CRISTO RAUL.ORG

READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM

CHAPTER XII

The Anarchic Condition of the Papal States. —The Efforts of Henry VIII and Francis I to deliver the Pope. — The Attitude of Charles V. The Flight of Clement VII to Orvieto.

“The Pope”, wrote Guicciardini on the 21st of June 1527, “is treated as an actual prisoner. Only with the greatest difficulty can entrance into the castle or egress from it be obtained, so that it is almost impossible to have speech with him. They have not left him ten scudi worth of property. He is beset daily with fresh demands, and not the slightest attention is shown to his wishes regarding those of his servants who remain in the city”.

There was no limit to the rapacity of the Imperialists. A Ferrarese agent reports that Bartolomeo Gattinara went the length of taking from the Pope’s finger a diamond ring worth 150,000 ducats and of forcing him to sign a paper containing a promise of the Cardinalate. Clement himself told Roberto Boschetti that “the Spaniards had robbed him before his eyes of the chalice he used at Mass”. Clement could only regain his freedom by consenting to the hard conditions of the treaty. But in respect of these very conditions the most serious difficulties at once arose. In the first place, the Spaniards only held Ostia. In the upper parts of the Papal States not the slightest concern was shown for the commands of the captive Pope. Civita Castellana was held by the troops of the League; Andrea Doria held Civita Vecchia and refused to surrender the town until the 14,000 ducats he was called upon to raise were paid. Parma and Piacenza refused flatly to open their gates to the Imperial plenipotentiaries, and by the beginning of June Modena was in the hands of the Duke of Ferrara. The Venetians, “the allied associates” of the unfortunate Pope, in their desire to acquire territory, had taken advantage of the situation to lay hands on Ravenna and Cervia. Sigismondo Malatesta, favoured by Duke Alfonso, had made himself master of Rimini, while Imola had fallen to the lot of Giovanni da Sassatello, and Perugia to the sons of Giampaolo Baglioni. Not less painful to Clement than these losses in the States was the rebellion of his native Florence.

Drawn into the anti-Imperial alliance by the Pope, the Florentines had had to make the heaviest pecuniary sacrifices. Cardinal Silvio Passerini, who had resided in Florence since 1524, a man as inconsiderate as he was selfish and avaricious, was not fitted to quell the rising discontent. His hardness and lack of understanding embittered the spirits of all. To the news of the storming of Rome the Florentines replied by an insurrection against Medicean rule, and on the 17th of May Cardinal Passerini was obliged to leave the city, taking with him his wards, Ippolito and Alessandro, the cousins of Clement VII. This was followed by the restoration of the republican government as it existed prior to 1512. Niccolo Capponi was chosen Gonfaloniere. He repressed the more serious forms of disorder, but was unable to prevent the Florentine youth, whose heads were turned by their newly acquired freedom, from destroying all the armorial escutcheons of the Medici and even the wax effigies of Leo X and Clement VII in the Church of the Annunziata.

At this time Bologna also was very nearly lost to the Pope. The situation grew worse from day to day. The provinces, in Guicciardini’s opinion, were virtually without government. “Our distress”, wrote Giberti to Gambara on the 27th of June, “passes all imagination”. Nowhere was this more felt than at Rome.

The outlook in the Eternal City, a month after the sack, is described by a Spaniard in the following words :

“In Rome, the chief city of Christendom, no bells ring, no churches are open, no Masses are said, Sundays and feast-days have ceased. The rich shops of the merchants are turned into stables; the most splendid palaces are stripped bare; many houses are burnt to the ground; in others the doors and windows are broken and carried away the streets are changed into dunghills. The stench of dead bodies is terrible; men and beasts have a common grave, and in the churches I have seen corpses that dogs have gnawn. In the public places tables are set close together at which piles of ducats are gambled for. The air rings with blasphemies fit to make good men, if such there be, wish that they were deaf I know nothing wherewith I can compare it, except it be the destruction of Jerusalem. I do not believe that if I lived for two hundred years I should see the like again. Now I recognize the justice of God, who forgets not, even if His coming tarries. In Rome all sins are openly committed, sodomy, simony, idolatry, hypocrisy, fraud. Well may we believe, then, that what has come to pass has not been by chance but by the judgment of God.”

A speedy Nemesis, however, was to overtake the victors for the cruelties they had perpetrated. Rome became their destruction; dissension, hunger, and plague threatened to annihilate the Imperialist army. The soldiers no longer obeyed their commanders; always in uproar, they demanded their pay with threats. Because the landsknechts received the first distribution of Papal payments in cash, the Spaniards felt themselves injured; nor were occasions of friction and strife wanting in their drinking bouts, and at the gaming tables. On the loth of June a bloody affray took place between Spaniards and Italians on the one side and Germans on the other. “The game”, wrote Perez on the 11th of June to Charles V, “is now entirely in the hands of the landsknechts, who, not content with having pillaged the houses of Roman citizens, are now plundering those of the Spanish and Italian officers on the pretext of looking for corn, meal, and wine”. In order to prevent further excesses Prince Philibert of Orange ordered a daily patrol of the city by three Spanish and three German officers with their companies, a measure which restored order to a certain extent. This was all the more necessary as hunger and pestilence were pressing daily with increasing severity on the Imperialists.

Already on the 30th of May Perez reported to the Emperor that the want of food was so great that, if the army remained much longer in Rome, thousands must die of hunger. A measure of wheat cost 50 ducats and more, and it was only by force of arms that the price could be kept at this figure. Those of the inhabitants who could, fled. If this state of things lasted no one would be left in Rome except Imperialists. On the 11th of June Salazar sent a like account to Gattinara: “A couple of eggs cost six giulios. One can say with truth that, as far as food and clothing are concerned, the pillage of Rome is still going on, especially by the landsknechts, who lay hands on everything they find. No one can imagine the cruelties that are committed every day. Without respect of rank, age, and nationality, people are ill-used, tortured, and slain daily. If a man cannot pay he is sold—be he an Italian or a German—in open market as a slave, and if he does not fetch a purchaser, they cast dice for him. The soldiers are absolute masters of the city. They obey no man”.  The landsknechts suffered most in consequence of their mad manner of living. “Many of our men die here of plague”, wrote Kaspar Schwegler on the 11th of June. “Many drink heavily, become delirious, and so die; the wine here is very strong”.

The warm season of the year and the effluvia from the many bodies of men and animals, to which the hastiest burial had been given, turned Rome into a “stinking slaughter-pit”. By the 22nd of July two thousand five hundred Germans had died of the plague, and the streets were covered with dead and dying. The pestilence made its way into the castle of St. Angelo and exacted fresh victims among the servants of the Pope.

Clement, in the meantime, was making strenuous efforts to collect the promised sums of money with which to recover his freedom. The Papal tiaras—only that of Julius II was spared,—after their precious jewels had been taken out and concealed, had already been melted down by Benvenuto Cellini in a wind furnace hastily constructed on the top of the castle near the statue of the angel. Now all the rest of the gold and silver plate, even chalices and images of the saints, found its way into the melting-pot. In this way 70,000 ducats were forthcoming in the second half of June. But the troops, now completely out of hand, demanded with menaces further sums. To obtain them, Clement, on the 3rd of July 1527, turned to all the Bishops of the kingdom of Naples with prayers for help. He bitterly bewailed his necessities. He was bound by the treaty to pay 400,000 ducats, but since the assets in gold and metals in St. Angelo could only produce 80,000, he was compelled to appeal to the benevolence of others. Meanwhile no time was left to await the success of these requests. On the 6th of July Clement was forced, under extremely burdensome conditions, to borrow from the Genoese banker Ansaldo Grimaldi and the Catalonian merchant Michael Girolamo Sanchez. The loan amounted to 195,000 gold scudi. It was characteristic of the Pope’s position that the lenders at once deducted from this sum the enormous accommodation charge of 45,000 scudi. Clement had, besides this, to pledge as securities the town of Benevento, the quit-rents and the church tithes of the kingdom of Naples, as well as valuables worth 30,000 scudi. To pay still further sums immediately was, in spite of the Pope's good-will, impossible, which drew from the landsknechts fearful threats.

Meanwhile hunger and pestilence had reached such a pitch in Rome that the city became uninhabitable. Those who could not fight for their daily bread at the point of the sword had to die of hunger. Men dropped down dead in the street like flies. A Venetian report put the cases of death on several days at five hundred, on others at seven hundred, and even, in some instances, at a thousand. The burial of the dead could not be thought of.

Under such circumstances the Spanish and Italian troops left the city about the middle of June and made for the more distant neighbourhood. The landsknechts remained and threatened to murder all their officers and reduce Rome to ashes. Orange and Bemelberg were in a very difficult position, but at last, on the loth of July, they succeeded in inducing their utterly disorganized troops to cross to the further side of the Tiber and there encamp on ground free from plague and wait for the Pope’s remittances. Only the garrison of St. Angelo remained in Rome.

Orange, with a hundred and fifty horsemen, went to Siena. Bemelberg and Schertlin von Burtenbach, with the landsknechts, marched on Umbria. The generals were quite powerless to cope with their tumultuous soldiery; by the time they reached Orte there was mutiny in the distrustful ranks and the general’s tent was destroyed. It was only upon the threat of laying down his command that Bemelberg brought the mutineers to their senses. The inhabitants of the small town of Narni refused to admit the wild horde and made a desperate resistance. They were cruelly chastised (17th July). “With two thousand landsknechts we made the assault without firing a shot, took the town and castle by God’s grace, and then put upwards of one thousand persons to death; women and men”.

Besides the General of the Franciscans, Francesco Quiñones, who had been appointed previous to the great catastrophe, the Pope, under the pressure of his intolerable situation, had, by the middle of May, matured his plan of sending Cardinal Farnese to Charles V, in company with the Portuguese envoy, Don Martin, in order to urge on his liberation. Farnese received comprehensive instructions drawn up in justification of the Papal policy towards Charles. After hearing, on the 24th of June, of the birth of Prince Philip, afterwards King, Clement wrote a letter of congratulation to the Emperor; he did not omit to include some references to his distress, and besought Charles to show his gratitude to God by giving freedom to the Vicar of Christ.

The mission of Farnese was displeasing to the Emperor’s commanders; they would have liked better that Schonberg and Moncada should have gone to Spain. But Clement had not sufficient confidence in Schonberg, whose devotion to Charles was notorious, to entrust him with such a charge; therefore, on the 11th and 12th of July, the letters of safe-conduct were prepared for Don Martin and Cardinal Farnese. The Cardinal started on his journey but remained in upper Italy. Cardinal Salviati also, who was still resident in France, made pretexts for evading the embassy to the Emperor for which the Pope had intended him, and threw the burden on Giacopo Girolami. His instructions for the latter, dated the 10th of July 1527, are preserved in the Papal secret archives, but they do not exactly give evidence of Salviati’s diplomatic talent. In reading them it is especially strange to note how, among other things, the Cardinal is at pains to show that Clement and Charles had never really been enemies, but rather had worked reciprocally for each other’s interests. Among the negative services for which Salviati, quite seriously, gave his master credit, is the fact that Clement had never done the Emperor all the harm which it was in his power to do. In conclusion, Salviati appealed to the magnanimity of Charles, and pointed out to him that the liberation of the Pope would be to his own advantage, since thereby the Imperial army in Rome would be set free and be able to oppose the French forces then advancing into Lombardy.

Francis I was not the only sovereign then threatening Charles V. Henry VIII also seemed determined to do all that was possible to restore Clement to freedom. The alliance between the French and English sovereigns, which had already found expression in the treaty of Westminster, concluded in April 1527, had become still closer under the pressure of events in Italy. The English King promised, on the 29th of May, to pay a monthly subsidy of 32,000 crowns to the French army, and gave Cardinal Wolsey full powers to treat with Francis regarding the further steps to be taken towards the Pope’s release. “The affairs of the Holy See”, Henry declared, “are the common concern of all princes. The unheard-of outrages that See has undergone must be avenged”.

Henry’s concern for the Holy See was in no way disinterested; for he was afraid that the Pope’s captivity might impede his contemplated divorce from Catherine of Aragon, the Emperor’s aunt. Wolsey also had his own objects to serve in intervening in favour of the Pope. On the 3rd of July he left London with a great retinue on his journey to France. In Canterbury he celebrated Mass at the altar of St. Thomas, the martyr of ecclesiastical freedom, and published, as Papal Legate and representative of the King, an edict ordering fasts and processions during the Pope’s captivity. A copy of this ordinance was sent to Salviati for promulgation in France, and the same was done in Venice. It was hoped that this course of action would make a great impression even in Spain, and that in this way the Emperor, under the pressure of a popular movement, would set the chief ruler of the Church at liberty.

Wolsey was welcomed at Calais by Cardinal Jean de Lorraine, who conducted him to Amiens to meet Francis I. The interview between the French King and the English Cardinal took place in that city on the 4th of August, with exceptional marks of respect on the part of Francis. This meeting was looked forward to all the more hopefully because Francis, who hitherto, in spite of all warnings, had maintained his light-hearted indifference, had, after the sack of Rome, appeared to have become a changed man. At the first moment the King had been completely dazed; afterwards he determined to act. His chief inducement, however, was certainly less the liberation of the Head of the Church, than his alarm at the supremacy of the Emperor and his hope of recovering his sons, still kept as hostages. Steps were taken, on a large scale, to recruit the army. Orders were issued to the French fleet in the Mediterranean to prevent, in every way, the removal of the Pope to Spain, and Andrea Doria was taken into the French service, in command of eight galleys. Lautrec was given full powers to carry on the war in Italy; he had already, on the 30th of June, left the French Court in order to join the army then assembling in the neighbourhood of Asti. “After all”, wrote Salviati to Castiglione, who was living as Nuncio at the Court of Charles V, “this victory, or rather this massacre of Rome, has not been of much use to the Emperor. On the contrary, it has roused the princes to greater activity, and”, he adds in a tone of vexation, “for all this poor Italy must pay the bill”.

At Amiens Wolsey discussed matters thoroughly with Francis I, Salviati, the English nuncio Gambara, and the Florentine envoy Acciaiuoli. “Although”, remarked the latter, “the Cardinal displays publicly a somewhat exaggerated and ostentatious pomp and state, yet his talk, bearing, and manner of transacting affairs show a truly large and enterprising mind. He is a man of attractive character, full of noble and lofty thoughts. I do not remember since the days of Alexander VI to have seen anyone who filled his position so majestically; but, in contrast to that Pope, it must be stated that the Cardinal's life is without blame”.

Wolsey explained the aim of his mission to be the liberation of the Pope, the maintenance of the Italian States in their independence and integrity, and the overthrow of the Emperor’s supremacy. He brought with him 300,000 scudi for the war and made extensive proposals in regard to it. Casale was to go into Italy to watch carefully that the monthly subsidies promised by Henry VIII were applied to the right uses, and that Vaudemont, with ten thousand landsknechts, took part in the campaign. From Francis I, Wolsey obtained a promise that he would make no treaty for the surrender of his sons so long as the Pope remained a prisoner. On the 18th of August was concluded the alliance between France and England which was to wring by force from the Emperor the liberation of Clement VII. In this treaty of Amiens the allied sovereigns bound themselves to refuse their assent to any summons of a council as long as the Pope was not free, and to offer a common resistance to any attempt to make the Papal power subservient to the advantage and interest of Charles.

While he was still at Amiens, Francis I issued strict orders that no Frenchman should proceed to Rome on business relating to Church benefices, and that no money from France should be sent there before the Pope recovered his entire freedom. Wolsey made one more special proposal : that all the Cardinals who were at liberty should assemble at Avignon and, while the Pope’s captivity lasted, assume the reins of government. “The assembly of the Cardinals”, such was the opinion of Acciaiuoli, “had two aims in view. On the one hand, the Emperor would be brought to see that if he transported the Pope to Spain or Naples, or kept him a prisoner, the government of the Church and the ordering of ecclesiastical affairs in France and England would be cared for by the Cardinals; on the other hand, in the eventuality of Clement’s death, the Cardinals who were in the Emperor’s power would be prevented from electing a new Pope, since, in such a case, France and England would set up an antipope”. Clearly, it would be proved to the Emperor that, although he held the Pope, he did not hold the Church in his grasp, and that Clement as a prisoner was a useless prize.

“Wolsey”, declared one of his confidential servants to Cardinals Cibo, Passerini, and Ridolfi, “is acting more in the interests of the Church and Italy than of his King, for he is mindful of his dignity and his obligations to the Holy See and the house of Medici”. As a matter of fact the intentions of the English Cardinal were not so disinterested. This did not escape even Cardinal Salviati; in the official correspondence, in which he invited Cardinals Cibo, Passerini, Ridolfi, Egidio Canisio, Trivulzio, Numai, and Cupis to assemble at Avignon, he only set forth in general terms the advantages of such a plan. But in his confidential letters to Castiglione and Guicciardini he did not hold back his real opinion: “The pretext is not a bad one, but the thing itself I dislike. I fear a schism or some other incurable misfortune”. “Wolsey, during the Pope’s captivity, might become his substitute for the whole of Christendom, or at least for England and France.” This shows that the English schism was already casting its shadow before. The ambitious Cardinal aimed at nothing less than becoming, at least for England, the acting Pope; as such he would gratify the will of his monarch by declaring his marriage invalid.

Wolsey’s well-known ambition gave rise in many minds to the worst suspicions. Sanchez thought that Wolsey was certainly aiming at the tiara, in the event of Clement’s death. Canossa expressed his serious doubts to Francis I whether the assemblage at Avignon was for the good of France, as a schism might easily spring from it; Wolsey sought the Papacy, and if the King were unfavourable to this scheme, he would incur his enmity; if the scheme succeeded there would be a Pope far more ill-disposed than Clement.

Wolsey’s ambitious designs encountered at once the greatest obstacles. Although the Kings of England and France sent most pressing solicitations to the Italian Cardinals to meet Wolsey, and promised them every conceivable security and even compensation for their travelling expenses, yet they were opposed to meeting in France. The Cardinals who were at large had first assembled in Piacenza, and determined on a congress at Bologna, Ancona, or Parma to discuss measures for the Pope’s liberation. On the 10th of August Cardinal Cibo informed Henry VIII of this determination; in the beginning of September the free Italian Cardinals met at Parma. Clement VII exhorted them to be firm in their opposition to the removal of the conference to France, but warned them, at the same time, to go to work with caution.

Wolsey in the meantime had carried his plans yet further. He was, indeed, so incapable of putting a check on his ambition that he had already usurped the coveted functions of a Papal Vicar-General before they had been conferred upon him. Together with Cardinals Bourbon and de Lorraine and the Papal Legate Salviati he came to Compiegne and did not hesitate at once to assume Papal privileges, since, in spite of Salviati’s remonstrances, he handed the insignia of the Cardinalate to the Chancellor Du Prat, who had been nominated in a Consistory held before the sack of Rome. Thus he had at his disposal four of the Sacred College, in whose name he addressed, on the 16th of September 1527, a protest to the Pope, which was at once entrusted for delivery to the Protonotary Uberto Gambara. This document set forth, in language full of unction, that the signatories, following the example of the first Christians during the imprisonment of St. Peter, had assembled themselves in the power of the Holy Ghost at Compiegne in order to take preventive measures against the manifold evils which might accrue from the bondage of the head of the Church. Since the Emperor held the Pope in his power and every man was mortal, they were bound to make solemn protest against any alienation of the Church’s rights or property, and against any nomination to the College of Cardinals during the captivity of Clement VII. They declared further that, in the event of the Pope’s death, they would, without regard for the Cardinals now in imprisonment or for any new Cardinals appointed by the Pope while deprived of freedom, repair to some safe place to choose his successor, and would refuse obedience to any Pope who might be elected during the present captivity. In conclusion, Clement VII was called upon to delegate his authority during his imprisonment in order that the free government of the Church might be firmly maintained.

It must be matter for surprise that Salviati should have consented to sign this protest of a minority of the free Cardinals suggesting to the Pope a temporary abdication and containing within it the germ of schism. On the 28th of September he wrote to Gambara asking him to make excuses on his behalf to Clement VII for his participation in Wolsey’s action. All had arisen only from his good intention of compassing, as soon as possible, the liberation of the Pope; if he had refused his signature, great ill-feeling would have been caused and Wolsey’s zeal for the Pope’s deliverance would probably have been chilled or altogether extinguished. A private letter addressed to Castiglione on the 18th of September shows how little Salviati was deceived by Wolsey’s schemes. In this he describes the protest of the 16th as a dangerous move preliminary to enfranchisement from obedience to the Church; he had concurred only to avoid greater evils and to gain time. If he had opposed, then undoubtedly an English and French Patriarchate with Papal authority would have been set up, and thereby, perhaps, the unity of the Church for ever rent asunder. His action had at least averted this. Before the Pope’s answer arrived, a long time would elapse, during which Clement might be set at liberty. “By this, you see”, Salviati continues, “I was compelled to agree in order to prevent a much greater evil. You know Wolsey’s ambition and the bold assurance with which he asks Clement to appoint him his vicegerent. The French agree because he is useful to them. If the Pope refuses, Wolsey will find means to attain his object through his Bishops, a step bound to bring after it the greatest conceivable confusion in the Church. But I have hopes that in the meantime Quiñones will have returned to Rome and Clement been set free. This is the only cure for all these evils.”

At that moment, then, all the efforts of Castiglione, Salviati, and the other Papal diplomatists were directed to securing the Pope’s freedom. What was the attitude of the Emperor towards this question?

Charles V first received news of the capture of Rome in the latter half of the month of June. His joy at this great and unexpected success must have been lessened by the accounts, at first inexact, of the unbridled excesses of the troops. The unheard-of ferocity with which the soldiery had laid waste the city was antagonistic to his interests, since it covered his name with shame and reproach. He certainly had wished to punish the Pope and to render his enmity innocuous; but destruction such as that wreaked by his army on the time-honoured capital of Christendom he had not intended. He therefore, in the beginning of August, protested to the Christian princes against the burden of responsibility for these outrages being laid upon him. But this declaration did not do away with the fact that Charles had allowed his army to fall into a state of insubordination from which, if continued, the very worst was to be expected. He had also expressed himself so ambiguously that it might well be supposed that he would see without displeasure his troops requiting themselves with the plunder of Rome; nor must it be forgotten that for many a long day the enemies of Italy had acted on the principle that “war supports itself.” Charles had now to pay in person for his own shortcomings. The spirit of mutiny took hold of the victorious soldiers after the sack of the city to such a degree that the Emperor could no longer call his army his own. Rome was taken, the Pope was a prisoner, but the Imperial army was threatened from within with complete disruption.

It soon became evident that the crimes committed in Rome were in the highest degree prejudicial to the Emperor’s cause, for they gave to all his enemies an opportune handle for serious accusations which, at the first glance, seemed justified. The spectacle of the army of the secular head of Christendom, the protector of the Church, carrying murder, fire, and outrage into the city of its spiritual head, was turned to account to the fullest extent. Even in the heart of Charles’s empire, in Spain, a by no means inconsiderable opposition was raised to a policy which had ended at last in turning him into the jailer of the Pope.

The full recognition of the extremely difficult situation brought about by the sack of Rome, and the Catholic conscience of the Emperor, were the motives which restrained him from taking advantage of his victory to the uttermost. That he would have done so was the expectation of many, and exhortations even were not wanting directing him on this course. Already, on the 25th of May 1527, Lope de Soria had written to the Emperor from Genoa to try and convince him that it would be a meritorious and not a sinful action to reform the Church, in such a way that the power of the Pope should be exclusively limited to his own spiritual sphere, and secular affairs placed under the sole jurisdiction of the Emperor, since “the things of God belong to God, and the things of Caesar to Caesar”.

Many wished to go further. A letter of Bartolomeo da Gattinara shows clearly that among the Imperialists the question was seriously discussed whether Charles should allow the seat of the Papal government to remain any longer in Rome. Gattinara and others found that any experiment of this sort would be too dangerous, since England, France, and other countries would then choose Popes of their own; but they advised the Emperor to weaken the Roman See to such an extent that it should always be subservient to the Imperial Majesty.

Lannoy on his side pressed the Emperor with earnest representations. It was necessary that his undertakings should be directed towards something else than the ruin of an institution belonging both to the divine and human order the army must not win everything and the Emperor lose all no more violence must be done to the Pope, with the probable result of a schism; the confusion of the spiritual with the temporal power must not continue, and the temporal must no longer obstruct the spiritual by pragmatic sanctions and in other ways; Rome must no longer be an occasion of scandal to the whole world, and heresies and sects must be removed; in a word, what is God’s must be given to God, and what is Caesar’s to Caesar”. Charles should retain possession of the States of the Church only until such time as his affairs with the Pope were put straight and he could put trust in his Holiness; only the towns belonging to Milan and Ferrara must be claimed as fiefs of the Empire. For the rest, the settlement of these points was to be left to a general council or to a congress such as that held at Mantua under Julius II, and the same tribunal was to decide in detail on points connected with the heresies in Germany.

Ferdinand I also recommended a council in a letter of the 31st of May 1527, in which he urged, at the same time, that the Pope should not be set free before order and security were restored: “For if he were out of your hands, I fear that he might behave as he always has behaved, and as the King of France has behaved, only still worse, for he avoids and shuns the council. Apart from this and your presence here, I see no possibility of finding means to oppose the Lutheran sect and the accursed heresies”.

Amid the various influences brought to bear upon him, the Emperor was long in coming to any fixed decision. At first his inactivity was such that it was supposed to arise from some strong physical reaction; this extended to all his Italian affairs. After Bourbon’s death the first necessity was obviously the appointment of a new Commander-in-Chief. Charles’s council was insistent on this point, since the Prince of Orange was too young and inexperienced for the post. Charles handed over the chief command to the Duke of Ferrara, although the latter had already declined the honour in the autumn of 1526. As might have been foreseen, the Duke, on this occasion also, refused to place himself at the head of a “gang of mutineers”. The consequence was that the army, if such it could be called, remained through the greater part of the year 1527 without a generalissimo, and shrank in numbers more and more from sickness and desertions.

The Imperial army in Milan was also in the worst condition. The faithful Leyva reported “that there was not a farthing’s worth of pay for the troops”. The army was more like a swarm of adventurers than a force in Imperial service. The commanders were powerless, the soldiers did what they liked. No wonder that the Imperial troops had to give way on all sides, when Lautrec appeared with his army.

Nor did less embarrassment await the Emperor on account of the imprisoned Pope, for whom the most active sympathy was being shown, not only in France and England, but in Spain itself. The deep Catholic feeling inherent in the Spanish people had long since expressed a growing repugnance to the policy of Charles towards the Pope. “All ranks, high and low”, wrote Castiglione from Granada in November 1526, “are indignant at the raid of the Colonna”. In his later letters he returns repeatedly to the loyal attachment of the Spanish people to the Pope. “If he were to come to Spain, he would be worshipped”, writes Castiglione on hearing rumours concerning the movements of Clement VII. In March 1527 it was reported that the prelates and grandees had openly announced that no more money could be voted, since such grants would be spent on waging war against the head of the Church. The Chancellor made vain attempts to establish the Emperor’s innocence by means of printed publications, but the opposition to the war against the successor of St. Peter increased; the grandees and bishops earnestly urged that peace should be made with Clement. “The loyal dependence of the nation on the See of Peter”, Castiglione reported from Valladolid on the 24th of March, “is more apparent than ever”.

What must have been the impression now made by the news of the Pope’s imprisonment and the sack of Rome! Not only the great ecclesiastics but the grandees of Spain as well made known their indignation. Strong reproaches were addressed to the Emperor by the Archbishop of Toledo and the Duke of Alba. Charles threw all the blame on the undisciplined army. “But”, reported the Venetian envoy on the 16th of July 1527 from Valladolid, “these excuses produce no effect here the prelates and grandees are daily interceding for the Pope with the Emperor. There is a great conflict of opinions. Some say that Charles must show his abhorrence by setting the Pope at liberty; others that the Pope must come to Spain; others again, such as Loaysa, the Emperor’s confessor, maintain that Charles cannot yet trust Clement and must hold him prisoner”. In the meantime the Emperor gave the Nuncio nothing but fair speeches; but he came to no decision. It was credibly reported that Spanish opinion was in favour of the suspension of divine worship in all the churches of the kingdom so long as the Pope’s captivity lasted, and also that the bishops in a body, clad in mourning, intended to present themselves before the Emperor and beseech him to set Clement free. Through the influence of the Court these reports were suppressed, but the general agitation was not abated.

Some decided step became more necessary day by day even Lannoy was pressing on this point. On the 6th of July he wrote to the Emperor : “The present situation cannot go on much longer. The more victories God sends you the more embarrassments you have, the domains of your kingdoms grow less and the ill-will of your enemies grows greater. Some envy your greatness, others hate you for the ill-treatment they have received from your soldiers, who have plundered Genoa and Milan, laid waste the country, and at the present hour brought destruction on Rome”.

Quiñones, who had reached Valladolid in the last weeks of July, after having been held up by pirates, told Charles to his face that if he did not fulfil his duty to the Pope he could no longer claim to be called Emperor he must rather be regarded as the agent of Luther, since, in his name and under his banner, the Lutherans had committed all their infamies in Rome. Quiñones believed it to be his duty to speak thus strongly as he knew that Charles was determined to get as much advantage as possible from the Pope’s imprisonment, and to secure for himself a position which would make the independence of the Church a nullity.

The Papal Nuncio Castiglione, on whom Cardinal Salviati set all his hopes, supported the efforts of Girolami with all his energy; nevertheless, the latter failed to get from Charles any definite decision with regard to Clement’s liberation. The envoys of England were also unsuccessful in their endeavours at the Imperial Court, although they could not have shown more zeal if they had been the Pope's representatives. The representations of Quiñones made more impression on Charles, but even he made little way at first. At the end of July Charles wrote to the Roman Senate and people, to the Legate Salviati, to the Cardinals and Roman nobility, lastly, to all the Christian princes, disclaiming all responsibility for the sack of Rome, to which he was not accessory, and laying the whole blame on Clement VII. At the same time he used strong expressions of sorrow and regret for the injuries inflicted on the Holy See, and declared that he would rather not have won the victory than be the victor under such conditions.

About this time Charles was informed of Henry VIII’s schemes of divorce; on the 31st of July he instructed Lannoy to speak to the Pope on this business, but with caution, lest greater complications should arise if the Pope were to hold out a bait to King Henry in the matter or enter into any mischievous practical understanding with him. Charles wished Clement to make any further advance in the business of the divorce impossible by the issue of Briefs to Henry VIII and Wolsey. This private affair of the Emperor, calling for the full support of the Pope’s spiritual power, warned the former to act with great caution towards Clement, as did also, in no less degree, the threatening attitude of France and England, now joining in close alliance.

Thus influenced, Charles, who, from motives of self­regard had long hesitated before taking any decisive step, wrote from Valladolid on the 3rd of August 1527 two autograph letters to the Pope. In the first of these remarkable communications he laid great stress on his efforts to secure the general peace of Christendom, to reform the Church, and abolish heresy and unbelief. In the attainment of these objects all private interests must be put aside and a unanimous course of action pursued. On these grounds the Pope would be justified in summoning a council for the extirpation of heresy, the destruction of unbelievers, and the exaltation of Holy Church. Charles, in conclusion, pledged his royal word to his prisoner that he would not suffer the council to undertake in any way the deposition or suspension of the Pope; any attempts in that direction, whether they came from a secular or ecclesiastical quarter, he would oppose, while protecting Clement in every way.

In his second letter, of which Quiñones was to be the bearer, Charles reminded Clement of the summons of a council. He besought the Pope in the most urgent way to undertake the promised visit to Spain; such a step would strike terror into the heretics and at least advance the prospects of peace between the Emperor and France. The Emperor’s projects for a council were without result, for before his letters reached Rome, France and England had agreed to refuse their consent so long as the Pope was a prisoner.

Over the demand for Clement’s liberation Charles hesitated still longer. To the Nuncio Castiglione bespoke in such a friendly way that the latter was filled with sanguine hopes. But the instructions received at last on the 1 8th of August 1527, by Pierre de Veyre, who awaited them with Quiñones at Barcelona, did not correspond with these assurances. They were certainly not wanting in regrets for the misfortunes that had befallen the Pope in Rome or in wishes for the peace of Christendom, the reformation of the Church, and the uprooting of Lutheran errors; but with regard to the Pope’s restoration to freedom, it was stated in the most definite terms that under this head nothing was to be understood beyond his liberty in the exercise of spiritual functions. Moreover, as a preliminary, the instructions of the envoys emphatically declared that Lannoy must receive securities, as certain as any human securities could be, against the possibility of Papal treachery or Papal vengeance. Lannoy was left to specify the conditions. But Charles indicated what he believed himself entitled to demand in this respect, namely, Ostia, Civita Vecchia, Parma, Piacenza, Bologna, Ravenna and, in exchange for the castle of St. Angelo, Civita Castellana. The Emperor demanded besides, in return for the restoration of the Pope’s spiritual jurisdiction, nothing less than the surrender of several of the more important towns of the Papal States. But he insisted, at the same time, that he was not making these demands for his own personal advantage, but in order to hold guarantees until such time as general peace should be attained, a council summoned, and the reform of Christendom set on foot.

Clement, meanwhile, had passed through a terrible time. Within the narrow confines of the castle, kept under closest watch by a fierce soldiery, he spent his days as in a living tomb. He sought comfort in prayer, trusted to the Emperor’s magnanimity, then again looked for the help held out by Francis I, yet through all preserved his calmness of mind. This is shown by the Bull prepared on the 15th of July 1527, in which the regulations for the Papal election in Rome, or elsewhere in Italy, or even in some foreign country, were drawn up, in the case of his death during imprisonment. The Bull shows that Clement took all these contingencies into account; the object of this document was to secure freedom of election and to prevent a schism. The Cardinals were empowered to meet in conclave elsewhere than in Rome and enjoined to wait during a certain time for those of their colleagues who should be absent.

The life of Clement VII was, in fact, at this time seriously threatened. It is clear from the reports of Perez that the Spaniards and Germans were continually hankering after the possession of Clement and the Cardinals; the landsknechts did not wish the prisoner to be taken to Spain, but were anxious to carry him off themselves.

Rome was now in the full heat of summer, and the plague at its height. Pestilence and famine made havoc among the inhabitants churches and streets were soon filled with dead bodies. Frightful malaria arose from these “shambles”; if the wind blew from the city, relates one of the captives, it was impossible to remain on the walls of the castle.

The plague had made its way into the fortress long before and helped, together with the sufferings and agitations of captivity, to thin the ranks of the prisoners. Cardinal Rangoni died in August; he was followed in October by Francesco Armellini, broken-hearted at the loss of his riches. The situation of the captive Pope became more and more unbearable. He waited in vain for the envoys of the Emperor as well as for the return of the army of the League to deliver him, and his dread lest the Spaniards or Germans should carry him away increased every day. When Alarcon and Muscettola insisted on his giving adequate security for the payment of the promised 250,000 ducats, he exclaimed with tears in his eyes, “For the love of God do not exact from me promises which must be known to all the world and become engraven on the memories of men for ever! So great is my misfortune and my poverty, that the three Franciscans who are with me would be in want of their daily bread if they were not able to borrow money from some compassionate souls. I leave it to you and your consciences to say whether such conduct is worthy of an Emperor.”

In the first days of September it was reported that Clement in despair had ordered a Bull to be drawn up exhorting the Church to pray for her imprisoned head and bidding the Bishops publish the canonical censures against her persecutors. The draft, couched in language of extreme severity, is preserved in the State Archives of Florence. This Bull, however, was never put into official shape and published. In the hands of the masterful Popes of the Middle Ages such a transaction would undoubtedly have been completed, but Clement VII had not the requisite courage. According to one account it was Alfonso del Vasto who held the Pope back from this extreme step.

When Veyre at last landed at Naples on the 19th of September 1527, Lannoy lay ill of the plague which he had contracted in Rome. His death (September 23rd)  brought everything to a standstill, as fresh instructions had now to be received from the Emperor. This was all the more necessary since the situation, in other respects, had entirely changed from what Charles supposed it to be at the moment of Veyre’s departure. The latter reported to Spain that the Pope had paid only 100,000 ducats of the 400,000 owed by him, while the Florentines had not yet paid anything of their 300,000. Alarcon, from scruples of conscience, had renounced his plan of bringing the Pope to Gaeta. The commanders of the Imperial army had been forced to fly, and their mutinous soldiers, instead of being on the march to meet the French in Lombardy, were again on the road to Rome, where they intended to extort their pay by force. They got there on the 25th of September, and subjected the unhappy city to a second pillage. The same horrors which had accompanied their first onslaught were now repeated, and in some ways increased. The soldiers, according to a German account, did everything they could think of, burning, extorting, robbing, thieving, and doing violence. The money raised by Clement by the sacrifice of his own silver vessels and those of the prelates was insufficient to appease the demands of the furious horde; they threatened Rome with utter destruction and the Pope and Cardinals with death if they were not paid.

Clement had now to make up his mind to give up to the Germans the hostages named in the treaty of June. Gumppenberg has described, as an eyewitness, the surrender of these unfortunate men. The Pope exclaimed with tears, “There they stand, take them with you. I will accompany them”.

The account-book of Paolo Montanaro, expeditor of Clement VII, now preserved in the Roman State Archives, enables us to realize directly the fearful plight to which the Pope had been brought. This account-book, which comprises the quarter from October to the 31st of December, shows clearly how scarce and dear provisions were. Since the treaty of June the Spaniards, who had at first determined to starve out the inmates of St. Angelo, had allowed communications to be renewed. It is a peculiar testimony to the economical bent of Clement VII that the regular account of expenditure begins again as early as the 1st of October. With the most conscientious exactitude Montanaro notes down the smallest sum spent on the table of the imprisoned Pope, and, in like manner, the Master of the Household, Girolamo da Schio, Bishop of Vaison, submits each office to a searching examination.

While the soldiers were robbing in every nook and corner of Rome, Veyre and Ouiñones, in the beginning of October, approached the Pope. Like Alarcon and Morone, they negotiated with a delegation of Cardinals, del Monte, Campeggio, and Lorenzo Pucci; Pompeo Colonna, whom Clement had won over to his side, did all he could to attain a successful result; but in spite of these endeavours no progress was made. Meanwhile the soldiers became more and more furious. In their rage they dragged the hostages to newly erected gallows on the Campo di Fiore and threatened them with death. At the last moment they changed their mind; they were unwilling to lose the last security remaining to them, and the hostages were taken in chains to the Palazzo Colonna.

Although in Rome the scarcity of provisions made itself felt increasingly every day, and the approach of the French troops under Lautrec was a cause of growing anxiety, the army could not be induced to leave the city, since the soldiers held out for payment of their arrears in full. The final result of the total paralysis of the Emperor’s authority was the defection of the Duke of Ferrara and the Marquis of Mantua who, in November, deserted the cause of Charles for that of France.

At this time a decided reaction set in at the Imperial Court. At the end of October the Ambassador of Henry VIII, in the name of his King, “the Defender of the Faith”, presented a solemn protest against the Pope’s imprisonment. In November the Spanish Council discussed the matter; no less a personage than the Chancellor Gattinara there declared that if the Emperor looked upon Clement as the legitimate Pope, he ought no longer to detain him captive. Praet called attention to the danger that the French might set the Pope at liberty; it would be better that the Emperor should do this and, in so doing, set his troops free; on this ground he recommended that Moncada should be ordered to abide, only “as far as was practicable”, by the instructions of Veyre. The result of the deliberation was that the Council of State determined that, in any case, the Pope must be given his freedom.

In the meantime the negotiations in Rome had been endlessly protracted. In despair Clement VII, on the 15th of November, deplored his misery to the Archbishop of Toledo. Moncada, the new Viceroy of Naples, tried to exact as much as possible from the Pope. Clement hoped, not without grounds, that the approach of the French army under Lautrec would force the Imperialists to make more favourable terms; he also succeeded by promises in bringing Quinones and Morone entirely round to his side.

After proposals and counter-proposals had been bandied to and fro amid tedious delays, a basis of agreement was reached at last, and on the 26th of November the terms were settled. In the first place, a treaty was concluded between the Pope and the Cardinals on the one hand, and the representatives of the Emperor (Veyre, Moncada, Quiñones) on the other. It was herein stipulated that Clement should be restored to his spiritual and temporal rights on condition that he—while remaining neutral— advanced the peace of Christendom and convoked a general council for the reform of the Church, the up­rooting of Lutheran teaching, and the pursuance of the Turkish war. As securities the Emperor was to hold six hostages—Giberti, Jacopo Salviati, Galeotto and Malatesta de’ Medici, as well as Cardinals Trivulzio and Pisani—and the towns of Ostia, Civita Vecchia, Civita Casteliana, and Forli. All the remainder of the Papal  States, with the exception of the territories ceded to the Colonna, was, on the other hand, to be restored as before the sack of Rome. The Imperial army would quit Rome and the States of the Church as soon as the troops of the League evacuated the latter.

No one was named in this treaty to execute the restoration of the territories severed from the States of the Church. As a matter of fact, the restoration of the temporal possessions, although conceded in theory, lay practically at the good pleasure of the Emperor. On the other hand, the Pope was free to fix his own time for the convocation of the council.

A second agreement settled in detail the sums payable by the Pope to the Imperialist generals ; in the first place, within ten days 73,169 ducats, as the price of the evacuation of the castle of St. Angelo, and immediately after that 35,000 ducats more, on receipt of which the troops would quit Rome. After fourteen days 44,984 ducats were to be paid, and then in three monthly instalments 150,000, and again finally, at the same rate, 65,000. In order to collect these sums the Pope made new Cardinals and alienated Church property in the kingdom of Naples. On the payment of the 44,984 ducats the Imperialist forces left the Papal States.

Since, in spite of the nomination of Cardinals, sufficient money was not forthcoming, the landsknechts again threatened the hostages with death and rose in mutiny against their leaders, who took refuge in the Alban hills with the Colonna. At the end of November the hostages managed to make their warders drunk and escaped. On hearing this the landsknechts flung down their arms, but order was soon restored. An arrangement was subsequently made with the Pope that he should pay from the 1st of December 100.000 ducats to the Germans, with the exception of the leaders and those in receipt of double pay, 35,000 ducats to the Spaniards, and furnish fresh securities. Accordingly, after Cardinals Orsini and Cesi had been handed over to Colonna, and Cardinals Trivulzio, Pisani, and Gaddi to Alarcon as hostages, and further securities given for the above-mentioned sums of money, the Imperialists left the castle of St. Angelo on the 6th of December 1527.

With this the hard captivity of the Pope, which had lasted full seven months, came to an end. Clement wished to leave Rome at once, where Campeggio was to remain as Legate ; Alarcon advised him to wait a few more days on account of the insecurity of the roads, but this delay seemed very dangerous to Clement, who was afraid of the soldiers awaiting their pay in Rome, and, moreover, he did not trust Moncada. Between the 6th and 7th of December he left St. Angelo suddenly, by night, dressed in the clothes of his majordomo, but certainly not without previous knowledge on the part of the Imperialist commanders. Luigi Gonzaga waited for him on the Neronian fields with a troop of arquebusiers, and under this escort he went in haste to Montefiascone, and from there to the stronghold of Orvieto.