THE REIGN OF THE EMPEROR CHARLES V

BOOK IV.

THE ROAD TO PAVIA

THE expulsion of the French, both out of the Milanese and the republic of Genoa, was considered by the Italians as the termination of the war between Charles and Francis; and as they began immediately to be apprehensive of the emperor, when they saw no power remaining in Italy capable either to control or oppose him, they longed ardently for the reestablishment of peace. Having procured the restoration of Sforza to his paternal dominions, which had been their chief motive for entering into confederacy with Charles, they plainly discovered their intention to contribute no longer towards increasing the emperor’s superiority over his rival, which was already become the object of their jealousy. The pope especially, whose natural timidity increased his suspicions of Charles's designs, endeavored by his remonstrances to inspire him with moderation and incline him to peace.

But the emperor, intoxicated with success, and urged on by his own ambition, no less than by Bourbon’s desire of revenge, contemned Clement’s admonitions, and declared his resolution of ordering his army to pass the Alps, and to invade Provence, a part of his rival’s dominions, where, as he least dreaded an attack, he was least prepared to resist it. His most experienced ministers dissuaded him from undertaking such an enterprise with a feeble army, and an exhausted treasury: but he relied so much on having obtained the concurrence of the king of England, and on the hopes which Bourbon, with the confidence and credulity natural to exiles, entertained of being joined by a numerous body of his partisans as soon as the Imperial troops should enter France, that he persisted obstinately in the measure. Henry undertook to furnish a hundred thousand ducats towards defraying the expense of the expedition during the first month, and had it in his choice either to continue the payment of that sum monthly, or to invade Picardy before the end of July with an army capable of acting with vigor. The emperor engaged to attack Guienne at the same time with a considerable body of men; and if these enterprises proved successful, they agreed, that Bourbon, besides the territories which he had lost, should be put in possession of Provence, with the title of king, and should do homage to Henry, as the lawful king of France, for his new dominions. Of all the parts of this extensive but extravagant project, the invasion of Provence was the only one which was executed. For although Bourbon, with a scrupulous delicacy, altogether unexpected after the part which he had acted, positively refused to acknowledge Henry’s title to the crown of France, and thereby absolved him from any obligation to promote the enterprise; Charles’s eagerness to carry his own plan into execution did not in any degree abate. The army which he employed for that purpose amounted only to eighteen thousand men, the command of which was given to the marquis de Pescara, with instructions to pay the greatest deference to Bourbon’s advice in all his operations. Pescara passed the Alps without opposition, and entering Provence [August 19], laid siege to Marseilles. Bourbon had advised him rather to march towards Lyons, in the neighborhood of which city his territories were situated, and where of course his influence was most extensive; but the emperor was so desirous to get possession of a port, which would at all times secure him an easy entrance into France, that by his authority he overruled the constables opinion, and directed Pescara to make the reduction of Marseilles his chief object.

Francis, who foresaw, but was unable to prevent this attempt, took the most proper precautions to defeat it. He laid waste the adjacent country, in order to render it more difficult for the enemy to subsist their army; he razed the suburbs of the city, strengthened its fortifications, and threw into it a numerous garrison under the command of brave and experienced officers. To these, nine thousand of the citizens, whom their dread of the Spanish yoke inspired with contempt of danger, joined themselves; by their united courage and industry, all the efforts of Pescara’s military skill, and of Bourbon's activity and revenge, were rendered abortive. Francis, meanwhile, had leisure to assemble a powerful army under the walls of Avignon, and no sooner began to advance towards Marseilles, than the Imperial troops, exhausted by the fatigues of a siege which had lasted forty days, weakened by diseases, and almost destitute of provisions, retired [Sept. 19] with precipitation towards Italy.

If, during these operations of the army in Provence, either Charles or Henry had attacked France in the manner which they had projected, that kingdom must have been exposed to the most imminent danger. But on this, as well as on many other occasions, the emperor found that the extent of his revenues was not adequate to the greatness of his schemes, or the ardor of his ambition and the want of money obliged him, though with much reluctance, to circumscribe his plan, and to leave part of it unexecuted. Henry, disgusted at Bourbon's refusing to recognize his right to the crown of France; alarmed at the motions of the Scots, whom the solicitations of the French king had persuaded to march towards the borders of England; and no longer incited by his minister, who was become extremely cool with regard to all the emperor’s interests, took no measures to support an enterprise, of which, as of all new undertakings, he had been at first excessively fond.

If the king of France had been satisfied with having delivered his subjects from this formidable invasion, if he had thought it enough to show all Europe the facility with which the internal strength of his dominions enabled him to resist the invasion of a foreign enemy, even when seconded by the abilities and powerful efforts of a rebellious subject, the campaign, notwithstanding the loss of the Milanese, would have been far from ending ingloriously. But Francis, animated with courage more becoming a soldier than a general; pushed on by ambition, enterprising rather than considerate; and too apt to be elated with success; was fond of every undertaking that seemed bold and adventurous. Such an undertaking, the situation of his affairs, at that juncture, naturally presented to his view. He had under his command one of the most powerful and best appointed armies France had ever brought into the field, which he could not think of disbanding without having employed it in any active service. The Imperial troops had been obliged to retire almost ruined by hard duty, and disheartened with ill success; the Milanese had been left altogether without defence; it was not impossible to reach that country before Pescara, with his shattered forces, could arrive there; or if fear should add speed to their retreat, they were in no condition to make head against his fresh and numerous troops; and Milan would now, as in former instances, submit without resistance to a bold invader. These considerations, which were not destitute of plausibility, appeared to his sanguine temper to be of the utmost weight. In vain did his wisest ministers and generals represent to him the danger of taking the field at a season so far advanced, with an army composed chiefly of Swiss and Germans, to whose caprices he would be subject in all his operations, and on whose fidelity his safety must absolutely depend. In vain did Louise of Savoy advance by hasty journeys towards Provence, that she might exert all her authority in dissuading her son from such a rash enterprise. Francis disregarded the remonstrances of his subjects; and that he might save himself the pain of an interview with his mother, whose counsels he had determined to reject, he began his march before her arrival; appointing her, however, by way of atonement for that neglect, to be regent of the kingdom during his absence. Bonnivet, by his persuasions, contributed not a little to confirm Francis in this resolution. That favorite, who strongly resembled his master in all the defective parts of his character, was led, by his natural impetuosity, warmly to approve of such an enterprise; and being prompted besides by his impatience to revisit a Milanese lady, of whom he had been deeply enamored during his late expedition, he is said, by his flattering descriptions of her beauty and accomplishments, to have inspired Francis, who was extremely susceptible of such passions, with an equal desire of seeing her.

The French passed the Alps at Mount Cenis; and as their success depended on despatch, they advanced with the greatest diligence. Pescara, who had been obliged to take a longer and more difficult route by Monaco and Final, was soon informed of their intention; and being sensible that nothing but the presence of his troops could save the Milanese, marched with such rapidity, that he reached Alva on the same day that the French arrived at Vercelli. Francis, instructed by Bonnivet’s error in the former campaign, advanced directly towards Milan, where the unexpected approach of an enemy so powerful occasioned such a consternation and disorder, that although Pescara entered the city with some of his best troops, he found that the defence of it could not be undertaken with any probability of success; and having thrown a garrison into the citadel, retired through one gate, while the French were admitted at another.

These brisk motions of the French monarch disconcerted all the schemes of defence which the Imperialists had formed. Never, indeed, did generals attempt to oppose a formidable invasion under such circumstances of disadvantage. Though Charles possessed dominions more extensive than any other prince in Europe, and had, at this time, no other army but that which was employed in Lombardy, which did not amount to sixteen thousand men, his prerogative in all his different states was so limited, and his subjects, without whose consent he could raise no taxes, discovered such unwillingness to burden themselves with new or extraordinary impositions, that even this small body of troops was in want of pay, of ammunition, of provisions, and of clothing. In such a situation, it required all the wisdom of Lannoy, the intrepidity of Pescara, and the implacable resentment of Bourbon, to preserve them from sinking under despair, and to inspire them with resolution to attempt, or sagacity to discover, what was essential to their safety. To the efforts of their genius, and the activity of their zeal, the emperor was more indebted for the preservation of his Italian dominions than to his own power. Lannoy, by mortgaging the revenues of Naples, procured some money, which was immediately applied towards providing the army with whatever was most necessary. Pescara, who was beloved and almost adored by the Spanish troops, exhorted them to show the world, by their engaging to serve the emperor in that dangerous exigency, without making any immediate demand of pay, that they were animated with sentiments of honor very different from those of mercenary soldiers; to which proposition that gallant body of men, with an unexampled generosity, gave their consent. Bourbon having raised a considerable sum by pawning his jewels, set out for Germany, where his influence was great, that by his presence he might hasten the levying of troops for the Imperial service.

Francis, by a fatal error, allowed the emperor’s generals time to derive advantage from all these operations. Instead of pursuing the enemy, who retired to Lodi on the Adda, an untenable post, which Pescara had resolved to abandon on the approach of the French, he, in compliance with the opinion of Bonnivet, though contrary to that of his other generals, laid siege to Pavia on the Tesino [Oct. 281], a town, indeed, of great importance, the possession of which would have opened to him all the fertile country lying on the banks of that river. But the fortifications of the place were strong; it was dangerous to undertake a difficult siege, at so late a season; and the Imperial generals, sensible of its consequence, had thrown into the town a garrison composed of six thousand veterans, under the command of Antonio de Leyva, an officer of high rank, of great experience, of a patient but enterprising courage, fertile in resources, ambitious of distinguishing himself, and capable, for that reason, as well as from his having been long accustomed both to obey and to command, of suffering or performing anything in order to procure success.

Francis prosecuted the siege with obstinacy equal to the rashness with which he had undertaken it. During three months everything known to the engineers of that age, or that could be effected by the valor of his troops, was attempted, in order to reduce the place; while Lannoy and Pescara, unable to obstruct his operations, were obliged to remain in such an ignominious state of inaction, that a pasquinade was published at Rome, offering a reward to any person who could find the Imperial army, lost in the month of October in the mountains between France and Lombardy, and which had not been heard of since that time.

Leyva, well acquainted with the difficulties under which his countrymen labored, and the impossibility of their facing, in the field, such a powerful army as formed the siege of Pavia, placed his only hopes of safety in his own vigilance and valor. The efforts of both were extraordinary, and in proportion to the importance of the place, with the defence of which he was entrusted. He interrupted the approaches of the French by frequent and furious sallies. Behind the breaches made by their artillery, he erected new works, which appeared to be scarcely inferior in strength to the original fortifications. He repulsed the besiegers in all their assaults; and by his own example, brought not only the garrison, but the inhabitants, to bear the most severe fatigues, and to encounter the greatest dangers without murmuring. The rigor of the season conspired with his endeavors in retarding the progress of the French. Francis attempting to become master of the town, by diverting the course of the Tesino, which is its chief defence on one side, a sudden inundation of the river destroyed, in one day, the labor of many weeks, and swept away all the mounds which his army had raised with infinite toil, as well as at great expense.

Notwithstanding the slow progress of the besiegers, and the glory which Leyva acquired by his gallant defence, it was not doubted but that the town would at last be obliged to surrender. The pope, who already considered the French arms as superior in Italy, became impatient to disengage himself from his connections with the emperor, of whose designs he was extremely jealous, and to enter into terms of friendship with Francis. As Clement’s timid and cautious temper rendered him incapable of following the bold plan which Leo had formed, of delivering Italy from the yoke of both the rivals, he returned to the more obvious and practicable scheme of employing the power of the one to balance and to restrain that of the other. For this reason, he did not dissemble his satisfaction at seeing the French king recover Milan, as he hoped that the dread of such a neighbor would be some check upon the emperor’s ambition, which no power in Italy was now able to control. He labored hard to bring about a peace that would secure Francis in the possession of his new conquests; and as Charles, who was always inflexible in the prosecution of his schemes, rejected the proposition with disdain, and with bitter exclamations against the pope, by whose persuasions, while cardinal de Medici, he had been induced to invade the Milanese, Clement immediately concluded a treaty of neutrality with the king of France, in which the republic of Florence was included.

Francis having by this transaction deprived the emperor of his two most powerful allies, and at the same time having secured a passage for his own troops through their territories, formed a scheme of attacking the kingdom of Naples, hoping either to overrun that country, which was left altogether without defence, or that at least such an unexpected invasion would oblige the viceroy to recall part of the Imperial army out of the Milanese; for this purpose he ordered six thousand men to march under the command of John Stuart duke of Albany. But Pescara foreseeing that the effect of this diversion would depend entirely upon the operations of the armies in the Milanese, persuaded Lannoy to disregard Albany's motions and to bend his whole force against the king himself, so that Francis not only weakened his army very unseasonably by this great detachment, but incurred the reproach of engaging too rashly in chimerical and extravagant projects.

By this time the garrison of Pavia was reduced to extremity; their ammunition and provisions began to fail; the Germans, of whom it was chiefly composed, having received no pay for seven months, threatened to deliver the town into the enemy’s hands, and could hardly be restrained from mutiny by all Leyva’s address and authority. The Imperial generals, who were no strangers to his situation, saw the necessity of marching without loss of time to his relief [1525]. This they had now in their power: twelve thousand Germans, whom the zeal and activity of Bourbon taught to move with unusual rapidity, had entered Lombardy under his command, and rendered the Imperial army nearly equal to that of the French, greatly diminished by the absence of the body under Albany, as well as by the fatigues of the siege, and the rigor of the season. But the more their troops increased in number, the more sensibly did the Imperialists feel the distress arising from want of money. Far from having funds for paying a powerful army, they had scarcely what was sufficient for defraying the charges of conducting their artillery, and of carrying their ammunition and provisions. The abilities of the generals, however, supplied every defect. By their own example, as well as by magnificent promises in name of the emperor, they prevailed on the troops o all the different nations which composed their army, to take the field without pay; they engaged to lead them directly towards the enemy; and flattered them with the certain prospect of victory, which would at once enrich them with such royal spoils as would be an ample reward for all their services. The soldiers, sensible that, by quitting the army, they would forfeit the great arrears due to them, and eager to get possession of the promised treasures, demanded a battle with all the impatience of adventurers, who fight only for plunder.

The Imperial generals, without suffering the ardor of their troops to cool, advanced immediately toward the French camp [Feb. 3]. On the first intelligence of their approach, Francis called a council of war, to deliberate what course he ought to take. All his officers of greatest experience were unanimous in advising him to retire, and to decline a battle with an enemy who courted it from despair. The Imperialists, they observed, would either be obliged in a few weeks to disband an army, which they were unable to pay, and which they kept together only by the hope of plunder; or the soldiers, enraged at the non-performance of the promises to which they had trusted, would rise in some furious mutiny which would allow their generals to think of nothing but their own safety; that, meanwhile, he might encamp in some strong post, and waiting in safety the arrival of flesh troops from France and Switzerland, might, before the end of Spring, take possession of all the Milanese, without danger or bloodshed. But in opposition to them, Bonnivet, whose destiny it was to give counsels fatal to France during the whole campaign, represented the ignominy that it would reflect on their sovereign, if he should abandon a siege which he had prosecuted so long, or turn his hack before an enemy to whom he was still superior in number; and insisted on the necessity of fighting the Imperialists rather than relinquish an undertaking, on the success of which the king’s future fame depended. Unfortunately, Francis's notions of honor were delicate to an excess that bordered on what was romantic. Having often said that he would take Pavia, or perish in the attempt, he thought himself bound not to depart from that resolution; and rather than expose himself to the slightest imputation, he chose to forego all the advantages which were the certain consequences of a retreat, and determined to wait for the Imperialists before the walls of Pavia.

The Imperial generals found the French so strongly entrenched, that notwithstanding the powerful motives which urged them on, they hesitated long before they ventured to attack them; but at last the necessities of the besieged, and the murmurs of their own soldiers, obliged them to put everything to hazard. Never did armies engage with greater ardor, or with a higher opinion of the importance of the battle which they were going to fight [Feb. 24]; never were troops more strongly animated with emulation, national antipathy, mutual resentment, and all the passions which inspire obstinate bravery. On the one hand, a gallant young monarch, seconded by a generous nobility, and followed by subjects to whose natural impetuosity, indignation at the opposition which they had encountered, added new force, contended for victory and honor. On the other side, troops more completely disciplined, and conducted by generals of greater abilities, fought from necessity, with courage heightened by despair. The Imperialists, however, were unable to resist the first efforts of the French valor, and their firmest battalions began to give way. But the fortune of the day was quickly changed. The Swiss in the service of France, unmindful of the reputation of their country for fidelity and martial glory, abandoned their post in a cowardly manner. Leyva, with his garrison, sallied out and attacked the rear of the French, during the heat of the action, with such fury as threw them into confusion; and Pescara falling on their cavalry with the Imperial horse, among whom he had prudently intermingled a considerable number of Spanish foot, armed with the heavy muskets then in use, broke this formidable body by an unusual method of attack, against which they were wholly unprovided. The rout became universal; and resistance ceased in almost every part, but where the king was in person, who fought now, not for fame or victory, but for safety. Though wounded in several places, and thrown from his horse, which was killed under him, Francis defended himself on foot with an heroic courage. Many of his bravest officers gathering round him, and endeavoring to save his life at the expense of their own, fell at his feet. Among these was Bonnivet, the author of this great calamity, who alone died unlamented. The king, exhausted with fatigue, and scarcely capable of further resistance, was left almost alone, exposed to the fury of some Spanish soldiers, strangers to his rank, and enraged at his obstinacy. At that moment came up Pomperant, a French gentleman, who had entered together with Bourbon into the emperor’s service, and placing himself by the side of the monarch against whom he had rebelled, assisted in protecting him from the violence of the soldiers; at the same time beseeching him to surrender to Bourbon, who was not far distant. Imminent as the danger was which now surrounded Francis, he rejected with indignation the thoughts of an action which would have afforded such matter of triumph to his traitorous subject; and calling for Lannoy, who happened likewise to be near at hand, gave up his sword to him, which he, kneeling to kiss the king’s hand, received with profound respect; and taking his own sword from his side, presented it to him, saying, “That it did not become so great a monarch to remain disarmed in the presence of one of the emperor’s subjects”.

Ten thousand men fell on this day, one of the most fatal France had ever seen. Among these were many noblemen of the highest distinction, who chose rather to perish than to turn their backs with dishonor. Not a few were taken prisoners, of whom the most illustrious was Henry d’Albret, the unfortunate king of Navarre. A small body of the rear­guard made its escape, under the command of the duke of Alençon; the feeble garrison of Milan, on the first news of the defeat, retired without being pursued, by another road; and in two weeks after the battle, not a Frenchman remained in Italy.

Lannoy, though he treated Francis with all the outward marks of honor due to his rank and character, guarded him with the utmost attention. He was solicitous, not only to prevent any possibility of his escaping, but afraid that his own troops might seize his person, and detain it as the best security for the payment of their arrears. In order to provide against both these dangers, he conducted Francis the day after the battle, to the strong castle of Pizzichitone near Cremona, committing him to the custody of Don Ferdinand Alarcon, general of the Spanish infantry, an officer of great bravery and of strict honor, but remarkable for that severe and scrupulous vigilance which such a trust required.

FRANCIS I, THE GOLDEN PRISONER

Francis, who formed a judgment of the emperor’s dispositions by his own, was extremely desirous that Charles should be informed of his situation, fondly hoping that, from his generosity or sympathy, he should obtain speedy relief. The Imperial generals were no less impatient to give their sovereign an early account of the decisive victory which they had gained, and to receive his instructions with regard to their future conduct. As the most certain and expeditious method of conveying intelligence to Spain, at that season of the year, was by land, Francis gave the commendador Peñalosa, who was charged with Lannoy’s dispatches, a passport to travel through France.

Charles received the account of this signal and unexpected success that had crowned his arms, with a moderation, which, if it had been real, would have done him more honor than the greatest victory. Without uttering one word expressive of exultation, or of intemperate joy, he retired immediately into his chapel [March 10], and having spent an hour in offering up his thanksgivings to Heaven, returned to the presence-chamber, which by that time was filled with grandees and foreign ambassadors, assembled in order to congratulate him. He accepted of their compliments with a modest deportment; he lamented the misfortune of the captive king, as a striking example of the sad reverse of fortune, to which the most powerful monarchs are subject; he forbade any public rejoicings, as indecent in a war carried on among Christians, reserving them until he should obtain a victory equally illustrious over the Infidels; and seemed to take pleasure in the advantage which he had gained, only as it would prove the occasion of restoring peace to Christendom.

Charles, however, had already begun to form schemes in his own mind, which little suited such external appearances. Ambition, not generosity, was the ruling passion in his mind; and the victory at Pavia opened such new and unbounded prospects of gratifying it, as allured him with irresistible force: but it being no easy matter to execute the vast designs which he meditated, he thought it necessary, while proper measures were taking for that purpose, to affect the greatest moderation, hoping under that veil to conceal his real intentions from the other princes of Europe.

Meanwhile, France was filled with consternation. The king himself had early transmitted an account of the rout of Pavia in a letter to his mother, delivered by Peñalosa, which contained only these words, “Madam, all is lost, except our honor”. The officers who made their escape, when they arrived from Italy, brought such a melancholy detail of particulars as made all ranks of men sensibly feel the greatness and extent of the calamity. France, without its sovereign, without money in her treasury, without an army, without generals to command it, and encompassed on all sides by a victorious and active enemy, seemed to be on the very brink of destruction. But on that occasion the great abilities of Louise the regent saved the kingdom, which the violence of her passions had more than once exposed to the greatest danger. Instead of giving herself up to such lamentations as were natural to a woman so remarkable for her maternal tenderness, she discovered all the foresight, and exerted all the activity of a consummate politician. She assembled the nobles at Lyons, and animated them by her example no less than by her words, with such zeal in defence of their country, as its present situation required. She collected the remains of the army which had served in Italy, ransomed the prisoners, paid the arrears, and put them in a condition to take the field. She levied new troops, provided for the security of the frontiers, and raised sums sufficient for defraying these extraordinary expenses. Her chief care, however, was to appease the resentment, or to gain the friendship of the king of England; and from that quarter, the first ray of comfort broke in upon the French.

Though Henry, in entering into alliances with Charles or Francis, seldom followed any regular or concerted plan of policy, but was influenced chiefly by the caprice of temporary passions, such occurrences often happened as recalled his attention towards that equal balance of power which it was necessary to keep between the two contending potentates, the preservation of which he always boasted to be his peculiar office. He had expected that his union with the emperor might afford him an opportunity of recovering some part of those territories in France which had belonged to his ancestors, and for the sake of such an acquisition he did not scruple to give his assistance towards raising Charles to a considerable preeminence above Francis. He had never dreamt, however, of any event so decisive and so fatal as the victory at Pavia, which seemed not only to have broken, but to have annihilated the power of one of the rivals; so that the prospect of the sudden and entire revolution which this would occasion in the political system, filled him with the most disquieting apprehensions. He saw all Europe in danger of being overrun by an ambitious prince, to whose power there now remained no counterpoise; and though he himself might at first be admitted, in quality of an ally, to some share in the spoils of the captive monarch, it was easy to discern, that with regard to the manner of making the partition, as well as his security for keeping possession of what should be allotted him, he must absolutely depend upon the will of a confederate, to whose forces his own bore no proportion. He was sensible, that if Charles were permitted to add any considerable part of France to the vast dominions of which he was already master, his neighborhood would be much more formidable to England than that of the ancient French kings; while, at the same time, the proper balance on the continent, to which England owed both its safety and importance, would be entirely lost. Concern for the situation of the unhappy monarch cooperated with these political considerations; his gallant behavior in the battle of Pavia had excited a high degree of admiration, which never fails of augmenting sympathy; and Henry, naturally susceptible of generous sentiments, was fond of appearing as the deliverer of a vanquished enemy from a state of captivity. The passions of the English minister seconded the inclinations of the monarch. Wolsey, who had not forgotten the disappointment of his hopes in two successive conclaves, which he imputed chiefly to the emperor, thought this a proper opportunity of taking revenge; and Louise, courting the friendship of England with such flattering submissions as were no less agreeable to the king than to the cardinal, Henry gave her secret assurances that he would not lend his aid towards oppressing France, its present helpless state, and obliged her to promise that she would not consent to dismember the kingdom, even in order to procure her son’s liberty.

But as Henry’s connections with the emperor made it necessary to act in such a manner as to save appearances, he ordered public rejoicings to be made in his dominions for the success of the Imperial arms; and, as it he had been eager to seize the present opportunity of ruining the French monarchy, he sent ambassadors to Madrid, to congratulate with Charles upon his victory; to put him in mind, that he, as his ally, engaged in one common cause, was entitled to partake in the fruits of it; and to require that, in compliance with the terms of their confederacy, he would invade Guienne with a powerful army, in order to give him possession of that province. At the same time, he offered to send the princess Mary into Spain or the Low-Countries, that she might be educated under the emperor’s direction, until the conclusion of the marriage agreed on between them; and in return for that mark of his confidence, he insisted that Francis should be delivered to him, in consequence of that article in the treaty of Bruges, whereby each of the contracting parties was bound to surrender all usurpers to him whose rights they had invaded. It was impossible that Henry could expect that the emperor would listen to these extravagant demands, which it was neither his interest, nor in his power to grant. They appear evidently to have been made with no other intention than to furnish him with a decent pretext for entering into such engagements with France as the juncture required.

It was among the Italian states, however, that the victory of Pavia occasioned the greatest alarm and terror. That balance of power on which they relied for their security, and which it had been the constant object of all their negotiations and refinements to maintain, was destroyed in a moment. They were exposed by their situation to feel the first effects of the uncontrolled authority which Charles had acquired. They observed many symptoms of a boundless ambition in that young prince, and were sensible that, as emperor or king of Naples, he might not only form dangerous pretensions upon each of their territories, but might invade them with great advantage. They deliberated, therefore, with great solicitude concerning the means of raising such a force as might obstruct his progress. But their consultations, conducted with little union, and executed with less vigour, had no effect. Clement, instead of pursuing the measures which he had concerted with the Venetians for securing the liberty of Italy, was so intimidated by Lannoy’s threats, or overcome by his promises, that he entered into a separate treaty [April 1], binding himself to advance a considerable sum to the emperor, in return for certain emoluments which he was to receive from him. The money was instantly paid; but Charles afterwards refused to ratify the treaty and the pope remained exposed at once to infamy and to ridicule; to the former, because he had deserted the public cause for his private interest; to the latter, because he had been a loser by that unworthy action.

How dishonorable soever the artifice might be which was employed in order to defraud the pope of this sum, it came very seasonably into the viceroy’s hands, and put it in his power to extricate himself out of an imminent danger. Soon after the defeat of the French army, the German troops, which had defended Pavia with such meritorious courage and perseverance, growing insolent upon the fame that they had acquired, and impatient of relying any longer on fruitless promises, with which they had been so often amused, rendered themselves masters of the town, with a resolution to keep possession of it as a security for the payment of their arrears; and the rest of the army discovered a much stronger inclination to assist, than to punish the mutineers. By dividing among them the money exacted from the pope, Lannoy quieted the tumultuous Germans; but though this satisfied their present demands, he had so little prospect of being able to pay them or his other forces regularly for the future, and was under such continual apprehensions of their seizing the person of the captive king, that, not long after, he was obliged to dismiss all the Germans and Italians in the Imperial service. Thus, from a circumstance that now appears very singular, but arising naturally from the constitution of most European governments in the sixteenth century, while Charles was suspected by all his neighbors of aiming at universal monarchy, and while he was really forming vast projects of this kind, his revenues were so limited, that, he could not keep on foot his victorious army, though it did not exceed twenty-four thousand men.

During these transactions Charles, whose pretensions to moderation and disinterestedness were soon forgotten, deliberated, with the utmost solicitude, how he might derive the greatest advantages from the misfortune of his adversary. Some of his counselors advised him to treat Francis with the magnanimity that became a victorious prince, and, instead of taking advantage of his situation, to impose rigorous conditions, to dismiss him on such equal terms, as would bind him forever to his interest by the ties of gratitude and affection, more forcible as well as more permanent than any which could be formed by extorted oaths and involuntary stipulations. Such an exertion of generosity is not, perhaps, to be expected, in the conduct of political affairs, and it was far too refined for that prince to whom it was proposed. The more obvious, but less splendid scheme, of endeavoring to make the utmost of Francis’s calamity, had a greater number in the council to recommend it, and suited better with the emperor’s genius. But though Charles adopted this plan, he seems not to have executed it in the most proper manner. Instead of making one great effort to penetrate into France with all the forces of Spain and the Low-Countries; instead of crushing the Italian states before they recovered from the consternation which the success of his arms had occasioned, he bad recourse to the artifices of intrigue and negotiation. This proceeded partly from necessity, partly from the natural disposition of his mind. The situation of his finances at that time rendered it extremely difficult to carry on any extraordinary armament; and he himself having never appeared at the head of his armies, the command of which he had hitherto committed to his generals, was averse to bold and martial counsels, and trusted more to the arts with which he was acquainted. He laid, besides, too much stress upon the victory of Pavia, as if by that event the strength of France had been annihilated, its resources exhausted, and the kingdom itself, no less than the person of its monarch, bad been subjected to his power.

Full of this opinion, he determined to set the highest price upon Francis’s freedom, and having ordered the count de Roeux to visit the captive king in his name, be instructed him to propose the following articles as the conditions on which he would grant him his liberty: that he should restore Burgundy to the emperor, from whose ancestors it had been unjustly wrested; that he should surrender Provence and Dauphine, that they might be erected into an independent kingdom for the constable Bourbon; that he should make full satisfaction to the king of England for all his claims, and finally renounce the pretensions of France to Naples, Milan, or any other territory in Italy. When Francis, who had hitherto flattered himself, that he should be treated by the emperor with the generosity becoming one great prince towards another, heard these rigorous conditions, he was so transported with indignation, that, drawing his dagger hastily, he cried out, “ ’Twere better that a king should die thus”. Alarcon, alarmed at his vehemence, laid hold on his hand; but though he soon recovered greater composure, he still declared, in the most solemn manner, that he would rather remain a prisoner during life, than purchase liberty by such ignominious concessions.

This mortifying discovery of the emperor’s intentions greatly augmented Francis’s chagrin and impatience under his confinement, and must have driven him to absolute despair, if he had not laid hold of the only thing which could still administer any comfort to him. He persuaded himself, that the conditions which Roeux had proposed did not flow originally from Charles himself, but were dictated by the rigorous policy of his Spanish council; and that therefore he might hope, in one personal interview with him, to do more towards hastening his own deliverance, than could be effected by long negotiations passing through the subordinate hands of his ministers. Relying on this supposition, which proceeded from too favorable an opinion of the emperor’s character, he offered to visit him in Spain, and was willing to be carried thither as a spectacle to that haughty nation. Lannoy employed all his address to confirm him in these sentiments; and concerted with him in secret the manner of executing this resolution. Francis was so eager on a scheme which seemed to open some prospect of liberty, that he furnished the galleys necessary for conveying him to Spain, Charles being at that time unable to fit out a squadron for that purpose. The viceroy, without communicating his intentions either to Bourbon or Pescara, conducted his prisoner towards Genoa, under pretence of transporting him by sea to Naples; though soon after they set sail, he ordered the pilots to steer directly for Spain; but the wind happening to carry them near the French coast, the unfortunate monarch had a full prospect of his own dominions, towards which he cast many a sorrowful and desiring look. They landed, however, in a few days at Barcelona, and soon after Francis was lodged [Aug. 24], by the emperor’s command, in the Alcazar of Madrid, under the care of the vigilant Alarcon, who guarded him with as much circumspection as ever.

THE CONSPIRACY OF MORONE

A few days after Francis’s arrival at Madrid, and when he began to be sensible of his having relied without foundation on the emperor’s generosity, Henry VIII concluded a treaty with the regent of France, which afforded him some hope of liberty from another quarter. Henry’s extravagant demands had been received at Madrid with that neglect which they deserved, and which he probably expected. Charles, intoxicated with prosperity, no longer courted him in that respectful and submissive manner which pleased his haughty temper. Wolsey, no less haughty than his master, was highly irritated at the emperor’s discontinuing his wonted caresses and professions of friendship to himself. These slight offences, added to the weighty considerations formerly mentioned, induced Henry to enter into a defensive alliance with Louise, in which all the differences between him and her son were adjusted; at the same time he engaged that he would employ his best offices in order to procure the deliverance of his new ally from a state of captivity.

While the open defection of such a powerful confederate affected Charles with deep concern, a secret conspiracy was carrying on in Italy, which threatened him with consequences still more fatal. The restless and intriguing genius of Morone, chancellor of Milan, gave rise to this. His revenge had been amply gratified by the expulsion of the French out of Italy, and his vanity no less soothed by the reestablishment of Sforza, to whose interest he had attached himself in the duchy of Milan. The delays, however, and evasions of the Imperial court, in granting Sforza the investiture of his new acquired territories, had long alarmed Morone; these were repeated so often, and with such apparent artifice, as became a full proof to his suspicious mind that the emperor intended to strip his master of that rich country which he had conquered in his name. Though Charles, in order to quiet the pope and Venetians, no less jealous of his designs than Morone, gave Sforza, at last, the investiture which had been so long desired; the charter was clogged with so many reservations, and subjected him to such grievous burdens, as rendered the duke of Milan a dependent on the emperor, rather than a vassal of the empire, and afforded him hardly any other security for his possessions than the good pleasure of an ambitious superior. Such an accession of power as would have accrued from the addition of the Milanese to the kingdom of Naples, was considered by Morone as fatal to the liberties of Italy, no less than to his own importance. Full of this idea he began to revolve in his mind the possibility of rescuing Italy from the yoke of foreigners; the darling scheme, as has been already observed, of the Italian politicians in that age, and which it was the great object of their ambition to accomplish. If to the glory of having been the chief instrument of driving the French out of Milan, he could add that of delivering Naples from the dominion of the Spaniards, he thought that nothing would be wanting to complete his fame. His fertile genius soon suggested to him a project for that purpose; a difficult, indeed, and daring one, but for that very reason more agreeable to his bold and enterprising temper.

Bourbon and Pescara were equally enraged at Lannoy’s carrying the French king into Spain without their knowledge. The former, being afraid that the two monarchs might, in his absence, conclude some treaty, in which his interests would be entirely sacrificed, hastened to Madrid, in order to guard against that danger. The latter, on whom the command of the army now devolved, was obliged to remain in Italy; but in every company, he gave vent to his indignation against the viceroy, in expressions full of rancor and contempt; he accused him, in a letter to the emperor, of cowardice in the time of danger, and of insolence after victory, towards the obtaining of which he had contributed nothing either by his valor or his conduct; nor did be abstain from bitter complaints against the emperor himself, who had not discovered, as he imagined, a sufficient sense of his merit, nor bestowed any adequate reward on his services. It was on this disgust of Pescara, that Morone founded his whole system. He knew the boundless ambition of his nature, the great extent of his abilities in peace as well as war, and the intrepidity of his mind, capable alike of undertaking and of executing the most desperate designs. The cantonment of the Spanish troops on the frontier of the Milanese gave occasion to many interviews between him and Morone, in which the latter took care frequently to turn the conversation to the transactions subsequent to the battle of Pavia, a subject upon which the marquis always entered willingly and with passion; and Morone, observing his resentment to be uniformly violent, artfully pointed out and aggravated every circumstance that could increase its fury. He painted, in the strongest colors, the emperor’s want of discernment, as well as of gratitude, in preferring Lannoy to him, and in allowing that presumptuous Fleming to dispose of the captive king, without consulting the man to whose bravery and wisdom Charles was indebted for the glory of having a formidable rival in his power. Having warned him by such discourses, he then began to insinuate, that now was the time to be avenged for these insults, and to acquire immortal renown as the deliverer of his country from the oppression of strangers; that the states of Italy, weary of the ignominious and intolerable dominion of barbarians, were at last ready to combine in order to vindicate their own independence; that their eyes were fixed on him as the only leader whose genius and good fortune could ensure the happy success of that noble enterprise; that the attempt was no less practicable than glorious, it being in his power to disperse the Spanish infantry, the only body of the emperor’s troops that remained in Italy, through the villages of the Milanese, that, in one night, they might be destroyed by the people, who, having suffered much by their exactions and insolence, would gladly undertake this service; that he might then, without opposition, take possession of the throne of Naples, the station destined for him, and a reward not unworthy the restorer of liberty to Italy; that the pope, of whom that kingdom held and whose predecessors had disposed of it on many former occasions, would willingly grant him the right of investiture; that the Venetians, the Florentines, the duke of Milan, to whom he had communicated the scheme together with the French, would be the guarantees of his right; that the Neapolitans would naturally prefer the government of one of their countrymen, whom they loved and admired, to that odious dominion of strangers, to which they had been so long subjected; and that the emperor, astonished at a blow so unexpected, would find that he had neither troops nor money to resist such a powerful confederacy.

Pescara, amazed at the boldness and extent of the scheme, listened attentively to Morone, but with the countenance of a man lost in profound and anxious thought. On the one hand, the infamy of betraying his sovereign, under whom he bore such high command, deterred him from the attempt; on the other, the prospect of obtaining a crown allured him to venture upon it. After continuing a short space in suspense, the least commendable motives, as is usual after such deliberations, prevailed, and ambition triumphed over honor. In order, however, to throw a color of decency on his conduct, he insisted that some learned casuists should give their opinion, “Whether it was lawful for a subject to take arms against his immediate sovereign, in obedience to the lord paramount of whom the kingdom itself was held?”. Such a resolution of the case as he expected was soon obtained from the divines and civilians both of home and Milan; the negotiation went forward; and measures seemed to be taking with great spirit for the speedy execution of the design.

During this interval, Pescara, either shocked at the treachery of the action that he was going to commit, or despairing of its success, began to entertain thoughts of abandoning the engagements which he had come under. The indisposition of Sforza, who happened at that time to be taken ill of a distemper which was thought mortal, confirmed his resolution, and determined him to make known the whole conspiracy to the emperor, deemed it more prudent to expect the duchy of Milan from him as the reward of this discovery, than to aim at a kingdom to be purchased by a series of crimes. This resolution, however, proved the source of actions hardly less criminal and ignominious.

The emperor, who had already received full information concerning the conspiracy from other hands, seemed to be highly pleased with Pescara’s fidelity, and commanded him to continue his intrigues for some time with the pope and Sforza, both that he might discover their intentions more fully, and that he might be able to convict them of the crime with greater certainty. Pescara, conscious of guilt, as well as sensible how suspicious his long silence must have appeared at Madrid, durst not decline that dishonorable office and was obliged to act the meanest and most disgraceful of all parts, that of seducing with a purpose to betray. Considering the abilities of the persons with whom he had to deal, the part was scarcely less difficult than base; but he acted it with such address, as to deceive even the penetrating eye of Morone, who, relying with full confidence on his sincerity, visited him at Novara, in order to put the last hand to their machinations. Pescara received him in an apartment where Antonio de Leyva was placed behind the tapestry, that he might overhear and bear witness to their conversation; as Morone was about to take leave, that officer suddenly appeared, and to his astonishment arrested him prisoner in the emperor’s name. He was conducted to the castle of Pavia; and Pescara, who had so lately been his accomplice, had now the assurance to interrogate him as his judge. At the same time, the emperor declared Sforza to have forfeited all right to the duchy of Milan, by his engaging in a conspiracy against the sovereign of whom he held; Pescara, by his command, seized on every place in the Milanese, except the castles of Cremona and Milan, which the unfortunate duke attempting to defend, were closely blockaded by the Imperial troops.

But though this unsuccessful conspiracy, instead of stripping the emperor of what he already possessed in Italy, contributed to extend his dominions in that country, it showed him the necessity of coming to some agreement with the French king, unless he chose to draw on himself a confederacy of all Europe, which the progress of his arms and his ambition, now as undisguised as it was boundless, filled with general alarm. He had not hitherto treated Francis with the generosity which that monarch expected, and hardly with the decency due to his station. Instead of displaying the sentiments becoming a great prince, Charles, by his mode of treating Francis, seems to have acted with the mercenary art of a corsair, who, by the rigorous usage of his prisoners, endeavors to draw from them a higher price for their ransom. The captive king was confined in an old castle, under a keeper whose formal austerity of manners rendered his vigilance still more disgusting. He was allowed no exercise but that of riding on a mule, surrounded with armed guards on horseback. Charles, on pretence of its being necessary to attend the Cortes assembled in Toledo, had one to reside in that city, and suffered several weeks to elapse without visiting Francis, though he solicited an interview with the most pressing and submissive importunity. So many indignities made a deep impression on a high-spirited prince; he began to lose all relish for his usual amusements: his natural gayety of temper forsook him; and after languishing for some time, he was seized with a dangerous fever, during the violence of which he complained constantly of the unexpected and unprincely rigor with which he had been treated, often exclaiming, that now the emperor would have the satisfaction of his dying a prisoner in his hands, without having once deigned to see his face. The physicians, at last, despaired of his life, and informed the emperor that they saw no hope of his recovery, unless he were gratified with regard to that point on which he seemed to be so strongly bent. Charles, solicitous to preserve a life with which all his prospects of farther advantage from the victory of Pavia must have terminated, immediately consulted his ministers concerning the course to be taken. In vain did the chancellor Gattinara, the most able among them, represent to him the indecency of his visiting Francis, if he did not intend to set him at liberty immediately upon equal terms; in vain did he point out the infamy to which he would be exposed, if avarice or ambition should prevail on him to give the captive monarch this mark of attention and sympathy, for which humanity and generosity had pleaded so long without effect. The emperor, less delicate, or less solicitous about reputation than his minister, set out for Madrid to visit his prisoner [Sept. 28]. The interview was short; Francis being too weak to bear a long conversation, Charles accosted him in terms full of affection and respect, and gave him such promises of speedy deliverance and princely treatment, as would have reflected the greatest honor upon him if they had flowed from another source. Francis grasped at them with the eagerness natural in his situation; and cheered with this gleam of hope, began to revive from that moment, recovering rapidly his wonted health.

He had soon the mortification to find, that his confidence in the emperor was not better founded than formerly. Charles returned instantly to Toledo; all negotiations were carried on by his ministers; and Francis was kept in as strict custody as ever. A new indignity, and that very galling, was added to all those he had already suffered. Bourbon arriving in Spain about this time, Charles, who had so long refused to visit the king of France, received his rebellious subject with the most studied respect [Nov. 15]. He met him without the gates of Toledo, embraced him with the greatest affection, and placing him on his left hand, conducted him to his apartment. These marks of honor to him, were so many insults to the unfortunate monarch which he felt in a very sensible manner. It afforded him some consolation, however, to observe, that the sentiments of the Spaniards differed widely from those of their sovereign. That generous people detested Bourbon’s crime. Notwithstanding his great talents and important services, they shunned all intercourse with him, to such a degree, that Charles having desired the Marquis de Villena to permit Bourbon to reside in his palace while the court remained in Toledo, he politely replied, “That he could not refuse gratifying his sovereign in that request”; but added, with a Castilian dignity of mind, that “the emperor must not be surprised if, the moment the constable departed, he should burn to the ground a house which, having been polluted by the presence of a traitor, became an unfit habitation for a man of honour”.

Charles himself, nevertheless, seemed to have it much at heart to reward Bourbon’s services in a signal manner. But as he insisted, in the first place, on the accomplishment of the emperor’s promise of giving him in marriage his sister Eleanora, queen-dowager of Portugal, the honor of which alliance had been one of his chief inducements to rebel against his lawful sovereign; as Francis, in order to prevent such a dangerous union, had offered, before he left Italy, to marry that princess; and as Eleanora herself discovered an inclination rather to match with a powerful monarch, than with his exiled subject; all these interfering circumstances created great embarrassment to Charles, and left him hardly any hope of extricating himself with decency. But the death of Pescara, who, at the age of thirty-six, left behind him the reputation of being one of the greatest generals and ablest politicians of that century, happened opportunely at this juncture [December] for his relief. By that event, the command of the army in Italy became vacant, and Charles, always fertile in resources, persuaded Bourbon, who was in no condition to dispute his will, to accept the office of general in chief there, together with a grant of the duchy of Milan forfeited by Sforza; and in return for these to relinquish all hopes of marrying the queen of Portugal.

The chief obstacle that stood in the way of Francis’s liberty was the emperor’s continuing to insist so peremptorily on the restitution of Burgundy, as a preliminary to that event. Francis often declared, that he would never consent to dismember his kingdom; and that even if he should so far forget the duties of a monarch, as to come to such a resolution, the fundamental laws of the nation would prevent its taking effect On his part he was willing to make an absolute cession to the emperor of all his pretensions in Italy and the Low-Countries; he promised to restore to Bourbon all his lands which had been confiscated; he renewed his proposal of marrying the emperor’s sister, the queen-dowager of Portugal; and engaged to pay a great sum by way of ransom for his own person. But all mutual esteem and confidence between the two monarchs were now entirely lost; there appeared, on the one hand, a rapacious ambition laboring to avail itself of every favorable circumstance; on the other, suspicion and resentment, standing perpetually on their guard; so that the prospect of bringing their negotiation to an issue seemed to be far distant. The duchess of Alençon, the French king’s sister, whom Charles permitted to visit her brother in his confinement, employed all her address, in order to procure his liberty on more reasonable terms. Henry of England interposed his good offices to the same purpose, but both with so little success, that Francis in despair took suddenly the resolution of resigning his crown, with all its rights and prerogatives, to his son the dauphin, determined rather to end his days in prison, than to purchase his freedom by concessions unworthy of a king. The deed for this purpose he signed with legal formality in Madrid, empowering his sister to carry it into France, that it might be registered in all the parliaments of the kingdom; and at the same time intimating his intention to the emperor, he desired him to name the place of his confinement, and to assign him a proper number of attendants during the remainder of his days.

This resolution of the French king had great effect, Charles began to be sensible that by pushing rigor to excess he might defeat his coin measures; and instead of the vast advantages which he hoped to draw from ransoming a powerful monarch, he might at last find in his hands a prince without dominions or revenues. About the same time, one of the king of Navarre’s domestics happened, by an extraordinary exertion of fidelity, courage, and address, to procure his master an opportunity of escaping from the prison in which he had been confined ever since the battle of Pavia. This convinced the emperor, that the most vigilant attention of his officers might be eluded by the ingenuity or boldness of Francis or his attendants, and one unlucky hour might deprive him of all the advantages which he had been so solicitous to obtain. By these considerations, he was induced to abate somewhat of his former demands. On the other hand, Francis’s impatience under confinement daily increased; and having received certain intelligence of a powerful league forming against his rival in Italy, he grew more compliant with regard to concessions, trusting that, if he could once obtain his liberty, he would soon be in a condition to resume whatever he had yielded.

Such being the views and sentiments of the two monarchs, the treaty which procured Francis his liberty was signed at Madrid on the fourteenth of January (1526), one thousand five hundred and twenty-six. The article with regard to Burgundy, which had hitherto created the greatest difficulty, was compromised, Francis engaging to restore that duchy with all it dependencies in full sovereignty to the emperor; and Charles consenting that this restitution should not be made until the king was set at liberty; in order to secure the performance of this, as well as the other conditions in the treaty, Francis agreed that at the same instant when he himself should be released, he would deliver as hostages to the emperor, his eldest son the dauphin, his second son the duke of Orleans, or in lieu of the latter, twelve of his principal nobility, to be named by Charles. The other articles swelled to a great number, and, though not of such importance, were extremely rigorous. Among these the most remarkable were, that Francis should renounce all his pretensions in Italy, that he should disclaim any title which he had to the sovereignty of Flanders and Artois; that, within six weeks after his release, he should restore to Bourbon, and his adherents, all their goods, moveable and immoveable, and make them full reparation for the damages which they had sustained by the confiscation of them; that he should use his interest with Henry d’Albret to relinquish his pretensions to the crown of Navarre, and should not for the future assist him in any attempt to recover it; that there should be established between the emperor and Francis a league of perpetual friendship and confederacy, with a promise of mutual assistance in every case of necessity; that, in corroboration of this union, Francis should marry the emperor’s sister, the queen-dowager of Portugal, that Francis should cause all the articles of this treaty to be ratified by the states, and registered in the parliaments of his kingdom; that upon the emperor’s receiving this ratification the hostages should be set at liberty; but in their place, the duke of Angouleme, the king’s third son, should be delivered to Charles, that, in order to manifest, as well as to strengthen the amity between the two monarchs, he might be educated at the Impe­rial court; and that if Francis did not, within the time limited, fulfill the stipulations in the treaty, he should promise, upon his honor and oath, to return into Spain, and to surrender himself again a prisoner to the emperor.

By this treaty, Charles flattered himself that he had not only effectually humbled his rival, but that he had taken such precautions as would forever prevent his re-attaining any formidable degree of power. The opinion, which the wisest politicians formed concerning it, was very different; they could not persuade themselves that Francis, after obtaining his liberty, would execute articles against which he had struggled so long, and to which, notwithstanding all that he felt during a long and rigorous confinement, he had consented with the utmost reluctance. Ambition and resentment, they knew, would conspire in prompting him to violate the hard conditions to which he had been constrained to submit; nor would arguments and casuistry he wanting to represent that which was so manifestly advantageous, to be necessary and just. If one part of Francis’s conduct had been known at that time, this opinion might have been founded, not in conjecture, but in certainty. A few hours before he signed the treaty, he assembled such of his counselors as were then in Madrid, and having exacted from them a solemn oath of secrecy, he made a long enumeration in their presence of the dishonorable arts, as well as unprincely rigor, which the emperor had employed in order to ensnare or intimidate him. For that reason, he took a formal protest in the hands of notaries, that his consent to the treaty should be considered as an involuntary deed, and be deemed null and void. By this disingenuous artifice, for which even the treatment that he had met with was no apology, Francis endeavored to satisfy his honor and conscience in signing the treaty, and to provide at the same time a pretext on which to break it.

Great, meanwhile, were the outward demonstrations of love and confidence between the two monarchs; they appeared often together in public; they frequently had long conferences in private; they travelled in the same litter, and joined in the same amusements. But amidst these signs of peace and friendship, the emperor still harbored suspicion in his mind. Though the ceremonies of the marriage between Francis and the queen of Portugal were performed soon after the conclusion of the treaty, Charles would not permit him to consummate it until the return of the ratification from France. Even then Francis was not allowed to be at full liberty; his guards were still continued; though caressed as a brother-in-law, he was still watched like a prisoner; and it was obvious to attentive observers, that a union, in the very beginning of which there might be discerned such symptoms of jealousy and distrust, could not be cordial, or of long continuance.

About a month after the signing of the treaty, the regent’s ratification of it was brought from France; and that wise princess, preferring, on this occasion, the public good to domestic affection, informed her son, that, instead of the twelve noblemen named in the treaty, she had sent the duke of Orleans along with his brother the dauphin to the frontier, as the kingdom could suffer nothing by the absence of a child, but must be left almost incapable of defence, if deprived of its ablest statesmen and most experienced generals, whom Charles had artfully included in his nomination. At last Francis took leave of the emperor, whose suspicion of the king’s sincerity increasing, as the time of putting it to the proof approached, he endeavored to bind him still faster by exacting new promises, which, after those he had already made, the French monarch was not slow to grant. He set out from Madrid, a place which the remembrance of many afflicting circumstances rendered peculiarly odious to him, with the joy natural on such an occasion, and began the long-wished-for journey towards his own dominions. He was escorted by a body of horse under the command of Alarcon, who, as the king drew near the frontiers of France, guarded him with more scrupulous exactness than ever. When he arrived at the river Andaye, which separates the two kingdoms, Lautrec appealed on the opposite bank with a guard of horse equal in number to Alarcon’s. An empty bark was moored in the middle of the stream; the attendants drew up in order on the opposite banks; at the same instant, Lannoy with eight gentlemen put off from the Spanish, and Lautrec with the same number from the French side of the river; the former had the king in his boat; the latter, the dauphin and duke of Orleans; they met in the empty vessel; the exchange was made in a moment: Francis, after a short embrace of his children, leaped into Lautrec’s boat, and reached the French shore. He mounted at that instant a Turkish horse, waved his hand over his head, and with a joyful voice crying aloud several times, “I am yet a king”, galloped full speed to St. John de Luz, and from thence to Bayonne. This event, no less impatiently desired by the French nation than by their monarch, happened on the eighteenth of March, a year and twenty-two days after the fatal battle of Pavia.

THE PEASANTS’ WAR

Soon after the emperor had taken leave of Francis, and permitted him to begin his journey towards his own dominions, he set out for Seville, in order to solemnize his marriage with Isabella, the daughter of Emanuel, the late king of Portugal, and the sister of John III, who had succeeded him in the throne of that kingdom. Isabella was a princess of uncommon beauty and accomplishments; and as the Cortes, both in Castile and Aragon, had warmly solicited their sovereign to marry, the choice of a wife, so nearly allied to the royal blood of both kingdoms, was extremely acceptable to his subjects. The Portuguese, fond of this new connection with the first monarch in Christendom, granted him an extraordinary dowry with Isabella, amounting to nine hundred thousand crowns, a sum which, from the situation of his affairs at this juncture, was of no small consequence to the emperor. The marriage was celebrated [March 12] with that splendor and gayety which became a great and youthful prince. Charles lived with Isabella in perfect harmony, and treated her on all occasions with much distinction and regard.

During these transactions, Charles could hardly give any attention to the affairs of Germany, though it was torn in pieces by commotions, which threatened the most dangerous consequences. By the feudal institutions, which still subsisted almost unimpaired in the empire, the property of lands was vested in the princes and free barons. Their vassals held of them by the strictest and most limited tenures; while the great body of the people was kept in a state but little removed from absolute servitude. In some places of Germany, people of the lowest class were so entirely in the power of their masters, as to be subject to personal and domestic slavery, the most rigorous form of that wretched state. In other provinces, particularly in Bohemia and Lusatia, the peasants were bound to remain on the lands to which they belonged, and making part of the state, were transferred like any other property from one hand to another. Even in Swabia, and the countries on the banks of the Rhine, where their condition was most tolerable, the peasants not only paid the full rent of their farms to the landlord, but if they chose either to change the place of their abode, or to follow a new profession, before they could accomplish what they desired, they were obliged to purchase this privilege at a certain price. Besides this, all grants of lands to peasants expired at their death, without descending to their posterity. Upon that event, the landlord had a right to the best of their cattle, as well as of their furniture; and their heirs, in order to obtain a renewal of the grant, were obliged to pay large sums by way of fine. These exactions, though grievous, were borne with patience, because they were customary and ancient: but when the progress of elegance and luxury, as well as the changes introduced into the art of war, came to increase the expense of government, and made it necessary for princes to levy occasional or stated taxes on their subjects, such impositions being new, appeared intolerable; and in Germany, these duties being laid chiefly upon beer, wine, and other necessaries of life, affected the common people in the most sensible manner. The addition of such a load to their former burdens, drove them to despair. It was to the valor inspired by resentment against impositions of this kind that the Swiss owed the acquisition of their liberty in the fourteenth century. The same cause had excited the peasants in several other provinces of Germany to rebel against their superiors towards the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries; and though these insurrections were not attended with like success, they could not, however, be quelled without much difficulty and bloodshed.

By these checks, the spirit of the peasants was overawed rather than subdued; and their grievances multiplying continually, they ran to arms, in the year one thousand five hundred and twenty-six, with the most frantic rage. Their first appearance was near Ulm in Swabia. The peasants in the adjacent country flocked to their standard with the ardor and impatience natural to men, who having groaned long under oppression, beheld at last some prospect of deliverance; and the contagion spreading from province to province, reached almost every part of Germany. Wherever they came, they plundered the monasteries; wasted the lands of their superiors; razed their castles, and massacred without mercy all persons of noble birth, who were so unhappy as to fall into their hands. Having intimidated their oppressors, as they imagined, by the violence of these proceedings, they began to consider what would be the most proper and effectual method of securing themselves for the future from their tyrannical exactions. With this view, they drew up and published a memorial, containing all their demands, and declared, that while arms were in their hands, they would either persuade or oblige the nobles to give them full satisfaction with regard to these. The chief articles were, that they might have liberty to choose their own pastors; that they might be freed from the payment of all tithes except those of corn; that they might no longer be considered as the slaves or bondmen of their superiors; that the liberty of hunting and fishing might be common; that the great forests might not be regarded as private property, but be open for the use of all; that they might be delivered from the unusual burden of taxes under which they labored; that the administration of justice might be rendered less rigorous and more impartial; that time encroachments of the nobles upon meadows and commons might be restrained.

Many of these demands were extremely reasonable; and being urged by such formidable numbers, should have met with some redress. But those unwieldy bodies, assembled in different places, had neither union, nor conduct, nor vigor. Being led by persons of the lowest rank, without skill in war, or knowledge of what was necessary for accomplishing their designs; all their exploits were distinguished only by a brutal and unmeaning fury. To oppose this, the princes and nobles of Swabia and the Lower Rhine raised such of their vassals as still continued faithful, and attacking some of the mutineers with open force, and others by surprise, cut to pieces or dispersed all who infested those provinces; so that the peasants, after ruining the open country, and losing upwards of twenty thousand of their associates in the field, were obliged to return to their habitations with less hope than ever of relief from their grievances.

These commotion happened at first in provinces of Germany where Luther’s opinions had made little progress; and being excited wholly by political causes, had no connection with the disputed points in religion. But the phrenzy reaching at last those countries in which the reformation was established, derived new strength from circumstances peculiar to them, and rose to a still greater pitch of extravagance. The reformation, wherever it was received, increased that bold and innovating spirit to which it owed its birth. Men who had the courage to overturn a system supported by everything which can command respect or reverence, were not to be overawed by any authority, how great or venerable soever. After having been accustomed to consider themselves as judges of the most important doctrines in religion, to examine these freely, and to reject, without scruple, what appeared to them erroneous, it was natural for them to turn the same daring and inquisitive eye towards government, and to think of reciting whatever disorders or imperfections were discovered there. As religious abuses had been reformed in several places without the permission of the magistrate, it was an easy transition to attempt the redress of political grievances in the same manner.

No sooner, then, did the spirit of revolt break out in Thuringia, a province subject to the elector of Saxony, the inhabitants of which were mostly converts to Lutheranism, than it assumed a new and more dangerous form. Thomas Muntzer, one of Luther’s disciples, having established himself in that country, had acquired a wonderful ascendant over the minds of the people. He propagated among them the wildest and most enthusiastic notions, but such as tended manifestly to inspire them with boldness, and lead them to sedition. “Luther”, he told them, “had done more hurt than service to religion. He had, indeed, rescued the church from the yoke of popery, but his doctrines encouraged, and his life set an example of, the utmost licentiousness of manners. In order to avoid vice, (says he) men must practice perpetual mortification. They must put on a grave countenance, speak little, wear a plain garb, and be serious in their whole deportment. Such as prepare their hearts in this manner, may expect that the Supreme Being will direct all their steps, and by some visible sign discover his will to them; if that illumination be at any time withheld, we may expostulate with the Almighty, who deals with us so harshly, and remind him of his promises. This expostulation and anger will be highly acceptable to God, and will at last prevail on him to guide us with the same unerring hand which conducted the patriarchs of old. Let us beware, however, of offending him by our arrogance; but as all men are equal in his eye, let them return to that condition of equality in which he formed them, and having all things in common, let them live together like brethren, without any marks of subordination or preeminence”.

Extravagant as these tenets were, they flattered so many passions in the human heart, as to make a deep impression. To aim at nothing more than abridging the power of the nobility, was now considered as a trifling and partial reformation, not worth the contending for; it was proposed to level every distinction among mankind, and by abolishing property to reduce them to their natural state of equality, in which all should receive their subsistence from one common stock. Muntzer assured them, that the design was approved of by Heaven, and that the Almighty had in a dream ascertained him of its success. The peasants set about the execution of it, not only with the rage which animated those of their order in other parts of Germany, but with the ardor which enthusiasm inspires. They deposed the magistrates in all the cities of which they were masters; seized the lands of the nobles, and obliged such of them as they got into their hands to put on the dress commonly worn by peasants, and instead of their former titles, to be satisfied with the appellation given to people in the lowest class of life. Great numbers engaged in this wild undertaking; but Muntzer, their leader and their prophet, was destitute of the abilities necessary for conducting it. He had all the extravagance, but not the courage, which enthusiasts usually possess. It was with difficulty he could be persuaded to take the field; and though he soon drew together eight thousand men, he suffered himself to be surrounded by a body of cavalry, under the command of the elector of Saxony, the landgrave of Hesse, and duke of Brunswick. These princes, unwilling to shed the blood of their deluded subjects, sent a young nobleman to their camp, with the offer of a general pardon, if they would immediately lay down their arms, and deliver up the authors of the sedition. Muntzer, alarmed at this, began to harangue his followers with his usual vehemence, exhorting them not to trust these deceitful promises of their oppressors, nor to desert the cause of God, and of Christian liberty.

But the sense of present danger making a deeper impression on the peasants than his eloquence, confusion and terror were visible in every face, when a rainbow, which was the emblem that the mutineers had painted on their colors, happening to appear in the clouds, Muntzer, with admirable presence of mind, laid hold of that incident, and suddenly raising. his eyes and hands towards Heaven, “Behold”, cries he, with an elevated voice, “the sign which God has given. There is the pledge of your safety, and a token that the wicked shall be destroyed”. The fanatical multitude set up instantly a great shout, as if victory had been certain; and passing in a moment from one extreme to another, massacred the unfortunate noble­man who had come with the offer of pardon, and demanded to be led towards the enemy. The princes, enraged at this shocking violation of the laws of war, advanced with no less impetuosity, and began the attack [May 15]; but the behavior of the peasants in the combat was not such as might have been expected either from their ferocity or confidence of success; an undisciplined rabble was no equal match for well-trained troops; above five thousand were slain in the field, almost without making resistance; the rest fled, and among the foremost Muntzer their general. He was taken next day, and being condemned to such punishments as his crimes had deserved, he suffered them with a poor and dastardly spirit. His death put an end to the insurrections of the peasants, which had filled Germany with such terror; but the enthusiastic notions which he had scattered were not extirpated, and produced, not long after, effects more memorable, as well as more extravagant.

During these commotions, Luther acted with exemplary prudence and moderation; like a common parent, solicitous about the welfare of both parties, without sparing the faults or errors of either. On the one hand, he addressed a monitory discourse to the nobles, exhorting them to treat their dependents with greater humanity and indulgence. On the other, he severely censured the seditious spirit of the peasants, advising them not to murmur at hardships inseparable from their condition, nor to seek for redress by any but legal means.

Luther’s famous marriage with Catharine a Boria, a nun of a noble family, who, having thrown off the veil, had fled from the cloister, happened this year, and was far from meeting with the same approbation. Even his most devoted followers thought this step indecent, at a time when his country was involved in so many calamities; while his enemies never mentioned it with any softer appellation than that of incestuous or profane. Luther himself was sensible of the impression which it had made to his disadvantage; but being satisfied with his own conduct, he bore the censure of his friends, and the reproaches of his adversaries, with his usual fortitude.

This year the reformation lost its first protector, Frederic, elector of Saxony; but the blow was the less sensibly felt, as he was succeeded by his brother John [May 5], a more avowed and zealous, though less able patron of Luther and his doctrines.

THE TEUTONIC ROOTS OF PRUSSIA

Another event happened about the same time, which, as it occasioned a considerable change in the state of Germany, must be traced back to its source. While the frenzy of the Crusades possessed all Europe during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, several orders of religious knighthood were founded in defence of the Christian faith against heathens and infidels. Among these the Teutonic order in Germany was one of the most illustrious, the knights of which distinguished themselves greatly in all the enterprises carried on in the Holy Land. Being driven at last from their settlements in the east, they were obliged to return to their native country. Their zeal and valor were too impetuous to remain long inactive. They invaded, on very slight pretences, the province of Prussia, the inhabitants of which were still idolaters; and having completed the conquest of it about the middle of the thirteenth century, held it many years as a fief depending on the crown of Poland. Fierce contests arose during this period, between the grand masters of the order and the kings of Poland; the former struggling for independence, while the latter asserted their right of sovereignty with great firmness. Albert, a prince of the house of Brandenburg, who was elected grand master in the year one thousand five hundred and eleven, engaging keenly in this quarrel, maintained a long war with Sigismund king of Poland; but having become an early convert to Luther’s doctrines, this gradually lessened his zeal for the interests of his fraternity, so that he took the opportunity of the confusions in the empire, and the absence of the emperor, to conclude a treaty with Sigismund, greatly to his own private emolument. By it, that part of Prussia which belonged to the Teutonic order, was erected into a secular and hereditary duchy, and the investiture of it granted to Albert, who, in return, bound himself to do homage for it to the kings of Poland as their vassal. Immediately after this he made public profession of the reformed religion, and married a princess of Denmark. The Teutonic knights exclaimed so loudly against the treachery of their grand master, that he was put under the ban of the empire; but he still kept possession of the province which he had usurped, and transmitted it to his posterity. In process of time, this rich inheritance fell to the electoral branch of the family, all dependence on the crown of Poland was shaken off, and the margraves of Brandenburg, having assumed the title of kings of Prussia, have not only risen to an equality with the first princes in Germany, but take their rank among the great monarchs of Europe.

Upon the return of the French king to his dominions, the eyes of all the powers in Europe were fixed upon him, that, by observing his first motions, they might form a judgment concerning his subsequent conduct. They were not held long in suspense. Francis, as soon as he arrived at Bayonne, wrote to the king of England, thanking him for the zeal and affection wherewith he had interposed in his favor, to which be acknowledged that he owed the recovery of his liberty. Next day the emperor’s ambassadors demanded audience, and, in their master’s name, required him to issue such orders as were necessary for carrying the treaty of Madrid into immediate and full execution; he coldly answered, that though, for his own part, he determined religiously to perform all that he had promised, the treaty contained so many articles relative not to himself alone, but affecting the interests of the French monarchy, that he could not take any further step without consulting the states of his kingdom, and that some time would be necessary, in order to reconcile their minds to the hard conditions which he had consented to ratify. This reply was considered as no obscure discovery of his being resolved to elude the treaty; and the compliment paid to Henry appeared a very proper step towards securing the assistance of that monarch in the war with the emperor, to which such a resolution would certainly give rise. These circumstances, added to the explicit declarations which Francis made in secret to the ambassadors from several of the Italian powers, fully satisfied them that their conjectures with regard to his conduct had been just, and that, instead of intending to execute an unreasonable treaty, he was eager to seize the first opportunity of revenging those injuries which had compelled him to feign an approbation of it. Even the doubts, and fears, and scruples, which used, on other occasions, to hold Clement in a state of uncertainty, were dissipated by Francis’s seeming, impatience to break through all his engagements with the emperor. The situation, indeed, of affairs in Italy at that time, did not allow the pope to hesitate long. Sforza was still besieged by the Imperialists in the castle of Milan. That feeble prince, deprived now of Morone’s advice, and unprovided with everything necessary for defence, found means to inform Clement and the Venetians, that he must soon surrender if they did not come to his relief. The Imperial troops, as they had received no pay since the battle of Pavia, lived at discretion in the Milanese, levying such exorbitant contributions in that duchy, as amounted, if we may rely on Guicciardini’s calculation, to no less a sum than five thousand ducats a-day; nor was it to be doubted but that the soldiers, as soon as the castle should submit, would choose to leave a ruined country which hardly afforded them subsistence, that they might take possession of more comfortable quarters in the fertile and untouched territories of the pope and Venetians. The assistance of the French king was the only thing which could either save Sforza, or enable them to protect their own dominions from the insults of the Imperial troops.

For these reasons, the pope, the Venetians, and duke of Milan, were equally impatient to come to an agreement with Francis, who, on his part, was no less desirous of acquiring such a considerable accession both of strength and reputation as such a confederacy would bring along with it. The chief objects of this alliance, which was concluded at Cognac on the twenty-second of May, though kept secret for some time, were to oblige the emperor to set at liberty the French king’s sons, upon payment of a reasonable ransom; to reestablish Sforza in the quiet possession of the Milanese. If Charles should refuse either of these, the contracting parties bound themselves to bring into the field an army of thirty-five thousand men, with which, after driving the Spaniards out of the Milanese, they would attack the kingdom of Naples. The king of England was declared protector of this league, which they dignified with the name of Holy, because the pope was at the head of it; and in order to allure Henry more effectually, a principality in the kingdom of Naples, of thirty thousand ducats yearly revenue, was to be settled on him; and lands to the value of ten thousand ducats on Wolsey his favorite.

No sooner was this league concluded, than Clement, by the plenitude of his papal power, absolved Francis from the oath which he bad taken to observe the treaty of Madrid. This right, how pernicious soever in its effects, and destructive of that integrity which is the basis of all transactions among men, was the natural consequences of the powers which the popes arrogated as the infallible vicegerents of Christ upon earth. But as, in virtue of this pretended prerogative, they had often dispensed with obligations which were held sacred, the interest of some men, and the credulity of others, led them to imagine, that the decisions of a sovereign pontiff authorized or justified actions which would, otherwise, have been criminal and impious.

The discovery of Francis’s intention to elude the treaty of Madrid, filled the emperor with a variety of disquieting thoughts. He had treated an unfortunate prince in the most ungenerous manner; he had displayed an insatiable ambition in all his negotiations with his prisoner; he knew what censures the former had drawn upon him, and what apprehensions the latter had excited in every court of Europe; nor had he reaped from the measures which he pursued, any of those advantages which politicians are apt to consider as an excuse for the most criminal conduct, and a compensation for the severest reproaches. Francis was now out of his hands, and not one of all the mighty consequences, which he had expected from the treaty that set him at liberty, was likely to take place. His rashness in relying so far on his own judgment as to trust to the sincerity of the French king, in opposition to the sentiments of his wisest ministers, was now apparent; and he easily conjectured, that the same confederacy, the dread of which had induced him to set Francis at liberty, would now be formed against him with that gallant and incensed monarch at its head. Self-condemnation and shame, on account of what was past, with anxious apprehensions concerning what might happen, were the necessary result of these reflections on his own conduct and situation. Charles, however, was naturally firm and inflexible in all his measures. To have receded suddenly from any article in the treaty of Madrid, would have been a plain confession of imprudence, and a palpable symptom of fear; he determined, therefore, that it was most suitable to his dignity, to insist, whatever might be the consequences, on the strict execution of the treaty, and particularly not to accept of anything which might be offered as an equivalent for the restitution of Burgundy.

In consequence of this resolution, he appointed Lannoy and Alarcon to repair, as his ambassadors, to the court of France, and formally to summon the king, either to execute the treaty with the sincerity that became him, or to return according to his oath, a prisoner to Madrid. Instead of giving them an immediate answer, Francis admitted the deputies of the states of Burgundy to an audience in their presence. They humbly represented to him, that he had exceeded the powers vested in a king of France, when he consented to alienate their country from the crown, the domains of which he was bound by his coronation oath to preserve entire and un impaired. Francis, in return, thanked them for their attachment to his crown, and entreated them, though very faintly, to remember the obligations which he lay under to fulfill his engagements with the emperor. The deputies, assuming a higher tone, declared, that they would not obey commands which they considered as illegal; and, if he should abandon them to the enemies of France, they had resolved to defend themselves to the best of their power, with a firm purpose rather to perish than submit to a foreign dominion. Upon which Francis, turning towards the Imperial ambassadors, represented to them the impossibility of performing what he had undertaken, and offered, in lieu of Burgundy, to pay the emperor two millions of crowns. The viceroy and Alarcon, who easily perceived, that the scene to which they had been witnesses, was concerted between the king and his subjects in order to impose upon them, signified to him their master’s fixed resolution not to depart in the smallest point from the terms of the treaty, and withdrew. Before they left the kingdom, they had the mortification to hear the holy league against the emperor published with great solemnity [June 11].

THE SACK OF ROME

Charles no sooner received an account of this confederacy than he exclaimed, in the most public manner, and in the harshest terms, against Francis, as a prince void of faith and of honor. He complained no less of Clement, whom he solicited in vain to abandon his new allies; he accused him of ingratitude; he taxed him with an ambition unbecoming his character; he threatened him not only with all the vengeance which the power of an emperor can inflict, but, by appealing to a general council, called up before his eyes all the terrors arising from the authority of those assemblies so formidable to the papal see. It was necessary, however, to oppose something else than reproaches and threats to the powerful combination formed against him; and the emperor, prompted by so many passions, did not fail to exert himself with unusual vigor, in order to send supplies, not only of men, but of money, which were still more needed, into Italy.

On the other hand, the efforts of the confederates bore no proportion to that animosity against the emperor, with which they seemed to enter into the holy league. Francis, it was thought, would have infused spirit and vigor into the whole body. He had his lost honor to repair, many injuries to revenge, and the station among the princes of Europe, from which he had fallen, to recover. From all these powerful incitements, added to the natural impetuosity of his temper, a war more fierce and bloody than any that he had hitherto made upon his rival, was expected. But Francis had gone through such a scene of distress, and the impression it had made was still so fresh in his memory, that he was become diffident of himself, distrustful of fortune, and desirous of tranquility. To procure the release of his sons, and to avoid the restitution of Burgundy by paying some reasonable equivalent, were his chief objects; and for the sake of these, he would willingly have sacrificed Sforza, and the liberties of Italy, to the emperor. He flattered himself, that the dread of the confederacy which he had formed would of itself induce Charles to listen to what was equitable; and was afraid of employing any considerable force for the relief of the Milanese, lest his allies, whom he had often found to be more attentive to their own interest than punctual in fulfilling their engagements, should abandon him as soon as the Imperialists were driven out of that country, and deprive his negotiations with the emperor of that weight, which they derived from his being at the head of a powerful league. In the meantime the castle of Milan was pressed more closely than ever, and Sforza was now reduced to the last extremity. The pope and Venetians, trusting to Francis’s concurrence, commanded their troops to take the field, in order to relieve him; and an army more than sufficient for that service was soon formed. The Milanese, passionately attached to their unfortunate duke, and no less exasperated against the Imperialists, who had oppressed them so cruelly, were ready to aid the confederates in all their enterprises. But the duke d’Urbino, their general, naturally slow and indecisive, and restrained, besides, by his ancient enmity to the family of Medici, from taking any step that might aggrandize or add reputation to the pope, lost some opportunities of attacking the Imperialists and raising the siege, and refused to improve others. These delays gave Bourbon time to bring up a reinforcement of fresh troops and a supply of money. He immediately took the command of the army [July 24], and pushed on the siege with such vigour, as quickly obliged Sforza to surrender, who retiring to Lodi, which the confederates had surprised, left Bourbon in full possession of the rest of the duchy, the investiture of which the emperor had promised to grant him.

The Italians began now to perceive the game which Francis had played, and to be sensible that, notwithstanding all their address and refinements in negotiation, which they boasted of as talents peculiarly their own, they had for once been over-reached in those very arts by a tramontane prince. He had hitherto thrown almost the whole burden of the war upon them, taking advantage of their efforts, in order to enforce the proposals which he often renewed at the court of Madrid for obtaining the liberty of his sons. The pope and Venetians expostulated and complained; but as they were not able to rouse Francis from his inactivity, their own zeal and vigor gradually abated, and Clement, having already gone farther than his timidity usually permitted him, began to accuse himself of rashness, and to relapse into his natural state of doubt and uncertainty.

All the emperor’s motions depending on himself alone, were more brisk and better concerted. The narrowness of his revenues, indeed, did not allow him to make any sudden or great effort in the field, but he abundantly supplied that defect by his intrigues and negotiations. The family of Colonna, the most powerful of all the Roman barons, had adhered uniformly to the Ghibelline or Imperial faction, during those fierce contentions between the popes and emperors, which, for several ages, filled Italy and Germany with discord and bloodshed. Though the causes which at first gave birth to these destructive factions existed no longer, and the rage with which they had been animated was in a great measure spent, the Colonnas still retained their attachment to the Imperial interest, and by placing themselves under the protection of the emperors, secured the quiet possession of their own territories and privileges. The cardinal Pompeo Colonna, a man of a turbulent and ambitious temper, at that time the head of the family, had long been Clement’s rival, to whose influence in the last conclave he imputed the disappointment of all his schemes for attaining the papal dignity, of which, from his known connection with the emperor, he thought himself secure. To an aspiring mind, this was an injury too great to be forgiven; and though he had dissembled his resentment so far as to vote for Clement at his election, and to accept of great offices in his court, he waited with the utmost impatience for an opportunity of being revenged. Don Hugo de Moncada, the imperial ambassador at Rome, who was no stranger to these sentiments, easily persuaded him, that now was the time, while all the papal troops were employed in Lombardy, to attempt something, which would at once revenge his own wrongs, and be of essential service to the emperor his patron. The pope, however, whose timidity rendered him quick-sighted, was so attentive to the operations, and began to be alarmed so early, that he might have drawn together troops sufficient to have disconcerted all Colonna’s measures. But Moncada amused him so artfully with negotiations, promises, and false intelligence, that he lulled asleep all his suspicions, and prevented his taking any of the precautions necessary for his safety; and to the disgrace of a prince possessed of great power, as well as renowned for political wisdom, Colonna at the head of three thousand men, seized one of the gates of his capital, while he, imagining himself to be in perfect security, was altogether unprepared for resisting such a feeble enemy. The inhabitants of Rome permitted Colonna’s troops, from whom they apprehended no injury, to advance without opposition [Sept. 29]; the pope’s guards were dispersed in a moment; and Clement himself, terrified at the danger, ashamed of his own credulity, and deserted by almost every person, fled with precipitation into the castle of St. Angelo, which was immediately invested. The palace of the Vatican, the church of St. Peter, and the houses of the pope’s ministers and servants, were plundered in the most licentious manner; the rest of the city was left unmolested. Clement, destitute of everything necessary either for subsistence or defence, was soon obliged to demand a capitulation; and Moncada, being admitted into the castle, prescribed to him, with all the haughtiness of a conqueror, conditions which it was not in his power to reject. The chief of these was, that Clement should not only grant a full pardon to the Colonnas, but receive them into favor, and immediately withdraw all the troops in his pay from the army of the confederates in Lombardy.

The Colonnas, who talked of nothing less than of deposing Clement, and of placing Pompeo, their kinsman, in the vacant chair of St. Peter, exclaimed loudly against a treaty which left them at the mercy of a pontiff justly incensed against them. But Moncada, attentive only to his master’s interest, paid little regard to their complaints, and, by this fortunate measure, broke entirely the power of the confederates.

While the army of the confederates suffered such a considerable diminution, the Imperialists received two great reinforcements; one from Spain, under the command of Lannoy and Alarcon, which amounted to six thousand men; the other was raised in the empire by George Fronsperg, a German nobleman, who having served in Italy with great reputation, had acquired such influence and popularity, that multitudes of his countrymen, fond on every occasion of engaging in military enterprises, and impatient at that juncture to escape from the oppression which they felt in religious as well as civil matters, crowded to his standard; so that, without any other gratuity than the payment of a crown to each man, fourteen thousand enlisted in his service. To these the archduke Ferdinand added two thousand horse, levied in the Austrian dominions. But although the emperor had raised troops, he could not remit the sums necessary for their support. His ordinary revenues were exhausted; the credit of princes, during the infancy of commerce, was not extensive; and the Cortes of Castile, though every art had been tried to gain them, and some innovations had been made in the constitution, in order to secure their concurrence, peremptorily refused to grant Charles any extraordinary supply; so that the more his army increased in number, the more were his generals embarrassed and distressed. Bourbon, in particular, was involved in such difficulties, that he stood in need of all his address and courage in order to extricate himself. Large sums were due to the Spanish troops already in the Milanese, when Fronsperg arrived with sixteen thousand hungry Germans, destitute of everything. Both made their demands with equal fierceness; the former claiming their arrears, and the latter the pay which had been pro­mised them on their entering Lombardy. Bourbon was altogether inca­pable of giving satisfaction to either. In this situation, he was constrained to commit acts of violence extremely shocking to his own nature, which was generous and humane. He seized the principal citizens of Milan, and by threats, and even by torture, forced from them a considerable sum; he rifled the churches of all their plate and ornaments; the inadequate supply which these afforded, he distributed among the soldiers, with so many soothing expressions of his sympathy and affection, that, though it fell far short of the sums due to them, it appeased their present murmurs.

Among other expedients for raising money, Bourbon granted his life and liberty to Morone, who having been kept in prison since his intrigue with Pescara, had been condemned to die by the Spanish judges empowered to try him. For this remission he paid twenty thousand ducats; and such were his singular talents, and the wonderful ascendant which he always acquired over the minds of those to whom he had access, that in a few days from being Bourbon’s prisoner, he became his prime confident, with whom he consulted in all affairs of importance. To his insinuations must be imputed the suspicions which Bourbon began to entertain, that the emperor had never intended to grant him the investiture of Milan, but had appointed Leyva, and the other Spanish generals, rather to be spies on his conduct, than to cooperate heartily towards the execution of his schemes. To him likewise, as he still retained, at the age of four­score, all the enterprising spirit of youth, may be attributed the bold and unexpected measure on which Bourbon soon after ventured.

Such, indeed, were the exigencies of the Imperial troops in the Milanese, that it became indispensably necessary to take some immediate step for their relief. The arrears of the soldiers increased daily; the emperor made no remittances to his generals; and the utmost rigor of military extortion could draw nothing more from a country entirely drained and ruined. In this situation there was no choice left, but either to disband the army, or to march for subsistence into the enemy’s country. The territories of the Venetians lay nearest at hand; but they, with their usual foresight and prudence, had taken such precautions as secured them from any insult. Nothing, therefore, remained but to invade the dominions of the church, or of the Florentines; and Clement had of late acted such a part as merited the severest vengeance from the emperor. No sooner did the papal troops return to Rome, after the insurrection of the Colonnas, than, without paying any regard to the treaty with Moncada, he degraded the cardinal Colonna, excommunicated the rest of the family, seized their places of strength, and wasted their lands with all the cruelty which the smart of a recent injury naturally excites. After this, he turned his arms against Naples, and, as his operations were seconded by the French fleet, he made some progress towards the conquest of that kingdom; the viceroy being no less destitute than the other Imperial generals of the money requisite for a vigorous defence.

These proceedings of the pope justified, in appearance, the measures which Bourbon’s situation rendered necessary; and he set about executing them under such disadvantages, as furnished the strongest proof both of the despair to which he was reduced, and of the greatness of his abilities which were able to surmount so many obstacles. Having committed the government of Milan to Leyva, whom he was not unwilling to leave behind, he began his march in the depth of winter [Jan. 30, 1527], at the head of twenty-five thousand men, composed of nations differing from each other in language and manners; without money, without magazines, without artillery, without carriages; in short, without any of those things which are necessary to the smallest party, and which seem essential to the existence and motions of a great army. His route lay through a country cut by rivers and mountains, in which the roads were almost impracticable; as an addition to his difficulties, the enemy’s army, superior to his own in number, was at hand to watch all his motions, and to improve every advantage. But his troops, impatient of their present hardships, and allured by the hopes of immense booty, without considering how ill provided they were for a march, followed him with great cheerfulness. His first scheme was to have made himself master of Placentia, and to have gratified his soldiers with the plunder of that city; but the vigilance of the confederate generals rendered the design abortive; nor had he better success in his project for the reduction of Bologna, which was seasonably supplied with as many troops as secured it from the insults of an army which had neither artillery nor ammunition. Having failed in both these attempts to become master of some great city, he was under a necessity of advancing. But he had now been two months in the field; his troops had suffered every calamity that a long march, together with the uncommon rigor of the season, could bring upon men destitute of all necessary accommodations in an enemy's country; the magnificent promises to which they trusted, had hitherto proved altogether vain; they saw no prospect of relief; their patience tried to the utmost, failed at last, and they broke out into open mutiny. Some officers, who rashly attempted to restrain them, fell victims to their fury; Bourbon himself, not daring to appear during the first transports of their rage, was obliged to fly secretly from his quarters. But this sudden ebullition of wrath began at last to subside; when Bourbon, who possessed in a wonderful degree the art of governing the minds of soldiers, renewed his promises with more confidence than formerly, and assured them that they would be soon accomplished. He endeavored to render their hardships more tolerable, by partaking of them himself; he fared no better than the meanest sentinel; he marched along with them on foot; he joined them in singing their camp ballads, in which, with high praises of his valor, they mingled many strokes of military raillery on his poverty; and wherever they came, he allowed them, as a foretaste of what he had promised, to plunder the adjacent villages at discretion. Encouraged by all these soothing arts, they entirely forgot their sufferings and complaints, and followed him with the same implicit confidence as formerly.

Bourbon, meanwhile, carefully concealed his intentions. Rome and Florence, not knowing on which the blow would fall, were held in the most disquieting state of suspense. Clement, equally solicitous for the safety of both, fluctuated in more than his usual uncertainty; and while the rapid approach of danger called for prompt and decisive measures, he spent the time in deliberations which came to no issue, or in taking resolutions, which, next day, his restless mind, more sagacious in discerning than in obviating difficulties, overturned, without being able to fix on what should be substituted in their place. At one time he determined to unite himself more closely than ever with his allies, and to push on the war with vigor; at another, he inclined to bring all differences to a final accommodation by a treaty with Lannoy, who, knowing his passion for negotiation, solicited him incessantly with proposals for that purpose. His timidity at length prevailed, and led him to conclude an agreement with Lannoy [March 15], of which the following were the chief articles: That a suspension of arms should take place between the Pontifical and Imperial troops for eight months; That Clement should advance sixty thousand crowns towards satisfying the demands of the Imperial army; That the Colonnas should be absolved from censure, and their former dignities and possessions be restored to them; That the viceroy should come to Rome, and prevent Bourbon from approaching nearer to that city, or to Florence. On this hasty treaty, which deprived him of all hopes of assistance from his allies, without affording him any solid foundation of security, Clement relied so firmly, that, like a man extricated at once out of all difficulties, he was at perfect case, and in the fullness of his confidence disbanded all his troops, except as many as were sufficient to guard his own person. This amazing confidence of Clement’s, who on every other occasion was fearful and suspicious to excess, appeared so unaccountable to Guicciardini, who, being at that time the pontifical commissary-general and resident in the confederate army, had great opportunities as well as great abilities, for observing how chimerical all his hopes were, that he imputes the pope’s conduct, at this juncture, wholly to infatuation, which those who are doomed to ruin cannot avoid.

Lannoy, it would seem, intended to have executed the treaty with great sincerity; and having detached Clement from the confederacy, wished to turn Bourbon’s arms against the Venetians, who, of all the powers at war with the emperor, had exerted the greatest vigor. With this view he detached a courier to Bourbon, informing him of the suspension of arms, which, in the name of their common master, he had concluded with the pope. Bourbon had other schemes, and he had prosecuted them now too far to think of retreating. To have mentioned a retreat to his soldiers would have been dangerous; his command was independent on Lannoy; he was fond of mortifying a man whom he had reasons to hate; for these reasons, without paying the least regard to the message, he continued to ravage the ecclesiastical territories, and to advance towards Florence. Upon this, all Clement’s terror and anxiety returning with new force, he had recourse to Lannoy, and entreated and conjured him to put a stop to Bourbon’s progress. Lannoy accordingly set out for his camp, but durst not approach it; Bourbon’s soldiers having got notice of the truce, raged and threatened, demanding the accomplishment of the promises to which they had trusted; their general himself could hardly restrain them; every person in Rome perceived that nothing remained but to prepare for resisting a storm which it was now impossible to dispel. Clement alone, relying on some ambiguous and deceitful professions which Bourbon made of his inclination towards peace, sunk back into his former security.

Bourbon, on his part, was far from being free from solicitude. All his attempts on any place of importance had hitherto miscarried; and Florence, towards which he had been approaching for some time, was, by the arrival of the duke d’Urbino’s army, put in a condition to set his power at defiance. As it now became necessary to change his route, and to take instantly some new resolution, he fixed without hesitation on one which was no less daring in itself, than it was impious, according to the opinion of that age. This was to assault and plunder Rome. Many reasons, however, prompted him to it. He was fond of thwarting Lannoy, who had undertaken for the safety of that city; he imagined that the emperor would be highly pleased to see Clement, the chief author of the league against him, humbled; he flattered himself that, by gratifying the rapacity of his soldiers with such immense booty, he would attach them forever to his interest; or (which is still more probable than any of these) he hoped that, by means of the power and fame which he would acquire from the conquest of the first city in Christendom, he might lay the foundation of an independent power; and that, after shaking off all connection with the emperor, he might take possession of Naples, or of some of the Italian states, in his own name.

Whatever his motives were, he executed his resolution with a rapidity equal to the boldness with which he had formed it. His soldiers, now that they had their prey full in view, complained neither of fatigue, nor famine, nor want of pay. No sooner did they begin to move from Tuscany towards Rome, than the pope, sensible at last how fallacious the hopes had been on which he reposed, started from his security. But no time now remained even for a bold and decisive pontiff to have taken proper measures, or to have formed any effectual plan of defence. Under Clement’s feeble conduct, all was consternation, disorder, and irresolution. He collected, however, such of his disbanded soldiers as still remained in the city; he armed the artificers of Rome, and the footmen and train-bearers of the cardinals; he repaired the breaches in the want; he began to erect new works; he excommunicated Bourbon and all his troops, branding the Germans with the name of Lutherans, and the Spaniards with that of Moors. Trusting to these ineffectual military preparations, or to his spiritual arms, which were still more despised by rapacious soldiers, he seems to have laid aside his natural timidity, and, contrary to the advice of all his counselors, determined to wait the approach of an enemy whom he might easily have avoided by a timely retreat.

Bourbon, who saw the necessity of dispatch, now that his intentions were known, advanced with such speed, that he gained several marches on the duke d’Urbino’s army, and encamped in the plains of Rome on the evening of the fifth of May. From thence he showed his soldiers the palaces and churches of that city, into which, as the capital of the Christian commonwealth, the riches of all Europe had flowed during many centuries, without having been once violated by any hostile hand; and commanding them to refresh themselves at night, as a preparation for the assault next day, promised them, in reward of their toils and valor, the possession of all the treasures accumulated there.

Early in the morning, Bourbon, who had determined to distinguish that day either by his death or the success of his enterprise, appeared at the head of his troops, clad in complete armour, above which he wore a vest of white tissue, that he might be more conspicuous both to his friends and to his enemies; and as all depended on one bold impression, he led them instantly to scale the walls. Three distinct bodies, one of Germans, another of Spaniards, and the last of Italians, the three different nations of whom the army was composed, were appointed to this service; a separate attack was assigned to each; and the whole army advanced to support them as occasion should require. A thick mist concealed their approach until they reached almost the brink of the ditch, which surrounded the suburbs: basing planted their ladders in a moment, each brigade rushed on to the assault with an impetuosity heightened by national emulation. They were received at first with fortitude equal to their own; the Swiss in the pope’s guards, and the veteran soldiers who had been assembled, fought with a courage becoming men to whom the defence of the noblest city in the world was entrusted. Bourbon’s troops, notwithstanding all their valor, gained no ground, and even began to give way; when their leader, perceiving that on this critical moment the fate of the day depended, leaped from his horse, pressed to the front, snatched a scaling ladder from a soldier, planted it against the wall, and began to mount it, encouraging his men with his voice and band to follow him. But at that very instant, a musket bullet from the ramparts pierced his groin with a wound, which he immediately felt to be mortal; but he retained so much presence of mind, as to desire those who were near him to cover his body with a cloak, that his death might not dishearten his troops; and soon after he expired with a courage worthy of a better cause, and which would have entitled him to the highest praise, if he had thus fallen in defence of his country, not at the head of its enemies.

This fatal event could not be concealed from the army; the soldiers soon missed their general, whom they were accustomed to see in every time of danger; but, instead of being disheartened by their loss, it animated them with new valor; the name of Bourbon resounded along the line, accompanied with the cry of blood and revenge. The veterans who defended the walls were soon overpowered by numbers; the untrained body of city recruits fled at the sight of danger, and the enemy, with irresistible violence, rushed into the town.

During the combat, Clement was employed at the high altar of St Peter’s church in offering up to Heaven unavailing prayers for victory. No sooner was he informed that his troops began to give way, than he fled with precipitation; and with an infatuation still more amazing than anything already mentioned, instead of making his escape by the opposite gate, where there was no enemy to oppose it, he shut himself up, together with thirteen cardinals, the foreign ambassadors, and many persons of distinction, in the castle of St. Angelo, which, from his late misfortune, he might have known to be an insecure retreat. In his way from the Vatican to that fortress, he saw his troops flying before an enemy who pursued without giving quarter; he heard the cries and lamentations of the Roman citizens, and beheld the beginning of those calamities which his own credulity and ill conduct had brought upon his subjects.

It is impossible to describe, or even to imagine, the misery and horror of that scene which followed. Whatever a city taken by storm can dread from military rage, unrestrained by discipline; whatever excesses the ferocity of the Germans, the avarice of the Spaniards, or the licentiousness of the Italians could commit, these the wretched inhabitants were obliged to suffer. Churches, palaces, and the houses of private persons, were plundered without distinction. No age, or character, or sex, was exempt from injury. Cardinals, nobles, priests, matrons, virgins, were all the prey of soldiers, and at the mercy of men deaf to the voice of humanity. Nor did these outrages cease, as is usual in towns which are carried by assault, when the first fury of the storm was over; the Imperialists kept possession of Rome several months; and, during all that time, the insolence and brutality of the soldiers hardly abated. Their booty in ready money alone amounted to a million of ducats; what they raised by ransoms and exactions far exceeded that sum. Rome, though taken several different times by the northern nations who overran the empire in the fifth and sixth centuries, was never treated with so much cruelty by the barbarous and heathen Huns, Vandals, or Goths, as now by the bigoted subjects of a Catholic monarch.

After Bourbon’s death, the command of the Imperial army devolved on Philibert de Chalons prince of Orange, who with difficulty prevailed on as many of his soldiers to desist from the pillage as were necessary to invest the castle of St. Angelo. Clement was immediately sensible of his error in having retired into that ill-provided and untenable fort. But as the Imperialists, scorning discipline, and intent only on plunder, pushed the siege with little vigor, he did not despair of holding out until the duke d’Urbino could come to his relief. That general advanced at the head of an army composed of Venetians, Florentines, and Swiss, in the pay of France, of sufficient strength to have delivered Clement from the present danger. But d’Urbino, preferring the indulgence of his hatred against the family of Medici to the glory of delivering the capital of Christendom, and the head of the church, pronounced the enterprise to be too hazardous; and from an exquisite refinement in revenge, having marched forward so far, that his army being seen from the ramparts of St. Angelo, flattered the pope with the prospect of certain relief, he immediately wheeled about and retired. Clement, deprived of every resource, and reduced to such extremity of famine as to feed on ass’s flesh, was obliged to capitulate [June 6] on such conditions as the conquerors were pleased to prescribe. He agreed to pay four hundred thousand ducats to the army; to surrender to the emperor all the places of strength belonging to the church; and, besides giving hostages, to remain a prisoner himself until the chief articles were performed. He was committed to the care of Alarcon, who, by his severe vigilance in guarding Francis, had given full proof of his being qualified for that office; and thus, by a singular accident, the same man had the custody of the two most illustrious personages who had been made prisoners in Europe during several ages.

The account of this extraordinary and unexpected event was no less surprising than agreeable to the emperor. But in order to conceal his joy from his subjects, who were filled with horror at the success and crimes of their countrymen, and to lessen the indignation of the rest of Europe, he declared that Rome had been assaulted without any order from him. He wrote to all the princes with whom he was in alliance, disclaiming his having had any knowledge of Bourbon’s intention. He put himself and court into mourning; commanded the rejoicings which had been ordered for the birth of his son Philip to be stopped; and employed an artifice no less hypocritical than gross; he appointed prayers and processions throughout all Spain for the recovery of the pope’s liberty, which, by an order to his generals, he could have immediately granted.

THE BATTLE OF MOHACZ

The good fortune of the house of Austria was no less conspicuous in another part of Europe. Solyman having invaded Hungary with an army, of three hundred thousand men, Lewis II, king of that country and of Bohemia, a weak and inexperienced prince, advanced rashly to meet him with a body of men which did not amount to thirty thousand. With an imprudence still more unpardonable, he gave the command of these troops to Paul Tomorri, a Franciscan monk, archbishop of Golocza. This awkward general, in the dress of his order, girt with its cord, marched at the head of the troops; and, hurried on by his own presumption, as well as by the impetuosity of nobles who despised danger, but were impatient of long service, he fought the battle of Mohacz [August 29, 1526], in which the king, the flower of the Hungarian nobility, and upwards of twenty thousand men, fell the victims of his folly and ill conduct. Solyman, after his victory, seized and kept possession of several towns of the greatest strength in the southern provinces of Hungary, and, overrunning the rest of the country, carried near two hundred thousand persons into captivity. As Lewis was the last male of the royal family of Jagellon, the archduke Ferdinand claimed both his crowns. This claim was founded on a double title; the one derived from the ancient pretensions of the house of Austria to both kingdoms; the other from the right of his wife, the only sister of the deceased monarch. The feudal institutions, however, subsisted both in Hungary and Bohemia in such vigor, and the nobles possessed such extensive power, that the crowns were still elective, and Ferdinand’s rights, if they had not been powerfully supported, would have met with little regard. But his own personal merit; the respect due to the brother of the greatest monarch in Christendom; the necessity of choosing a prince able to afford his subjects some additional protection against the Turkish arms, which, as they had recently felt their power, they greatly dreaded together with the intrigues of his sister, who had been married to the fate king, overcame the prejudices which the Hungarians had conceived against the archduke as a foreigner; and though a considerable party voted for the Vaywode of Transylvania, at length secured Ferdinand the throne of that kingdom. The states of Bohemia imitated the example of their neighbor kingdom; but in order to ascertain and secure their own privileges, they obliged Ferdinand, before his coronation, to subscribe a deed which they termed a Reverse, declaring that he held that crown not by any previous right, but by their gratuitous and voluntary election. By such a vast accession of territories, time hereditary possession of which they secured in process of time to their family, the princes of the house of Austria attained that preeminence in power which had rendered them so formidable to the rest of Germany.

The dissensions between the pope and emperor proved extremely favorable to the progress of Lutheranism. Charles, exasperated by Clement’s conduct, and fully employed in opposing the league which he had formed against him, had little inclination and less leisure, to take any measures for suppressing the new opinions in Germany. In a diet of the empire held at Spires [June 25, 1526], the state of religion came to be considered; and all that the emperor required of the princes was, that they would wait patiently, and without encouraging innovations, for the meeting of a general council which he had demanded of the pope. They, in return, acknowledged the convocation of a council to be the proper and regular step towards reforming abuses in the church; but contended that a national council held in Germany would be more effectual for that purpose than what he had proposed. To his advice, concerning the discouragement of innovations, they paid so little regard, that even during the meeting of the diet at Spires, the divines who attended the elector of Saxony and landgrave of Hesse-Cassel thither, preached publicly, and administered the sacraments according to the rights of the reformed church. The emperor’s own example emboldened the Germans to treat the papal authority with little reverence. During the heat of his resentment against Clement, he had published a long reply to an angry brief, which the pope had intended as an apology for his own conduct. In this manifesto, the emperor, after having enumerated many instances of that pontiffs ingratitude, deceit, and ambition, all which he painted in the strongest and most aggravated colors, appealed from him to a general council. At the same time he wrote to the college of cardinals, complaining of Clement’s partiality and injustice; and requiring them, if he refused or delayed to call a council, to show their concern for the peace of the Christian church, so shamefully neglected by its chief pastor, by summoning that assembly in their own name. This manifesto, little inferior in virulence to the invectives of Luther himself, was dispersed over Germany with great industry, and being eagerly read by persons of every rank, did much more than counterbalance the effect of all Charles’s declarations against the new opinions.

BOOK V.

THE SIEGE OF MILAN