struck Leo with consternation the safety of the Papal army was compromised, and he immediately sought to rescue it by opening negotiations. By flattery, dissimulation, and the arts of intrigue, backed by the favor of the queen-mother, Leo contrived to impose upon Francis, in the midst of his glory, conditions which might have appeared hard even after a defeat. In October, only a month after the battle of Marignano, a defensive alliance was concluded at Viterbo between the Pope and the French King. Francis guaranteed all the dominions which Leo now held or might hereafter recover, made over to him Bologna, and engaged to support Julian and Lorenzo de' Medici at Florence, and to grant them titles and pensions in France. Leo, in return, merely undertook to support Francis in the Duchy of Milan, which he already held by conquest, to recall the Papal troops serving against Venice, to restore Parma and Piacenza to Milan, and Modena and Reggio to the Duke of Ferrara. Cardona, who would have had to sustain the first attack of the victorious French, obtained leave to be included in the treaty, and to retire to Naples with his army through the States of the Church.

The alliance was ratified in December, at a personal interview between Leo and Francis at Bologna. The negotiations were preceded by fetes and rejoicings and by splendid Church ceremonials, in which Francis demeaned himself as the humble son and servant of the Pontiff, kissing his foot and hand, and supporting his train; while Leo forbore to show Francis the least token of respect, lest the Vicar of Christ should seem to pay homage to a temporal Sovereign. But if Leo thus insisted in public on his spiritual privileges, he won the King in their more familiar intercourse by his urbanity and seductive manners. He persuaded Francis to connive at his seizing the Duchy of Urbino for his nephew Lorenzo, to whom it was made over after the death of his brother Julian de' Medici, in March, 1516. Julian, out of gratitude for former services during his exile, had protected the reigning Duke.

Leo’s arbitrary proceedings about this time engendered a conspiracy in the College of Cardinals itself. Cardinal Alfonso Petrucci, in revenge for the expulsion of his brother Borghese from Siena, incited three or four of his brother Cardinals to join him in a plot to assassinate the Pope. The conspiracy was fortunately discovered, and Leo at first seemed inclined to pardon the guilty parties; but suddenly changing his mind, to the consternation of the Sacred College, deprived Cardinals Petrucci, Bandinello de' Sauli, and Raphael Riario, of their dignities and preferments, and handed them over to the secular arm. Petrucci was beheaded in prison the following night; the rest purchased their lives and the restoration of their dignities with a large sum of money. Leo incurred such odium by these proceedings, that he found it necessary to surround himself with guards even during the celebration of Mass; and in order to neutralize the adverse party in Consistory, he created in a single day no fewer than thirty-one Cardinals. By this measure he also replenished the Roman treasury, as many of the hats were sold.

Besides the affair of the Duchy of Urbino, Leo while at Bologna also persuaded Francis to postpone his expedition to Naples till the death of Ferdinand of Aragon; an event which, from the state of that Sovereign’s health, could not be far distant. Nor did he forget the interests of the Papacy. Duprat was induced to enter into a Concordat, by which some of the most important articles of the Pragmatic Sanction of 1438 were revoked and the rights of the Gallican Church bartered away. The royal demand for periodical Councils was abandoned, and annates, or first fruits of ecclesiastical benefices, were restored to the Pope, who, on the other hand, invested the French King with the right, before belonging to Chapters and Convents, of nominating to archbishoprics, bishoprics, and abbeys; as well as, with few exceptions, the power of deciding, without appeal to Rome, all ecclesiastical suits. Thus, as Mezerai observes, a whimsical change was made between the Papal and Royal functions; the Pope abandoning his spiritual privileges to a temporal Prince in return for certain worldly advantages. The negotiations were long protracted, and the Concordat, which was highly unpopular in France, was not signed till August 18th, 1516. It continued in force till destroyed by the civil constitution of the clergy in 1790. The abolition of the Pragmatic Sanction was proclaimed in the Council of Lateran; which servile synod, consisting almost entirely of Italian prelates, who did little more than register the Pope's decisions, was soon afterwards dissolved (March 16th, 1517).

Francis showed a better policy in conciliating the Swiss than in his negotiations with the Pope. He offered them the same terms as he had proposed before his victory; engaged to ratify the treaty of Dijon, and promised pensions to the heads of the Cantons, while all he asked in return was permission to levy troops in Switzerland. A treaty of peace and alliance was signed at Geneva with eight of the Cantons, November 7th, 1515, which in the following year was acceded to by the rest. The alliance, however, was not to extend to any attack on the Pope, the Emperor, the Austrian dominions, Savoy, Würtemberg, the House of Medici, Florence, or M. de Vergier, Marshal of Burgundy. The Swiss retained Bellinzona and the county of Arona.

Having thus placed his affairs in Italy on what he deemed a favorable footing, Francis, after disbanding the greater part of his army, and appointing the Duke of Bourbon Governor of the Milanese, returned to France early in February, 1516. His success had filled the Catholic King, who trembled for the safety of his Neapolitan dominions, with rage, jealousy, and alarm; and under the influence of these feelings he had immediately endeavored to form a league with his son-in-law, Henry VIII, and with the Emperor Maximilian against Francis. Maximilian was enticed with a large sum of money, with which he was to prepare an expedition against the Milanese; and Henry, though he had had such signal proofs of Ferdinand’s duplicity, was persuaded by Wolsey to join the alliance. Henry, who was probably jealous of the brilliant success of the French King, had some grounds of complaint against Francis for supporting the Duke of Albany as Regent of Scotland, in opposition to Henry's sister Margaret, the Queen Dowager; and Wolsey, with an eye to his own interest, fomented the passions which rankled in his Sovereign's breast. Wolsey owed mainly to the French monarch the Cardinal’s hat which had been recently bestowed upon him (September 10th, 1515), with the title of St. Cecilia beyond Tiber; but the grateful return expected for it, in the surrender of the bishopric of Tournay, might be evaded by a breach with France; and there was also another prospect of advantage which determined Wolsey in the same policy. Leo X had taken secret part in the negotiations just mentioned, with the view of instating Francesco Maria Sforza, younger brother of the abdicated Duke Maximilian, in the Duchy of Milan, instead of the French King; on the accomplishment of which, Francesco Maria had engaged to bestow on Wolsey a pension of 10,000 ducats. The Cardinal seems to have had no difficult game with his master; for so great was Henry’s credulity that the Emperor is said to have extracted considerable sums from him on presence of investing him with the Duchy of Milan, and even resigning to him the Imperial Crown.

But in the midst of Ferdinand’s schemes, an event occurred which had been foreseen by everybody but himself. On the 23rd of January, 1516, he died in a small house belonging to the Hieronymite monks, of Guadalupe, at the village of Madrigalejo, near Trujillo, through which he was passing on his way to Seville. His leading characteristics were avarice, perfidy, and ingratitude. His cold and cautious temper enabled him to become an adept in dissimulation; and it is said that, by whatever feelings he was agitated, his countenance never betrayed the emotions of his mind. His treacheries were generally perpetrated under the hypocritical pretense of religion: and amongst them the worst is perhaps that by which he deceived his kinsman, Frederick of Naples. Ferdinand was, however, in some respects a great Prince, and must at least be admitted to have been the most successful one of his age. To his policy, aided by some fortunate events, must be ascribed the origin of the overshadowing greatness of the Spanish monarchy; though the measures which he took to establish them broke at the same time all spirit of enterprise in the people and prepared their eventual decline. Ferdinand's enterprises had been on so extensive a scale, in comparison with his scanty revenues, that in spite of all his economy, or rather niggardliness, he scarce left enough to defray his funeral expenses. By his marriage with Germaine of Foix, he had had a son, who, however, lived only a few hours. Gonsalvo de Cordova, the Great Captain, had expired a little before his master, at the age of sixty-two (December 2nd, 1515) .

The death of Ferdinand led Francis to resume his design of conquering Naples; in which, as Leo X had advised him to postpone the enterprise till after that event, he fully expected the assistance of the Pontiff. But, while he was meditating this expedition, an unexpected descent of the Emperor Maximilian caused him to tremble for the safety of the Milanese. While the French were overrunning Upper Italy, Maximilian had been intent in Germany upon one of those matrimonial speculations by which the fortunes of the House of Austria were proverbially so much better advanced than by its arms. It will be recollected that by the treaty of Presburg in 1491, Maximilian obtained the eventual succession to the throne of Hungary. In September, 1502, King Wladislaus married Anne of Foix, great-niece of Louis XI; by whom, in the following year, he had a daughter, Anne, and in 1506 a son, who received the name of Louis, in honor of Louis XII, the near kinsman of the Queen. The birth of this child made Maximilian anxious about the results of his compact with the Hungarian King, although he procured it to be ratified afresh by the Diet; and he began to entertain the project of securing the succession for his house by a double marriage between two of his grandchildren and Louis and Anne, the son and daughter of Wladislaus. The scheme was opposed by Sigismund I, King of Poland, younger brother of Wladislaus; and in order to overcome his opposition, Maximilian allied himself with the Teutonic Knights, with Basil Ivanovitch, Great Duke of Muscovy, and with Christian II, King of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, to whom he gave in marriage his granddaughter Isabella.

Sigismund, alarmed at this formidable combination, withdrew his opposition; in 1514 the long-protracted negotiations were brought to a happy ending; and in July of the following year Wladislaus and Sigismund repaired to Vienna, when the youthful Louis was betrothed to Maximilian’s granddaughter Mary. At the same time a marriage was agreed upon between Anne, the daughter of Wladislaus, and one of Maximilian's grandsons, which eventually took place in 1521 by the union of Ferdinand and Anne.

Having completed these arrangements, Maximilian at length turned his attention to the affairs of Italy; and before the end of 1515 he raised, with the money received from Ferdinand of Aragon and Henry VIII, a large army of Swiss, German, and Spanish troops, with which he entered Italy in March, 1516. At this unexpected apparition, Lautrec, abandoning successively the lines of the Mincio, the Oglio, and the Adda, sought safety behind the walls of Milan; where the alarm was so great that the Duke of Bourbon, despairing of the defence of the suburbs, ordered them to be burnt; an act long remembered with indignation by the inhabitants. Leo X now again began to trim. He neglected to succor the French, as stipulated by the treaty of Bologna; nay, he even dispatched Cardinal da Bibbiena as Legate to the Emperor, and instructed his general, Marcantonio Colonna, to join the Imperial army. The success of Maximilian seemed certain.

As he approached Milan, 13,000 Swiss in Bourbon’s army refused to imbrue their hands in the blood of their countrymen; the Constable was forced to dismiss them, and Maximilian was so elated that he assumed all the airs of a conqueror, and threatened to destroy Milan. But his good fortune vanished as suddenly as it began. His exchequer was exhausted, the pay of his Swiss in arrear, and one morning their colonel, Stafner, entered the Emperor’s chamber while he was in bed, and insolently demanded the money. In vain Maximilian resorted to threats, promises, entreaties; Stafner told him bluntly that, if the money was not forthcoming, he and his men would pass over to Bourbon’s service. The Emperor was thunderstruck. His danger at once stared him in the face, and rising in a hurry, he hastened to the quarters of his German troops; but not deeming himself secure there, he started for Trent, pretending that he was to receive there 80,000 crowns, and hoping by this pretext to conceal what was in reality a flight. The Germans, after waiting in vain for his return, made a precipitate retreat; while the Swiss disbanded, and made up for the loss of their pay by sacking Lodi and other towns. Such was the ridiculous end of this apparently formidable enterprise. Maximilian became the laughing-stock of Europe, and never again appeared at the head of an army. No sooner did the tide turn than the Pope began again to veer, and affected a zeal to fulfill the treaty of Bologna; while Francis, then intent upon the Concordat, winked at his conduct, and did not suffer it to interrupt the negotiations.

ACCESSION OF CHARLES IN SPAIN.

The demise of the Catholic King brought a new actor on the political scene, and altered for a while the policy of Europe. Ferdinand’s grandson and successor, the Archduke Charles, son of Philip the Fair and Joanna of Spain, had just completed his sixteenth year, having been born at Ghent, February, 24th 1500. Maximilian, his paternal grandfather, had entrusted Charles’s early education to Adrian Boyens, Dean of St. Peter’s in Louvain, who, though the son of a tapestry weaver of Utrecht, had risen to his higher station by his learning and abilities. Charles, however, seems to have profited little by Adrian's teaching. Although docile and submissive, he displayed in his youth but little quickness of apprehension, and is said never to have acquired a mastery of the Latin tongue. His qualities were such as ripen slowly. Even his bodily development was tardy; and it was observed that he did not begin to get a beard and put on the appearance of a man till his twenty-first year.

In M. de Chièvres, of the Croy family, a practical man of the world, Charles found a more congenial tutor than in the learned and pious Adrian. Chièvres, who set but small value on book learning, encouraged his pupil’s love for the chase; but at the same time instructed him in history and the art of government, and endeavored to fit him for an active part in life. Charles showed more facility in acquiring the modern than the ancient languages; and besides Flemish, his native tongue, is said to have understood German, French, Italian, and Spanish. It may be suspected, however, that his acquaintance with most of these was but superficial. He commonly wrote in French, but of a very barbarous kind.

In his aunt Margaret, Governess of the Netherlands, Charles found another admirable instructress in the art of governing. His education was completed by his early succession to power, and the practical application of the lessons he received. Chièvres made him read all the state papers and correspondence, and report upon them to the Council; and he thus glided, by imperceptible degrees, from the precepts of political conduct to the actual cares of government.

Ferdinand had regarded his grandson Charles with aversion, as a rival who would one day deprive him of Castile; and he had even made a will by which he bequeathed the government of Castile and Aragon, during Charles’s absence, to Ferdinand, the younger brother of that Prince; an arrangement by which Ferdinand, who had been educated in Spain, and was present on the spot, might have been enabled to seize the Crown, had he been so inclined. Ximenes, however, persuaded the Aragonese monarch to revoke this will, and to make another only a few hours before his death, by which Aragon and the Two Sicilies were settled on his daughter Joanna and her heirs; while the administration of Castile was entrusted to Ximenes during Charles's absence, and that of Aragon to Alfonso, Archbishop of Saragossa, King Ferdinand's natural son.

Charles, on his side, was not unaware of his grandfather's enmity towards him. Hence he regarded Ferdinand as a foe who would exclude him from his lawful inheritance; and a few months before that Sovereign’s death, he had dispatched his former tutor, Adrian Boyens, into Spain, ostensibly as an ambassador, but with powers to assume the office of Regent immediately on Ferdinand’s demise. A misunderstanding consequently arose between Ximenes and Adrian, which, however, was arranged by the former allowing Adrian to share the regency with him, though the real authority was engrossed by Ximenes. That Cardinal, indeed, though now near eighty years of age, was the only person capable of exercising it with vigor and effect; and the conjuncture required all his energy and ability.

The Castilian grandees heard with indignation that Charles had assumed the title of King as soon as the news of Ferdinand’s death arrived in Brussels; for although his mother Joanna was still confined in the Castle of Tordesillas, her mental incapacity, however obvious, had never been declared by any public act. But Ximenes, in spite of the murmurs and cabals of the nobles, caused Charles to be proclaimed at Madrid, which, under his administration, had become the seat of government, and the other towns, whose privileges Ximenes had favored by way of counterpoise to the power of the grandees, followed the example. In Aragon, where Archbishop Alfonso ruled with a weaker hand, Charles was indeed acknowledged as the lawful heir, but did not obtain the regal title till after his arrival in Spain. Ximenes also displayed his vigorous policy in the measures he adopted for retaining Navarre in obedience.

The death of Ferdinand encouraged John d'Albret to attempt the recovery of his Kingdom; but he was defeated by the Spanish general Villalva, and compelled to a precipitate retreat (March 25th, 1516). As the Navarrese had shown their affection for the House of Albret, Ximenes, with great harshness and cruelty, caused their castles, towns, and villages, to the number of near 2,000, to be dismantled and burnt; Pamplona alone, and a few places on the Ebro, were preserved as fortresses, and the rest of the country was reduced almost to a desert. John d'Albret died in the following June.

Yet the power of Charles, however extensive, seemed to rest on insecure foundations. Discontent still lurked among the Castilian nobles, the Spanish possessions in Africa had been endangered by a victory of the celebrated pirate Haroudji Barbarossa; Navarre and the Netherlands were both exposed to the attacks of the French, and the hostility of that nation would render Charles’s contemplated journey to Spain both difficult and hazardous. All these were motives for courting the alliance of Francis I; nor did this Sovereign repulse the overtures made to him. Francis found that he could not rely on Leo, nor consequently on Tuscany, in his projected expedition to Naples; and as he had not yet succeeded in effecting a treaty with the whole of the Swiss Cantons, his Milanese possessions were still exposed to danger from that quarter. Such being the situation of the two Kings, a treaty was effected between them at Noyon, August 13th, 1516, which, according to the practice of those times, was strengthened by a marriage contract.

Although by a preceding treaty Charles was already engaged to Renée, second daughter of Louis XII, he now contracted to espouse Louise, the infant daughter of Francis, when she should attain the age of twelve years, receiving as her dowry the French claims upon Naples; in consideration of which Charles was to pay 100,000 gold crowns annually till the marriage took place, and half that sum so long as there was no issue by it. Francis reserved the right of aiding the Venetians against the Emperor; and, what was of more importance to Charles, of succoring the Queen of Navarre and her children, if Charles failed to do her justice within eight months.

At this period the two youthful Kings appeared to be on the best possible terms; they vied with each other in marks of friendship and esteem; they exchanged the collars of their Orders: Charles, who was five years and a half younger than the French King, addressed him as “my good father”, and Francis returned the endearing appellation of “my good son”.

By the treaty of Noyon the Netherlands were also protected against the terrible incursions of Charles, Duke of Gelderland, and the piracies of his worthy associate, De Groote Pier, or Big Peter, which inflicted great damage on the Netherland maritime commerce. Henry of Nassau, Stadholder of Holland, had long maintained an arduous struggle against these enemies; but after the treaty of Noyon Francis mediated a truce of six months, and the Duke of Gelderland restored a portion of Friesland that he had overrun, on receiving a payment of 100,000 gold crowns.

Henry of Nassau had won the favor of Francis during the negotiations at Noyon, and he was now allowed to espouse Claude, sister of Philibert of Chalon, Prince of Orange, and heiress of that sovereign House; who, as possessing large territories in Burgundy, could not marry without the consent of Francis, her feudal lord.

The treaty of Noyon was soon followed by the peace of Brussels, between the Emperor on one side, and the French King and the Venetians on the other (December 4th, 1516). Maximilian had now begun to perceive the hopeless nature of his contest with the Republic of Venice; the offer of 200,000 ducats was an irresistible attraction to his poverty, and he resigned all his conquests with the exception of a few places in Friuli, and on the borders of Tyrol. An end was thus put to the wars which had arisen out of the League of Cambray, and for a few years Europe enjoyed an unwonted tranquility.

Venice had recovered almost all the places which had been ravished from her, and to all appearance came out of the contest without material damage. But her decline had already begun. The places restored to her, exhausted of their wealth and population, required large sums to be laid out upon them; to meet the expenses of the war, the public revenues had been mortgaged for a long period; the dignities of the State had been sold to the highest bidders, and a crowd of public servants had thus intruded themselves who had no other recommendation than their money. At the same time the commerce of the Republic was rapidly falling off through the maritime discoveries of the Portuguese, while another blow had been struck at it by the short-sighted and grasping policy of the Spanish ministers. A Venetian fleet had coasted every year the shores of the Mediterranean, and after touching at Syracuse and other Sicilian ports, proceeded to Tripoli, Tunis, Oran, and other places in Africa, where the manufactures of Europe were exchanged for the gold dust of the Moors; with which the Venetians proceeded to the ports of Spain, and purchased cargoes of silk, wool, and corn. The ministers of Charles raised the duty on these exports, as well as on all articles brought by the Venetians, to twenty per cent, or double the former rate, expecting by this method to increase their revenue in proportion; but its only effect was to annihilate the trade, and to deal a severe blow to the commerce and agriculture of Spain.

More than eighteen months elapsed after the death of Ferdinand before Charles determined on taking possession of his Spanish dominions. At the instance of Adrian he had, indeed, dispatched a second and a third minister into that country, to share the government of Ximenes, who, however, continued to assert his superiority, and frustrated all their attempts to overthrow him. Yet, even under his vigilant administration, abuses crept in. The most considerable offices in Church and State were sold by the Netherland counselors, and large remittances of Spanish gold found their way to the Low Countries. The Netherlanders regarded Spain as their Indies, and plundered it, much as the Spaniards themselves plundered the New World.

Charles’s delay in proceeding to Spain was occasioned by the selfish policy of Chièvres and his other ministers, who were unwilling to see the seat of government transferred to a foreign country; and the youthful monarch naturally listened with deference to the advice of his former tutor. Cardinal Ximenes, on the other hand, was urgent in his entreaties that Charles should appear among his Spanish subjects; and at last, on the 17th of September, 1517, he landed at Villaviciosa, in the Asturias, accompanied by a large train of Netherland nobles.

DEATH OF XIMENES.

Charles, with his sister Eleanor, hastened to pay a visit to their unfortunate mother at Tordesillas, when Joanna’s joy at the unexpected sight of her children is said for a moment to have overcome her dreadful malady. A different treatment was reserved for the great Cardinal and minister. Ximenes hastened to meet his master, but the exertion proved too much for his strength; he was seized with fever, which compelled him to stop at the Franciscan monastery of Aguilera, near the town of Aranda. His characteristic boldness did not forsake him with his health. In common with the whole Spanish nation, he viewed with regret the influence acquired over the young King by his Netherland courtiers; and he addressed a letter to that monarch from his sick bed, in which he entreated Charles to dismiss them, and to grant him an interview at Aranda. But the Spanish grandees united with the Netherlanders to thwart the vigorous minister, whom they all alike detested. By their advice Ximenes was treated with studied neglect, and Charles was persuaded to send him a letter, which, though couched in cold and formal expressions of regard, was in fact a virtual dismissal. The aged prelate was thanked for all his past services, and a personal interview appointed for receiving the benefit of his counsels; after which he would be allowed to retire to his benefice, and seek from heaven that reward which heaven alone could adequately bestow.

It may be too much to say with some historians that this letter was the immediate cause of the Cardinal’s death, yet it probably had an injurious effect on a constitution already enfeebled by age and sickness. He expired soon afterwards (November 8th, 1517), in the eighty-first year of his age. The despotic government of Ximenes, supported by military force and by the terrors of the Inquisition, had been completely successful in upholding the royal prerogative; he avoided assembling the Cortes, and his regency must be regarded as having initiated that repressive and hard-hearted despotism which characterized the rule of the Austrian House in Spain. During the eleven years that he had presided over the tribunal of the inquisition, Ximenes is said to have condemned to the stake 2,536 persons, and 51,167 to smaller punishments.

Charles, the first of that name in Spain, soon afterwards made his public entry into Valladolid. The Cortes of Castile discovered great unwillingness to acknowledge him as King; they refused to grant him that title except in conjunction with his mother Joanna, and on condition that her name should take precedence of his in all public acts; and they stipulated that if at any time she should recover her reason, her claim to the throne should entirely supersede that of her son. On the other hand, they displayed great liberality in voting Charles the hitherto unheard of sum of 600,000 ducats. The Aragonese proved still more intractable than the Castilians. After long delays, and with much difficulty, they at length, indeed, acknowledged the title of Charles on the same conditions as the Castilians, but they voted him only a third as much money. They had profited by the example of the Castilians, and by seeing their liberality abused by the rapacity of the Netherland courtiers. Such was the avarice of those foreigners that they are said to have remitted to the Low Countries, in the short space of ten months, the enormous sum of more than a million ducats, acquired by their venality and extortion.

The Spaniards were still more disgusted by seeing all the highest posts of honor assigned to Netherlander. William de Croy, a nephew of Chièvres, already Bishop of Cambray, was appointed, though not of canonical age, to the Archbishopric of Toledo, the primacy of Castile, vacant by the death of Ximenes; while the chancellorship, which had been filled by the same eminent man, was given to Sauvage, another Netherlander, and other appointments of a like nature followed. The pride of the Castilians was stung by these acts. The leading cities, though unsupported by the nobility, formed a league to defend their rights, and laid before the King a remonstrance in which they complained of the favor shown to foreigners, the increase of taxes, and the export of the coin. Charles neglected their complaints; but through this league was laid the foundation of the Junta, or union of the cities of Castile, which well-nigh succeeded in overthrowing the monarchy. Thus by an impolitic conduct forced upon him by his ministers, and which nothing but his youth and inexperience can excuse, did Charles alienate for a time the hearts of his new subjects, and deprive himself of that weight which their cordial affection and assistance would have given him in the affairs of Europe.

CONQUESTS OF SULTAN SELIM I.

In the general tranquility enjoyed by Europe at this period, public attention was chiefly directed to the movements of the Turks, whose history we must here briefly resume. The peace concluded between Venice and Bajazet II in 1502, remained undisturbed during that Sultan’s life. The Venetians, occupied with the wars which ensued upon the League of Cambray, submitted, in one or two instances somewhat ignominiously, to Bajazet’s dictation, and as Wladislaus, King of Hungary and Bohemia, had also been careful to maintain his truce with the Porte, the Sultan, being thus delivered from all anxiety on the side of Europe, directed his arms towards the East, and succeeded in subduing Caramania. But the reign of Bajazet was disturbed by the revolt of his youngest son Selim, the darling of the Janissaries; and in 1512 Selim compelled his father to renounce in his favor the throne which Bajazet had destined for his favorite son Achmet. The dethroned Sultan determined to retire to Demitoca, his birthplace; but on the third day of his journey thither he died of poison, administered to him by a Jewish physician at Selim’s instigation. Achmet, who endeavored to assert his claim by arms, was defeated, captured, and strangled; and Selim, that he might have no rival near the throne, also put to death his younger brother Korkud, and caused five of his nephews to be strangled before his eyes at Prusa.

The years from 1514 to 1516 were employed by Selim I in conquering northern Mesopotamia and a considerable part of Persia. He next reduced Syria, and turned his arms against Egypt, where the Mamaluke dynasty had been established since the middle of the thirteenth century. Tumanbey, Sultan of the Mamalukes, was subdued in the spring of 1517, and put to death at Cairo, by Selim’s command. The Sultan spent the summer in Egypt in regulating the affairs of his new conquest; and after passing the winter in Damascus, he returned, in August, 1518, after an absence of two years, to Adrianople, when he began to direct his attention to the affairs of Europe.

The rapidity and magnitude of these conquests naturally drew the attention and excited the alarm of the European potentates. Venice and Hungary, the States more immediately exposed to the fury of Turkish arms, had deemed it prudent to conciliate the friendship of the Porte; and both Wladislaus, King of Hungary and Bohemia, and the Republic of Venice had, at Selim’s accession, renewed the peace which they had entered into with his father. The Venetians, ever alive to the interests of their commerce, congratulated Selim after his conquest of Egypt, a country so important to their trade with the Indies. They endeavored to obtain from its new ruler the confirmation of their ancient privileges, and transferred to him the tribute of 8,000 ducats, which they had before paid to the Sultan of Egypt, for the possession of Cyprus. On these terms the peace was confirmed, September 17th, 1517, and was not disturbed during Selim’s lifetime.

AFFAIRS OF HUNGARY.

Hungary also escaped any serious attack, though subject to constant border warfare. King Wladislaus had died March 13th, 1516. Large in person, phlegmatic and melancholy in temperament, in mind so simple and candid that he would believe no ill of anybody, in temper so compassionate and humane that he could with difficulty be persuaded to sign a death-warrant, assiduous in his devotions, but incapable of any active exertion, Wladislaus was one of those characters that might adorn private life, but are totally unfitted for the throne. Under his feeble sway, the nobles acted as they pleased; the revenues of the Kingdom, which under King Matthias had amounted to 800,000 ducats, gradually sunk to a quarter of that sum; and such was the poverty in which he left the royal household, that there was not money enough to defray the expenses of the kitchen. Thus, during the long minority of Louis II, who was only ten years of age at the time of his father’s death, the way was prepared for those calamities which we shall presently have to relate.

The Diet of Tolna observed in their resolutions, 1518, that arms and laws are necessary to a State, but that neither arms nor laws were to be found in Hungary. Indeed the country at this time seems to have been almost in a state of barbarism. In 1514 a dangerous peasant war, similar to those of Germany, had broken out, headed by a Szekler named Dosa, which, after the spilling of much blood, was put down; and Dosa being captured, a council of war, held by Zapolya, decreed that a striking example should be made of him and his followers. Forty of the latter were kept a fortnight without food, when only nine remained alive; these were let loose upon Dosa, who was seated upon a red-hot iron throne, while an iron crown and scepter in the same state were thrust upon him, and his flesh was torn with red-hot pincers. The famished wretches were now compelled to eat his flesh, or were sabred if they refused; while Dosa exclaimed, “Eat, ye hounds that I have myself brought up!”

Nothing can absolve Zapolya from this devilish act of cannibalism.

At a subsequent Diet, the peasantry were reduced to a state of slavery, and became adscripti glebae, or serfs attached to the soil, were compelled to pay heavy taxes to their masters, and were forbidden the use of arms, under penalty of losing the right hand. The consequences of these cruel laws were not removed till the reign of Maria Theresa in 1764. John Zapolya, Count of Zips, the perpetrator of the horrible deed just related, was son of the Palatine Stephen Zapolya, and had been appointed Voyvode of Transylvania in 1510, at the age of twenty-three.

The House of Zapolya, which took its name from a village near Pozega in Slavonia, had risen to great eminence under King Matthias Corvinus. It was chiefly through its influence that Wladislaus had been seated on the throne, and hence it not only enjoyed a great share of power, but even cherished pretensions to the succession. After the death of Wladislaus, John Zapolya attempted to obtain the office of Gubernator from the nobles assembled on the field of Bakos, the place where in open air the Diets were held; but the attempt was frustrated, and he himself was obliged to fly for his life. It was now resolved that the young King Louis should conduct the affairs of the Kingdom, with the assistance of the whole Hungarian Council; an arrangement attended with the most disastrous results, as the oligarchs of all parties who thus stepped into power sought only to enrich themselves at the expense of the State, and kept the young King as poor and as powerless as they could. Thus Hungary, by its misgovernment and dissensions, subsequently became an easy prey to the Turks.

The peasant war in Hungary just recorded had been fomented by an injudicious step on the part of Pope Leo X. That Pontiff had, like his predecessors, professed a zeal against the Infidels; and though he could provide Wladislaus with no funds for a Turkish war, he authorized the preaching of a crusade in Hungary. A disorderly mob of 80,000 peasants was thus collected; who being without discipline and provisions, at the instigation of the lower clergy attacked the estates of the nobles. In spite of his ill-success, Leo resumed the subject with Francis I during the conferences at Bologna; and the French King appears, from a letter which he addressed to the King of Navarre, to have entered zealously into the Pope’s views. Nothing, however, was done, and the matter seems to have remained in abeyance till the treaty at Cambray, March 11th, 1517, between the Emperor and the Kings of France and Spain.

During these negotiations the conquest and partition of Greece, and the recovery of the Holy Land, were discussed by the three contracting Powers; which scheme was to be kept secret from the rest of Europe, and especially from the Pope. Maximilian, however, revealed the proceedings of the Congress to Leo and to Henry VIII. Leo, who was alarmed at the rapid conquests of Selim, or pretended to be so in order the better to promote his mercenary designs, decreed a war against the Infidels in the last session of the Lateran Council, and obtained the grant of a tithe on all ecclesiastical property in Europe, for the purpose of defraying the expenses; and he published a bull enjoining all Christian Princes to observe a five Years’ truce. But though the Pope put on every appearance of earnestness, nothing resulted from these measures but a profitable compact between himself and the French King. Leo granted to Francis all the proceeds of the tithe in his dominions, and all the contributions of His subjects towards the crusade, while Francis in return cancelled the Pope's written engagement to restore Modena and Reggio to the Duke of Ferrara.

Nevertheless, Leo published the crusade after a solemn procession, in which he himself walked barefoot, and celebrated a High Mass in the church of St Maria sopra Minerva. The scheme met with no better success in other countries. Maximilian, indeed, embraced it with his usual ardor for new enterprises, and Leo nattered his vanity by appointing him generalissimo of the Christian army, by sending him a consecrated hat and sword, and declaring the Eastern Kingdom an Imperial fief; whereupon Maximilian, who already in imagination beheld himself enthroned at Constantinople, caused a medal to be struck on which he was designated as Emperor of the East and West. He could not, however, inspire the German States with his own enthusiasm. They answered his appeal with remonstrances against Papal exactions, and applauded a treatise of Ulrich von Hutten, in which the Pope was denounced as a far more dangerous enemy to Christendom than the Turk. When the grant by the Lateran Council of an ecclesiastical tithe was published in England, an oath was tendered to the Papal collector that he would make no remittances to Rome; and in Spain, the clergy availing themselves of the discontent and tumults which prevailed, positively refused to obey the Pope’s mandate.

In this want of zeal among the Christian nations, it was fortunate that Selim’s attention was engrossed by his Eastern provinces, and the revolts of his unruly Janissaries. His last enterprise was directed against Rhodes; but he was not destined to accomplish it. Flying from Constantinople to avoid the plague, he was seized with that malady at Tchorlu, and died September 21st, 1520. The fame of this great conqueror is sullied by acts of the most impious cruelty. He is even said to have contemplated the murder of his son and successor Solyman, for fear of experiencing at his hands the fate which he had himself inflicted on his father.

In pursuance of his pacific policy at this period, and also with the desire of recovering Tournai, Francis courted the alliance of Henry VIII. With this view he withdrew the Duke of Albany from Scotland, and dispatched the Admiral Bonnivet into England with letters to Wolsey, in which the French King seemed to pour out his whole soul, styling the Cardinal his lord, his father, and his friend. Each letter was accompanied with a present, besides which a large pension was settled on the English minister. Wolsey was not insensible to addresses which gratified at once his avarice and his vanity. He persuaded his master to restore Tournai, but on payment of 600,000 crowns in twelve years; and on these terms a treaty was executed at London in October, 1518. It included a marriage contract between the Dauphin Francis and Mary, the daughter of the King of England, both recently born infants; which, however, was in time voided by the Dauphin's death.

It was at this period, also, that a marriage whose results were destined to be so disastrous to France, was contracted between the Pope’s nephew Lorenzo de' Medici, now Duke of Urbino, as well as head of the Florentine Republic, and Madeleine de la Tour, daughter of John Count of Auvergne and Boulogne, of the Royal blood of France through her mother Jeanne of Bourbon. In April, 1518, the nuptials were celebrated with great pomp at Paris, and on the return of the wedded pair to Florence the fetes were renewed during a whole week. But their happiness was destined to be of short duration. Lorenzo died within a year, it is said of a malady contracted at Paris by his licentious amours on the very eve of his marriage. He was the last legitimate descendant of Cosmo the Great. His consort had expired only a few days before in giving birth to a daughter, afterwards the celebrated Catherine de' Medici. Cardinal Giulio de' Medici now became for a while the ruler of Florence; but the greater part of the Duchy of Urbino was incorporated with the States of the Church.

The Emperor Maximilian had died a few months before. Although only fifty-nine years of age, he had long anticipated his dissolution, and during the last four years of his life is said never to have traveled without his coffin and shroud. In these circumstances he was naturally anxious to secure the Imperial Crown for his grandson Charles; and in 1518 he obtained the consent of the majority of the Electors to the election of that Prince as King of the Romans. The Electors of Treves and Saxony alone opposed the project, on the ground, that as Maximilian had never received the Imperial Crown, he was himself still King of the Romans, and that consequently Charles could not assume a dignity that was not vacant. To obviate this objection, Maximilian pressed Leo to send the Golden Crown to Vienna; but this plan was defeated by the intrigues of the French Court. Francis, who intended to become a candidate for the Imperial Crown, entreated the Pope not to commit himself by such an act; and while these negotiations were pending, Maximilian died at Wels in Upper Austria, January 12th, 1519, either from having fatigued himself too much in hunting or from the effects of over-indulgence at table.

In his more private capacity, Maximilian had many good and amiable qualities. Of middle size and well-knit frame, he excelled in bodily exercises and feats of arms, and on more than one occasion he slew his adversary with his own hand. His eyes were blue, his nose aquiline, his mouth small, the expression of his countenance animated and manly, his manners frank and dignified. His chivalrous qualities endeared him to the German knighthood, his affability to the citizens, in whose festivities he frequently partook; while a certain tinge of romance rendered him irresistible with the fair sex. He was versed in several languages, a patron of literature, and himself an author; but the memoirs which he has left of himself, as the Weiss-Kunig (White King) in prose, and in the Theuerdank, in rhyme, are written in so far-fetched and enigmatical a style as to be of little value as materials for history.

Although no captain, he was well acquainted with the details of military service, and was the founder of the lance-knights. In short, he was a brave soldier and a good-tempered man; but here his praise must end. As a politician he was vacillating and irresolute; so full of levity and restlessness that he would quit the most important enterprise for a hunting party; so governed by the caprices of imagination, that he would form a thousand schemes which he as readily abandoned. By his reckless expenditure and extravagant projects, he was often brought to ridiculous straits; and it was a common saying that he never signed a treaty without expecting a pecuniary consideration. His chief aim was the aggrandizement of his family; and though he achieved little or nothing by his arms, he founded, through his own marriage and those of his son and grandsons, the future greatness of the House of Austria.

Three candidates for the Imperial Crown appeared in the field: the Kings of Spain, France, and England. Francis I was now at the height of his reputation. His enterprises had hitherto been crowned with success—the popular test of ability, and the world accordingly gave him credit for a political wisdom which he was far from possessing. He appears to have gained three or four of the Electors by a lavish distribution of money, which his agent Bonnivet was obliged to carry through Germany on the backs of horses; for the Fuggers, the rich merchants and bankers of Augsburg, were in the interest of Charles, and refused to give the French any accommodation. But the bought votes of these venal Electors, some of whom sold themselves more than once to different parties, could not be depended on. The infamy of Albert of Brandenburg, Archbishop Elector of Metz, in these transactions, was particularly notorious.

The chances of Henry VIII were throughout but slender. Henry’s hopes, like those of Francis, were chiefly founded on the corruptibility of the Electors, and on the expectation that both his rivals, from the very magnitude of their power, might be deemed ineligible.

Of the three candidates, the claims of Charles seemed the best founded and the most deserving of success. Including Frederick of Austria, the rival of Louis of Bavaria, the House of Austria had already furnished six emperors, of whom the last three had reigned eighty years, as if by an hereditary succession. Charles’s Austrian possessions made him a German Prince, and from their situation, constituted him the natural protector of Germany against the Turks. The previous canvass of Maximilian had been of some service to his cause, and all these advantages he seconded, like his competitors, by the free use of bribery. On the other hand, it was objected that, though Charles was a German Prince, he had never resided in High Germany, and did not speak its language; that he had as yet given no proof of capacity, and that the magnitude of his dominions was not only calculated to fill the Germans with apprehension that he would be able to devote little time to the affairs of the Empire, but also to inspire them with fears for their liberties. Indeed, at one time Charles’s prospect of success appeared so doubtful that his aunt Margaret, whom he had reinstated in the government of the Netherlands, proposed to him that he should substitute his brother Ferdinand as a candidate; counsels which he at once rejected, though he promised to share the hereditary Austrian dominions with his brother, and at some future time to procure his election as King of the Roman.

Leo X, the weight of whose authority was sought both by Charles and Francis, though he seemed to favor each, desired the success of neither. He secretly advised the Electors to choose a King from among their own body; and as this seemed an easy solution of the difficulty, they unanimously offered the Crown to Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony. But Frederick magnanimously refused it, and succeeded in uniting the suffrages of the Electors in favor of Charles; principally on the ground that he was the Sovereign best qualified to meet the great danger impending from the Turk. The election of Charles as King of the Romans and Emperor Elect seems also to have been assisted by Franz von Sickingen and Casimir of Brandenburg, who, as the day of election drew near, in order to frighten the Electors from choosing a foreigner, occupied the roads leading to Frankfort with 20,000 men.

CHARLES V

The new Emperor, now in his twentieth year, assumed the title of Charles V. His well-set frame, of middle size, his blue eyes, aquiline nose, and light complexion, recalled the lineaments of his grandfather Maximilian, but altered somewhat for the worse by the mixture of Spanish blood. His health was feeble, his countenance wore an air of sadness and dejection, his under lip hung down, and he spoke but little and with hesitation. He had as yet shown no symptoms of those talents and that force of character which he afterwards displayed; insomuch that the Spaniards, among whom he lived, deemed him to have inherited the intellectual weakness of his mother, which, however, was far from being the case. He was proclaimed as Emperor Elect, the title taken in 1508 by his grandfather Maximilian, which he subsequently altered to that of “Emperor of the Romans”, after his Imperial coronation at Bologna in 1530.

Before the election of Charles at the instance of Frederick the Wise, a more rigorous capitulation than usual was extorted from him, the enormous extent of his power rendering the Electors jealous of their liberties. The Elector Palatine was deputed by the College to carry these articles into Spain for Charles’s signature, and to invite him into Germany. Between the death of Maximilian and the election of Charles, the Palatine and the ecclesiastical Electors of Cologne, Metz, and Treves had formed the Electoral Union of the Rhine for their common defence, and the preservation of the rights of the Electoral College.

The Pope and the Kings of France and England were all equally dissatisfied with the result of the election. Leo, however, put a good face upon the matter, and sought to retain some portion of his pretensions by gracefully conceding what he had no longer the power to hinder. He hastened to recognize Charles as Emperor Elect, and to dispense with a constitution of Pope Clement IV, which forbade the Kingdom of the Sicilies to be united with the Imperial Crown; hoping that Charles in return would not withhold from him the homage prescribed by long established custom. But the new Emperor manifested no inclination to gratify the pretensions of the Pontiff; and his example on this occasion had the effect of abrogating the usage.

Charles’s Spanish subjects loudly expressed their dissatisfaction at his acceptance of the German Crown, which was tendered to him at Barcelona by the Rhenish Palsgrave and a solemn embassy, November 30th, 1519. They complained that his new dignity would not only require his frequent absence from Spain, but would also drain it of men and money in the political quarrels of Germany and Italy. Nor was their discontent confined to murmurs. Several Castilian cities drew up a remonstrance against Charles quitting Spain, and serious disturbances broke out in Valencia, where the nobles had joined the burgesses in organizing a Hermandad, or armed brotherhood. The citizens of Valladolid, the usual place for holding the Castilian Cortes, were conspicuously refractory; and Charles therefore summoned that assembly to meet at Compostella in Gallicia, as he was in want of a fresh donative, in order to appear in Germany with adequate splendor. At this affront the citizens of Valladolid rose in arms, and would have massacred the Netherlander had not Charles and his courtiers contrived to escape in a violent storm.

Toledo sent deputies to Compostella only to protest against the legality of the assembly; Salamanca refused the oath of fidelity; Madrid, Cordova, and other places protested against the donative. Fortunately for Charles, the Castilian grandees were alarmed at this new spirit of independence among the commons, which, though now directed against the Sovereign, might one day be turned against themselves; and by their aid, together with the arts and bribes of the Court, a majority of the Cortes was induced to vote a supply. They forced Charles, however, to exclude the Netherlanders from office, who indemnified themselves by selling the places which they could no longer hold, and the Spanish ducats continued to gravitate towards the Low Countries.

The impatience of Charles to receive his new crown induced him to leave his Spanish dominions even in this state of open discontent, which was still further increased by the unpopular appointment of Cardinal Adrian to the Regency of Castile. Charles embarked at Coruña, May 22nd, 1520; and on the 26th he landed in England, having taken that country in his way on pretext of paying a visit to his aunt Catharine, but in reality for the purpose of diverting Henry VIII from forming any alliance with France.

Henry was then meditating the recovery of that Kingdom, which he considered as his ancient patrimony; a scheme in which nobody could be of more use to him than the Emperor. Charles gained Henry’s minister, Wolsey, by large donations, and by dazzling him with the prospect of the tiara; and he now added a pension of 7,000 ducats to one of 3,000 livres which he had settled on Wolsey on his accession to the Spanish thrones. He could not, however, prevent an interview which had been already arranged between the French and English Kings for the 7th of June, and after a four days’ stay in England he set sail for the Netherlands (May 30th).

Both the Emperor and the French King foresaw that a speedy breach between them was inevitable, and they were consequently both disposed to court the friendship of Henry VIII. Not only was the vanity of Francis deeply wounded by the ill-success of his competition for the Empire, but he also viewed with alarm the enormous increase of Charles’s power; and he entertained great hopes of forming an alliance with the English King, who had the same cause as himself for animosity against the Emperor. The circumstances and the splendor of the meeting between the two Kings at the camp of the cloth of gold, are so familiar from the descriptions in our English historians that we need not here dwell upon them.

Instead of proceeding to Brussels, the wary Emperor had lingered at Gravelines, with the view of effacing by another meeting with Henry any impression that might be made upon him by his visit to Francis. After taking leave of Francis, the English King proceeded to Gravelines, and conducted Charles and his aunt Margaret back to Calais, where they passed some days together. Here Charles, who had further assured himself of the support of Wolsey by renewed promises of securing him the tiara, as well as by putting him in immediate possession of the episcopal revenues of Badajoz and Placencia in Spain, dexterously proposed that Henry should be the arbiter in any dispute that might arise between Francis and himself; and the English King readily fell in with a proposal which flattered his own favorite pretension of being the arbiter of Europe. It is said that an injudicious throw which the French King gave Henry in a wrestling match, diverted towards himself any ill feeling which the English Sovereign might have harbored against the Emperor, and greatly facilitated the designs of Charles and Wolsey. On such trivial circumstances may the fate of Kingdoms sometimes depend!

The Emperor’s attention was next engrossed by his German coronation. He was consecrated at Aix-la-Chapelle, October 23rd, 1520, by the Archbishop of Cologne, and received the Roman Crown from the hands of the three spiritual Electors. In January, 1521, he held his first Diet at Worms. Here several princes and prelates were put under the ban of the Empire for breaches of the Landfriede, or public peace; but the only case necessary to be noticed in this general history was that of the Duke of Würtemberg.

Originally a county, Würtemberg had been erected into a duchy by the Emperor Maximilian in 1495, in favor of Count Eberhard the Great, or the Bearded; to whose kinsman, Ulrich, it had now descended. This Prince, whose chief characteristics were his sensuality and his enormous fatness, had excited a rebellion of the peasants by the irksome taxes which he had imposed in order to supply his extravagance; and in 1514 a war broke out which obtained the name of “The war of poor Conrad”.

Ulrich found it necessary to quell this dangerous insurrection by conciliating the aristocracy; and the treaty of Tubingen in July, 1514, continued to be the fundamental law of Würtemberg down to 1819. Its provisions show the despotic power of some of the Princes in that age; as, for instance, that forbidding anybody to be hereafter punished without legal trial and verdict! Ulrich, however, evaded the treaty, and his government became more cruel and tyrannical than ever. During the interregnum which ensued on the death of Maximilian, he seized Reutlingen, a town belonging to the Swabian League, between which and his foresters a deadly feud had long existed. The League's forces assembled under Duke William I of Bavaria and George Frunsberg, and expelled Ulrich from his dominions, which were taken possession of by the League as security for the expenses of the war (1519). In the following year the League, for a sum of 240,000 gulden handed over Würtemberg together with Ulrich’s children, Christopher and Anne, to Ferdinand, who was then governing the Archduchy of Austria for his brother Charles, the Emperor Elect. Ulrich in vain appealed for protection to the Swiss, among whom he had taken refuge; and he wandered about in exile from Court to Court. Ferdinand, on taking possession of Würtemberg, confirmed the treaty of Tubingen, but exercised many oppressions in order to raise the sum he had agreed to pay. Charles, after his arrival in Germany, treated Würtemberg as his own property. He put Ulrich under the ban of the Empire, and heedless of the remonstrances raised on all sides, gave his dominions to Ferdinand, who some years later (1530) received the title of Duke of Würtemberg and Teck.

Several other important affairs were transacted at the Diet of Worms. The Imperial Chamber was reformed, the abuses of the lower courts were abolished, and a Council of Regency, consisting of a Lieutenant-General of the Empire and twenty-two Assessors, was appointed to discharge the Emperor's functions during his absence from Germany. As the right of primogeniture did not yet exist in Austria, Charles, according to his promise, ceded the greater part of the Austrian territories to his brother Ferdinand; who subsequently (in 1540) obtained the complete and hereditary possession of the whole of them. The Diet voted an army of 24,000 men to accompany Charles to Rome to receive the Imperial Crown but on the express stipulation that these troops should be used for no other purpose than an escort, and to swell the pomp of his coronation.

The Diet of Worms, however, derives its chief importance from circumstances then considered as merely secondary; the affairs, namely, of a new heresy, and the appearance at Worms of Martin Luther. The Reformation had been going on some years in Germany; but as it had not till now become a political matter, we have hitherto abstained from adverting to it, in order to relate its progress in a connected form. And before entering on this subject, we will cast a brief retrospect on the state of the Church, and on the origin and development of that new learning which was to work so mighty a revolution in ecclesiastical affairs, and collaterally in the intercourse and policy of nations.

CHAPTER X

HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION DOWN TO THE EDICT OF WORMS, 1521, AND LUTHER’S CONCEALMENT AT THE WARBURG. GENERAL AFFAIRS OF EUROPE TO THE DEATH OF LEO X, 1521.