READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM

A HISTORY OF MODERN EUROPE : A.D. 1453-1900

CHAPTER XII

THE RIVALRY OF CHARLES V AND FRANCIS I

(CONTINUED TO 1530)

The Emperor, who was at Madrid when the battle of Pavia was fought, received the news of his extraordinary and unexpected success with apparent moderation.

In France, on the other hand, the intelligence of the King’s disaster struck the people with consternation. The Parliament of Paris immediately assembled; the Archbishop of Aix and the principal magistrates met to consult about the safety of the capital; and the old Duke of Montmorency, whose two sons had fought at Pavia, was summoned to take the command. The enemy seemed already at the gates, of which all but five were closed, and those left open were constantly guarded by counselors of the Parliament assisted by some of the principal citizens. Chains were stretched across the Seine, and others were prepared to be thrown across the streets. Similar precautions were adopted in all the principal towns of France, even in those the furthest from danger; as, for instance, Poitiers. Normandy, at the northern extremity of France, levied 500 lances and 8,000 foot for the defence of the province. These alarms show how completely the King was then identified with the State. An army of 20,000 men had been routed, and 8,000 slain; but of these not more than an eighth were French. Yet, though the consternation was extravagant, the danger was menacing enough. Many of the foremost men and best captains of France had fallen. The Kingdom, which seemed to be in the throes of a financial crisis, was thrown into the hands of a woman. Of the three chief princes of the blood. Bourbon, the first, was an avowed and open traitor; the Duke of Alençon, the second, had covered himself with disgrace at Pavia, and soon afterwards died of shame; whilst the third, Vendôme, who as Governor of Picardy commanded the army which lay nearest to Paris, was at variance with the Regent Louise, and even suspected of corresponding with Bourbon. The administration of Louise and Duprat had excited deep and universal discontent: they were even denounced from the pulpits, and anonymous handbills proclaimed them the authors of all the misfortunes of France. The peasant war of Germany, which had spread to Lorraine, was another element of danger. Here, however, the rustauds were put down by the promptitude and energy of Claude Count of Guise, who held the command in Champagne and Burgundy. Claude, the father of those Guises who will in the sequel occupy so much of our attention, was the second son of René II Duke of Lorraine, on whose death he received Aumale, Mayenne, Guise, Elboeuf, and Joinville. His elder brother, Antony, succeeded in Lorraine, a younger one had fallen at Pavia. For his services in the peasant war Claude was subsequently rewarded by the erection of his county into a duché-pairie; an honor, at that time, unprecedented for one not of royal blood.

At this critical juncture, Vendôme, feeling the necessity of union, magnanimously forgot his causes of complaint, and leaving his government in the hands of Brienne, joined the King’s mother, who was then at Lyons, whither Guise and Lautrec, the latter of whom was now Governor of Guienne and Languedoc, also repaired. The Parliament of Paris seized the opportunity of these alarms to present to the Regent a long list of grievances, demanding in particular the reestablishment of the Pragmatic Sanction; and they added a remonstrance, in which these learned lawyers attributed all the misfortunes of the Kingdom to the Lutheran heresy, and demanded the extermination of those who were tainted with it. Of all their demands this was the only one that could be granted without inconvenience. Jaques Pavanes, an inoffensive man of letters, and shortly afterwards another Lutheran, called the Hermit of Livry, were burnt at Paris with great solemnity. Since the coming of Luther, these were the first religious martyrs in France.

Amid the disasters of France, a gleam of hope appeared in a quarter least expected. The policy of England, so momentous in this crisis of her fortunes, seemed to be undergoing a favorable change, which has been commonly ascribed to the alarm of Henry VIII that the Emperor’s unexpected success would seriously endanger the balance of power in Europe.

The change in English policy had begun before the battle of Pavia, and was due to the statesmanship of Wolsey.

It appears, therefore, that the breach between England and the Emperor had its beginning before the victory of Pavia; while, after that event, Henry would not have been unwilling, if the terms could have been agreed upon, to revert to his old policy, and share the spoils with Charles. The alliance with the Emperor was to all outward appearance still cordially maintained. When the news of the victory of Pavia reached London (March 9th), the success of the Emperor’s arms was celebrated in London with great rejoicings. The city was illuminated, a Te Deum was sung, the ambassadors of Rome, Venice and the Netherlands gave a grand banquet in a tent on Tower Hill, and a special embassy was dispatched by Henry to Spain to congratulate Charles on his victory. It was thought that but for this victory there would have been peace with the French King. But no sooner was the news of the victory confirmed than the English Court dispatched ambassadors to Spain to concert plans for a joint invasion of France; and Wolsey, in an address to the Lord Mayor and citizens of London, informed them that the King was about to raise an army for the recovery of England’s rightful dominions in France. Instructions were sent in March to Tunstall and Wingfield, the English envoys at the Court of the Lady Margaret in the Netherlands, to endeavor that Francis should be excluded from France, that Henry VIII should be crowned in Paris, and that the portion of France not claimed by him should be partitioned between the Emperor and Bourbon.

The English Court was so earnest for the projected invasion, that in order to raise the necessary forces large sums were levied by unconstitutional commissions—a proceeding which occasioned a dangerous insurrection in Norfolk and Suffolk. Charles was pressed to attack France from the south in the ensuing summer; he would be assisted with money, and an English descent would be made in the north of France, so that he and Henry might meet at Paris. The English King promised, if he were crowned there, to accompany the Emperor to Rome for his coronation—no obscure assurance that Henry would help to lay Italy at his feet. He also engaged that Charles should recover all the lands claimed by the House of Burgundy and by the Empire in France; nay, at last, France, and even England itself, if he married the Lady Mary according to the treaty of 1522. The English advances, however, were not very favorably received. Wolsey, between whom and his master discordant views evidently prevailed at this time, was suspected by the Imperial cabinet, and had personally offended the Emperor; besides which, it was thought that England, though making such large demands, had contributed little or nothing to the success of the war. The most remarkable of these demands was, that Charles should make no terms with the French King without insisting on the English claims to the Crown of France; nay, that Francis, whom Henry VIII affected to regard as a rebellious vassal, should be delivered into his custody, under a clause of the treaty of 1522, by which the contracting parties mutually agreed to deliver up such vassals!

It was plain that the good understanding between the Courts of England and Spain was now at an end; and, in fact, Wolsey wrote to the Pope in July to the effect that Henry’s feelings towards the Emperor were no longer of a friendly nature, and that he was inclined to treat of peace with France. Accordingly, John Joachim Passano, the envoy of the French Regent, was again invited into England, and a truce of forty days was concluded, followed by the treaty of Moore (August 30th, 1525), by which the integrity of the French Kingdom was guaranteed against the Emperor’s aggressions, while Henry engaged to solicit the release of Francis. France, indeed, paid dearly for this security. The Regent was obliged to recognize a debt of 2,000,000 gold crowns, payable in twenty years, besides an annual life-pension of 100,000 crowns to Henry VIII after its extinction, and 10,000 crowns for his sister’s dowry. This was, in fact, a tribute; while the pensions subsequently paid by the French Crown to some of the Stuarts were the wages of vassalage. Wolsey also was to receive 121,898 crowns, for arrears of his Tournai pension. The Imperial government, which had been thus anticipated, followed the example of England. A truce of six months, regarding the Netherlands only, was concluded with France at Breda, July 14th; and on August 11th, another of three months was executed at Toledo, which extended to the two monarchies generally and their respective allies.

Having thus briefly described the transactions which took place between the English and Imperial Courts, at this eventful crisis of European history, we must now advert to those which had passed between Charles and his prisoner Francis. Hard indeed were the conditions of the ransom demanded by the Emperor (April, 1525). He began by signifying to the French government, through his plenipotentiary, de Rieux, that he might legally claim the whole Kingdom of France, since Pope Boniface VIII had deposed Philip the Fair, and bestowed the French Crown on Albert of Austria! Nevertheless, with due regard to the welfare of Christendom, he contented himself with the following principal conditions: an alliance against the Turks, the Emperor and the French King furnishing each 20,000 men, and the former having chief command in the enterprise; the restitution of the Duchy of Burgundy and all the lands belonging to Duke Charles the Bold at the time of his death, Picardy included, the whole exempt from any claims of feudal suzerainty; cessation of all proceedings against Bourbon and his adherents, and restitution to the Duke of all his domains. These, together with Provence, which was to be ceded to him, were to be erected into a Kingdom, of which Bourbon was to be the independent King. In these first negotiations between the Emperor and France, the friendly feeling between Charles and Henry was, in appearance at least, still maintained, and the articles included the cession of Normandy, Guienne, and Gascony to the English King.

Such propositions involved in effect nothing less than the partition of the French Kingdom. Charles seems to have been guided in these transactions by an idea more enticing than feasible, and to have wished nominally indeed to uphold the monarchy of France, but so reduced in its proportions that the preponderance of power should be secured forever to the House of Austria. The French Council received his propositions with indignation. The first movement of Francis himself was also to reject them, and he indignantly declared that sooner than dismember his realm he would remain a prisoner all his life. But his tone soon began to change. In hope of recovering his liberty, he hastened to make large concessions. He agreed to marry the Emperor’s sister Eleanor, Dowager Queen of Portugal, and to assign the Duchy of Burgundy as her dowry; to which, if she died without male heirs, the second son of the Emperor should succeed. He renounced all his claims on Asti, Genoa, Naples, and Milan, reserving only the last for any son he might have by Eleanor. He abandoned the suzerainty of West Flanders and Artois, agreed to buy back Picardy and promised to furnish the half of any army which the Emperor might wish to employ in Germany or Italy, either for his coronation at Rome or for any other purpose whatsoever. He also engaged to supply half the contingents in any enterprise against the Infidels, and personally to take part in it. Bourbon was to be restored to his lands, and as Francis’s proposed marriage would deprive him of Eleanor, he was to be offered the hand of Francis’s favorite sister Margaret, the widowed Duchess of Alençon, with her own possessions and the Duchy of Berry as a dowry. To Henry VIII it was intended only to offer money.

This was in effect to offer that Francis would become the lieutenant of Charles V, against the Turks, against Venice, against the Lutherans of Germany, and that he would consent to employ the French arms in building up the Austrian supremacy in Europe. Without adopting the opinion of a modern historian, that Francis should rather have committed suicide, we may at all events assert that he would have better consulted his own dignity and the interests of his Kingdom by the milder alternative of abdication, which, indeed, at a later period, he contemplated.

Charles was in no hurry to answer the proposals of his prisoner, whom it was resolved meanwhile to transfer from Pizzighittone to Spain. The three Imperial captains. Bourbon, Pescara, and Lannoy, were at variance with one another, and were menaced by their own soldiery, who demanded their arrears of pay; they were in the midst of a hostile population, and surrounded by States which they knew were preparing to take up arms against them; and their royal prisoner caused them considerable embarrassment, for they were afraid that the soldiers might seize his person as a pawn for their arrears. There can be little doubt that in carrying the French King into Spain Lannoy only obeyed the secret instructions of the Spanish Court. It was necessary to deceive Bourbon and Pescara, who considered Francis more particularly as their prisoner, and would not willingly have consented that he should be taken out of Italy. Lannoy therefore obtained their consent for his removal to Naples; and he carried his deception so far as to write to the Pope to provide apartments at Rome. Then it was determined to go by sea, embarking at the port of Genoa. On the 8th of June sail was made, apparently for Naples, but when well out at sea the heads of the galleys were turned towards Spain. Francis was landed at Alicante, and was thence transferred to the fortress of Jativa, also in Valencia. Early in August he was brought to Madrid by the Emperor’s orders.

The captivity of Francis was of the most rigorous kind. He was strictly guarded; beneath his window two battalions kept watch day and night; he was not allowed to take the air except on a mule and surrounded by guards; and instead of the friendly intercourse with the Emperor which he had been led to expect, Charles kept aloof at Toledo. At last, on September 18th, he paid the captive, who had been seized with illness, a visit. The effect of the interview was to revive Francis’s health and spirits; but a dreary interval of anxiety and suspense was still to be passed before he recovered his freedom.

Margaret of Valois visits Madrid.

Shortly afterwards he received another consolatory visit from his beloved sister, Margaret of Valois, the widowed Duchess of Alençon. Margaret had shown an early inclination for the doctrines of the Reformation, which she pushed to an extreme; so that, at a later period, she incurred the reproval of Calvin for the favor which she displayed towards the sect called the “Spiritual Libertines”. Her influence was always exerted on behalf of the Reformers, some of whom she saved from the stake. After all, however, it is doubtful whether she ever really quitted the Roman communion, in which faith it is at least certain that she died. The strange constitution of her mind is well displayed in her Heptaméron, written when she was Queen of Navarre; in the preface to which, she describes, under the name of Dame Oisille, the daily routine of her religious exercises.

Margaret’s visit to Madrid was not, however, prompted solely by sisterly affection. Scarcely had the Duke of Alençon expired, when Louise, hastened to offer her daughter’s hand to the Emperor. Charles, intent on a match with a princess of Portugal, had not even vouchsafed a reply; but he promised Margaret a safe conduct. Furnished with full powers to treat of peace with the Spanish government, and accompanied by the veteran statesman Robertet, Margaret set out on her journey towards the end of August, and reached Toledo early in October, after paying a visit to her brother on the way. But both her political and her matrimonial projects were alike destined to be frustrated. The obdurate Charles was proof against all her charms, nor would he relax an iota of his demands, except with regard to Picardy. After some weeks of fruitless debates, and some attempts to procure the escape of the French King, which were discovered and frustrated, Francis dismissed his sister towards the end of November. He had previously taken a step which, if carried out, would have been as fatal as his death to Charles’s hopes. He had signed a deed of abdication in favor of his son, the Dauphin Francis, appointing his mother, Louise, and in her default his sister, Margaret, Regent; reserving, however, if he should chance to recover his liberty, the right of reassuming the sovereignty by the jus postliminii. But he had not resolution enough to carry out this heroic act. At the moment when his fellow captive Montmorenci, who had been ransomed, was to carry the document to France, the King instructed the French ambassadors in Spain to cede Burgundy (December 19th). The Regent, apparently without consulting her council, had previously given them the same instructions, though with more regard to the interests of France; for the Emperor’s investment was only to be provisional, and the fortresses were to be demolished.

Scarcely had Margaret quitted Toledo, when the Duke of Bourbon, in pursuance of an invitation which he had received from the Emperor, arrived at that capital. The defection of Henry VIII and of the Pope from his alliance caused Charles to court a prince whom he felt that he had too much neglected. The Emperor, attended by a large retinue, went out to meet Bourbon at the Tagus bridge, bestowed on him every mark of honor, and gave a series of fêtes and entertainments for his diversion, which strangely contrasted with Charles’s studied neglect of Bourbon’s Sovereign. But the Spanish nation sympathized as little as the French with a man who was bearing arms against his native land. At Marseilles, where he had put in with his squadron, on pretence of getting some provisions, the people rose, and, in defiance of the Parliament of Aix, insisted that nothing should be supplied to the “traitor”. At Toledo, a Spanish grandee, the Marquis of Villena, whose hotel the Emperor had requested for Bourbon’s use, replied that he could not refuse any demand of his Sovereign, but that he should burn down his polluted house as soon as the Duke had quitted it. In spite, however, of the public honors heaped upon Bourbon, the Emperor, in the arrangement which he was on the point of concluding with Francis, was ready to sacrifice the Duke’s pretensions, and, on his own part, to content himself with the recovery of Burgundy, his maternal inheritance.

Treaty of Madrid.

By the Treaty of Madrid, signed January 14th, 1526, Francis restored to the Emperor the Duchy of Burgundy, the County of Charolais, and some other smaller fiefs, without reservation of any feudal suzerainty, which was also abandoned with regard to the Counties of Flanders and Artois, the Emperor, however, resigning the towns on the Somme, which had been held by Duke Charles the Bold. The French King also renounced his claims to the Kingdom of Naples, the Duchy of Milan, the County of Asti, and the Republic of Genoa. He contracted an offensive and defensive alliance with Charles, undertaking to attend him with an army, when he should repair to Rome to receive the Imperial Crown, and to accompany him in person whenever he should march against Turks or heretics. He withdrew his protection from the King of Navarre, the Duke of Gelderland, and the La Marcks of Bouillon; took upon himself the Emperor’s debt to England, and agreed to give his two eldest sons as hostages for the execution of the treaty. Instead, however, of the independent Kingdom which Bourbon had expected, all that was stipulated in his favor, was a free pardon for him and his adherents, and their restoration in their forfeited domains. Bourbon was even deprived of the promised hand of Eleanor, the Emperor’s sister, which was now to be given to Francis, in pursuance of his demand. This was a delicate point in the negotiations, and Charles felt some embarrassment in communicating it to Bourbon. In the words of the English ambassador, “This overture made him (Bourbon) much to muse at the beginning, reputing himself frustrate of his chief hope. Afterwards, the greatness of the necessity was opened to him, and the lack of money on the Emperor’s part to maintain the war, which was well known to him. Great offers were made to him. At last he said with his tongue that he was content, but whether he thought it in his heart, Heaven knoweth”. The “great offers” appear to have been a promise of the Duchy of Milan. This treaty Francis promised to execute on the word and honor of a King, and by an oath sworn with his hand upon the Holy Gospels; yet only a few hours before he was to sign this solemn act, he had called his plenipotentiaries, together with some French nobles, secretaries, and notaries, into his chamber, where, after exacting from them an oath of secrecy, he entered into a long discourse touching the Emperor’s harshness towards him, and signed a protest, declaring that, as the treaty he was about to enter into had been wrung from him by force, it was null and void from the beginning, and that he never intended to execute it: thus, as a French writer has observed, establishing by an authentic notarial act that he was going to commit perjury.

After the execution of the treaty, Francis was detained a month or two longer in Spain, during which he and the Emperor lived apparently on very good terms. On the 21st of February he set out for France, escorted by a guard. Charles accompanied him as far as Torrejon; and when they were about to part, said: “Brother, do you remember your agreement?”. “Perfectly”, replied Francis; “I could recite the whole treaty without missing a word”. Charles then inquired if he was resolved to keep it? and Francis repeated his promise. The Emperor observed in conclusion: “I have only one thing to beg: if you mean to deceive me, let it not be with regard to my sister, your bride, for she will not be able to avenge herself”. Francis arrived on the banks of the Bidasoa, March 18th, and in a boat moored in the middle of the river, between Irun and Hendaye, he was exchanged for his two sons, Francis and Henry, who were to remain in Spain, as hostages for the execution of the treaty. No sooner was he on French ground than he sprang upon an Arab horse, and clapping spurs to it, rode at full gallop towards St. Jean de Luz, exclaiming as he waved his hand, “I am again a King!”. Thence he proceeded to Bayonne, where he found his mother and all his Court anxiously awaiting his arrival.

Francis was not long in showing how he intended to observe the treaty of Madrid. Before he left Bayonne, the Emperor’s envoys demanded its ratification, which he had engaged to effect immediately after his arrival in France; to which Francis replied that he must first consult the States of his Kingdom, as well as those of the Duchy of Burgundy. From Bayonne the Court proceeded to Bordeaux, and thence to Cognac, where it made some stay. When Lannoy arrived at this place to demand the fulfillment of Francis’s engagements, the latter introduced him before the assembled princes, prelates and nobles, who, in presence of the Imperial ambassador, pronounced their decision that the King could not alienate a province of his Kingdom, and that the oath which he had taken in his captivity did not abrogate the still more solemn one which had been administered to him at his coronation. The deputies of Burgundy also declared that they would resist by force of arms all attempts to sever them from France. It was not, however, a pure and simple refusal. Francis offered the Imperial ambassadors 2,000,000 crowns as compensation for Burgundy, and engaged faithfully to fulfill all the other articles of the treaty. When Charles heard of this solemn farce, which had evidently been concerted between the French King and his States, he justly remarked that Francis could not thus shift his breach of faith upon his subjects; and that to fulfill his engagements it sufficed for him to return to Spain, as bound by the treaty, and again surrender himself a prisoner, when another arrangement might be effected. But Francis was no Regulus. So far from thinking of the fulfillment of his treaty, he was at this moment negotiating with the Pope and other Powers for a combined attack upon the Emperor’s Italian possessions. But the crooked and vacillating policy of Clement VII was destined to bring on the Holy See one of the most terrible disasters it had ever sustained; to explain which, it will be necessary to resume from a somewhat earlier period the thread of Italian affairs.

Vacillating Policy of Clement VII

The victory of Pavia had spread alarm through all the Italian States which still retained their independence. The whole peninsula seemed to lie at the Emperor’s mercy. Frunsberg, a zealous Lutheran, and other Imperial captains, advised an immediate attack upon the Pope, and the German troops took possession of the territory of Piacenza. The Italians began to think of a confederacy. The Venetians and Florentines armed and pressed the Pope to form a league under the protection of Henry VIII. Clement, who had been playing a double game, and already before the battle of Pavia had contracted a secret alliance with Francis, now cooperated with the Venetians in opening communications with Louise, the French Regent, who was requested to join the Italian league, and to unite with them the army of the Duke of Albany, which still remained intact on the frontier of Naples. But Clement at the same time dreaded the resentment of the Emperor, who had discovered his secret correspondence with Francis; and with his usual shuffling conduct, at the very moment that he was promoting the Italian league, he was also listening to the proposals of Lannoy. The negotiations between the Imperial and English Courts were not yet at an end; Wolsey assured Clement that his master would induce Charles to use his victory with moderation, and Bourbon told Cardinal de' Medici that the Papal dominions should be respected. On the 1st April, 1525, a treaty was concluded at Rome between the Pope, the Emperor, and the Archduke Ferdinand, to which the English ambassador acceded, and the Roman See and other anti-Imperial Italian States were amerced in heavy contributions. When the Duke of Albany heard of this treaty, he deemed it useless to remain any longer in Italy, and with the connivance of the Pope embarked his army at Cività Vecchia.

The greatest discontent, however, continued to prevail among the Italians. The Imperial army, over which Charles had lost all control, was living at free quarters upon them; for the greatest sovereign in Europe, and master of America besides, was unable to furnish their pay, which was six months in arrears. Charles could enslave his Spanish subjects, but he could not command their purses, and the Castilian clergy as well as the Cortes obstinately refused to grant any extraordinary supplies. After the breach between Henry and Charles, Wolsey advised the Pope to complete the anti-Imperial Italian league; and when Clement refused to do so, he pushed on its conclusion with the omission of the Pope, proposed Henry VIII as its head and protector, and at the same time urged the French to send an army into Italy. But Louise was also insincere. Although, to alarm the Emperor, she encouraged the advances of the Italians, she had secretly offered to abandon Italy to him as the ransom of her son; and at Christmas, 1525, she surprised the ambassadors with the intelligence that Francis was arranging a peace with the Emperor. The treaty of Madrid, however, did not prevent Francis from subsequently joining the Italians.

Conspiracy of Morone

The Italian league was at last effected by means of a conspiracy. The Emperor, after many delays and evasions, had at length reinstated Francesco Maria Sforza in the Duchy of Milan, but on conditions which rendered him a mere puppet. The Duke’s Chancellor, Morone, who was warmly attached to that Prince’s interests, urged alike by affection and patriotism, formed the design of overthrowing the Imperialists by corrupting Charles’s general, the Marquis of Pescara. The plot seemed feasible. Pescara was known to be offended by the removal of Francis, whom he regarded as his own prisoner, into Spain; an act which appeared to deprive him of the recompense justly due to his valor and conduct. He was, moreover, an Italian by birth, and might be supposed to view with regret the chains preparing for his country. Morone persuaded the Pope to enter into the plot, and this conspiracy must therefore be regarded as the foundation of the Holy League effected in the following spring. The plan was not ill conceived. Should Pescara agree to it, his very treachery would bind him indissolubly to the Italian powers, and the freedom of Italy would be conquered at a blow. A secret correspondence was opened with Pescara; he was informed that all the Italian powers were ready to shake off the Imperial yoke and seat himself on the throne of Naples, provided he would achieve at once his own advancement and his country’s freedom. What enterprise more easy or more certain of success? Bourbon and Lannoy were both absent in Spain; Pescara had the sole command of the Imperial army in Italy, and nothing was required but to disband it. But Morone had made a wrong estimate of Pescara’s character. Although a Neapolitan by birth, he was a Spaniard by descent, and spoke only the Spanish language. His fore­fathers had helped to establish the Aragonese power in Naples; he himself had no sympathy with the Italian people, his reading was confined to Spanish romances, which breathe only loyalty and devotion; above all, his pride lay in the com­mand of the Spanish infantry. He knew all his men by name, he allowed them every license, plundering included; he took nothing ill at their hands if they were but brave and ready in the hour of battle and danger. The proudest moments of his life were when, holding his drawn sword with both hands, he marched in their front, with broad German shoes and long streaming feathers in his helmet.

With the cunning which formed part of his character, Pescara did not absolutely repel Morone’s advances; but he acquainted Antonio de Leyva, as well as the Imperial commissary of the Spanish Court, with them; and he was instructed to entrap the Milanese Chancellor by pretending to fall in with his designs. He accordingly invited Morone to an interview in the castle of Novara. Antonio de Leyva and other witnesses were posted behind the arras of the chamber in which it took place; and at the proper moment, Leyva stepped out, and arrested the astonished Chancellor (October 14th, 1525). Morone was brought to Pavia, where his in­tended accomplice acted as his judge: but his life was spared from the notion that he might be useful hereafter. In his confession he had implicated Duke Francesco Maria Sforza, who was now stripped of all his dominions, though he managed to retain possession of the citadel of Milan. Pescara died a few weeks after Morone’s arrest at the early age of thirty-six. He had distinguished himself as a poet as well as a captain. The Emperor now promised the Duchy of Milan to Bourbon.

League of Cognac

Meanwhile the Pope, the Venetians, and Sforza, had formed a league against the Emperor with Francis I, then at Cognac.

The Florentines also joined it, but without binding themselves to all its conditions; and the Swiss were also reckoned on. By this confederacy, variously called the Holy League, the League of Cognac and the Clementine League, Sforza was to be reinstated in the Duchy of Milan, paying annually 50,000 gold crowns to the King of France; the other Italian States were to resume their status quo; the Emperor was to be required to liberate the French Princes for a moderate ransom, to withdraw the greater part of his army from Italy, and to pay his debt to the King of England. If Charles refused to accept these terms, then Naples was to be wrested from him and made over to the Pope; who was to pay an annual sum to Francis, and to bestow large estates and revenues in that Kingdom on Henry VIII and Cardinal Wolsey. Henry VIII did not indeed join the League but he did all in his power to forward it, and promised to become its protector in case Charles refused to comply with the conditions. The League was signed by Francis at Cognac, May 22nd, 1526, and on June 24th, he openly and solemnly avowed it at high Mass; while Lannoy, to avoid so insulting a defiance went a hunting, and soon after departed for Spain. The Pope subsequently forwarded to the French King an absolution from the oath which he had taken to the treaty of Madrid.

The Italians were in general enthusiastic in favor of this League; even the Duke of Savoy was anxious to get rid of the Emperor’s predominance in Italy. The people were prepared to rise; and it was thought that the pith of the Imperial army might be annihilated on the spot. Giberto, the Datario and confidant of Clement VII, writing to the Bishop of Veroli, says, “It is not a war that concerns a point of honor, a petty vengeance, or the preservation of a single city, but the deliverance or the eternal slavery of all Italy”. It was Clement’s most magnanimous but most disastrous undertaking. In his zeal for Italian liberty, he overlooked, not only the inroads of the Turks, but also the progress of heresy in Germany: and thus the German Reformation acquired at the Diet of Spires a sort of legal existence. But Clement’s transalpine confederates were not hearty and sincere. Henry VIII could not be persuaded decidedly to embark in the League, whilst Francis was anxious to avoid a war with the Emperor, and opened separate negotiations with him for the redemption of his sons. He appointed indeed the Marquis of Saluzzo to command an army destined for Italy, but supplied him with only 4,000 Gascon troops, though he promised a speedy addition of 10,000 Swiss. Since his release Francis was disinclined to take part in any serious undertaking, and was influenced by a new mistress, Anne de Pisseleu. Her husband became successively a Knight of St. Michael, Governor of Brittany, and Count and Duke of Etampes; under which last title Anne de Pisseleu became known to posterity.

Marriage of Charles V

The Emperor, meanwhile, whose character was of another stamp, had contracted a marriage of prudence. We have already seen that he had obtained from Henry VIII a release from his engagement to the Lady Mary; and soon after the departure of the French King from Madrid, he proceeded to Seville, where he solemnized his marriage with Isabella, sister of John III, King of Portugal (March 12th, 1526.) Charles was greatly in debt to Portugal, without whose money he acknowledged that he could not have carried on his wars. This match was highly acceptable to his Spanish subjects, nor was it disagreeable to himself; for Isabella was beautiful and accomplished, and he lived in perfect harmony with her till her death in 1529. The alliance was also viewed with pleasure by the Portuguese, who voted Isabella the extraordinary dowry of 900,000 crowns.

At this period the policy of the English Court, conducted by Wolsey, was characterized by the grossest duplicity. In March, 1526, Sir Thomas Cheyney and others were sent on an embassy to Paris, with instructions “to understand the conditions of the peace of Madrid, and to perceive how far the King, his mother, the nobles, and the people, were contented with it”. Wolsey’s real object was to involve France in a war with the Emperor, His envoys were furnished with minute and elaborate instructions, most artfully drawn up, to induce Francis still further to violate the treaty, and at the same time not to compromise the English Court with the Emperor; with which view the ambassadors were to speak as if suâ sponte, and not from instructions. Both Henry and the Cardinal exhorted the French King not to observe obligations which would make him, they said, the mere servant of Spain. One of Wolsey’s points was to persuade Francis to violate that part of the treaty which stipulated a marriage between him and Eleanor, and to induce him to marry Henry’s daughter, Mary, then only in her eleventh year. The French King at last declared that both honor and conscience called upon him to fulfill his previous engagement, and that he could not hope for the liberation of his children except by completing his marriage with Eleanor. Francis’s marriage with the Lady Mary continued, however, to be pressed. It was seconded by the Papal Nuncio in France; it was called a holy union, for its anticipated service to the “Holy League”, and early in 1527, the French King showed more symptoms of compliance, and sent for Mary’s picture. Early in March he even dispatched the Bishop of Tarbes to London to negotiate for the match; and a treaty was actually concluded, on the singular condition that either he, or his second son Henry, Duke of Orleans, should espouse the English Princess! But the French King seems at this very time to have been in communication with Eleanor; and it is needless to say, the marriage with Mary never took place. The negotiations, however, excited considerable alarm at the Imperial Court. Wolsey seems also to have been contemplating, in March, 1526, a match between his royal master and Margaret of Alen9on, the French King’s sister; which shows that Henry’s divorce from Catharine was already in agitation. The English ambassadors were instructed to address the warmest compliments to Margaret, and to press the King’s suit. But that lady declined to entertain the proposals of Henry, and in January, 1527, she rendered such a project impossible by marrying Henry II, King of Navarre. This last event was indirectly of great importance to England, as it released from Margaret’s service Ann Boleyn, who subsequently returning to England, was married to the King, and contributed not a little to the progress of the Reformation in this country.

Charles V of course refused to accede to the Clementine League; yet Henry VIII did not, therefore, become its head and protector as he had promised. All parties, in short, were playing false to one another. Francis, in spite of his engagements to the Clementine League, as well as of a compact which he had entered into with Henry that he would make no separate treaty with the Emperor, nor attempt to get back his sons from Spain, without at the same time providing for the payment of the Emperor’s debt to England, was endeavoring to make a private arrangement with Charles. When Wolsey heard of this, he instructed the Bishop of Worcester, his special ambassador to the Spanish Court, to offer the meditation of England; but this was declined by Charles, who suspected that Wolsey’s intention was only to foment mutual jealousy and bickerings. The ambassador was obliged to tell Wolsey frankly that the Emperor would not trust the King of England; and the Cardinal condescended to the most abject submission in order to recover Charles’s favor, whom he had so long pursued with the bitterest hostility. Charles, in his turn, endeavored to embroil Henry and Francis. Yet he did not repulse Wolsey’s advances. He proposed to reward the Cardinal’s labors with a pension and a present of 100,000 ducats, in addition to its arrears : which sums, however, were to come out of the French King’s money. A further annuity of 12,000 ducats to Wolsey, and his heirs forever, was to be added by the Duke of Bourbon out of the revenues of Milan! But a new turn was about to be given to all these complicated negotiations, by a catastrophe which none of the parties had foreseen.

Bourbon in Italy.

Although the Italian confederates were at first unsupported either by French troops or English gold, yet, had they possessed an enterprising general, they might easily have mastered the Imperial army. This, which, in Bourbon’s absence, was commanded by Antonio de Leyva and the Marquis del Guasto, numbered only 11,000 men, while the army of the League was more than double that force. But the Duke of Urbino, nominally the Venetian general and in effect the commander-in-chief, displayed an utter want of skill and resolution. Some of his first operations were, indeed, attended with success. He took Lodi (June, 1526), but neglected to relieve Francesco Maria Sforza, who was still blockaded in the Castle of Milan by the Imperial troops in possession of the town. Such was the state of things when the Duke of Bourbon returned from Spain, and took command of the Imperial forces. The citizens of Milan hailed with gladness the arrival of their newly-appointed master, for they had suffered from the Spaniards all the miseries of a town taken by storm. Sforza was at length obliged to capitulate (July 24th), when Bourbon assigned him Como as a residence; but as the Spanish garrison refused to evacuate that place, he was forced to proceed to the camp of the Allies, who put him in possession of Lodi. The citizens of Milan now entreated Bourbon to withdraw his troops, which he promised to do on receiving 300,000 crowns towards their pay. When that sum was raised, however, the Spaniards, who were encouraged by Leyva and Guasto, still refused to move; and such was the despair of the citizens at this frustration of their last hopes, that many are said to have committed suicide.

If the conduct of the Duke of Urbino was irresolute and unsoldier-like, that of the Pope, the head of the League, was equally indecisive. He showed himself mistrustful alike of his subjects and of his allies, now yielding to resentment, now to terror—at one moment preparing to take the field, and the next signing separate armistices. All his magnificent plans were threatened with defeat by one of the strangest accidents. While he was meditating the liberation of Italy he was unexpectedly made a prisoner in his own capital by one of his feudatories! He had made peace, as he thought, with his old enemies, the Colonna family, and had dismissed the troops required for the protection of his person, when, at the Emperor’s instigation Cardinal Pompeo Colonna, a man of resolute and ferocious character, having, with his kinsmen Vespasian and Ascanius Colonna, raised in their possessions near the frontier of Naples a body of about 8,000 retainers and adventurers, marched with them to Rome (September 20th). Clement had only time to fly from the Lateran to the Castle of St. Angelo; where, however, having no provisions, he was obliged to capitulate at the end of three days. The Spanish commander, Hugo de Moncada, whose intervention Clement was compelled to solicit, now dictated to him a truce of four months; while Colonna’s followers pillaged St. Peter’s and the Vatican, and carried off a booty of 300,000 ducats.

Clement was almost reduced to despair by this misfortune, and he thought of inducing all Christian Princes to undertake a crusade in his behalf; but from this notion he was dissuaded by the French King. Henry VIII sent him 30,000 ducats; Francis also gave him money; and what was better still, that Sovereign’s army, consisting of 10,000 or 12,000 French and Swiss, under the Marquis of Saluzzo, at last joined the Allies, just as the Papal troops were being withdrawn, conformably to the agreement with Moncada. Both the French and English Courts advised Clement not to observe the truce which had been forced upon him—counsel to which he was of himself sufficiently inclined. He withdrew only his cavalry from Lombardy, under pretence of his agreement, but really for his own protection at Rome, and he allowed all his infantry, under his kinsman John de' Medici, to remain with the allied army. With the money he had received Clement raised some troops and attacked the Colonnas, upon whom he took vengeance. The Cardinal was deprived of his dignity; the palaces of the family in Rome were leveled to the earth; and bands were sent forth into the provinces to ravage their farms and destroy their houses and gardens.

At the instance of Sanga, the Papal envoy at Paris, a French fleet was dispatched under command of Andrea Doria and Pedro Navarro, which having been joined by the Papal and Venetian squadrons, blockaded Genoa. But the attempt proved abortive, and on the 3rd of December, Navarro carried the allied fleet into Cività Vecchia. Shortly afterwards he assisted in an attempt to place Louis, Count of Vaudemont, brother of Antony, Duke of Lorraine, on the throne of Naples, as heir of the House of Anjou; but although Vaudemont succeeded in penetrating to Naples in February, 1527, with an army of 8,000 or 10,000 men, and made himself master of Salerno, want of money, in those times the cause of so many failures, obliged him to make a truce with Lannoy and disband his army.

If the affairs of the Allies were not in a prosperous condition, those of Bourbon were hardly better, whose want of money constantly compelled him to resort to new stratagems and fresh acts of tyranny. One of them was to condemn Morone, still a prisoner at Milan, to lose his head; and, on the very day appointed for his execution, to sell him his life and liberty for 20,000 ducats. That intriguer now remained in Bourbon’s service, and soon acquired over him the same influence that he had exercised over Duke Sforza. But no means sufficed to raise the required sums, and the troops began to pillage the churches. At length, however, a prospect of relief appeared.

The Emperor in his instructions of July 27th, 1526, which decided the recess of the Diet of Spires, had desired his brother to send an army into Italy; and as the affairs of Hungary required Ferdinand’s personal superintendence, he made the celebrated captain, George Frunsberg, of Mindelheim, his lieutenant. Nothing could have been more welcome to Frunsberg than an expedition against the Pope; a feeling shared by multitudes of the German Lutherans. It was given out, indeed, that the expedition was intended against the Turk: but it was well understood that the Turk meant was no other than the Pope of Rome. Many of Charles’s letters and manifestoes against Clement at this period might have been written by a zealous follower of Luther. Frunsberg was so ardent in the cause that he pawned his wife’s jewels in order to raise money; and he is said to have carried in his pocket a golden cord with which to hang the Pope with all due honors. Germany at that time swarmed with disbanded soldiers, who knew no other trade than war, and numbers of them flocked to Frunsberg’s standard. Pay he could not offer them for more than a week or two, but he held out to them the prospect of plundering the unhappy Italians; and at the head of about 11,000 of these disciplined brigands he marched through Tyrol towards Lombardy. The pass leading to Verona was too well guarded to be attempted, and he therefore took the much more difficult route over the Sarca. Hence two ways presented themselves: one to the right, easy to be traversed, but closed by the pass of Anfo; the other to the left, a mere footpath among tremendous precipices, which a single peasant might have rendered impassable, but which the enemy had neglected. So fearful were the abysses over which it led that nobody dared look down. Several horses and men fell over in the passage, and were lost. Frunsberg traversed the path on foot, accompanied by some of his men who were most accustomed to such mountain routes, and who at the most difficult spots made a sort of railing for him with their spears. In this manner they arrived at Aa on the evening of the 17th of November, and on the following day at Sabbio. On the 19th they reached Gavardo, in the territory of Brescia, without having met with any opposition. The Duke of Urbino’s army was too strong for them to attempt to pass the Oglio and march on Milan; and as they had no artillery wherewith to attack any of the neighboring towns, their only resource was to cross the Po, in which direction the enemy was not in much force, and by marching up its right bank ultimately to form a junction with Bourbon. They had first to pass the Mincio at Grovemolo, where a smart skirmish took place, in which John de' Medici, in attempting to prevent their passage, received a mortal wound. He was only twenty-nine, but one of the best of the Italian captains. Frunsberg then pressed on to Ostiglia, where he crossed the Po, and marching up the course of that river, arrived in the neighborhood of Piacenza, December 28th. Here he had to wait more than six weeks, till at last Bourbon succeeded in joining him at Firenzuola, bringing with him from Milan the greater part of his troops (February 12th, 1627), consisting of about 5,000 Spanish, and 2,000 Italian infantry, and 1,500 cavalry. The united army, therefore, amounted to near 20,000 men.

Bourbon’s march to Rome

Many wild and unnecessary conjectures have been hazarded respecting Bourbon’s motives for the resolution which he now adopted of marching to Rome. It may, perhaps, suffice to reflect that the state of his army compelled him to some enterprise to provide them food and pay; that the capture of Rome was as easy or easier than any other; that he would thus strike a blow at the head of the League, and in the event of success secure his followers a rich booty; that if unsuccessful, he might still march forward into the Neapolitan dominions, where he would be secure; that the Germans, who formed the greater portion of his army, had come into Italy with the express determination of attacking the Pope, and that Bourbon was moreover advised to proceed to Rome by the Duke of Ferrara, his only Italian ally.

The united army broke up from their camp at Firenzuola, February 22nd, and took the road to Rome in six divisions. The news of Bourbon’s march alarmed the Pope, and hence, although his troops had gained some advantages in the Neapolitan territories, he was disposed to listen to fresh proposals of the Viceroy Lannoy for a truce, which was accordingly concluded in March. The Pope required that Bourbon’s army should retire into Lombardy, to which Lannoy agreed, though it does not appear that any money, or, at all events, only a very inadequate sum, had been offered by Clement for the satisfaction of Bourbon’s soldiers. It was not probable that such a treaty would be ratified by any party; above all it was unacceptable to the Imperial army. The pay of the Spanish troops was eight months in arrear, and they, like the Germans, had fixed their hearts on the plunder of Rome. The appearance of Cesare Fieramosca, who came to propose the truce to Bourbon at S. Giovanni, near Bologna, was the signal for uproar and mutiny. Fieramosca was glad to escape from the enraged soldiery with his life; the person of Bourbon himself was threatened, his tent plundered, his best apparel thrown into a ditch. The Spaniards, who were the ringleaders, infected the Germans with their discontent, and excited them with cries of Lanz! Lanz! Geld! Geld! their only words of German. In this trying hour the veteran George Frunsberg relied on the affection of his lanceknights. The drums sounded a parley; a ring was formed, and Frunsberg stepped into the middle, accompanied by the Prince of Orange and other distinguished officers. Frunsberg addressed the threatening masses, recalled to their memory how he had shared in their prosperous and adverse fortune, and with mild and prudent words promised them satisfaction. They answered only with cries of Geld! Geld! and leveled their spears against Frunsberg and his officers. The disobedience of his troops, whom he regarded as his children, overpowered the veteran commander who had faced danger in every shape. He was seized with a fit, and sank speechless and apparently lifeless on a drum. At this sight the hearts of his soldiers relented. The fate of their beloved captain produced the tranquility which his words had failed to command; the spears were raised, the orders of the captains obeyed, and those bands, but now so tumultuous, separated in silence and sorrow. After three or four days Frunsberg recovered his speech, but he was never again in a condition to head his troops, and in a few weeks he died. He could only recommend Bourbon and the army to one another. The soldiers no longer demanded money; their only cry was, “To Rome! to Rome!”

Bourbon’s march was resumed; but it was slow. He did not reach Imola till April 5th. Thence he proceeded by the Val di Bagno over the Apennines, descending between the sources of the Arno and the Tiber. It was doubtful whether the blow would fall on Florence or Rome. A large proportion of the Florentines would willingly have seen their city taken by the Germans, thinking that such an event might release them from their servitude to the Pope. Cardinal Passerini, who governed them for Clement, had been afraid to arm the people; and when at last they obtained arms they rose in rebellion, and shut the gates against the Duke of Urbino. But they were soon induced to return to obedience. Lannoy went to Florence in person, and obtained from the citizens a promise of 150,000 crowns; with which offer he proceeded, towards the end of April, to the camp of Bourbon; but the soldiery raised their demands to 240,000 crowns, and displayed such menacing symptoms that Lannoy deemed it prudent to make his escape. About the same time the Pope, at the instigation of the English and French ambassadors, and disgusted, perhaps, with the exorbitant demands of Bourbon’s army, renounced the truce with the Viceroy, and renewed his alliance with the League; although he had dis­missed the greater part of his troops and left his capital almost defenseless.

Bourbon now put his intentions beyond all doubt by taking the high road to Rome and marching on Arezzo. His army had been increased by the flocking to it of bandits and other disorderly characters, and the Duke of Ferrara had supplied him with some artillery. There was nothing to oppose his march to Rome; for the army of the Duke of Urbino, which hung at a respectful distance in his rear, seemed only to drive him on. It appears from Charles’s letters to Lannoy and Bourbon at this period, that he was fully aware of the latter’s intention: though the same documents show that he did not originally suggest it. He utters, however, not a single word of disapproval; on the contrary, he seems well satisfied that terms should be dictated to the Pope in his capital, and compensation procured for the expenses of the war. Florence also was not to be spared. The Emperor therefore shared the feelings of the army. He had, indeed, prepared a ratification of Lannoy’s treaty with the Pope, to be used in case the army had done nothing to extort better terms; a step which the conduct of the Pope himself had rendered useless.

Martin du Bellay, the author of the Memoirs, who had posted from Florence to apprise Clement of Bourbon’s advance, found him in the greatest trepidation. To add to his fear, a fanatical prophet, a Sienese of middle age, perambulated the streets of Rome, vociferating abuse in the ears of the Pope himself, predicting his fall and that of the City, and the subsequent reformation of the Church. The Papal troops were deserting by fifties and hundreds, and there was no money to levy more. Clement at first steadily rejected the advice of the English ambassadors to raise funds by the sale of Cardinal’s hats. Ultimately he made six Cardinals for 40,000 crowns a piece but the money was not readily forthcoming; and the only recruits that could be had were shopboys, tapsters, and such like persons. It is said that a great part of the population would have been glad to see Rome in possession of the Emperor, whose splendid Court would have been more favorable to trade than the dominion of the clergy. Clement entrusted the defence of Rome to Du Bellay and Renzo da Ceri. Bourbon appeared before it on the evening of May 5th, and sent a trumpet to demand admittance and an unmolested passage to Naples; but as his artillery had not yet come up, the Pope determined to resist. It was thought that the army of the League must soon arrive, and that want of provisions would compel the assailants to a speedy retreat. The same reasons suggested to Bourbon the necessity for prompt measures; and at daybreak on the morrow, under cover of a thick fog, he gave orders for the assault, which was made on that part of the City on the west of the Tiber, called the Borgo di S. Pietro, between the Janiculum and the Vatican. The resistance was greater than had been anticipated, and Bourbon, seeing his troops waver, seized a ladder, and was planting it against the wall when he was struck by a shot in the side. He felt that the wound was mortal, and ordering himself to be wrapped in his mantle, that the army might not perceive his loss, in this way died at the foot of the walls while the assault was still proceeding. A party of Spaniards effected an entrance through a loophole near the base of the walls, which, being partly concealed by rubbish, had escaped the notice of the garrison; and they advanced into the City with cries of “Spain! Spain! Kill them! Kill them!”. At this unexpected apparition Renzi was seized with a panic, and exclaiming, “The enemy are within!” sullied his former military reputation by a disgraceful flight towards the Ponte Sisto. More soldiers pressed in, over the walls and through the gates. In Rome all was flight and consternation. At this anxious moment Clement was at prayer in his chapel, when, hearing that the assault had succeeded, he traversed a long corridor that led from the Vatican to the Castle of St. Angelo. Paolo Giovio, the historian, who accompanied him, threw his violet mantle over the Pope’s white robe, placing also his own hat on Clement’s head, to prevent him from being recognized. The Pontiff might have escaped over the bridge of St. Angelo, not yet occupied by the enemy, had he not been too fearful to proceed beyond the fortress. A promiscuous throng of Cardinals, prelates, nobles, citizens, ladies, priests, and soldiers, also pressed into the Castle, and rendered it difficult to lower the portcullis.

Sack of Rome

Although flushed with success and without a commander, yet the instinct and habit of long discipline withheld that savage soldiery from plunder till they had endeavored to make terms with the Pope. Their demands now rose to 300,000 crowns, and possession of the Trastevere as security for the payment. The infatuated Clement, who at this eleventh hour still clung to the hope of being rescued by the army of the League, the van of whose cavalry might be discerned in the distance, persisted in rejecting all proposals. After four hours’ rest the Imperialists resumed operations. The Trastevere was soon taken; the bridges over the Tiber were stormed, and before night all Rome was in their power. They remained, however, under arms till midnight, the main body of the Spaniards occupying the Piazza Navona, while the Germans were arrayed in the Campo di Fiori; when, no enemy appearing, they rushed forth to rapine, lust, and murder, and all those deeds which are best hid as well as perpetrated under the pall of night. This, however, was but the initiation of their crimes and orgies. During many weeks Rome was one continued scene of plunder and massacre. In these excesses the soldiers of each nation displayed their characteristic qualities; and whilst the Germans principally indulged themselves in eating and drinking, the Spaniards and Italians perpetrated the more violent kinds of mischief. It is needless to say that churches as well as palaces were plundered; the Italians themselves under Pompeo Colonna had done the same. Even the tomb of St. Peter was ran­sacked, and a golden ring taken from the finger of the body of Julius II. The booty was immense. For centuries the wealth of Europe had been flowing towards Rome, and it now became the prey of that brutal and needy soldiery which, in expectation of this hour, had so long borne with privations and misery. Fortunately for the Roman nobles, after a few days Cardinal Pompeo Colonna came to Rome and protected them against the worst excesses of the enemy. The chief officers of the Imperial army occupied the Vatican; the Prince of Orange, whom the soldiers had elected their commander-in-chief, was lodged in the apartments of the Pope.

Meanwhile Clement was still anxiously awaiting his deliverance. Every night three signals were made from the Castle of St. Angelo that it still held out; but though the Duke of Urbino was at length in the immediate vicinity of Rome, he did not attempt its relief. His former conduct seems to have been the effect of irresolution and cowardice: he was now perhaps also actuated by motives of revenge, and may have viewed with secret satisfaction the misfortunes of one of that Medicean house who had formerly been his mortal adversaries. Such was the slowness with which he had advanced, that although he knew of the capture of Rome when at Orvieto on the 11th of May, he did not reach Nepi till the 22nd. He soon withdrew his army without having made the slightest attempt to relieve the Pope, and Clement was obliged to renew negotiations with Lannoy, who had arrived in Rome. After a month’s captivity he effected a capitulation on worse conditions than those previously offered (June 5th, 1527). He engaged to renounce all alliances against the Emperor; to remain a prisoner, together with the thirteen Cardinals who had accompanied him into the Castle of St. Angelo, till he had paid the Imperial army 400,000 ducats; and to place Ostia and Cività Vecchia, as well as Modena, Parma and Piacenza, in the hands of the Imperialists as security for the payment. When Sultan Solyman heard of these events he remarked that the Turks had not treated the Patriarch of Constantinople with half the contumely which the Christians had displayed towards their Holy Father.

The Pope’s discomfort was increased by the intelligence that the Florentines had availed themselves of Bourbon’s advance to expel the Medici, throw down their statues and confiscate their property; and that they were endeavoring under the protection of France to restore the Republic of Savonarola. The young Ippolito and Alessandro de' Medici, accompanied by Cardinal Passerini, Pope Clement’s administrator, were thus driven out of Florence (May 27th, 1527), whence they proceeded to Lucca. This defection of his native city affected Clement even more than the capture of Rome. He learnt at the same time that the Venetians had treacherously recovered Ravenna and Cervia and that the Dukes of Urbino and Ferrara had, under various pretexts, seized several places in the Papal dominions. In Rome itself, people no longer talked of the Apostolic, but of the Imperial, chamber; while the German troops, nay, perhaps, some of the Roman citizens themselves, were in hopes that the young Emperor would take up his residence in the former capital of the world.

Charles, into whose hands the fortune of war had thus consecutively thrown two of the greatest potentates of Europe, was not slow to perceive all the advantages of the conjuncture; but, in his outward behavior, he assumed the appearance of his usual moderation. He affected the profoundest sympathy for the Pope’s misfortune, countermanded the fêtes for celebrating the birth of his son Philip, and put himself and his court into mourning. But while by Charles’s order prayers were offering up in the Spanish churches for the Pontiff’s deliverance, the Emperor does not appear to have taken any steps towards effecting it; and the Imperial captains took care that Clement should not be liberated till he had paid down the stipulated sums. Charles, no doubt, was again playing the hypocrite; yet it should be recollected that he was dealing with a personage who himself assumed a double character; and that while the Emperor was bound to reverence the Pope as the Vicar of Christ and Father of the Faithful, he might rejoice over his humiliation as a temporal Prince who had often opposed him with arms, and still oftener deceived him by negotiations. It was a crisis in the affairs of Europe, as well as in those of the Emperor himself. Everything depended on the course Charles might adopt. Should he press his advantages against the Pope and reign in his stead, as his grandfather Maximilian had once contemplated doing? Or, should he revert to the old traditional policy, which linked together the interests of the Holy Roman See and Holy Roman Empire? In order to appreciate the policy which guided him in choosing between these alternatives, we must recall to mind the actual state of affairs.

The position of Charles V

First, there was the great Eastern question. The Emperor’s brother, Ferdinand, claimed the Crowns of Bohemia and Hungary; but as Hungary had been overrun by the Turks, who now threatened even the existence of the Empire, it seemed probable that no adequate defence could be organized without conciliating the German reformers and obtaining their hearty cooperation; and this had been one of the motives for the favorable recess of the Diet of Spires. By that recess, as well as by letters and manifestoes, Charles had already in a considerable degree committed himself to an anti-Papal policy in Germany; and there can be little doubt that, had he placed himself at the head of the German reformation, holding as he did the Pope in his power, and being assisted by popular opinion, he might have succeeded in wholly exterminating the remains of Papistry in that country. Thus he might have established his Empire firmly both in Germany and Italy, and presented an impenetrable barrier to the Turks. Some schemes of this sort appear at first to have been actually floating in his mind. He expressed his confidence that his army might make a favorable convention with the Florentines; then encamp in the Venetian territory, and, with the aid of the Duke of Ferrara, who was to be named captain-general, dictate a peace to that haughty Republic. Nay, he even contemplated bringing the Pope, like Francis previously, a prisoner into Spain; and Hugo de Moncada, now Viceroy of Naples, appears actually to have invited Alarcon, the officer to whom, by a singular fortune, the custody of the Pope, like that of Francis previously, was entrusted, to convey Clement to Gaeta. But the Spanish conscience of that officer, though it felt no repugnance at keeping the Pope a prisoner, revolted at the idea of “leading about captive the body of God”.

On the other side, however, were many reasons which dissuaded Charles from acting too harshly towards the Pope. His brother Ferdinand’s possession of Hungary was threatened, not only by the Turks, but also by Zapolya and his party; it could not but be advantageous to the House of Austria in the struggle for the Hungarian Crown, that their cause should be espoused by the Church; and in fact, Clement was afterwards induced to excommunicate Zapolya and his adherents. Even in Germany itself there was still a mighty Catholic party, and especially a numerous and powerful hierarchy, at the head of which were the three ecclesiastical Electors. In short, the Papacy and the Empire were so closely linked that, according to the remark of Zwingli, one could not be assailed without attacking the other. Charles, moreover, was King of Spain as well as Emperor, and his Spanish subjects were bigoted Papists, who would have viewed with horror the abasement of their spiritual Head. The Spanish grandees, temporal as well as spiritual, who visited the Court, reminded Charles of the devotion of their nation towards the Holy Father : the Papal Nuncio talked of suspending all ecclesiastical functions in Spain; the prelates, clothed in mourning, were to appear before the Emperor to demand from him the Vicar of Christ, and the Court had to prevent so striking a demonstration. Charles’s ministers, too, were in favor of Clement’s liberation; and another question to be considered was the King of England’s divorce, which had already begun to be canvassed; a matter in which the Pope had power to do the Emperor serious harm. Nor was it possible entirely to disregard the opinion of Europe, which regarded the sack of Rome and captivity of the Pontiff with real or affected indignation. With a view to exculpate himself, Charles issued circular letters to all the Courts of Europe, dated at Valladolid, August 2nd, 1627, in which he explained how much he had been provoked by Clement; endeavored to prove that faith had been broken with him; asserted that he had never au­thorized Bourbon’s march to Rome; that Bourbon’s soldiers, though carrying the Imperial flag, scarcely recognized the Emperor’s authority; and that their leader having fallen in the first assault, it was no longer possible to retain them in obedience. In which he seems to prove too much. For, if Bourbon’s expedition was beyond his control, it was hardly necessary to exculpate himself by alleging his grievances against the Pope.

Charles’s own bigotry, however, was probably as weighty as any reasons of State. His Spanish blood, his education under the scholastic Adrian, his early manhood passed in Spain, all tended to subordinate him to Rome. His enmity to the Pope, and opposition to him in Germany, were founded on temporal considerations only, and vanished with the occasion of them. We are not, therefore, surprised to find that Charles in instructing his ambassador to the captive Pope, talks of the necessity of uprooting the heretical sect of Luther. At length, November 26th, 1527, a treaty was concluded. Clement was to be liberated on condition of paying between 300,000 and 400,000 ducats, and undertaking never again to interfere in the affairs of Naples and the Milanese; he was to call a General Council for reformation of the Church and extirpation of Lutheranism; to admit Imperial garrisons into Ostia, Cività Vecchia, and Cività Castellana; and to surrender Alessandro and Ippolito de' Medici, as hostages for the performance of the treaty. It is also said that he promised not to grant Henry VIII’s divorce, but no article to this effect was inserted in the treaty. Clement escaped from the Castle of St. Angelo, in the disguise of a servant, in the night of the 9th of December, before the day appointed for his liberation, and probably with the connivance of his guard. He proceeded to Orvieto, where he remained till the following October.

The news of the sack of Rome and captivity of Clement produced a great sensation in England and France. Wolsey ordered prayers to be offered up in every church for the Pope’s deliverance, and the observance of a three days’ fast; but the people would not keep it. There was already a strong anti-Papal feeling abroad among the English. They remarked that the Pope was not fit for his holy office; that he had begun the mischief, and was rightly served. The King himself observed to Wolsey, that the war between the Pope and Emperor was not for the faith but only for temporal possessions and dominions, and intimated that his support of Clement would be confined to pecuniary aid. The King of France talked of establishing a separate Popedom or Patriarchate in his dominions now that the Pope was in the power of his adversary. But it was mere talk.

Just previously to the taking of Rome, Henry VIII and Francis I had concluded the treaty of Westminster (April 30th, 1527), the principal object of which was to make a diversion in favor of Italy by carrying the war into the Netherlands with an army composed of one-third English and two-thirds French. Provision was also made for the liberation of the young French Princes and for the payment of the debt to England. Henry renounced his pretensions to the French Crown, in consideration of an annual pension of 50,000 gold crowns to him and his successors. The fall of Rome gave a new aspect to affairs, and the preceding treaty was modified by another, May 29th, by which it was further agreed that a French army of 30,000 men should invade Italy, and that England should contribute 30,000 crowns a month to its support.

In order to concert the necessary measures as well as to draw closer the bonds of union between the two countries, and if possible to strengthen them by a marriage between Henry VIII and a French princess, Wolsey undertook an embassy into France. This was the last of the haughty Cardinal’s public negotiations and also the most splendid. Early in July he passed in State through the streets of London, followed by a body of 1,200 lords and gentlemen on horseback, all dressed in black velvet livery coats, and having for the most part chains of gold around their necks. These, again, were followed by their servants in tawny livery. The Cardinal’s own equipage was as magnificent as ecclesiastical pomp could make it. The imposing and theatrical effect of his progress was heightened by a little piece of acting. At Canterbury, Wolsey caused the cathedral monks to sing the Litany in choir, while he knelt on a stool at the choir door, weeping very tenderly “for grief that the Pope was in such calamity and danger of the lanceknights”. On landing at Calais he announced himself as the King’s Lieutenant-General, thus adding military dignity to ecclesiastical state. When he set forth from that town his train was more than a mile in length. He would willingly have dazzled the eyes of the Parisians with his magnificence; but such a display was not agreeable to the French Court, and under pretence of civility, Amiens was chosen for the conference. Francis kept the Cardinal waiting some days at Abbeville, and it was not till August 3rd that they met at Amiens. Francis did him honor by going out to meet him; and Wolsey asserted his ecclesiastical preeminence by causing his throne in the church to be raised three steps higher than that of the King. After a fortnight spent in festivities the treaty of Amiens was concluded (August 18th), by which Henry repeated his renunciation of the French Crown in consideration of the pension before mentioned; Francis was to be at liberty to marry the Emperor’s sister Eleanor, and the Duke of Orleans was to espouse the Lady Mary. The treaty also settled the sums to be advanced by Henry towards the war. Another treaty declared that the Pope, while a prisoner, could not convoke a General Council; that all bulls issued during his detention, if prejudicial to England or France, were null and void; and that Wolsey, with assistance of the English prelates, should have power to regulate the ecclesiastical affairs of England. A like regulation was adopted with regard to France.

After the completion of these treaties Wolsey proceeded to Compiegne to arrange, if possible, a more private and delicate matter—a marriage, namely between Henry VIII and the Princess Renée, then in her seventeenth year, the younger sister of the late Queen Claude. In this affair, however, the Cardinal was not successful. As daughter of Louis XII and Anne of Brittany, Renée had a reversion in that Duchy which Francis would have been ill pleased to see transferred to the English Crown. A few months later Renée married the eldest son of the Duke of Ferrara, afterwards Hercules II. Duke Alfonso was thus detached from the Imperial interest, and signed a treaty with France, by which the marriage of his son was arranged. Like her kinswoman, Margaret of Navarre, Renée was devoted to literature, but her studies were deeper, and to a knowledge of languages she added geometry, astronomy, and philosophy. From Margaret she had imbibed a love for the doctrines of the Reformation; her Court at Ferrara became the centre of what little progress the new doctrines ever made in Italy, and occasionally afforded shelter to some of their most eminent professors, among whom may be mentioned Calvin, and the poet Clement Marot. The proposed marriage of Henry VIII involved of course a divorce from Catharine, and it was at Compiegne that Wolsey opened to the King’s mother Louise his schemes on that subject. It is difficult to say when this divorce was first contemplated, but it is certain that it must have been in Henry’s mind at least a year before, and probably two or three; as it appears from a letter of the Bishop of Bath, 13th September, 1526, that negotiations for it were even then going on with the Court of Rome. Wolsey did not quit France till towards the end of September. The Emperor, alarmed at these negotiations, and at the threatened invasion of Italy, would willingly have concluded a peace with Francis on the terms offered in the preceding year, but the French King rejected all his proposals.

French invasion of Italy

Towards the end of July a French army under Lautrec entered Italy, and at the same time Genoa was blockaded by a French fleet under Andrew Doria, while Caesar Fregoso invested it by land. Thus besieged by the two banished chiefs of the French party, the Genoese capitulated, expelled the Doge, Antonietto Adorno, and admitted Theodoro Trivulzio, a nephew of the famous captain, as Governor in the name of Francis I. Lautrec’s progress was equally successful. He rapidly overran all the country west of the Ticino, and took Pavia by assault (October, 1527), which, in revenge of its obstinate resistance two or three years before, was sacked with circumstances of great barbarity. But instead of attempting the conquest of the Milanese, he gave out that he intended to liberate the Pope, who was still confined in St. Angelo; and crossing the Po he marched southwards, and went into winter quarters at Bologna. When he resumed his march in January, 1528, the Pope was already free. The Imperial army, under the Prince of Orange, which had been reduced by various causes to half its original number, evacuated Rome on Lautrec’s approach, and retreated towards Naples, making only a slight show of resistance at Troja. The French advance was accompanied with the greatest excesses and cruelties. At the end of April they appeared before Naples, which they immediately invested. Hugo de Moncada, who had been appointed Viceroy on Lannoy’s death in September, 1527, having put to sea with the Marquis del Guasto and many of the nobility, with a small fleet, in order to drive off Filippino Doria, who was cruising in the Gulf of Salerno, received a signal defeat, in which he himself was slain, Guasto taken prisoner, and most of the Spanish vessels either captured or sunk (May 28th). Doria being joined by twenty-three Venetian galleys, now blockaded Naples by sea; and that city being thus invested on all sides, so great a famine ensued, that an egg was sold for a real, and a fowl for a ducat. But the improvidence of Francis again marred all his prospects of success. Though prodigal in his own pleasures, he neglected to supply Lautrec with the funds necessary for his army’s maintenance. His treatment of Andrew Doria was still more impolitic. Montmorenci, who enjoyed the revenues of the harbor of Savona, set about to improve it, and to remove some branches of trade thither from Genoa, and when Doria resisted these proceedings, which would have done great harm to his native town, Duprat, the ready tool of every oppression, procured a warrant for his apprehension, the execution of which was entrusted to Admiral Barbesieux, who was appointed to supersede Doria in command of the fleet. Doria, having heard of this step, concluded a treaty with the Emperor, with whom he had been some time negotiating, and sailing to Naples, opened the sea to the Imperial garrison. The state of things was now reversed. Famine was transferred from the city to the besieging army, and a terrible pestilence swept off the greater part of the French. Among the victims were Marshal de Lautrec himself, and the Count of Vaudemont, who was to have received the Crown of Naples. The French precipitately raised the siege (August 29th), leaving behind them their guns. Soon afterwards, the Marquis of Saluzzo, who had succeeded to the command, surrendered, with the small remains of the French army, at Aversa, to the Prince of Orange, now Viceroy of Naples. Pedro Navarro, who had been taken prisoner, was put to death as a traitor. Thus was swallowed up the fourth army which had been dispatched into Italy since the accession of Francis I.

Clement VII, in spite of his accommodation with the Emperor, would have beheld with pleasure the success of the French arms, and with his usual faithlessness he had exhorted Lautrec to advance. Henry VIII’s divorce, and consequently the fate of Wolsey, and the infinitely more important question of the English Reformation, depended on the success of Lautrec. It was Wolsey who had put it into the King’s head to apply to Rome. Left to himself, Henry would have taken a more violent course. The Cardinal, as a churchman, had regard to the Pope, and that spiritual power which it was not impossible he might one day wield himself; as a statesman, he was solicitous for the King’s reputation, and the security of the succession to the Crown, both which might be endangered by an illegal marriage. The conduct of Clement was chiefly influenced by his fears; on the one hand, the dread of offending the Emperor, on the other, of disobliging Henry, and losing the allegiance of England to the See of Rome, a prospect not obscurely held out to him by Gardiner and Fox, the English ambassadors, at Orvieto. Their representations had great effect upon Clement, and they describe him as pacing a long while up and down his chamber, using at the same time the most lively gesticulations. He was thus held in a state of agonizing suspense and timid vacillation. Nor was the case in itself without great difficulty. Clement was not solicited for a divorce, as is commonly supposed, but to condemn as illegal the dispensation given by his predecessor, Julius II, for the marriage of Henry and Catharine, when, of course, Henry would have been free to contract a new marriage. Clement had not the least objection to that. All he wanted was a sufficient excuse with the Emperor, which he would have found if Lautrec could have been induced by the English ambassadors to put upon him the appearance of compulsion. Among other evasions, Clement and his counselors advised that Henry should take a second wife at once, without making so much stir about the matter—in short, quietly commit bigamy—and if any dispute arose, refer the cause to Rome. One of the schemes in agitation between the English ambassadors and the Pope during the latter’s residence at Orvieto was, that he should depose Charles on the ground of the ill treatment endured at his hands, and authorize the Electors to choose another Emperor from among themselves. Clement listened to this suggestion: he thought that he could count upon four of the Electors; but Henry and Francis must first agree upon the person to be chosen. These and other plans—in fact, the whole conduct of the Pope—depended, as we have said, on Lautrec’s success. Early in June, 1528, when that commander stood in a favorable position before Naples, Clement, enticed by the promise that the Venetians should be induced to restore his cities, gave his Legate, Campeggio, full power to decide the cause. But after Lautrec’s defeat, in August, we find Sanga writing to Campeggio (September 2nd), that, however indebted his Holiness might feel himself to the King of England, yet care must be taken not to give offence to the victorious Emperor.

From this period the relations between Clement and Charles became more and more friendly and intimate; the magnificent projects which the Pope had formed of liberating Italy from the yoke of foreigners, vanished gradually from his mind; he even began to forget the personal wrongs which had seemed ineffaceable; and he resolved once more to change parties, and to sacrifice Italy for the interests of his family and those of the tiara. That his house might have a foundation in the Church, he created Ippolito de' Medici a Cardinal, while Alessandro was to be established in the government of Florence. A formal and public reconciliation was effected by the treaty of Barcelona (June 29th, 1529), by which Charles engaged to procure the restoration of Ravenna, Cervia, Modena, and Reggio, which had been wrested from the See of Rome, and to reestablish the House of Medici at Florence. Clement, on his side, promised to crown Charles with the Imperial Crown, and to invest him with the Kingdom of Naples, on condition of the usual tribute of a white palfrey. The claim of Fran­cesco Maria Sforza to the Milanese was left in abeyance till a tribunal should have decided on his guilt or innocence in Morone’s affair. Engagements were entered into to arrest the progress of the Turks and Lutherans; and the Pope absolved the soldiers who had participated in the violence and excesses committed at Rome, in order that they might be employed in the “Holy War”. But the war for which they were really destined was one of a very different kind—the subjugation of Florence, the Pope’s native city. The treaty was confirmed by the betrothal of the Emperor’s natural daughter, Margaret, to Alessandro de' Medici.

The reconciliation between Clement and Charles was fatal to the progress of Henry VIII’s divorce. The Pope was now entirely at the Emperor’s service. On the 9th of July he hinted to the English ambassadors the opinion of the Roman jurisconsults, that the cause must be evoked to Rome; and when they endeavored to dissuade him from such a course, he replied, that though sensible of its consequences, he was between hammer and anvil, and could not resist the Emperor’s demands; that if he complied with the wishes of the King, he should draw a devastating storm upon himself and the Church. The peace of Barcelona was proclaimed in Rome, July 18th, and on the following day Clement notified to Wolsey that the suit was evoked to Rome. The consequences that ensued belong to English history—the fall and, soon after, the death of Wolsey, the victim of his own policy, and the subsequent marriage of Henry with Anne Boleyn. To another of its consequences, the abolition of the Papal supremacy in England, we shall have occasion to advert further on.

Cardinal Wolsey will always stand out on the canvas of European history as one of the greatest ministers of his age. He not only established the power of the House of Tudor, but also restored England to that position as a European State which had been lost through her domestic troubles, though it was the prudent reign of Henry VII which prepared the means for the accomplishment of that end. That Wolsey neglected not his own interests whilst he advanced those of his country and his Sovereign, and that he displayed in his private life a magnificence which accorded with the grandeur of his political ideas, will hardly be a just subject of blame.

The treaties between Francis and the King of England had produced no effect besides the invasion of Italy by the French. The war which Henry had undertaken to wage with the Netherlanders was very unpopular in England. The citizens of London protested loudly against an expedition which would have ruined one of their most important and lucrative trades and the King, yielding to their remonstrances, concluded a truce with Margaret, Governess of the Netherlands, June 8th, 1528, by which the Netherland frontiers were guaranteed from invasion for eight months. In Italy, the Venetians were lukewarm in supporting the French; the Pope, as we have seen, had made his arrangements with the Emperor; and Andrew Doria followed up the relief of Naples by exciting his fellow-citizens to throw off the French yoke. The French garrison was expelled from Genoa, September 12th, 1528; the Republic was reorganized and placed by Doria under the Emperor’s protection. Efficacious measures were adopted for extinguishing the factions by which Genoa had so long been torn. The feudal and civic aristocracies were amalgamated into one body of nobility, all the members of which entered by turns into the Great Council of the Republic, composed of three hundred members, who sat for a year. The Genoese constitution thus became strictly aristocratic. It was not again overthrown, and dragged on, till the French revolution, a lingering existence among the monuments of its former glory. Andrew Doria, by refusing the title of Doge, showed that he had not been actuated by personal ambition. He contented himself with the command of the fleet, and that moral authority which was due to him as the liberator of his country. But this authority was so great that he obtained the by-name of “the monarch”; and this monarch was the Emperor’s admiral.

Declaration of war by France and England.

So complete was the control exercised by Wolsey before his fall over the foreign negotiations of England, that Henry VIII does not appear to have been aware of the declaration of war which, in conjunction with that of the French King, had been delivered to Charles in January, 1528. It was on the 22nd of that month that Guyenne and Clarencieux, the French and English Kings-at Arms, appeared before the Emperor at Burgos, and, in presence of his assembled nobles, declared war against him in the name of their respective masters. The Emperor naturally expressed surprise that Francis should have chosen such a moment for his declaration, when he had been several years at war with him without one; and he reminded Guyenne of a message which he had sent to the French King by his ambassador, but which the latter had not thought fit to deliver, to the effect that he had violated the faith and honor of a gentleman, and that if Francis asserted the contrary, he was ready to maintain the charge person to person. Charles’s answer to Clarencieux was more moderate; but he addressed to Henry a letter in which he charged him with the contemplated divorce from Catharine. Charles pointed out that such a step would bastardize the Lady Mary, whose hand had been offered to him; and he inquired what confidence could be placed in Henry’s affected zeal for the Pope, when he showed so little for religion?

Francis, unable to rebut the charge brought against him by the Emperor, replied by a challenge, in which he gave Charles the lie, and he caused it to be read in presence of Perrenot de Granvelle, the Emperor’s ambassador, and of the whole French Court; but when Burgundy, the Imperial King-at-Arms, came back with a reply, fixing the place of combat on the Bidasoa, Francis flew into a violent rage, and would not accord him a hearing; so that the refusal of the duel rests with the French King.

In spite, however, of their desire to be revenged on each other, the warlike operations of Charles and Francis were carried on without much vigor. Both, in fact, were exhausted. The French campaigns in northern Italy in the years 1528 and 1529, under François de Bourbon-Vendome, commonly called the Count of St. Pol, whom Francis had dispatched thither with a few thousand men, are scarcely worth narrating. At last, in June, 1529, St. Pol was surprised at Landriano, near Milan, by Antonio de Leyva; he himself and most of his principal officers were taken prisoners, and the French army was entirely scattered. This defeat, and the treaty of Barcelona, which confirmed the defection of the Pope, inclined the French Court to peace with the Emperor. Further resistance in Italy was impossible. Charles was master in north and south; Genoa was withdrawn from French influence; Venice, by Mantua’s secession from the League, was herself threatened, and obliged to think of her own defence; Florence, indeed, still held out, but without any prospect of ultimate success. There was no chance of English cooperation against the Netherlands, and there was pressing need for the delivery of the young French princes from their captivity. The Emperor, on his side, had too much to do in Germany and Hungary to be desirous of continuing the war. He was also in want of money, and the ransom of the French princes promised a plentiful supply. Under these circumstances it was arranged that Louise, the French King’s mother, and Charles’s aunt Margaret, should meet at Cambray to settle the terms of a general peace; for the Sovereigns themselves were so embittered against each other as to make it desirable to entrust the negotiations to female hands. In July the two ladies went to Cambray, where they occupied adjoining houses, between which a private passage was opened, so that they could confer together at all hours without notice or interruption; and on the 5th of August, 1529,they signed the Peace of Cambray, which was named after them La Paix des Dames or “Ladies’ Peace”. It was founded on the treaty of Madrid, with a modification of some of the articles. The ransom of the French princes was fixed at three millions of gold crowns; but of this sum one million was to be set off as the dowry of Madame Eleanor, whom Francis was to marry. Francis was released from his obligation to surrender Burgundy, and on the other hand renounced all his pretensions in Italy, as well as the suzerainty of West Flanders and Artois, recognized the treaty imposed by the Emperor on Charles of Egmont, Duke of Gelderland, in October, 1528, by which that old ally of France had entered the Imperial alliance, guaranteed the reversion of Gelderland and Zutphen to Charles V, and engaged not to countenance any practices against the Emperor either in Italy or Germany. Margaret and Charles were to retain the Charolais during their lives, after which that County was to revert to the French Crown. Francis took upon him to pay the debts owing by the Emperor to the King of England, and to set them off against his ransom. They amounted to 400,000 crowns, besides a claim of 500,000 more, forfeited by Charles for not having married the Lady Mary, and 50,000 to redeem a golden fleur-de-lis set with diamonds.

It may be observed that Francis, by this disgraceful treaty, abandoned all his allies both in Italy and the Netherlands, whilst Charles did not desert a single one, and obtained a pardon for Bourbon’s family and adherents. The French King covered himself with infamy by not only deserting the Venetians, but even engaging to force them to restore the places which they had acquired when leagued with him. And although on this occasion it was impossible for him to allege that any constraint had been put upon him, he entered a protest against the treaty, on the ground that over and above a money ransom, the ceding of his claims upon Italy had been extorted from him, contrary to the usages of war. The Parliament of Paris likewise protested against the registering of the treaty. It is pleaded that Francis was persuaded to this act by his Chancellor, Duprat; but such an excuse cannot be admitted; and this second, and still more deliberate act of treachery stamps him as a Prince without faith or honor. Thus fresh hostilities were meditated in the very act of forming a peace; but Francis was not at present in condition to avail himself of his protest.

Thus were virtually terminated the wars of the French in Italy, which had lasted thirty-six years; for the attempt to revive them was not attended with much success. In these wars the French had repeatedly displayed a capability of making rapid and brilliant conquests without the power of retaining them or turning them to any substantial advantage. The treaty of Cambray was Louise’s last political act of any importance; she died two years after (September 22nd, 1531), when the immense sum of one and a half millions of gold crowns was found in this avaricious woman’s coffers. The want of a third of that sum had cost the loss of the Milanese; a third added to it would have paid the ransom of her grand­children.

The liberation of the latter had been fixed by the treaty of Cambray to take place on March 1st, 1530, but was delayed four months; partly by the difficulty of raising the money for their ransom, and partly by a disgraceful fraud attempted by Duprat. To reduce the amount he caused a new coinage to be struck, one-thirtieth part lighter than the legal currency, which would have afforded the paltry gain of 40,000 crowns. This attempt at fraud having been detected by the Spanish moneyers gave rise to redoubled vigilance on their part; and it was not till July 1st that satisfactory arrangements were completed. Eleanor, the affianced bride of Francis, passed into the boat along with his sons; the French King went to meet them, and espoused Eleanor at the convent of Verrières, near the town of Mont-de-Marsan in Gascony.

Having thus narrated the struggle between the Emperor and the French King to the Peace of Cambray, we shall now return awhile to the affairs of Germany and the progress of the Reformation, which have been already brought down to the Diet of Worms in 1521, and Luther’s concealment at the Wartburg.

CHAPTER XIII

PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION