1^ i Columbia ®nitjem'tp LIBRARY THE HISTOEY OP MODEEN EIJEOPE VOLUME I. Loxnox PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOOPK A\D CO. IfEW-STKEET SQUiRE THE HISTORY OF MODERN EUROPE COr..COLL. j LIBRARY FEOM THE ..FALL OF CONSTANlirNOPLE ^N "^^^ t^ ff^ J WAR IN THE p-RTAiiPA^^-w ig^7 >^" BY THOMAS HENEY DYEE IN FOUR VOLUMES— Vol. I. LONDON JOHN MUEEAY, ALBEMAKLE STEEET 1861 The right of translation it reserved PREFACE. CoNSiDERiNa the present state of historical knowledge, and the fact that the only book of convenient size which we possess on the History of Modern Europe was written almost a century ago, it has been thought that a fresh work on the subject might perhaps not be unacceptable to the public. Since the time when Dr. Eussell wrote his History, a new light has been reflected on the affairs of Europe by the publication of State Papers and other docu- ments not before accessible : as the Archives of Simancas, the Belgian Archives, the Documens inedits de VHistoive de France, the Relazioni of the Venetian ambassadors, our own State Papers, and numerous other historical materials of the same important character. Many distinguished historians have also arisen who, aided by these documents as well as by that improvement in our social ideas which naturally attends the progress of civilisation, have been enabled to place the great events, as well as the leading characters, of history, in an altogether novel point of view ; thus compelling a modification of the facts and opinions delivered by their predecessors in the last century, on whose labours Dr. Eussell founded his work. But besides these reasons, which may be alleged in excuse for attempting a new History of Europe, others may be found in the objectionable plan and faulty execution of Dr. Kussell's book. From the period when modern history properly commences, to the end of that part of the work actually completed by Dr. Eussell himself, a full half of the pages is devoted to the history of England A 3 vi TREFACE. jilone, whose proper share at that period, without any reference to the wants of the English reader, would be, perhaps, about a tenth. Hence the glimpses which w^e get of the continental States are scanty and unsatisfactory, and the book will be found scarcely to fulfil the promise which it holds out by its title. The important reigns of Louis XI. of France and his contemporary, Charles the Bold of Burgundy, occupy four pages. The conquests of Mahomet II. after the fall of Constantinople are despatched in a dozen lines (vol. i. p. 451, ed. 1850), in which we do not find that he subdued the Morea, Negropont, Servia, Wallachia, &c. ; thouo^h by way of compensation we are told that " he fixed the jNlohammedan power on the coast of Calabria: " whence the unin- structed reader would infer that the Turkish occupation of Otranto during a year was a permanent conquest. Scarce anything is said about Italy, and what is told is mostly erroneous. We find at p. 471 that Ludovico Sforza endeavoured to throw obstacles in the way of Charles VIII. " almost as soon as he had crossed the Alps ; " though Sforza had invited that monarch into Italy, and did not turn against him till he had reached Naples. We next learn that Charles entered Florence in triumph, and that "the family of Medicis still held the chief authority." Yet we have heard nothing of the Medici before ; and in this short sentence there are two blunders. The Medici had been driven from Florence before the entry of Charles ; nor did he enter it " in triumph," which would imply a victory, but with the consent of the Florentines, who were able to defend their rights. At p. 551, we find Sultan Solyman in 1529, "ready to break in upon the Austrian territories with a formidable army;" from which the reader would hardly infer that he not only did break in, but even beleaguered Vienna nearly a month — one of the most memorable feats of arms of the sixteenth century. The revolt of the Netherlands from Philip II. is despatched in seven pages, and no account is given of its origin. We suddenly find Alva there in 1568 (vol. ii. p. 55); but the reason of his coming is left unexplained, except in some vague and general terms about Philip's bigotry and tyranny. From Dr. Kussell's pages it would yeem to have been a result of the Great Catholic Leaofue formed in 1565 at Bayonne for the suppression of heresy (see p. 33); _,, PREFACE. Vll which is related as an unquestionable fact, and said to have been joined by Mary Queen of Scots. The celebrated party name of Gueux is bestowed on the Beggars of the Sea alone (p. 72). No mention is made of the circumstances which helped to induce Spain to make peace with the Dutch (vol. ii. p. 195); namely, the disturbances in Sicily, and the revolt of Masaniello at Naples ; nor of the terms which the Hollanders obtained. In the account of the Thirty Years' War, the extraordinary career of Wallenstein is unnoticed, except in a few lines couched in vague and general expressions (pp. 156 and 162). The establishment of the Prussian monarchy is dismissed in a single sentence. But it would be tedious to make a list of all Dr. Eussell's shortcomings or to enu- merate his mistakes ; such as his making Anne of Brittany in love with the Duke of Orleans when she was a child eight years old (vol. i. p. 440, 442, 476); his telling us that Francis I. married Anne oi France (p. 479); and in the same page that the Arch- duke Philip, " to the astonishment of all Europe " left the French King governor of his son Charles, — an error long ago refuted by Eobertson; his describing the French (p. 482) as compelling Pope Julius II. to raise the siege of Bologna, of which he was already in possession ; and theii' being defeated, and Bonnivet slain at Biagrasso on the Sesia ; that place, or rather Abbiate G-rasso, being in the valley of the Ticino, and the real scene of action, Romagnano on the Sesia. With many others of the same de- scription, which the patient and curious reader may discover for himself. The writer of the following pages has endeavoured to avoid presenting the reader with a mere string of separate histories of the various European States, and to view the subject, so far as its very extensive and complicated nature will allow, as a tvhole. That it is capable of a certain degree of unity may appear when we reflect that the greater part of the European populations are descended from a barbarian ancestry possessing very similar laws and customs; that all have derived a common civilisation from Rome; that a large portion of them trace their language and their laws to the same source ; that Latin was long the common idiom of the learned throughout Europe ; and especially, that all the European nations, under the title of Christendom, are united A 4 viii TREFACE. together by a common religion. Viewed in this light, the great Koman Empire may still be said to subsist in Europe in effect if not in form ; and to testify its presence, not, indeed, by the tram- mels of political obedience, but by the nearly uniform standard it imposes in dress, manners, literature and art. The religious vmity of Europe which prevailed during the middle ages, as shown by the Crusades, the General Councils, and more permanently by the authority exercised by the Pope as the common father of Christendom, was severed by the Eeformation ; but already what has been called the European system was arising to supply another bond of union. During the dark ages the aggressions committed by one state upon another were viewed with indifference by the rest ; and thus, for instance, the conquests of the English in France were utterly disregarded in Europe. But when by the destruction of feudalism, the rise of the middle class, the con- solidation of the great monarchies, and the institution of standing armies, the various European States were enabled to enter into long and distant wars with one another, the aggressive ambition of one became the common concern of all ; leagues and alliances were made to check and repress the domination of grasping monarchs, and to preserve the balance of power ; and Europe began to form one large republic of nations, acknowledging the same system of public law, and becoming in their transactions ame- nable to the voice of international opinion. The history of Europe, in fact, presents as much unity as that of Grreece in early times. Composed of a cluster of independent states, of which one, now Sparta, now Athens, now Thebes, was always aspiring to the hegemony, the only rallying cry of Greece was against the Bar- barian, as that of Europe once was against the Infidel, whilst her sole bond of union w^as also a religious one, manifested in the Amphictyonic Council and the national games at Olympia and other places, which bear some analogy to the General Councils and the festivals and jubilees of the Eoman Church. It is, then, the change from a unity cemented by religion to a political unity that chiefly distinguishes modern Europe, regarded universally, from the Europe of the middle ages. The commence- ment of this change dates from the French wars in Italy towards the close of the fifteenth century ; but as the capture of Constanti- PEEFACE. ix nople by the Turks and the destruction of the last vestiges of the Greek Empire, have commonly been regarded as the true epoch of modern history, it has been adopted in the present work. The real importance of that event, however, and what renders it truly an epoch, lies not so much in the fall of the Grreek Empire, which had long been effete, and must at no distant period have either perished of natural decay or have been swallowed up by some of its more powerful Christian neighbours, as in the final and com- plete establishment in Europe of the Ottoman power. The bond of modern Europe being its policy, its history ne- cessarily becomes a political history. Europe, indeed, as already remarked, has also a common civilisation, and in some degree also a common literature and art ; but marked in each nation by pecu- liarities which render an account of those subjects proper rather to the histories of its particular states than to one comprising its ge- neral affairs. The history of European literature, moreover, from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries, has been already written by Mr. Hall am, nor could it be treated in the present work without swelling it to an inconvenient bulk, at sufficient length to be either instructive or entertaining. When we arrive at the eighteenth century, it will, however, be necessary to take a general survey of the literature of the age, as one of the causes which produced the French Revolution. From the method of viewing European history as a whole, also arises the question to what extent the domestic affairs of its separate states should be related? In such a plan it is evident that our attention should be chiefly directed to those events in which the whole European commonwealth, or at least two or more of its states, are interested. But such a narrative would be incompre- hensible to the reader, unless he possessed at least a general know-^ ledge of the condition and interests of the different states concerned in such events ; whence it becomes necessary to enter to a certain extent into their domestic history. To this remark, however, in a book designed for English readers, England forms an exception. Few will sit down to read a general history of Europe who have not acquired a tolerable knowledge of that of their own country ; and even in the contrary case, the means of obtaining such a knowledge are readily at hand. But though the purely domestic X PREFACE. history of England has been omitted, great attention has been paid to those foreign affairs in which she has been implicated ; for which by this method of treating the subject, a more ample space has been gained. In any long-continued series of events, the human mind, unable to take in the whole at a single glance, finds a support by dividing it into portions or epochs. Philosophically considered, such a method is but a mask for is^norance. It is easier to note effects than to trace their causes; and the periods usually selected as epochs, are, in fact, only a striking display of results from causes that had long been in operation. These results become themselves in turn the springs of further revolutions ; and thus the history of mankind presents only one continually revolving cycle of events and their causes. But as the mind naturally seeks some period where it may rest and look around — -a perch, as it were, whence it may resume its further flight — the history of the four centuries embraced in this work has been divided into eight Epochs, or Books, each containing in itself a species of revolution. The first, extending from the capture of Constanti- nople to the Pontificate of Leo X. and the commencement of the Eeformation, embraces the consolidation of the great monarchies and the rudiments of the European system. The second, which goes down to the Council of Trent, show^s the origin and progress of the Lutheran Eeformation. The third, concluded by the Peace of Vervins, contains one .of the phases of the struggle between France and the House of Austria, as well as the French wars of religion, and the final establishment of Protestantism in England and Holland, accompanied in the latter country with the assertion of civil liberty. The fourth, extending to the Peace of Westphalia, shows Germany settling down after a thirty years' war into its present condition, the rise of the Scandinavian kingdoms as European powers, the decline of Spain, and France emerging, through the policy of Richelieu, as the leading power of Europe. The fifth, ending with the Peace of Utrecht, exhibits the predomi- nance of France during the brilliant reign of Louis XIV. The sixth, which is carried down to the French Revolution, displays, besides the causes leading to that event, the rise of England, Russia and Prussia as first-rate powers, and the general political PREFACE. XI action of Europe according to the basis settled by the peace of Westphalia. The seventh comprehends the mighty changes and events of the French Revolution, which shook that basis to its foundation, and produced a new order of European policy and ideas. And the eighth and last embraces the occurrences from the close of the French Eevolution down to the war in the Crimea. A work so extensive can of course pretend to be little more than a compilation ; yet the writer may assert that, with regard to facts, he has on all occasions of any importance referred, when possible, to the original authorities ; and that, with regard to opinions, he has not servilely adopted those of any author whatsoever. The modern writers to whom he has been prin- cipally indebted in composing the two volumes now offered to the public are Ranke, K. A. Menzel, Schlosser, Von Hammer, Zinkeisen, Greijer, Sismondi, Martin, Micheletand Prescott. Many others whom he has used, and whose names it would be tedious to recount, are mentioned in the notes. Part of these volumes was written in Grermany ; and the author cannot close this Preface without acknowledging his obligations to Dr. Von Sybel and Dr. Wuttke, the professors of history at the Universities of Munich and Leipsic, for some valuable suggestions respecting the books which it would be proper to consult. London : 1861. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS OF THE FIEST VOLUJME. INTRODUCTION. VIEW OF THE STATE OF EUEOPE AT THE TIME OF THE CAPTUEE OF CONSTANTINOPLE (pp. 1 — 73). Fall of Constantinople Page 1 Ottoman Turks. Ertoghrul 2 Osman — Orchan 3 Institutions of Alaeddin — Tm-kishArmy 4—8 Civil Institutions 8 The Sultan 9 The Grand Vizier — The Sublime Porte 10 Viziers of the Cupola — The Divan 11 Provincial Administration .... 12 Justice and Eeligion — GacliasJcers, Mollas, ^c — The Mufti . 13 Mahomet I. (1413—1421) . . . . — The Peloponnesus — Venetian and Genoese Settlements . 14 Amurath II. (1421—1451) . . . — His Conquests 15 John of Hunyad 16 Efforts of Pope Eugenius IV. . . . ■ — - Expedition of Wladislaus .... 1 7 Peace of Segedin (1444) .... — Battle of Varna (1444) 18 Pasp Campaign of Hunyad (1448) . . . IS Albania, Scanderbeg 19 Mahomet II. (1451—1481) ... 20 Germany .... — The Emperor and King of the Eo- mans — Sovereign Houses 21 House of HohenzoUern in Branden- biu'g • . . — House of Wettin in Saxony ... 22 House ofWittelsbach in Bavaria . . — and the Palatinate 23 Dachy of Wiirtemborg — The Seven Electors — The Golden Bull 24 Vicars of the Empire — German Knighthood — Private Wars 25 The Landfriede — The Vvhm-giricht — Hiinseatic League — Free Imperial Cities 26 The Diet .........— House of Habsburg in Austria . . 27 Eodolph of Habsburg — Austrian hereditary Dominions . . 28 Albert I. and II — XIV CimONOLOGICAL TABLE OF CONTEXTS Pane Frederick III 28 Crowned at Rome 29 Switzerland ... — Its Eevolt — Thfi Forest Cantons 30 The Eight ancient Cantons .... — Swiss Mercenaries 31 Hungary and Bobemia 32 Albert II. King of Hungary and Bohemia — Hussites in Bohemia — Ziska 33 Compactatn of Prague — Albert in Hungary — The Hungarian Palatine .... — Poland .... 34 Its Constitution — House of Jagellon — King Wladislaus seizes the Crown of Hungary 35 Ladislaus Posthumus 36 Podiebrad, Regent of Bohemia . . — John Hunyad, Regent in Hungary . 37 Accession of Ladislaus (1453) . . . — Italy — The Pope — Papal Dominions 38 Claims to Romagna and Naples . . — The Roman Curia — CoUege of Cardinals 39 The Consistory — Papal Officers — Eat a Bomana and other Courts . . 40 Papal Revenues — The Conclave 41 Venice .... — Her Dominions ....'.. — Queen of tlie Adriatic 42 Venetian Government — Ambassadors 43 The Doge — Commerce of Venice — Genoa .... 44 Genoese Colonies and Commerce . . — Government — Florence .... 45 Florentine Constitution — Nobles and Plebeians . . 46 Maso de' Albizzi — Prosperity of Florence 47 The Medici — Milan 48 Erected into a Duchy — Page TheVisconti 48 Guelf and Ghibelins — Francis Sforza 49 Various Claims to Milan .... — Milan an Imperial Fief 50 Milanese Republic — Sforza becomes Duke 51 Treaty of Lodi, 1454 52 rerrara, Ulantua, Savoy . — Savoy erected into a Duchy ... — XTaples .... 52 First House of Anjou — Second House of Anjou 53 House of Aragon — Alphonso V — Louis III. of Anjou 54 Queen Joanna bequeaths the Crown to Rene of Anjou — Anarchy at Naples — Alphonso obtains the Crown . . . 55 John of Anjou attempts its recovery — Spain .... — Its various Kingdoms 56 Castile .... — John II — Alvaro de Luna 57 Henry IV — Aragron .... 58 The Catalans — Union of Aragon and Catalonia . . — Minorca, Valencia and Sicily added to the Kingdom — Alphonso V — John IL, 1458 59 Constitution of Castile — of Aragon — Estates of Catalonia and Valencia . 60 Spanish Military Orders .... — Private Wars 61 Aragonese Privilege of Union ... — Granada, Moorish Kingdom . . — Portugal .... 61 John the Bastard 62 Battle of Aljubarota — Maritime Enterprises — Alphonso V — France .... 63 Lunacy of Charles VI — Burgundians and Armagnacs ... — Treaty of Arras or Troyes .... 63 Henry V. at Paris ...... 64 Bedford, Regent — Charles VII. of France — Henrv VI. crowned at Paris ... — OF THE FIEST VOLUME. XV Burg^undy Capetian Line .... House of Valois . . . Philip the Good . . . Extent of his Dominions Connection with England Treaty with Charles^VII. Prosperity of Belgium . Siecle de for .... Paintinsi, Architecture &c. Death of Bedford .... The English evacuate Paris expelled from Era Their Position in Europe . , Page 65 66 67 68 P«fre Desolate Condition of France ... 69 Contrast with Burgundy .... Ministry of Charles VII 70 Standing Army Progress of Despotism 71 Etats-Generaux — Parliament of Paris — Contrast with England 72 The Praguerie — Great Fiefs — Progress of Centralisation .... 73 England .... — Union of the Houses of York and Lancaster — BOOK I. FROM THE FALL OF COXSTAXTINOPLE IIS" 1453, TO THE PONTIFICATE OF LEO X. I5I3 (pp. 75 297). CHAPTEE I. Establishment of the Turks in Europe and their Wars with the Hungarians y Venetians^ (|'C., till the Death of Mahomet II. — Ajj'airs of Italy down to the Turkish Invasion in 1481 (pp. 75 — II2). 1453. Capture of Constantinople . . 75 Mahomet consolidates his Em- pire — The Greek Patriarchate ... — State of the Peloponnesus . , 76 1454. Revolt of the Albanians • . . — 1460. Mahomet II. reduces the Morea 77 Fate of the Despots Thomas and Demetrius — Duchy of Athens 78 Annexed with Thebes to the Turkish Empire .... — Reduction of Greek Towns and Islands 79 Nature of the Turkish Govern- ment — Greece sinks into Barbarism . 80 Alarm in Europe — JEneas Sylvius — Bull of Pope Nicholas V. . . 81 1454. Venice and Genoa make peace with the Turks — Mahomet enters Pera ... 82 Genoa pledges her Colonies . — Helpless State of Europe . . — Disturbances in Austria and Hungary 83 A.D. 1454. Weakness of the Emperor Frederick III 83 Revolts of Count Cilly and Eyzinger — Mahomet invades Servia . . 84 The Turks defeated by Hunyad — 1455. Death of Pope Nicholas V. . — Giovanni da Capestrano . . — Zeal of Pope Calixtus IIL . . 85 1456. Mahomet besieges Belgrade . — Repulsed by Hunyad and Ca- pestrano 86 Death of Hunyad and Capes- trano 87 Plots of Count CiUy . . . . — He is slain by Hunyad's sons . 88 Who are seized by King Ladis- laus, and the elder executed — 1457. Death of Ladislaus Posthumus — Competitors for the Crowu of Hungary — 1458. Election of Matthias Corvinus 89 Podiebrad chosen King of Bo- hemia — 1459. Frederick III. crowned King of Hungary 90 1463. Resigns the Crown to Matthias — XVI CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF CONTEXTS 1463. Insurrection in Austria . 1458. Mahomet annexes Servia Pa (re 90 91 1462. reduces Wallacliia . — 1469. The Turks overrun the Herze- govina — 1464. Mahomet conquers Bosnia . . 92 1459. Pope Pius II. calls the Council of Mantua — Project of a Crusade ... — 1461. The Pope's Letter to Mahomet — 1463. Venetian and Turkish War . 93 Alliance between Venice, Hun- gar}-, and the Pope Exertions of Pius II. ... 94 "War in the Morea 1464. Death of Pius II 95 Election of Paul II. . His Character . . . 1465. Scanderbeg allied -with Venice 96 1467. His Death — 1470. The Turks conquer Negropont — Their Progress in the north . — 1475. Defeated by Matthias CorWnus — 1477. The Turks penetrate into the Venetian Territory ... 97 1479. Treaty between Venice and the Porte — Ruin of the Grenoese Commerce 98 Defeat of the Turks by Paul Kinis — Mahomet conquers three of the Ionian Islands — Retrospective view of Italy . 99 1458. Death and Character of Al- phonso of Naples .... — Character of Pope Calixtus III. 100 He opposes the accession of Ferdinand, illegitimate Son of Alphonso — Pius II. recognises Ferdinand — Revolt of the Neapolitan Barons — • John of Anjou invades Naples 101 1460. Defeats Ferdinand .... — Great qualities of Ferdinand's Consort Isabella .... — A.D. Page 1461. Ferdinand assisted by Scan- derbeg 101 1462. John of Anjou defeated at Troia 102 1464. Retires from Italy .... — Death of Cosmo de' Medici . — His Character — Conspiracy against Peter de' Medici 103 1467. Battle of La Molinolla . . .104 1468. Paul II. publishes a Peace . — 1469. Death of Peter de' Medici . . — Accessionof Lorenzo and Julian — 1471. Death of Pope Paul IL . .105 Election and Nepotism of Six- tus IV — Profligacy and T^-ranny of Ga- leazzo, Duke of Milan . .106 1476. Conspiracy against him , . . — Regency of his widow Bonne . — Leagues of North and South Italy 107 Enmity of Sixtus IV. towards the 3Iedici — 1478. Conspiracy of the Pazzi . . . 1U8 Sixtus IV. attacks the Floren- tines 109 Excites an Insurrection at Genoa — Instigates the Swiss against Milan — 1479. Louis the Moor obtains pos- session of Milan .... 110 1480. Lorenzo de' Medici proceeds to Naples, and forms a League with Ferdinand .... — The Venetians incite Mahomet to invade Naples . . . .111 The Pope absolves the Floren- tines — The Turks take Otranto . . — The Pope forms a League against them — 1481. The Turks repulsed by the Duke of Calabria . . . .112 Death of Mahomet IL . . . — Character — CHAPTER II. Affairs of France and Burgundy down to the Truce of 1472 ; u'ith a brief View of English Affairs under Edward IV. (pp. 113 — 140). 1456. The Dauphin Louis in banish- ment 113 He flies into Brabant ... — Character of Louis . . . .114 ■ of the Heir of Bur- gundy _ — Dauphine united to France . ' 115 1458. Charles VII. acquires the tem- porary Sovereignty of Genoa — 1461. Death of Charles VIL . . . Sucre of Louis XL . . . . Splendour of the Duke of Bur- gundy Singular Tournament . . . Cjniicism of Louis .... He creates the Parliament of Bourdeaux and University ofBourges 116 117 OF THE FIRST VOLUME. XVll A.D. _ , Page 1461. His proceedings against the Clergy^ 117 And against the great Vassals of the Crown 118 Duchy of Brittany .... — of Normandy .... — 1462. Louis acquires Rousillon . . 119 Allies himself with the Swiss and the Duke of Milan . . — 1463. Eecovers the Towns on the Somme — Truce of Hesdin with Edw. IV. — Louis threatens Brittany . .120 Attempts to seize its Vice- Chancellor at Gorcum . . — Rupture with Burgundy . .121 1464. Ligue du Bien Public ... — Its principal Leaders ... — Preparations of Louis . . .122 He establishes Posts .... — 1465. Civil War in France .... — Battle of Montlhery . . . .123 Louis incites a Revolt in Bel- gium — Treaties of Conflans and St. Maur 124 Importance of the latter to the French Monarchy .... — Contrast of the French and English Nobles .... — 1466. Normandy reannexed to the French Crown . . .. . .125 Cruel Treatment of the Bur- gundian Rebels - . . .126 1467. Death of Philip the Good . . — Accession and Character of Charles the Bold .... 127 Insurrections at Ghent and Liege — 1468. Marriage between Charles and Maroraret of York . . . .128 A.n. Page 1468. States-General in France . .128 Treaty of Ancenis with Duke of Brittany — Louis entrapped by Charles . 129 Treaty of Pei-onne .... — Louis serves under the Duke of Burgundy — Punishment of Liege . . . 130 Ambitious views of Charles . — Character of Louis's Ministers 131 Cardinal La Balue .... — Connection l>etween Louis XI. and the Earl of Warwick . 132 Part played by Warwick in England 133 His ambiguous conduct ... — 1470. Warwick sheltered by Louis XI. 134 Reconciliation of War-nick and Queen Margaret . . . .135 Edward IV. flies into the Ne- therlands — Treaty of Peroune declared void 136 The Duke of Burgundy sum- moned by Parliament of Paris — 1471. Edward IV. relands in England — Defeats Warwick at Barnet and Margaret at Tewkesbiiry . — Charles invades France . .137 Louis enters into a Truce . . — His popular Arts — Disaffection of his Brother the Duke of Guienne .... — 1472. League against Louis . , . 138 Death of the Duke of Guienne — Guienne annexed to the Crown — Charles invade France . . .139 A Truce — Louis' s privilege to La RocheUe 140 His attention to Commerce . — CHAPTEE III. Affairs of France and Burgundy continued down to the Year 1493 (pp. 141 — 173). 1472. Ambition of Charles the Bold. 141 He acquires Guelderland and Zutphen — Plan of a Burgundian Kingdom — 1473. Projected Marriage between Mary, Daughter of Charles and Maximilian, Son of the Emperor Frederick III. . .142 Interview between Charles and Frederick at Treves ... — Frederick gives Charles the sHp 143 1474. Charles besieges Neuss ... — 1475. The Swiss invade Burgxmdy . 144 Neuss relieved by the Impe- rialists , . .... — VOL. I 1475. League between Charles and Edward IV 144 Edward invades France . . .145 Peace of Pecquigny .... — Claims to the Duchy of Lorraine — It is overrun by Charles the Bold 146 Execution of the Constable St. Pol _ Perpetual Alliance between France and Switzerland . . 147 1476. Charles the Bold attacks the Swiss ........ — Defeated at Granson . . . .148 And again at 3Iorat . . . .149 xvm CHROXOLOGICAL TABLE OF COXTEXTS A.D. Page 1476. Duke Eene II. recovers Nanci 149 Despondency of Charles 1477. Killed in attacking Nanci . . 150 Rene recovers Lorraine . . Indecent joy of Louis XL . He seizes Burgundy . . . .151 Embarrassment of Charles's Daughter Mary .... — She grants the " Grand Privi- lege" to the Dutch ... 152 Louis's machinations against her — Execution of Hugonet and Humborcourt 153 The French enter Flanders . — Mary's Suitors 154 She marries Maximilian . . — Truce with Louis 155 Peace between the Flemish Sovereigns and the Swiss . — War renewed with France . . — The French defeated at Guine- gate 156 Another Truce — Provence annexed to France . — Death of Mary of Burgundy . 157 Opposition of the Flemings to Maximilian — Declining Days of Louis XI. . — His Diversions 158 His Intrigues with the Flemings — Peace of Arras — 1483. Death of Louis XI .... 159 His Policy and Government . — Anne, Sister of Charles VIII., rules for him 160 Opposed by the Duke of Orleans — Anne's popular Measxu'es . . — 1484. Disturbances in Brittany . .161 Revolt of the Duke of Orleans — Earl of Richmond in Brittany 162 Richard III.'s Plots against him — 1485. Battle of Bosworth .... 163 Richmond obtains the English Crown as Henry VII. ... — 1478, 1480, 1481, 1482. A.n. Page 1485. Effect of this Revolution in Brittany 163 Termination of /« Guerre folle — 1486. Attempts of Anne to procure Brittany for her Brother . — Maximilian's proceedings in the Xetherlands . . . .164 Elected King of the Romans . — 1487. Renews the War with France — 1488. Maximilian imprisoned at Bruges 165 Fresh Revolt of the French Princes — Battle of St. Aubin, and cap- ture of the Duke of Orleans and Prince of Orange . . .166 Death of the Duke of Brittany — 1489. Henry VII. engages to protect Anne of Brittany .... 167 1490. Anne marries Maximilian . . — 1489. Treaty between Charles VIIL and Maximilian .... 168 Maximilian chastises the Flem- ings ........ — 1490. The French Council declares the Marriage of Anne and Maximilian null . . . .169 1491. Insurrection in the Xetherlands — Charles VIII begins to reign . — > He reduces Anne of Brittany to capitulate 170 Is married to her 171 His Person and Character . . — Rage of Maximilian .... — 1492. Henry VII.'s pretended Inva- sion of France 172 Treaty of Etaples — 1493. Treaty of Barcelona between France and Spain .... — Peace of Senlis between Charles and Maximilian .... — Fate of Maximilian's Daughter Margaret 173 CHAPTER IV. Affairs of Italy. — Spanish History down to the Conquest of Granada. - Affairs of Hungary, the House of Austria, ^-c, till 1492 (pp. 174 — 202). 1482. Nepotism of Pope Sixtus IV. . 174 1483. League against Venice ... — The Venetians excommuni- cated 175 1484. Peace of Bagnolo — Death of Sixtus IV. and Elec- tion of Innocent VIIL . . — War Ijetween Naples and Rome — 1486. Ferdinand of Naples chastises his rebellious Nobles . . .176 1486. John de' Medici made a Car- dinal 176 Government of Lorenzo de' Medici — 1492. His Death 177 Succeeded by his Son Peter . — Death of Innocent VIIL . . — Election of Pope Alexander VI. 178 Tyranny of Louis the Moor at Milan • . — OF THE FIRST VOLUME. XIX A.n. 1493. 1465. 14G8. 1469. 1452. 1461. 1467, 1470, 1472. 1473. 1475 1474. 1475 1476 1479 1480 1481 Page He invites Charles VIII. into Italy 179 Retrospect of Spanish History — Reign of Henry IV, of Castile — He is deposed by his Nobles . 180 Alphonso, anti-King, dies . . — Isabella, Sister of Henry IV. refuses the Crown .... — Henry names her his Successor — She marries Ferdinand of Aragon 181 Their Characters — Birth of Ferdinand , . . .182 Reign of his Father John II, . — Persecutes his Son Carlos . . — Beaumonts and Agramonts . — Death and Character of Carlos 183 John II. makes Ferdinand his Heir — The Catalans revolt .... — Proclaim John of Anjou King 184 His Death — John II. recovers Barcelona . — Roussillon and Cerdagne rise against the French ... — Are reduced by Louis XL . .185 Death of Henry IV, of CastHe — Accession of Isabella . , .186 Alphonso V, of Portugal sup- ports the claim of Henry IV.' s Daughter Joanna, whom he marries — Alphonso invades Castile . . — Alphonso defeated by Ferdi- nand — , Establishment of Isabella's claim 187 Ferdinand succeeds John II. in Aragon — The Santa Hermandad ... — . The Inquisition estabKshed in Ca.stile 188 Its political Character . . .139 Moorish Kingdom of Granada — . Origin of the War between the Moors and Spaniards . . .190 Its Progress 191 A.D. pape 1491. Conquest of Granada . . . 191 Consolidation of the Spanish Monarchy 192 1492. The Jews expelled from Spain — 1493. Columbus at Barcelona . , .193 Retrospect of Austrian and Hungarian History ... 1465. Pope Paul II. deposes Podie- brad, King of Bohemia . . — Matthias Corvinus prepares to seize the Crown — 1468. Podiebrad invades Austria . . — Matthias invades Bohemia . . 194 Crowned by the Legate ... — Frederick III. visits Rome . . — 1470. Matthias at Vienna .... 195 1471. Death of Podiebrad . . . . _ The Bohemians elect "Wladis- laus of Poland — 1473. Duplicity of Frederick IIL to- wards 3Iatthias 196 1474. Matthias invades Bohemia, Austria and Poland ... — 1476. Hostilities between Matthias and Frederick III — 1477. Peace of Korneuburg ... — 1479, Peace of Olmiitz between Mat- thias and the Kings of Bo- hemia and Poland . . , . 19J War renewed between Matthias and Frederick — 1485. Vienna captured — Office of the Hungarian Pala- tine — 1489. Negociations for a Peace . .198 1490. Death of Matthias Corvinus . — Competitors for the Hungarian Throne 199 Election of "Wladislaus ... — Maximilian recovers Austria . — 1491. Treaty of Presburg . . . .200 1492. Death of Casimir of Poland . — 1493. Death of the Emperor Frede- rick III — Character — Account of the Suabian League 201 Maximilian I. Emperor . . . 202 CHAPTER V. Wars of Charles VIII. and Louis XII. in ItaJij. — Pontificate of Alex- ander VI. — Intervention of Ferdinand the Catholic in Italy (pp. 203 — 240). 1494. Projects of Charles VIII . . 203 Death of Ferdinand of Naples and Accession of Alphonso II. — His Alliance with Pope Alex- ander VI 204 1494. Charles VIII. supported by Louis the Moor, invades Italy . . 204 Louis, on the Death of his Nephew Galeazzo, seizes Milan 205 a 2 XX CIIROXOLOGICAL TABLE OF CONTEXTS 1-194. Treaty of Peter de' Medici with Charles VIII. . . The Medici expelled . Savonarola at Florence Charles enters that City His March to Rome . Trepidation of Alexander VI. , Alliance between the Pope and the Sultan Story of Zizim 1495. Treaty between the Pope and the French King . . . . Death of Zizim Ferdinand of Aragon protests against the Invasion of Naples Alphonso of Naples abdicates in favour of his Son Ferdi- nand II Charles VIII. enters Naples . His impolitic Conduct . . . League against France , . . Charles quits Naples .... His Retreat and Interview with Savonarola Successes of the Duke of Or- leans in Lombardy . . . Battle of Fornova Treaty of Vercelli Charles returns to France . . Ferdinand II. re-enters Naples 1496. The French evacuate the Nea- politan Territory .... Death of Ferdinand II. , and Accession of Frederick . . Failure of the Emperor Maxi- milian at Leghorn .... Marriages of Don John and Margaret, and of the Arch- duke Philip and Joanna . . Marriage of Catherine of Aragon and Prince Arthur . 1497. Marriage of the Infanta Isabella with Emmanuel of Portugal . She stipulates the Bani&'hment of the Jews from Portugal . Pope Alexander forbids Savo- narola the Pidpit . . , . Florentine Factions .... Crimes of Pope Alexander VI. and the Borgian Family . . 1498. Savonarola burnt Death of Charles VIII. . . . Accession of Louis XII. . . (House of Orleans.) Governed by Cardinal d'Am- boise Page 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 2?1 222 223 224 A.D. Page 1498. Louis's liberal domestic Policy 224 Procures a Divorce from his AVife Joanna tlirough Caesar Borgia 225 He marries Anne, the Dowager Queen • . 226 Borgia made Duke of Valen- tinois ... .... — 1499. Louis allies himself •with Venice — Other Treaties — The French invade Italy . . 227 Duke Sforza flies from Milan . 228 Louis XII. enters that City . — 1500. Trivulzio evacuates it at the approach of Sforza ... — Sforza betrayed by the Swiss at Novara 229 Imprisoned in France . . . 230 The French assist the Borgian Family — Ambition and Crimes of Csesar Borgia 231 He reduces Romagna ... — 1501. Marriage of Lucretia Borgia and Alfonso d'Este . . .232 France and Spain agree to divide Naples — Duplicity of Ferdinand the Catholic — French Expedition to Naples . 233 Pope Alexander sanctions its Partition 234 Frederick II. retires into France — Gonsalvo of Cordova captures his son Don Ferrante ... — Louis's Negociations with Maximilian 235 Louis and Ferdinand quarrel about the partition of Naples — The French expel the Span- iards — 1502. Journey of Philip and Joanna to Toledo 236 1503. Treaty between Philip and Louis XII. respecting Naples — Ferdinand instructs Gonsalvo not to observe it ... . — Gonsalvo drives the French from Naples 237 Louis attacks Spain .... — Progress of Csesar Borgia . .238 Death of Pope Alexander VI. . — Election and Death of Pius III. 239 Election of Pope Julius II. . . 240 Disappointment of D'Amboise — OF THE FIRST VOLUME. XXI CHAPTEE VI. Affairs of Italy ^ Spain and the Empire, down to the League of Camhray in 1508 (pp. 241 — 265). A.c. Page 1503. Position of Csesar Borgia . . 241 Projects of Pope Julius II. . . — Last Adventures and Death of Borgia 242 Rout of the French on the Ga- rigliano 243 Death of Peter de' Medici . . — Peace between France and Spain 244 Ferdinand obtains Naples . . — 1504. Triple Treaty of Blois . . . — Retrospect of Turkish History — Reign of Bajazet II 245 Venetian and Turkish War (1498—1502) — Death of Isabella of Castile . 246 1405. Louis XII. invested with the Duchy of Milan .... — Arrangement between the Ve- netians and the Pope ... — Ximenes de Cisneros .... 247 The Archduke Philip and King Ferdinand dispute the Re- gency of Castile . • . . 248 Ferdinand courts the Friend- ship of Louis XII. . . .249 Marries Germaine De Foix . . — 1506. The Concord of Salamanca . . 250 Philip and Joanna in England — The Malus Intcrcursus ... — Interview between Philip and Ferdinand in Spain . . .251 Philip and Joanna Sovereigns of Castile — A.u. Page 1506. Death of PhOip 252 Melancholy of Joanna ... — Ferdinand's Voyage to Naples 253 1507. Ferdinand and Louis XII. at Savona 254 Louis reduces Genoa .... — Ferdinand resumes his Autho- rity in Spain 255 His Ingratitude to Gonsalvo of Cordova — Margai'et, Governess of the Netherlands 256 Reforms in the German Em- pire 257 Circles of Germany .... — Council of Regency . . . .258 Diet of Constance — Systems of Taxation . . . .259 1508. Maximilian's Expedition into Italy 260 He assumes the Title of Emperor Elect — He outlaws the Venetians . . — But is compelled to make Peace with them 261 Their insolent Triumph . * . — Conquests of Pope Julius II. . 26i Machinations against Venice . — League of Camhray . . . .263 Hypocritical Pretences of the Allied Sovereigns . . . .264 1509. Pisa sold to the Florentines . 265 CHAPTER VII. From the League of Camhray in 1508 to the Death of Pope Julius IL in 1513 (pp. 266—297). 1509. Pope Julius II. excommuni- cates the Venetians . . . 266 Battle of Agnadello .... — Successes of Louis XII ... — The Papal Army reduces Ro- magna 267 Lukewarmness of the German Diet — Distress of the Venetians . . 268 They release their Italian Sub- jects — Inactivity of Maximilian . . 269 He besieges Padua .... — The Venetians recover several Places 270 1510, They are reconciled with fhc Pope 270 Project of Julius II. to clear Italy of Foreigners . . .271 He courts King Henry VIII. . — And forms an Alliance with the Swiss 272 Death of Cardinal d'Amboisc . — Julius connects himself witli King Ferdinand .... 273 Quarrels with the Duke of Fe- rara — Campaign in North Italy . . 274 Diet of Augsburg — Cruelties at Vicenza . . . .275 aS XXll CHROXOLOGICAL TABLE OF COXTEXTS AD. Page 1510. Alphonso of Ferrara excommu- nicated 275 Louis XIL assembles a Council at Tours 276 Tl-eaty of Blois 277 Julius IL beleaguered by the French at Bologna ... — 1511. He captures Mirandola . . .278 Congress at Bologna . . . .279 The French drive the Fapal Forces from Bologna . . . 280 Jidius cited before the Council of Pisa 281 He summons the Council of St. John Lateran .... 282 Retrospect of Spanish History — Expedition to Africa . . . .283 Ximenes founds a UniA^ersity at Alcala — Hypocritical PoHcy of Ferdi- nand — The Holy League 284 Treaty between Spain and England — Council of Pisa adjourned to Milan 285 Maximilian assumes the Title of Pont if ex Maximus ... — Campaign in Italy .... 286 A.D. ^ Papp 1512. Exploits of Gaston deFoix . 287 Louis XII. instructs him to depose the Pope .... 2SS Battle of Ravenna .... 289 Death of Gaston 290 His Victory fatal to the French — Council of the Lateran opened • — Julius II. seizes Parma and Piacenza 291 The Members of the Holy League combine against Florence 292 State of that City — The Medici restored, and a Ransom extorted .... 293 Character of the new Govern- ment 294 Ferdinand's Designs on Xa- varre — Claims of his "Wife, Germaine de Foix, to that Kingdom . 295 He uses the English Forces for his purpose — He overruns Xavarre . . .296 1513. Effects a Truce with Louis XIL 297 Navarre incorporated with Castile — Death of Pope Julius II. . . — His Character — BOOK II. FROM THE ELECTION OF POPE LEO X. IX 151.3 TO THE COUNCIL OF TRENT IN 1545 (pp. 299—619). CHAPTER I. View of the three great Revolutions marking the Transition from the Middle Ages to Modern Times; viz. 1. The Extinction of Fendalism ; 2. The Commencement of Ocean Navigation and Discovery of the New World ; 3. 21ie Causes tvhich led to the Refoi^nation of the Church (pp. 299 — 340). Swiss Infantry and German Lans- quenets 305 English Bowmen — Cavalry Forces of Eastern Europe . 306 Introduction of Standing Armies. . 307 Rise of the European System ... — Treaties and Embassies 308 Venetian Bclazioni 309 Papal Legates and Nuncios ... — Feudalism at the beginning of the Sixteenth Century 299 Power of the Royal Houses in Spain, France, and England 300 Feudalism in Germany — Lawlessness of the German Knights 301 Feudalism extinguished by the Inven- tion of Fire-arms 302 Application of Gunpowder in War . — Introduction and Progress of Artil- lery 303 Hand-guns and Arquebuses . . . 304 Cavalry the chief Force in ancient times — Commencement of Ocean Navigation. Invention of the Compass .... 310 Maritime Discoveries of the Spaniards and Portuguese 311 OF THE FIEST VOLUME. XXlll Page Papal Claims to undiscovered Lands 312 Discorery of the Cape of Good Hope 313 Vasco de G-ama sails to Calicut . . — Ancient Theories concerning the Olobe 314 G-eography of the Church .... — Circumnavigation of Africa . . .315 Earliest Voyages to America ... — Christopher Columbus 316 Origin and Progress of his Theory . — His Search for a Patron . . . .317 His Bargain with Queen Isabella (1492) 318 He discovers the West Indies . . .319 Pope AlexanderVI. divides the World between Spain and Portugal . .320 Treaty of Tordesillas 321 Second Voyage of Colimibus ... — Amerigo Vespucci — Columbus brought home in chains . 322 His last Voyage and Death ... — Fiu'ther Discoveries of the Spaniards 323 Portuguese Conquests in the East . — Voyage of Sebastian Cabot .... 324 The Tapacy and the Beformation. Eise and Progress of the Papal Power 325 Reaction against Rome 326 Page The Papal Schism 327 Councils of Pisa and Constance . . 328 Reformation of AViclif — The Hussites in Bohemia . . . .329 French Reformers — Burning of Huss and Jerome . . .330 German and English Grievances . . — Council of Basle .331 Pope Felix V. and the Hermits of Ripaille — The GaUican Church 332 German Concordats . . . , . .333 Relation of England and Spain to Rome — Triumph of the Roman See ... 334 Vices and Profligacy of the Clergy . — Atheism of the Italian Priesthood . 335 Classic Tastes and Liberality of Rome 336 Learning of the Middle Ages ... — Scholasticism and its Effects . . .337 Revival of Classical Literature . . — Classical Precursors of the Reforma- tion 338 Restorers of Hebrew Learning . . — Italian Art and Literature .... 339 Lingering Barbarism in Europe . . — Sorcery, Astrology, and Alchemy . 340 CHAPTER 11. From the Election of Pope Leo X, to the Election of Charles V. Emperor and the Diet of Worms, 1513—1521 (pp. 341 — 381). 1515. Charles of Bourbon made Con stable Francis prepares for an Italian Campaign Enters into a Treaty with the Archduke Charles . And with Henry VIII. Appoints his mother Louisa Regent The French cross the Alps Surprise Prosper Colonna Villa Franca .... Treachery of the Swiss . Battle of Marignano . . Sforza abdicates Milan favour of Francis I. . Francis allies himself with Leo Their interview at Bologna Conspiracy against Leo . , French Concordat . . . Francis's Treaty with the Swiss League against France 1516. Death of Ferdinand the Catholic His Character Austrian and Hungarian Mar riages 1513. Education and Character of Leo X. . . . . . . .341 His Nepotism and Policy . . 342 Alliance of Louis XII. and the Venetians — Treaty of Mechlin . . . . — The French overrun the Milan- ese .. . 343 But are speedily expelled . .344 Battle of Flodden 345 Henry VIII. invades France . — Maximilian serves under him . — Battle of the Spurs . . . .346 Capture of Tournay .... — The Swiss invade Burgundy . — Louis XII. reconciles himself with the Pope 347 A general Truce — Rise of Wolsey 348 1514. Marriage of Louis XII. and Mary of England .... 349 1515. Death of Louis XII — Accession of Francis I. . . .350 His Characteristics .... — He abandons the Government to his Mother Louisa . . . .351 at as 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 a4 XXIV CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF CONTEXTS 1516. Maximilian's bootless Expedi- tion against Milan .... 362 Education of Charles V. . . .363 Will of Ferdinand the Catholic — Ximenes and Adrian Regents in Spain 364 Harsh Treatment of Navarre by Ximenes — Treaty of Noyon between Charles and Francis . . . 365 Henry of Nassau marries the Heiress of Orange .... — Peace of Brussels 366 Decline of Venice — 1517. Charles proceeds to Spain . . 367 Dismissal and Death of Ximenes — Character of his GoTernment . — Unpopular Measures of Charles 368 Rapacity of his Flemish Cour- tiers — Retrospect of Turkish and Hungarian History . . . 369 1512. Selim dethrones his Father Bajazet — Conquests of Selim in the East — 1516. Death of Wladislaus of Hun- gary 370 Distracted State of that Country 371 A.D. 1516. 1517. 1520. 1518. 1519. 1520, 1521 Pafre Minority of Louis II. . . .371 John Zapolya, Vo^Tode of Transylvania — Pretended Crusade of Leo X. . 372 Death of Sultan Selim . . .373 Treaty between Francis I. and Henry VIII — Death of the Emperor Maxi- milian 1 374 His Character — Candidates for the Imperial Crown 375 The Elector Frederick refuses it 376 Election of Charles V. . . . — Electoral Union of the Rhine . 377 Discontent of Charles's Spanish Sulrjects — Insurrection in Castile . . .378 Charles visits England ... — Interview between Henry VIII. and Francis 1 379 Charles crowned at Aix-la- Chapelle — . Diet of Worms — Affair of Wiirtemberg ... — Charles cedes the Austrian Dominions to his Brother Ferdinand 380 CHAPTEE III. The History of the Reformation down to the Edict of Worms in 1521 and Luther s Concecdment at the Warthurg. — General Affairs of Europe to Death of Pope Leo X. 1521 (pp. 382 — 418). 1483. Birth and education of Martin Luther 382 Doctrine of Indulgences . . 383 Traffic in Indulgences . . .384 Albert of Brandenburg and John Tetzel 385 1517. Tetzel comes in contact with Luther 386 Luther's Theses — Luther supported by the Elector of Saxony . . .387 Indifference of Leo X. . . — Luther's controversy with Eck 388 1518. Luther before Cajetanus . . 389 He escapes from Augsburg . 390 Pope Leo's BuU respecting In- dulgences — Negociatious of Miltitz . . .391 1519. Luther writes to the Pope . — Disputation at Leipsic . . . 392 1520. Circumstances favourable to Luther 393 His popularity — Leo's Bull Exurge Domine , .394 Its impotence — 1520. Luther's second Letter to the Pope 395 Erasmus supports Luther . . — Luther burns the Pope's Bull 396 1521. He is excommunicated ... — Is summoned before the Em- peror at Worms . . . .397 His appearance at the Diet . 398 He is dismissed 399 Edict of Worms .... 400 Luther conveyed to the Wart- burg .. . — Ulrich Zwingli — Reformation in Switzerland . 401 Contrast between Zwingli and Luther 402 Disturbances in Spain . . . 403 The Santa Junta .... — Civil War 404 Capture and execution of Pa- dilla 405 Dona Maria de Pacheco . . — The Herraandad in Valencia . — Rivalry of the French King and the Emperor .... 406 OF THE FIEST VOLUME. XXV AD. 1521. The French invade Navarre . Repulsed by the Spaniards The Duke of Bouillon defies the Emperor Kapacious policy of Pope Le6 X. His Treaty with Charles V. . His Proceedings against the French Conference at Calais . . . Machinations of Wolsey . . Pape 407 408 409 410 411 412 A.D. Page 1521. Treaty of Bruges 413 The Pope excommunicates Francis I Commencement of the Rivalry between France and Austi'ia 414 Cabals of the French Coiu-t . 415 The French lose Milan , . .416 Illness and Death of Leo X. .417 His Character — His Unpopularity at Rome . 418 CHAPTER IV. From the Death of Leo X. to the Battle of Pavia and Capture of Francis I. (pp. 419—448). 1521. Confusion upon Leo X.'s death 419 1522. Election of Pope Adrian VI. . 420 The French defeated in Lom- bardy — Genoa taken by the Imperialists 42 1 Charles V. visits England . . — The English invade France Charles arrives in Spain . . Gains the Affections of his Spanish Subjects, but curtails their Liberties Persecutes the Moors . . . Adrian arrives in Rome . . His Unpopularity .... Retrospect of Turkish History 1520. Accession of Solyman I. . . His warlike Projects .... 1521. He takes Belgrade .... 1522. Conquers Rhodes Fate of the Knights .... 1523. League of Rome 431 The Constable Charles of Bour- bon — His Power and Influence . .432 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 1523. Ill-treatment by the French Court 433 He leagTies himself with Charles V. and Henry VIII. 434 "Wlao invade France .... 435 Flight of Bourbon .... 436 The Invasion fails .... 437 Bourbon declared a Traitor . 438 The French enter Italy . . . 439 Death of Pope Adi-ian Yl. . . — Election of Clement VII. . . — His Character 440 1524. Campaign in Italy .... — Defeat of the French ... — Death of Bayard — Bourbon swears fealty to Henry Vni 441 His fruitless Invasion of France 442 Francis I. invades the Milanese 443 Clement VII. treats with Francis 444 1525. Albany detached to Naples . 445 Battle of Marignano .... 446 Defeat and Capture of Francis 447 His celebrated Letter . . .448 CHAPTER V. From the Battle of Pavia to the Peace of Camhray and Marriage of Fixincis I. and Eleanor (pp. 449 — 496). 1525. Moderation of Charles V. . .449 Alarm in France 450 Henry VIII.'s Change of Policy 451 Wolsey's secret Negociations . 452 Bourbon's Proposals to Henry VIII 453 Negociations between Henry and Charles 454 Quarrel between Charles and Wolsey 455 Treaty between England and France 456 Charles's Proposals to Francis 457 Abject Conduct of Francis . . — 1525. His Concessions 458 He is carried Prisoner to Ma- drid 459 His Sister Margaret visits him 460 Francis abdicates but retracts 461 Bourbon in Spain .... — 1526. Treaty of Madrid 462 Francis's Protest against it . 403 Reflections on his and the Em- peror's Conduct — Liberation of Francis . . .464 His arrival in France ... — He refuses to ratify the Treaty of Madrid 465 XXVI CHROXOLOGICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS A.D Page 1526. Vacillating Policy of Clement VII 466 Conspiracy of Morone . . .467 League of Cognac .... 468 Lukewiirmness of Francis . .469 Marriage of Charles V. . . ,470 DupHcity of Wolsey's Policy . — Margaret of Valois declines the Suit of Henry VIII. .471 Marries the King of Navarre . — Wolsey's abject Hypocrisy . .472 Bourbon takes possession of Milan 473 The Pope captured by Cardinal Colonna — Clement's Vengeance . . . . 474 Necessitous Condition of Bour- bon 475 Frunsberg undertakes an Ex- pedition into Italy .... — 1527. He forms a Junction with Bourbon 476 A Mutiny, and Death of Fruns- berg 477 Bourbon's March to Rome . .478 Trepidation of Clement VII. . 479 Captiire of Eome and Death of Bourbon 480 Sack of Eome 481 Capitulation of Clement VII. . 482 Revolt at Florence .... — Conduct and Policy of Charles V 483 A.n. Page 1527. Reasons for and against spar- ing the Pope 484 The Emperor's Apology . . .485 His Treaty with Clement . . — Alliance Ijetween Henry VIII. and Francis 1 486 Wolsey's Embassy to France . 487 Treaty of Amiens — Projected Marriage between Henry VIII. and Renee of France 488 The French take Genoa and Pafia — 1528. They penetrate to Naples, but are repulsed 489 Question of Henry VIII.'s Di- vorce, and Perplexity of the Pope 490 1529. Treaty of Barcelona between Charles and Clement . . .491 Last Revolution of Genoa . . 492 The Emperor challenges Francis 493 French Campaigns in Italy . 494 Peace of Cambray — Disgraceful Conduct and Pro- test of Francis 495 Termination of the French Wars in Italy — 1530. The French Princes dismissed from Spain 496 Francis marries Eleanor, the Emperor's Sister .... — CHAPTER VI. Affairs of Geimiany and the Reformation to the Diet of Sjnres in 1526, with those of Hungary and the Turks till the Truce o/l53l (pp. 497 — 526). 1521. Luther at the Wartburg . . 497 Fanaticism of Carlstadt at Wit- tenberg 498 The Zwickau Prophets ... — 1522. Luther returns to that City . 499 He publishes the German Tes- tament — Moderation of Luther . . .500 The Reformation proscribed in Bavaria — Lawlessness of the German Knights 501 Capture and Death of Sickingen 502 Destruction of the German Knighthood 503 1523. Relations between Rome and Germany 504 1524. Diet of Nuremberg .... 505 Luther quits his Convent . . 506 Peasant War 507 Gotz von Berlichingen . . . 508 1525. The Peasants defeated atKonigs- hofen 508 Fanaticism of Thomas Miinzer 509 Death of Frederick the Wise . 510 His successor John the Steadfast — The Suabian League persecutes the Reformers 511 Secularisation of the Territory of the Teutonic Order . . — Albert, the Grand Master, founds the Duchy of Pmssia 512 Political Character of the Re- formation 513 1526. League of Torgau 514 Diet of Spires 515 Retrospect of Hungarian and Turkish Affiiirs 516 1521. Ferdinand marries Anne, Sister of King Louis — Louis marries a Sister of Fer- dinand — OF THE FIRST VOLUME. XXVll A.D. Page 1521. Ibrahim Pasha Grand Vizier . 517 1526. Solyman prepares to inyade Hungary — Alliance between France and the Porte 518 Anarchy among the Hun- garians 519 Battle of Mohacs 520 Death of King Louis .... — Ferdinand elected King of Bohemia 521 A.D. pagg 1527. John Zapolya and Ferdinand contest the Crown of Hungary 522 Zapolya defeated at Tokay . .523 1528. He forms an alliance with the Turks — 1529. Solyman causes him to be crowned at Buda .... 524 Sol}Tnan besieges Vienna . .525 His Retreat 526 1531. Ferdinand concludes a Truce with Zapolya — CHAPTEE VII. General Affairs of Europe down to the Invasion of France hj Charles V. in 1536 (pp. 527 — 566). 1529. Charles V. proceeds into Italy. 527 Change in his Conduct ... — Subjugation of Florence . . . 528 Charles's Interview with the Pope at Bologna .... 529 1530. His Coronation 530 Retrospect of German Affairs . 531 Charles annuls the Recess of the Diet of Spires (1526) . — Diet of Spires (1529). . . .^32 The Lutheran Prot^t and ua.m.e of Protcstcmts . . . 533 The Emperor presses the Pope for a Council 534 Conference of Luther and Zwingli at Marburg . . .535 Charles proceeds to the Diet at Augsburg 536 Luther at Coburg — Opening of the Diet .... 537 Co)ifessio7i of Aiigsbury . . .538 The Confessio TdrapoUtana . 539 Further Proceedings of the Diet — Weakness of the Emperor . . 540 Recess of the Diet 541 Views of Luther 542 League of Smalcald .... 543 1531. Ferdinand elected King of the Romans — The Queen of Hungary Go- verness of the Netherlands 544 Correspondence of Zwingli with Francis I — Death of Zwingli 545 Francis allies himself with the Dukes of Bavaria and others — Attempt to assassinate Zapolya 546 The Porte rejects the Advances of Ferdinand — Beligious Peace of Nuremberg . — How viewed by each Party . 547 Caroline Code — Alliance between Francis and Zapolya . 548 1531. French Protectorate of Eastern Christians 1532. Solyman's JVIarch to Hungary . Fruitless Embassy of Ferdinand Solyman besieges Giins . . . His Retreat Peace betwen Ferdinand and the Porte (1533) .... Treaty between Francis I. and Henry VIII Question of Henry's Divorce . He marries Anne Boleyn . . 1533. Marriage of the Duke of Orleans and Catherine de' Medici . Henry VIII. cited to appear at Rome Henr}^ courts the German Lutherans Bonner's Conference \r\X\\ the Pope at Marseilles .... 1534. The Papal Authority abrogated in England Death of Pope Clement VIL . Election of Paul IIL . . . . He excommunicates Henry . . Francis intrigues -with the German Princes .... The Pirate Barbarossa . . . 1535. The Emperor undertakes an Expedition against him . . He captures Tunis His Fetes at Naples .... Affair of Maraviglia .... Charles takes possession of Milan on the Death of Duke Sforza 1536. Francis invades Savoy . . . The Emperor's Proposals to his Ambassadors The Emperor invades France . Undertakes, but abandons, the Siege of Marseilles . . . . Accused of poisoning the Dau- phin 549 550 551 Oo2 553 554 555 5m 557 558 559 560 561 562 563 564 565 566 XXVlll CHROXOLOGICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER VIII. The Anabaptists of Milnster. — Francis^ after leaguing himself ivith the Protestants and Turlcs against the Emperor, resolves to conciliate that Potentate. — Result of this change of Policy (pp. 567 — 587). A.D. Page 1534. Jan Matthys, the " Prophet," arrives at Miinster. . . . 567 Progress of his .Sect .... — Siege of Miinster, and Death of Matthys 568 His Successor, John of Leyden — 1535. Capture of Miinster and Execu- tion of John 569 Duke Uh-ich reinstated in Wiirtemberg — Peaceof Cadan (1534) . . .570 Articles of Smalcald and Re- newal of the League ... — Francis persecutes the Protes- tants in France 571 And courts those of Germany . 572 1536. Marriage of James V. of Scot- land — 1537. Francis summons Charles be- fore the Parliament of Paris 573 Forms an Alliance against him ■with the Turks — Campaign in the Netherlands and Truce of Bomy . . . Solyman, deserted by Francis, abandons the projected Inva- sion of Italy 574 Negoeiations for a Peace be- tween Charles and Francis . — A.D. Pape 1538. Their Interview at Nice. . . 575 Ten Years' Truce and Treaty of Toledo 576 Cosmo de' Medici becomes Grand Duke of Tuscany . .577 Marriage of Octavius Farnese and Margaret of Austria . — Marriage of Antony of Bourbon and Jeanne d' Albert ... — Interview and Reconciliation of Charles and Francis at Aigues Mortes .... Francis changes his Policy . He quarrels with Henry VIII Papist Schemes against Henry Henry courts the German Pro testants Marries Anne of Cleves . . Turkish and Venetian War. 1539. Charles's Proceedings in Spain Abasement of the Cortes The Spanish Grandees . Revolt of Ghent . . . Francis oifers the Emperor a Passage through France . . 1540. Punishment and Fall of Ghent Charles refuses to invest Fran- cis with Milan — 1541. Disgrace of Montmorenci . . 587 578 579 580 581 582 583 584 585 586 CHAPTER IX. Affairs of the German Protestants down to the Council of Trent and Death of Luther, 1546. — Progress of the Turks. — Wars of the Emperor and French King to the Peace of Cr espy, 1544 (pp. 588 — 619). 1536. Movements of Pope Paul III. for a General Council . . 1538. Holy League of Nuremberg Protestant Cause strengthened by Death of Joachim 11. of Brandenburg, 1535, and George of Saxony, 1539 . . 1540. Disputation at Worms . . . Order of the Jesuits esta- blished 1541. Diet of Ratisbon Charles allies himself with the Elector of Brandenburg and Landgrave of Hesse . . . Bigamy of the Landgrave . . Sanctioned by the Lutheran Doctors . . 588 589 590 591 592 593 1534, Ferdinand's Negociations with the Porte 593 1536. The Turks defeat the Austrians 594 1538. Peace with Zapolya .... — 1540. His Death — 1541. Solyman occupies Buda . . 595 1542. Diet of Spires — 1543. Solyman again invades Hun- gary — 1545. Truce with the Porte . . .596 1541. Charles's Expedition to Algiers — Joy of the French Court at his ill-success ...... 597 Alleged murder of Francis's Ambassadors — He forms Alliances against the Emperor — OF THE FIEST VOLUME. XXIX A.n. Page 1542. Campaign in the Netherlands . 598 In Rousillon, Siege of Perpig- nan 599 Charles V. in Spain . . . .600 Defeat and Death of James V. of Scotland — 1543. Alliance of Charles V. and Henry VIII _ Campaign in the Netherlands . 601 Charles V. in Italy .... — Charles punishes the Duke of Cleves 602 Francis abandons the Duke . 603 Charles takes Cambray ... — Barbarossa, in conjunction with the French, infests the Coasts of Italy 604 They attack Nice — 1544. Charles opens the Diet of Spires 605 Indignation against France . — Far-fetched excuses of Fran- cis 606 Concessions to the German Protestants — Insincerity of Charles ... — War in Piedmont — Insolence of Barbarossa at Toulon 607 Henry VIII. invades France . 608 *-^- Page 1544 The Emperor penetrates to Chateau Thierry .... 608 Peace of Crespy between Charles and Francis . . . 609 Henry takes Boulogne ... His Dissatisfaction at the Peace 610 He returns to England ... Pope Paul III. summons the adjourned Council of Trent .611 Charles's Persecutions ... Articles of Louyain .... 1545. Diet of Worms 612 Politic conduct of Duke Mau- rice of Saxony — Francis seconds Charles against the Protestants 613 The Vaudois Massacre of those in Provence 614 Further Persecutions in France 615 The French incite the Scotch against England . . . .616 Attack the English Fleet . .617 Attempt to recover Boulogne . — Francis withdraws his Support from Charles 618 Pope Paul III. makes his Son Duke of Parma Opening of the Council of Trent _ 1546. Death of Luther . ... 619 HISTOEY OF MODEEN EUROPE HISTOEY OF MODEEN EUEOPl ^v coI-coTX.^^ I J a > s A,- % 1 s^ a • N.YOH.K, INTRODUCTION. In the middle of the fifteenth century of our era, Constantine Palaeologus, the last feeble heir of G-recian culture and Eoman magnificence, still enjoyed at Constantinople the title of Emperor of the East. His empire, however, was in the last stage of decay ; though the walls and suburbs of his capital comprised a great part of his dominions, he had been compelled to share even those narrow precincts with the republics of Grenoa and Venice ; and, what was still worse, Constantinople existed only by sufferance of the Turks, had been reduced to pay tribute to those warlike barbarians, and to see Mahometan mosques and Osmanli tribunals erected within its walls. ^ From year to year all Europe looked forward with unavailing anxiety and compassion to the certain fall of the city in which the Christian faith had been established as the religion of the empire ; and at length, in May 1453, Constan- tinople yielded to the arms of Mahomet II. With its capture the curtain falls on the nations of antiquity ; and the final establishment of the Turks in Europe, the latest settlers of those migratory races which had composed its population, forms the first great episode of modern history. The lingering vestiges of antiquity then vanished altogether ; the Caesars were no longer represented except by an unreal shadow in the German empire ; and the * Sultan Bajazet I., sumamed Udrrim, stantinople, having four mosques and the or the "Thunderbolt" (1389 — 1403), had independent jurisdiction of a cadi, and compelled the Greek emperor to pay tri- even to permit coins with the Sultan's bute, to admit a Turkish colony at Con- superscription to be minted there. VOL. I. B 2 RISE OF THE OTTOMAN POWER. [Tntrod. language of Plato and Xenophon, which till then the scholars of Italy could acquire in tolerable purity as a living tongue, rapidly degenerated into the barbarous dialect now spoken in the Morea. The decline and fall of the Eastern Empire, as well as the rise and progress of the Ottoman Turks, who during some centuries filled Europe with the dread of their power, and now by their weakness excite either its cupidity or its solicitude, have been described by Gibbon ^ ; but as neither that historian nor Mr. Hallam, in his brief account of the Ottomans ^, has entered into any detailed description of their institutions and government, w^e shall here supply a few particulars that may serve to illustrate some parts of the following narrative.'* A feat of arms gave birth to the Ottoman power and seemed to foreshow that military character which afterwards distinguished it. Towards the close of the thirteenth century a tribe of wandering Turkmans seeking new abodes in Asia Minor under the conduct of their chief Orthoghrul, or Ertoghrul, came suddenly upon a plain where two armies were contending with unequal forces. Ertoghrul, though totally unacquainted with the combatants or the merits of their cause, with that warlike ardour and haughty generosity which characterised his race, flew to the assistance of the weaker side, and determined in its favour the fortune of the da}^ The party whom he had thus assisted turned out to be a branch of his own race, a body of Seljukian Turks commanded b}'- Alaeddin, Sultan of Iconium, or Koniah. Alaeddin, one of those many small Turkish piinces settled in Asia Minor that were constantly at war either with the Grreeks or with one another, rew^arded the w^elcome and disinterested services of Ertoghrul with a small dependent principality in the territory of Angora ; and from this slender beginning gi'ew up an empire which in process of time spread itself over a great part of the then known world. Ertosfhrul somewhat enlaro-ed the bounds of the dominion which he had thus obtained ; but it w^as his son Osman, or Othman^ ' See particularly the Decline and Fall, Annales Sidtanorum Othmanidarum, ed. ch. Ixiii — Ixviii. Leunclavius ; Mouradjea d'Ohsson, Ta- ' Middle Ages, ch. vf. hhau general dc F Empire Othomon (Paris, * The principal authorities for the fall 1820, 7 vols.); Von Hammer, Gesch. des of the Greek empire and the establish- osmanischeti Reichcs ; Zinkeisen, Gesch. ment of the Turks in Europe are the dcs osmanisch. Beiches iyi Europa ; Fall- Byzantine historians, Chalcocondyles, merayer, Gesch. der Halhinsel Morea ; Phrantzes. Pacliymeres, Nicepliorus Gre- Pinlay, Medieval Greece, and Greece un- goras, Cantaciizenus, Ducas. &c, ; Sead- drr Ottoman and Venetian Domination ; eddin, the celebrated Turkish historian, Creasy, Hist, of the Ottoman Turks. the tutor and general of ^Mahomet III. * Osman is the true name of this prince, (translated by Brattuti, Cronica deW whence the Turks still call themselves Origine e Progrcssi della Casa Ottomana) ; Osmanlis. But the corrupted form 0th- Introd.] IXSTITUTIOXS OF OECIIAX AXD ALAEDDIX. 3 (1299 — 1326), who by the extent of his conquests and the virtual independence of the Sultans of Iconium which he acquired, be- came the recognised founder and eponymous hero of the Ottoman empire. To the territories which Othman had won by his arms, a permanent organisation was given under his son and successor Orchan (1326 — 1360). This, however, was the work of Orchan's brother, Alaeddin, who acted as his vizier. Renouncing all share in the paternal inheritance, Alaeddin retired to a village near Prusa, now through Orchan's conquests the capital of the Ottoman dominions; and being a man of talent and well skilled both in civil and military affairs, he applied himself to model, with his brother's approbation, the institutions of the state. Three subjects chiefly engaged his attention ; the coinage, the dress of the people, and the organisation of the army. But it was also Orchan and his brother who promulgated the canonical precepts, which, as occasions arose, served as supplements to the original forms of the Mahometan constitution and government, so rigidly prescribed by the Koran, by the Sonna, or traditionary law, and by the decisions of the four great Imaums, or arch-fathers. Among the rights of Islam sovereignty established by the Koran, those of the prince to coin money and to have his name mentioned in the public prayers on Frida}^ occupy the first place. The independent sovereignty of Orchan was marked by gold and silver coins being struck with his superscription in 1328. His name was also inserted in the public prayers ; but for a considerable period the Ottoman princes were prayed for only as temporal sovereigns, and it was not till after the conquest of Egypt by Selim I. in 1517 that they became the spiritual heads of Islam. The last remnants of the Abassid caliphate were then transferred to the race of Othman; Mohammed Ab'ul Berekeath, sheik of Mecca, sent to the conqueror of the Mamelukes, by his son Abu Noumi, the keys of the Caaba upon a silver platter, and raised him to be the protector of the holy cities, Mecca and Medina. The Sultan having thus become the representative of the prophet, the High Priest and Imaum of all the faithful, added to his temjioral titles that of Zillhdlali, the shadow or image of God upon earth. He was now prayed for as Imaum and heir of the Caliphate, and his name was joined with those of the prophet himself, his posterity and the first caliphs. The regulations of Alaeddin with regard to dress were principally man, and the epithet Ottoman derived them ; and the same practice ^vill bo from it, have become so established by observed with regard to other Turkish custom, that we shall continue to retain names. B 2 4 TUKKISH ARMY. — SAIM AXD TIMARLI, [Introd. intended to distinguish the different classes of the people ; and a white turban was assigned, as the most honourable colour, to the court of the Sultan and to the soldiery. But of all the measures then adopted, those respecting the army were by far the most important. As the Turkish forces had hitherto principally con- sisted of light cavalry, which were of covu\se wholly ineffective against towns, Alaeddin applied himself to the creation of an infantry on the Byzantine model, and under his care arose the celebrated corps of the Janissaries.^ We shall not, however, here confine ourselves merely to trace the origin and progress of the Ottoman army and other institutions, but shall view them as wholes, and when they had attained to their full organisation and development. The Turkish army may be divided into two grand classes ; those who served by obligation of their landed tenure, and those who received pay. It was Alaeddin who first instituted a division of all conquered lands among the Sipahis, or Spahis (horsemen), on conditions which, like the feudal tenures of Christian Europe, obliged the holders to service in the field. Here, however, ends the likeness between the Turkish Thnar and the European fief. The Timarli were not, like the Christian knighthood, a proud and hereditary aristocracy almost independent of the sovereign and having a voice in his councils, but the mere creatures of the Sultan's breath. The Ottoman constitution recognised no order of nobility, and was essentially a democratic despotism. The institution of military tenures was modified by Amurath I., who divided them into the larger and smaller {Sicmiet and Tlmav), the holders of which were called Saiin and Timarli. Every cavalier, or Spahi, who had assisted to conquer by his bravery, was rewarded with a fief, which, whether large or small, was called Kilidsch (the sword). The symbols of his investment were a sword and colours {^Kilidsch and Sandjak). The smaller fiefs were of the yearly value of 20,000 aspers^ and under; the larger were all that exceeded that sum. The holder of a fief valued at 3000 aspers was obliged to furnish one man fully armed and equipped, who in tenures of that low value could be no other than himself. The holders of • Chalcondyles (lib. i. p. 8, ed. Par.) Hallam, still more erroneously to Amu- erroneously ascribes the institution of the rath I. See Von Hammer, Geschichte des Janissaries to Othman I. ; and Leunclavius osm. Beiches, Th. i, S. 93 luid Anm., S. 581 : (Ami. Turcici, p. 13, and note, p. 129, ed. Zinkeisen, B. i. S. 128 Anm. 3. Frankf. 1596) and Marsigli (Staio mili- ' 50 aspers were equal to a Venetian tare chJr Jnipcrio Ottomano, t. i. p. 67), ducat, who have been followed by Gibbon and I.NTROD.] SPAHIS, AKIXDSHI, ETC. 5 larger fiefs were obliged to find a horseinan for every 5000 aspers of yearly value ; so that a Timarli might have to furnish four men, and a Saim as many as nineteen. In general the Spahi was armed with a bow and arrows, a light slender lance, a short sword or scimitar, sometimes also an iron mace, and a small round shield (la rotella). At a later period the morion and cuirass were adopted. Among the paid troops were tlie " Spahis of the Porte," who came next in rank to tlie Thnarlis, and were more striking in their appearance, though armed much in the same way. Their horses were of the noblest race, their harness and accoutrements adorned with gold, silver, and precious stones. The rider was clad in a splendid robe of gold or silver stuff, or costly cloth of a scarlet, hyacinthine, or dark-blue colour. On either side of him was a quiver of exquisite workmanship, one for his bow, the other for his painted arrows. He was girt with a short sword set with jewels, his mace hung down from his saddle-bow, and in his hand he brandished a light spear, generally of a green colour. He also had a shield beautifully worked. Down to the end of the sixteenth century the bow and arrow continued to be the missile weapon of the Spahis, and it was with reluctance that they adopted the use of fire-arms. The Spahis of the Porte prided themselves on being the guard of the sultan. They were composed of Christian slaves, and were at last divided into four different corps of different degrees of honour. These, and the Spahis who served by tenure formed the most valuable portion of the Turkish cavalrj^ Their charge was furious, and accompanied with a war whoop that rent the air. The Muteferrika was a small corps which formed the body-guard of the Sultan, and never quitted his person. It was composed entirely of the sons of distinguished Turks, whose number, which was at first only 100, rose in the time of Selim II. to 500. When the Sultans ceased to lead their armies in person, the Muteferrika had of course no longer any experience of actual warfare. The Chiccuses, about four hundred in number, were employed more as messengers and attendants upon embassies than as soldiers. Besides these may be enumerated the unpaid cavalry and the mounted auxiliaries. The former were the Aklndshi (rovers or runners), who received neither pay nor maintenance : all they enjoyed was an exemption from taxation, and they were expected to provide for themselves by robbery and plunder. They were mostly composed of the peasants on the Siamets and Thnars. Their usual arms were a short sword, iron mace, coat of mail, and shield and B 3 6 TURKISH ARMY. IXFAXTRY, [Lntrod. lance ; the bow was rare among them. They formed the vanguard of the army, whicli they generally preceded by a day or two. Woe to the land which they visited ! They came and disappeared, no one knew whither, leaving desolation in their track, and carrying off the inhabitants into slavery ; for which purpose they came pro- vided with chains. They were often, however, fatal to the Turks themselves, either by being driven in upon the main body and thus creating inextricable confusion, or by the want of fodder and pro- visions which their devastations occasioned. Their number was estimated at 200,000, but it was seldom that more than 25,000 or 30,000 appeared in the field at once ; and by degrees, under a more regular system of warfare, they were dispensed with altogether. The auxiliaries from lands tributary to, or protected by, the Porte, such as Moldavia, Wallachia, the Crimea, Georgia., &c., ultimately became, served much in the same way as the Akindshi. On the whole, when the Ottoman empire had attained its highest pitch, about the middle of the sixteenth century, the Turkish cavalry was estimated at 565,000 men : viz., 200,000 Spahis who served by tenure, 40,000 Spahis of the Porte, 200,000 Akindshi, and 125,000 auxiliaries. But these of course never appeared all at once, nor, when called out, were they employed in the same direction. The Turk, naturally a horseman, was but ill adapted to the foot service. Many attempts were in vain made to form a standing corps of Turkish infantry, though a light-armed militia, called Azab, was occasionally raised. These amounted to some 40,000 men, but v/ere little esteemed as soldiers. They served as food for powder, fought in the van, and at the storming of towns formed with their bodies a bridge for the Janissaries. It was these last that were the pith of the Turkish armies, and long the most for- midable troops in Europe. The Turkish foot had been weig^hed and found wantinor, and their commander, Kara Chalil Tchendereli, threvv^ his eyes on the Christian subjects of his master. The experiment was first made on 1000 Christian children, who were torn from their parents, compelled to embrace Islam, and trained up in all the duties of a soldier. Such was the origin of the famous corps of Janissaries, literally, "new troops," from, jeni, new, and tscheri, a troop; a name given to them by the holy dervish Hadji Beytasch, founder of the order of the Be3d:aschis, still dispersed over and venerated in the Ottoman empire. At first their numbers were recruited yearly with drafts of 1000 Christian youths or with renegades; for in time many Christian youths, seeing the privileges and advantages Introd.] AZAB, JaOTSSAEIES. 7 enjoyed by the Janissaries, entered their ranks either vokmtarjly, or at the instance of their parents. Thrace, JNIacedonia, Albania, Bulgaria, and Servia were the chief countries whence the supply was drawn. When the Janissaries had become an established corps, a small body of soldiers headed by a captain proceeded every five years, or oftener if required by the necessities of the service®, from place to place ; the inhabitants were ordered to assemble their sons of the age of from twelve to fourteen years, from whom the captain selected the handsomest and strongest, as well as those who gave token of peculiar talent. The youths thus chosen were instructed in the seraglio at Constantinople in the Turkish lan- guage and religion, and were carefully trained in all bodily exer- cises: those who displayed more than ordinary abilities were destined to civil employments under the government; the rest were drafted into the Janissaries, and were condemned like monks to a life of celibacy, in order that all their energies might be devoted to the Sultan's service. By this singular institution the advantages of European talent, strength, and courage were combined with the fanatical obedience known only in the East ; and one of the chief forces of the Ottomans, drawn from the very marrow of the Chris- tians whom they had subdued, served to promote their further subjugation. The dress of the Janissaries was a lonsf tight coat reachino^ to the ankles, the skirts of which, on the march or in action, were tucked up to the waist. Their caps were of white felt, with a strip hanging down behind, which served to resist a sabre cut. Their arms were at first a shield, bow and arrows, a scimitar, and a long knife or dagger. It was not till the latter part of the sixteenth century that tliey began to carry arquebuses. Till the time of Selim I., the commander of the Janissaries, called Seghanbaschi, was not nominated by the Sultan, but rose by seniority of service from the lowest ranks of their own officers. But in 1515, Selim having quelled the insolence of the Janissaries by the execution of their Segbanhascki, named as their commander an Aga selected from his own household troops, and made also other alterations among the officers in the chief command. The Aga had the power of life and death over his men ; he ranked higher than all other Agas, and enjoyed a seat in the Divan. Like the Praetorian bands of Kome, the Janissaries at length became formidable to their masters. At the accession of Ma- homet II. they raised a revolt, which he found it necessary to ^ Ranke, Filrsten unci Vol/cer, B. i. S. to a term of five years. See Zinkeisen, 8, erroueously restricts the recruiting B. iii. S. 21G Aum. B 4 8 CIVIL INSTITUTIONS OF THE TURKS. [Introd. quell by a present of money ; the act was converted into a pre- cedent, and from this time forward every Sultan at his accession was obliged to court their goodwill by a donation, the amount of which went on continually increasing. Insubordination and inso- lence were followed by degeneracy, the consequence of the breach of ancient discipline. The first innovation was the introduction of native Turks among the Janissaries ; the origin of which practice cannot be accurately ascertained, though it was certainly frequent in the middle of the sixteenth century. These Turks obtained their appointment by favour, and had not gone through the severe course of discipline to which the Christian slaves were subjected. A consequence of the introduction of the Turks was, permission to marry, which first began to be partially allowed, and before the end of the century had become general. Thus the bonds of dis- cipline were insensibly relaxed; the children of the Janissaries next claimed to be admitted by hereditary right, and became a burthen to the state by drawing their pay and maintenance even in their infancy ; while their fathers, no longer employed in actual warfare, often degenerated into peaceable tradesmen. The custom of kidnapping Christian children for recruits seems to have fallen into disuse about the middle of the seventeenth century ; while that of intrusting the high offices of state to Christian slaves edu- cated in the seraglio had already ceased under Selim II. Another cause of the decline of the Janissaries was the great increase in their numbers. At first they amounted to only 5000 or 6000 men ; in the middle of the sixteenth century, they numbered from 10,000 to 15,000; and in the course of the following one, they gradually increased to 100,000, not a quarter of whom were emj)loyed in active service. Our own age has beheld their extinction. The preceding description of the Turkish army will serve to ex- plain the secret of their early conquests. The whole nation formed one vast camp, liable to be called into immediate service ^\ithout the tedious preliminary of raising the money for their maintenance ; while the Janissaries and the Spahis of the Porte constituted a standing army of the best description long before a permanent force had been organised by any modern European nation. We will now take a brief survey of the chief civil and religious institutions of the Ottoman Turks, so far as may be necessary in a general history of Europe. Mahomet II., though peculiarly styled ^^ i^a^/A, or the "Con- queror," was also eminentty distinguished as a political adminis- trator. It was he who first reduced the political usages of the Ottomans into a whole, or code, by his Kanuname, or book of laws. Intkod.] the SULTAX. THE GEAXD YIZIEE. 9 Solyman the Magnificent only exceljed Mahomet in this respect by extending his regulations, whence he obtained the name of ^^ Kanuni, or the " Lawgiver." The vSuLTAN ^ or Grrand Seignior, whose chief temporal title was Padishah, imperial shah or great sovereign (from jpad, protector), possessed the entire legislative power. He promulgated his decrees in Firmans, or simple commands, and Hattischerifs, or rescripts ; the collection of which forms the canons to be observed by the different branches of administration. These canons he could alter by his own arbitrary will. The union of administrative power both in spiritual and temporal affairs was the grand secret of- the Sultan's power. But from this resulted two consequences : it made the fate of the Ottoman empire to depend very much on the per- sonal character of the sovereign ; and it obliged him, from the weight of business which it involved, to delegate to another a great share of his power. The officer who thus relieved the Sultan of his cares was the GrRAND Vizier '°, some of which ministers became almost the virtual sovereigns of the empire. Alaeddin, the brother of Orchan already mentioned, may be -regarded as the first Grand Vizier; but his power was very inferior to that wielded by such men as Ibrahim Pasha, Eustem, or Mahomet Sokolli. It was Mahomet II. who, after the extension of his dominions by the conquest of Constan- tiifople, first invested the Grrand Vizier wnth extraordinary, and almost unlimited, authority. He conferred upon that minister an uncontrolled decision in all affairs of state, even to the power of life and death, subject only to the law and the will of the Sultan. He alone was in possession of the Sultan's seal, conferred upon him as the symbol of his office on the day that he entered on it, and which, fastened by a golden chain in a small box of the same metal, he carried constantly in his bosom. The seal, which was also of gold, had engraved upon it the Tughra (name or character) of the reigning Sultan and that of his father, with the title of " Sultan Khan," and the epithet " ever victorious." The use of the seal was limited to two purposes. It was employed to enclose the communications made by the Grand Vizier to the Sultan, and to seal up anew, after every sitting of the Divan, the chambers containing the treasure and the archives. This last duty was per- formed by the Chiaus Baschi, a kind of imperial marshal, to whom the seal was intrusted for that purpose only. State papers ' Bajazet I. was tlie first of the Otto- themselves ^v^th that of "Emir." man house who assumed the title of " Sul- "• The term Vizier signifies " bearer of tan." His predecessors had contented a burthen." 10 THE SUBLIME TORTE. [I> NTROD. were not sealed, but signed with a Turjhra resembling that on the seal, by a secretary, called Kischandschi Baschi. The palace of the Grand Vizier became the Sublime Porte and proper seat of the Ottoman government, from his having the right to hold divans there, and to receive on certain fixed days of the week the homage of the highest officers of court and state, when they waited on him with the same ceremonial and reverence as was observed towards the Grand Seignior himself. On entering office the Grand Vizier was invested with a magnificent dress and two caftans of gold-stuff. When he appeared in public he was accompanied by a splendid train of officials of different callings and capacities, ac- cordincr to the business that he was about. He was honoured with various titles, all significative of his high authority: as Vesiri Aasam, or greatest Vizier ; Vekili Muthlak, uncontrolled represen- tative; Sahibi Develet, lord of the empire; Sadri Acda, highest dignitary ; Dusturi Ehrein, most honoured minister ; Sahibi Muhr, master of the seal ; or lastly, in his relation to the army, Serdari Eschem, or most renowned generalissimo.^^ His income varied at different times. In the middle of the sixteenth century it was computed at 25,000 Venetian ducats, but sometimes rose to double that amount through the increased product of the farms on which it was secured. But besides this ordinary revenue,, his income from indirect and extraordinary sources, such as presents from BeylerbeySf foreign ambassadors, aud others, his share of warlike spoils, &c., was enormous, and went on increasing during the de- cline of the empire. The Grand Vizier alone had the right of constant intercourse with the Sultan and of speaking in his pre- sence. Yet this mighty minister was always originally a foreigner or Christian slave ; for the extraordinary qualities required for the office could rarely or never have been found among the native Turks. The same reasons which induced jNIahomet IL to augment the power of the Grand Vizier, also led him to appoint some assistants. These were what were called the viziers of the cupola, or of the bench, who had the privilege of sitting in council on the same bench, and under the same cupola as the Grand Vizier. Though subordinate to him they were his constituted advisers in all affairs of importance, and were entitled like him to three horse-tails as the ensigns of their rank. Their number was regulated by the necessities of business, but they were never to be more than six. Under such a man as Ibrahim they had but little influence, but they might always look forward to fill the post of Grand Vizier ; »' Zinkeisen, B. iii. S. 63. Iktrod.] the DIVAX. n they enjoyed large incomes, and the chief commands in the army or fleet. For the most part they were, like the Grrand Vizier, con- verted Christians of humble birth. But the name of Vizier came in process of time to be given to all governors of provinces who had attained to the rank of a pasha of three tails. The Divan, or Ottoman Council, ordinarily consisted of, besides the viziers, 1. the two military judges {Gadiaskers), of Eou- melia and Anatolia, to whom, after the conquests of Selim I. in Africa and Asia was added a third ; 2. the Beylerheys of Grreece and Asia Minor ; 3. the two Defterdars, or treasurers, for Europe and Asia, to whom a third was likewise added by Selim ; 4. . the Aga of the Janissaries ; 5. the Beylerhey of the sea (Gajpudan Pacha), or high admiral ; 6. the Niscliandscld, or secretary who affixed the Sultan's signature. When the debate concerned foreign affairs, the interpreter of the Porte was also admitted to the sittings of the Divan. The Divan sat regularly on four days of the week — Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday ; when, after morning prayer, the members, attended by their retinues of scribes, chiauses, &c., took their seats with great ceremony. Refreshments were served during the sittings, which lasted till the afternoon or evening ; when they were concluded with a meal in common, consisting of plain fare with water as the only beverage. The business was conducted in a short and summary method, the Grand Vizier giving his decision on the spot, which was without appeal. Silence and the greatest decorum prevailed during the proceedings. In matters of law — for everybody, rich or poor, had a right to appear before the Divan and state his case — those who committed themselves by disrespectful and indecent behaviour were bastinadoed on the spgt. In the ad- ministration of justice, as well as in the conduct of political affairs, the singular advantage of the Turkish government was quick de- spatch, subject of course to the faults which inevitably attend such a system. At first, and down to the time of Bajazet II., the Sultan himself presided at the Divan, and pronounced the decision. After that period he ceased to appear ; but there was a niche, or box, over the seat of the Grrand Vizier, in which, screened by a curtain, he might if he pleased listen to the debate. After the Divan was concluded the Sultan held a solemn audience in his apartments, in which he w^as made acquainted with the decisions which had been come to. The different members of the Divan appeared before him in turn ; the Nisliandscld Bascki read the proceedings, and the Sultan gave his assent, after sometimes requiring preliminary explanations. 12 PKOVIXCIAL ADMIXISTRATIOX. — FIEFS. [Introd. Yet even in these audiences it was chiefly the Grand Vizier who spoke. In affairs of the liighest importance, and especially on the under- taking of a new war, the Sultan held a Divan on horseback ; on which occasions he appeared mounted in the Atnieidan, or an- cient Hippodrome, with a magnificent retinue, and asked the opinions of the vizier and other members of the Divan, who also attended on horseback. But this kind of assembly soon degene- rated into an idle ceremony, and fell at length into desuetude. After all, however, the Divan of the Grrand Vizier, (the Sublime Porte), was the real council for the despatch of business. This was the central seat of the subordinate boards of the three chief executive officers ; namely, the Kiaja Bey, the deputy, and as it were attorney-general, of" the Grand Vizier ; of the Reis Effendi, or minister for foreign affairs ; and of the Chiaus Basclii, or home minister. The provincial administration of the Ottoman empire was founded on that system of fiefs, or military tenures, to which we have already had occasion to allude. The Turkish dominions con- sisted of conquered territory, and by the laws of Islam the con- queror was the lord and proprietor of what his sword had won. A union of several Siamets and Tiniars constituted a district called a Sandjak (banner or colours), under the command of a Sandjak-bey (lord of the Sandjak), to whose banner ^vith a horse-tail the re- tainers of the district resorted when called out. A union again of several Sandjaks formed an Ejalet, or government under a Bey- lerhey (lord of lords), who according to the extent of his province had a standard of two or three horse-tails. The highest of these Beylerbeys w^ere the governors-general of Eoumelia and Anatolia, who, as we have said, enjoyed when at Constantinople a seat in. the Divan. The last and highest species of provincial govern- ments was the Pashalic, consisting of a union of several Ejalets. Such were the Pashalics of Caramania, Amasia, &c. Although, as we have seen, the chief strength of the Ottoman army and the political government of the empire lay in the hands of slaves who had originally been Christians, yet ever^'thing apper- taining to the administration of justice, religion, and education was intrusted solely to the hands of native Turks. In the Ottoman polity, indeed, religion and justice were united, and the Koran formed the text-book of both. In a nation so essentially warlike even justice assumed a military character. The office of the Cadiaskers, or judges of the army, was the highest judicial dignity, and, till the time of Mahomet IL, conferred upon them a rank Introd.] the MOLLAS. THE MUFTI. 13 superior even to that of the Mufti. The jurisdiction of the Cadi- askers was not, however, confined, as their name might imply, solely to the army. Both resided at Constantinople and were members of the Divan. They were the first links in the chain of the Great Mollas, or men of the higher judicial rank; to which belonged besides them only the judges of the following cities — Constantinople and its three suburbs, Pera, Scutari, and Eyub, Mecca and Medina, Adrianople, Prusa, Cairo, Damascus, Jerusalem, Smyrna, Haleb or Aleppo, Larissa and Saloniki. Then followed the Lesser Mollas, the judges of ten cities of the second rank. Other judicial officers of a lower class were the Muffetisch, or inves- tigating officers ; the Cadis, and their deputies, the Naihs. The Cadi gave his judgment alone, and without assistance, both in civil and criminal cases, according to the precepts of the Koran. He also discharged all the functions of a notary in making wills, con- tracts, and the like. The head both of spiritual and temporal law was the Sheik-ol- Tslam, or Mufti. The Mufti, however, pronounced no judgments. His power extended only to give advice in doubtful cases : his Fetwa, or response, had only a moral influence, no actual effect ; but this influence was so great that no judge would have presumed to give a verdict at variance with his decision. The Mufti was con- sulted by those who were dissatisfied with the sentence of their judges. Mahomet II. placed the Mufti at the head of the order called TJlema, or men learned in the law and in religion ; the members of which in the earlier times engrossed in their families the exclusive and hereditary possession of the higher judicial offices, and thus formed the nearest approach to an aristocracy among the Ottomans.^^ The Mufti was sometimes consulted in questions of state policy, and, like the oracles of old, was not un- frequently tuned to give a response agreeable to the wishes of the Sultan. Into a description of the various ministers appointed for the service of the mosques it is not necessary to enter. The history of the Ottoman Turks in Europe before the conquest of Constantinople, forms no part of our subject, and it will there- fore suffice briefly to recapitulate the state at that time of their possessions in Greece and the adjacent countries. In the reign of Mahomet I. (1413— 1421), the greater part of the Greek empire was in the hands either of the Turks or of the Italians. The Peloponnesus, indeed, still belonged to the Greeks, and was divided into small sovereiernties whose rulers bore the title of " Despot." This peninsula, as well as the coast from Acarnania *- Seo Von Hammer, Dcs osm. lieicJics Staatsvcrfassung, Th. ii. S, 382. 14 GREECE. — VENETIAN AND GENOESE SETTLEMENTS. [Introd. and ^to]ia to the extremity of Epirus, and the regions of Macedon and Thessaly, was thickly studded with tlie castles of lords or knights, who committed unceasing depredations on the inhabitants, and carried on with one another continual wars. The Venetians and Grenoese, besides their colonies scattered over the empire, had factories at Constantinople, which by their fortifications and garri- sons were rendered quite independent of the Greeks. The Con- stantinopolitans themselves had no spirit of enterprise, and thus, almost all the trade of the empire fell into the hands of the Italians. The Venetians had their own quarter in the city, en- closed with walls and gates, as well as a separate anchorage in the port surrounded with palisades. This colony was governed by a hallo, or bailiff, wdio had much the same jurisdiction as the Doge at Venice. The Byzantine settlement of the Grenoese was still more important. Michael Palseologus, in reward for their services in assisting him to recover the empire, assigned to them the suburb of Pera, or Gralata, on the opposite side of the harbour ^^; a district 4400 paces in circumference, which the Grenoese surrounded with a double, and ultimately with a triple w^all. The houses, rising in a succession of terraces, commanded a prospect of Con- stantinople and the sea ; and had not the imperial city fallen before the Turkish arms Pera would probably have equalled the capital of the East. The Peratians were the first Christians who entered into an alliance with the Turks, and by a treaty concluded with Amurath I. in 1387 were placed on the footing of the most favoured nations. Mahomet was constantly at war with the Vene- tians, who enjoyed a mediate jurisdiction in many of the cities and islands of Grreece, through the patrician families of Venice who possessed them. They had also spread themselves along the coast of Albania, and were, with the knights of St. John of Jerusalem, now settled in Khodes, the chief obstacle to the progress of the Turks. Under Amurath 11. (1421 — 1451), the Emperor John Palosolo- gus II. had found it expedient to purchase peace by a disgraceful treaty (1425). He ceded all the towns and places which he still possessed on the Black Sea and Propontis, except Dorcas and Selymbria ; renounced the sovereignty of Lysimachia and other places on the Strymon, and agreed to pay to the Ottoman Porte a yearly tribute of 300,000 aspers. The Byzantine empire was thus reduced to the capital with a strip of territory almost overshadowed by its walls, a few useless places on the Black Sea, and the '^ On the settlement of the Genoese in Galatn, libri sei, di Lodovico Sauli. at Pera, see Delia Cvlonia dei Geno-vesi Torino, 1831. IxTKOD.] PEOGEESS OF THE TUEKS UXDEE AMUEATH II. 15 appanages of the imperial princes in the Peloponnesus ; while the greater part of the revenues of the state flowed nto the Turkish treasuries at Adrianople and Prusa. Amurath respected the treaty which he had made with Paleeo- logns and turned his arms against the Venetians, Slavonians, Hungarians, and Albanians. In JNlarch 1430, he wrested from Venice Thessalonica, or Saloniki, which that republic had pur- chased from the despot Andronicus, a conquest among the most important that the Turks had yet made in Europe. Amurath's next wars were with the Hungarians, and as the relations between that people and the Turks were for a long period of great import- ance in European history, it will be proper here to relate their commencement. In 1439, Amurath II. having invaded the dominions of the Despot of Servia, that prince implored the protection of Albert II., Emperor of Grermany, who was also King of Bohemia and Hun- gary.^* Albert responded to the appeal and marched to Belgrade, but wdth an inadequate force, which was soon dissipated, either by disease or by the fear inspired by the Turks; he was compelled to abandon an expedition in which he had effected nothing, and soon afterwards died at Neszmely, between Grran and Vienna (Oct. 27th 1439). Just previously to that event Amurath had despatched an embassy to Wladislaus III., King of Poland, offering to support the pretensions of his brother Casimir to the throne of Bohemia against Albert, provided that when Casimir should have attained the object of his ambition, Wladislaus should refrain from assisting Hungary. The negociations were hardly concluded, and the Turkish ambassadors were still at Cracow, when a deputation arrived from Hungary to offer the crown of that kingdom, vacant by Albert's death, to Wladislaus ; who, having determined to accept it, announced his resolution to the Turkish ambassadors, and expressed to them his wish to remain at constant peace with the Sultan. Such a peace^ however, w^as not in Amurath's con- templation ; and the civil wars which ensued between Wladislaus and the party which supported the claim of Albert's posthumous son, the infant Ladislaus, to the Hungarian throne, promised to render that kingdom an easy prey to the Turkish arms. In the spring of 1440 Amurath marched to attack Belgrade, the only place which, after the taking of Semendria and reduction of Servia, opposed his entrance into Hungar}- ; but after sitting seven months before the town he was compelled to relinquish the attempt, with a loss of 17,000 men. " For tlie affairs of these kingdoms see below, p. 32. 16 JOHN OP HUXYAD. [l NTEOD. It was at this period that the house of Huniades first appeared upon the scene, destined for many years to be tlie chief bulwark of Europe against the Turks. John Corvinus Huniades, or John of Hunyad, the founder of it, was by birth a Wallachian, and, accord- ing to some accounts, a natural son of the Emperor Sigismund. He derived the name of Corvinus from the village of Corvinum, in which he was born '^ ; that of Huniades, from a small estate so called, situated on the borders of Wallachia and Transylvania, which had been presented to him by the Emperor Sigismund as a reward for his services in Italy. John of Hunyad had increased his pos- sessions by marrying a wealthy Wly of illustrious family ; and the Emperor Albert II. had made him Ban, or Count, of Szoreny. He headed the powerful party which supported the call of Wladislaus, King of Poland, to the Hungarian throne ; and that prince in return, and especially for his victory at Bataszek, named him Voyvode of Transylvania and Ban of Temesvar, and conferred on him the command in the southern provinces of Hungary. John of Hunyad fixed his head-quarters at Belgrade, whence he repelled the ravages of the Turks. In these campaigns he gained several victories, of which the most decisive was that of Yasag, in 1442, which almost annihilated the Turkish army. During these alarming wars, all eyes had been turned towards Eome, as the only quarter whence help might be expected for Christendom. But the efforts of Eugenius IV., who then filled the papal throne, had proved of little avail, and Eugenius was left to complain of the poverty of the papal treasury, the lukewarmness of the Christian princes, and the eternal dissensions of the Church, which frustrated all efficient preparations against the Turks. In 1442 his zeal was again awakened by the representations of a Franciscan monk residing at Constantinople, who painted to him in lively colours the miseries of the young Christian slaves, chiefly Hungarians, whom he daily saw dragged through the streets of that capital to be shipped off to Asia. The call of the monk was supported by embassies from the Grreek emperor, the King of Cyprus, and the despots of the Peloponnesus. Touched by these appeals, Eugenius addressed a circular to all the prelates of Europe, requiring them to contribute a tenth of their incomes to the Turkish Avar, and promised himself to dedicate to the same object a fifth of the whole revenue of the Apostolic Chamber. ^^ At the same time he despatched Cardinal Julian Cesarini into Hungary, ** Or according to another account, the B. iii, S. 298. castle of Fiatra de Corvo in Wallachia. "^ TJaynaldus, Ann. Eccl. t. ix. p. 416 Engel, Gcsch. des ungarischen Belches, (ed. 17o2). IxTKOD.] EXPEDITIOX OF WLADISI^iUS. PEACE OF SEGEDIX. 17 to endeavour to restore peace in that distracted country and to animate the people against the infidels. The death of Queen Elizabeth, however, the mother of the young king Ladislaus, and the recent victories of John of Hunyad, contributed more to these objects than all the exhortations of Cardinal Julian. After the demise of Elizabeth, most of the nobles who had supported her hastened to do homage to Wladislaus : and though the Emperor Frederick III., the guardian of her son, at first opposed the accession of the Polish King, yet the disturbances in his own Austrian dominions, and the imminent danger from the Turks, ultimately induced him to conclude a truce for two years. Wladislaus, beiug thus confirmed upon the throne of Hungary, determined on an expedition against the infidels. The domestic troubles in which most of the European princes were then plunged prevented their giving him any assistance ; yet considerable bodies of the people, chiefly French and Grermans, assumed the cross, and joined the forces of ^yladislaus. The van set out from Buda in July 1443, led by John of Hunyad and George Despot of Servia; the main body about 20,000 strong, under the command of Wla- dislaus himself, followed a day later ; while Cardinal Julian was at the head" of the crusaders. They penetrated to the Balkan, the ancient Hsemus, and defeated the Ottoman force which defended the approaches ; but at the pass of Slulu Derbend (Porta Trajani) were repulsed, and being in great w^ant of provisions, were obliged to make a precipitate though unmolested retreat to Belgrade, and thence to Buda. The expedition, however, made so great an im- pression upon Amiuath, that he entered into negociations, and in June 1444 a peace often years was concluded at Segedin, by which it was agreed, that the Turks should retain Bulgaria but restore Servia to the Despot Greorge, on condition of his paying half the revenue of that country to the Porte ; that neither of the parties should cross the Danube ; and that Wallachia should be under the protection of Hungary. This peace, the most humiliating blow that the Turks had re- ceived since the battle of Angora, w^as, however, scarcely concluded when the Christians prepared to break it. The campaign of Wladislaus had excited great interest in Europe. Ambassadors from most of the European states had appeared at Buda to con- gratulate him on his success, and to offer him succours for another expedition ; Poland alone besought him to refrain, and to turn his attention to the domestic evils of his kingdom. Cardinal Julian took advantage of the general feeling to urge the renewal of the war, and persuaded the Hungarian diet assembled at Buda to adopt VOL. I. C 18 BATTLES OF VARXA AXD COSSOVA. [Ixtrod. his advice. Even John of Himyad and the Despot of Servia, who had just protested against so thoughtless a breach of faith, were carried away by the warlike ardour excited by the address of. Julian. But perhaps the motive which chiefly weighed in the rupture of the peace of Segedin was the news which arrived im- mediately after the departure of the Turkish plenipotentiaries, that Amurath with his whole army had crossed over into Asia to quell an insurrection in Caramania ; and that the fleet assembled by the Pope, and now in the neighbourhood of the Hellespont, would suffice to cut off his return. The Pope absolved Wladislaus from his oath; but the only pretext which the Christians could allet'-e for their breach of faith was that the Turks had not yet evacuated some of the surrendered fortresses. The expedition terminated in the disastrous battle of Varna (Nov. 10th 1444), in which the Christians were completely defeated, and King Wladislaus and Cardinal Julian lost their lives. This battle is memorable in a military point of view as displaying the superiority of the Janis- saries over the European cavalry, although the latter soon mastered the Turkish light horse. Very few of the defeated army succeeded in reaching their homes. John of Hunyad had got into Wallachia, and was hastening into Hungary when he was seized and impri- soned by Drakul, Voyvode of Wallachia, who had owed him an ancient grudge ; but after a rather lengthened imprisonment he was dismissed. In 1446, John of Hunyad, who had now been appointed Eegent and Captain Greneral of Hungary, overran Wallachia, captiured Drakul and his son, caused both of them to be executed, and con- ferred the principality on Dan, Voyvode of Moldavia. The- wish that lay nearest the Kegent's heart was to retrieve his reputation against the Turks, so sadly damaged by the defeat at Varna ; but the civil war which broke out with the Emperor Frederick III., who refused to restore to the Hungarians either the person of young Ladislaus or the crown of St. Stephen, delayed for a year or two any expedition for that purpose. At length, early in 1448, a peace having been effected, by which the guardianship of Ladislaus, till he reached eighteen years of age, was assigned to the Emperor, John of Hunyad found himself at liberty to devote all his at- tention to the Turkish war; and though dissuaded from the enterprise by Pope Nicholas V., he crossed the Danube with a large army and pressed on with rapid marches till, on the 1 7th Oct. 1448, he encamped within sight of the Ottoman army on the Amselfeld, or plain of Cossova — the spot where more than half a century before the Turks had gained their first great victory Introd.] ALBAXIA. GEOReE CASTRIOT, OR SCAXDERBEG. 19 over the Hungarians. After sustaining the shock of battle three days, Hunyad was defeated by the overwhehning force of the Turks, and compelled to save himself by an ignominious flight ; but the loss on both sides had been enormous, and Amurath, instead of pursuing the routed foe, returned to Adrianople to celebrate his victory. Hunyad was captured in his flight by the Despot of Servia and detained a prisoner till the end of the year, when he was liberated at the intercession of the Hungarian diet assembled at Segedin. The hard conditions of his ransom, which comprised the restoration of all the places in Hungary that had ever belonged to Servia, the payment of 100,000 pieces of gold, and the delivery of his eldest son Ladislaus as a hostage, were, however, cancelled by the convenient omnipotence of Eome, and he was released from his engagements by a bull of Nicholas V.^''' Nothing further of importance happened between the Turks and Hungarians till after the fall of Constantinople, when the exploits of John of Hunyad will asfain claim our attention. The arms .of Amurath were next employed by a revolt in Albania. That country was ruled in the beginning of the fifteenth century by a number of independent chieftains, among whom the families of Arianites and Castriot were distinguished by the extent of their dominion. The former were connected on the female side with the family of the Comneni, and Arianites Topia Comnenus reigned over southern Albania from the river Aous, or Voissa, to the Ambracian Grulf, or Gulf of Arta ; while John Castriot was prince of the northern districts from the same river to the neighbourhood of Zenta, except that the towns along the coast belonged to Venice. Both these princes had been subdued by Amurath II. in 1423 ; Kroi'a John Castriot's capital was occupied by a Turkish garrison, and he himself and his four sons were carried into captivity. ^^ After a time the father was dismissed, but the children were re- tained and forcibly converted to Islam, after the Turkish fashion. How one of these, Greorge, gained the ftivour of the Sultan by his talents and courage, and was raised to the rank of a prince with the title of Scanderbeg, or Prince Alexander, and how he revolted, recovered his capital, and returned to the Christian faith, has been related by Gibbon.*^ The Venetians, finding great benefit from the diversion he occasioned to the Turkish arms, conferred on him the '^ Bull, priJ. Id. April. 1450, in Ray- assigned by tho Turkish historian Sead- naldns, A^in. Ecel. t. ix. p. 550. eddin — viz. the year 827 of the Ho^ira, '" Gibbon {^Decline and Fall., vol. viii. or a.d. 1423, — seems in all respects more p. 136, Smith's edition), from inferences pi'obable. See Zinkeisen, Gesch. dcs osfn, drawn from the work of Marinus Bar- Jickkrs, B. i. S. 766 Aum. letius, places, though with hesitation, the " Ubi supra, captivity of Castriot in 1412. The date 20 GERMANY. TRETEXSIOXS OF THE EMPEROR. [Introd. right of citizeusliip, enrolled him among their nobles, and made him their commander-in-chief in Albania and Illyria. In 1449 and 1450 Amurath conducted two immense but unsuccessful ex- peditions against Kroia, which were nearly the last acts of his reign, for in 1451 he expired at Adrianople. Amurath was succeeded by his son ]\Ialiomet II., the conqueror of Constantinople (1451 — 1481). To relate the fall of that city, and to record the history of the imperial family in the Pelopon- nesus, would be only to repeat the pages of Gibbon ; and we shall therefore now pass on to a brief survey of the state of the other European nations at this important epoch. The Emperor of Germany was then the chief temporal sovereign in Europe.^^ The Koman title of hwpevafor had been revived when, on Christmas Day a.d. 800, Pope Leo III. invested Charle- magne, in the Church of St. Peter's, at Rome, with the Imperial crown and mantle, and saluted him as Emperor of the West. Hence the elective successors of Charlemagne, in Germany, still claimed to be the representatives of the Caesars, while the electors w^ere considered to possess the rights and privileges of the Roman Senate and people ; a notion expressed in so many words at the election of Conrad IV., and repeated in the fifteenth century.^^ When the electors proceeded to choose a Kiog of the Romans and future Emperor, they swore to elect " a temporal head of the Christian people; " for among the Germans, who regarded the position of the Emperor as analogous, in a temporal point of view, to that of the Pope in a spiritual one, the ideas of the Holy Roman Church and Holy Roman Empire were inseparable. The doctrine long prevailed in Germany that the other Sovereigns of Europe w^ere but the vassals of the Emperor ; nor were these Sovereigns themselves quite satisfied that the claim was invalid. When Sigismund visited England in 1416, several noblemen rode into the water before he landed and inquired whether he intended to exercise any manner of authority in the country ; and on his reply- ing in the negative, he was received with imperial honours.^^ Even a century later we find Cuthbert Tunstall gravely assuring Henry VIII. that he is no subject of the empire, but an inde- pendent monarch.^^ ^ The principal £"0111-068 for the early " See the authorities cited by Lingard, history of Germany are, besides the great Hist, of England, vol. iii. p. 249, note 6. collections of Eccard, Freher, Stru^dus, -* Feb. 12, 1517. Ellis' Letters, 1st se- Schardius, Menoke, Pez, Kollar, Pertz ries. vol. i. p. 136. In 1599 it was disputed and others ; Schmidt, Gesch. der Deui- at the university of Saragossa whether sohen ; PfefFel, Hist, d^ Allemagne. the emperor was sovereign of the whole 21 Petrus de Audio, De Rom. Imi^. ap. world. Gon. Davila, lib. ii.; ap. Watsou, Kanke, Deutsche Gesch. im Zeitalt. der Fhdij) HI. vol. i. p, 53. Eeform, B, i, S, 54, Introd.] sovereign HOUSES. HOHEXZOLLEEX. 21 The King of the Romans after his election was crowned by the Archbishop of Cologne, the arch-chancellor of Italy ; but the Pope alone could bestow upon him the imperial crown and the title of Emperor. Besides Italy, the Grerman Emperor claimed dominion over a great part of the south of France. The Elector of Treves continued to bear the title of Arch- chancellor of the Kingdom of Aries. In 1401 the Emperor Rupert had destined his son to be vicar of that kingdom ; and in 1444, the Emperor Frederick III. summoned the dauphin to his assistance as a vicar of the Holy Empire. To the idea of succession to the Roman Empire must be ascribed the circumstance of the Roman code forminsf the basis of the law of Germany. But in spite of his magnificent titles and pretensions, an Em- peror of Germany possessed little real power. His authority was almost nominal. In theory he was the greatest of sovereigns, while practically he enjoyed hardly any jurisdiction. The power of the state w^as vested almost solely in the princes and nobles, and especially in the seven electors. All the leading princely houses of Germany that have retained their power to the present time, had already established themselves in the fifteenth century. The Hohenzollerns, the ancestors of the present royal family of Prussia, were settled in the mark of Bran- denburg, which electorate the Emperor Sigismund had conferred on Frederick von Hohenzollern, Burgraf of Nuremberg, for services rendered at his election, and also as a pledge for money lent. In April 1417, Frederick, who was also made Grand Chamberlain, was confirmed in the permanent possession of Brandenburg. To the north-east of Brandenburg, Prussia was held by the Knights of the Teutonic Order, who had conquered it from the idolatrous inhabi- tants before the middle of the thirteenth century. The Grand- master of this order had been made a Prince of the Empire by Frederick II. In March 1454, the Prussians, disgusted with the tyranny of the Knights, who had forced them to dissolve a league of their cities, called the Convention of Marienburg, formed in 1436 with the approbation of the Emperor, placed themselves imder the protection of King Casimir III. and the Polish republic, and consented to be incorporated with that kingdom on condition of retaining their own laws and form of government. A bloody war of ten years ensued, in which 350,000 men are said to have perished, and which ended unfortunately for the Teutonic Order. It was concluded by the peace of Thorn, October 19th 1466, by which the Knights ceded great part of their dominions, and con- sented to hold the rest under the sovereignty of Poland. c 3 22 HOUSE OF WETTIX. HOUSE OF WITTELSBACH. [Introd. To the south-west of Brandenburg, the house of Wettin ruled in Saxony, one of the most extensive and flourishing principaUties of Germany. In 1455 the two young princes, Ernest and Albert, sons of the Elector Frederick II., were carried off from the castle of Altenburg by the robber-knight Kunz, or Conrad, von Kauffun- gen and his companion WiUiam of Schonfels ; but Kunz was arrested on the frontier of Bohemia by a collier, and Schonfels, on learning his imprisonment, voluntarily returned. These two princes became celebrated as the founders of two distinmiished houses. From Ernest, the eldest, is derived the Ernestine line of Saxon}^, from which spring the branches of Saxe-Weimar, G-otha, Coburg, Meiningen, and Altenburg. This line possessed the Saxon elec- torate till 1548, w^hen it was usurped by the Albertine line, as there will be occasion to relate in the sequel. To the latter line belong the present royal family of Saxony. At first the brothers Ernest and Albert ruled jointly at Dresden, but in 1484 they divided their dominions by a treaty concluded at Leipsic. Ernest received the electoral province of Wittenberg : the rest of Saxony was divided into two portions, of which one, consisting of the Margravate of Meissen, or Misnia, was retained by Albert ; the other, composed of the Landgravate of Thuringia, fell to the Ernes- tine branch. Still further west lay the dominions of the Land- grave of Hesse. This Sovereign, and the Houses of Saxony and Brandenburg, concluded an agreement of confraternity and reci- procal succession at Nuremberg in 1458, which was renewed and confirmed in 1587, and again in 1614. The two great duchies of Franconia and Suabia had become extinct in the 13th century, and the only other princely House which it will be here necessary to mention is the Bavarian one of Wittelsbach, as we shall reserve an account of that of Austria till we come to speak of the House of Habsburg. Bavaria was erected into a duchy by Charlemagne at Altenburg, in favour of Otho of Wittelsbach. Bavaria, at the time with which we are concerned, was divided into Upper and Lower. Upper Bavaria, again, was partitioned into three dukedoms, those of Baiern-Ingolstadt, Baiern-Landshut, and Baiern-Miinchen (Munich) ; and the Lower formed a separate dukedom, which in the early part of the fifteenth century was occupied by John of Straubingen. John, who had formerly been bishop of Liege, dying without issue in 1425, the Emperor Sigismund bestowed Lower Bavaria on his son-in-law Albert, both in right of his mother Joanna, sister of the late duke, and as a vacant fief escheated to the empire. But this arrange- ment being opposed by the Houses of Upper Bavaria, the collateral Iktrod.] the SEVEX ELECTORS. 23 line, as well as by the Grerman States, Albert sold bis claims, and Lovv^er Bavaria was equally divided among tbe three collateral dukes. Subsequently all these branches became gradually extinct except that of Munich ; and Albert Y., the representative of that line, united all Bavaria under his dominion, after the death of Greorge the Eich of Baiern-Landshut in 1503. To the same famih^ of Wittelsbach belonged the Counts Palatine of the Ehine. In the neighbourhood of these princes, a number of small possessions had been gradually united into the county of Wiirtemberg, which in 1495 was erected into a duchy in favour of Eberhard the Elder, called also the Bearded and the Pious. Of the other temporal princes of Grermany it is not here necessary to speak. That country also abounded with spiritual principalities as those on the Ehine, Miinster, Bremen, &c. ; which in the fifteenth century began very generally to be filled with the younger sons of princely families, a practice encouraged by the court of Eome. Of the Grerman Princes those who had a vote in the election of the Emperor are the most important. Originally the elective privilege was enjoyed by the States ; but from the time of the Franconian Emperors, the dukes who held the great offices of the Crown, together mth the three archbishops of Mentz, Cologne, and Treves, had enjoyed a privilege called the jus prcetaxandi ; that is, of agreeing on tlie choice of an Emperor before his name was submitted to the approval of the States. Their choice might be rejected by the diet, but in those disturbed times at- tendance on that assembly was both a difficult and dangerous task, from which the members v»^ere glad to be dispensed ; and thus in process of time only the great officers appeared, who by degrees entirely appropriated the right of election. These officers were : 1. the Archbishop of Mentz, Arch-chancellor of Germany; 2. the Archbishop of Cologne, Arch-chancellor of Italy; 3. the Arch- bishop of Treves, Arch-chancellor of the kingdom of Aries ; 4. the King of Bohemia, Grrand Cup-bearer ; 5. the Duke of Bavaria, and the Count Palatine as Grrand Steward, first conjointly and afterwards alternately; 6. the Duke of Saxony, Grand Mai'shal; 7. the Margrave of Brandenburg, Grand Chamberlain. It will be perceived that these princes enjoyed the elective privilege not merely from their power and the extent of their dominions, in which most of them were equalled by the Dukes of Brunswick, Meissen, and Austria, and by the Landgrave of Hesse, but also from their holding some office in the imperial household. They formed what was called the Electoral College; and their privileges were confirmed, first by the Diet of Frankfort and c 4 24 GOLDEX BULL. — BAROXS AXD KXIGIITS. [Imrod. Electoral Union at Ehense in 1338, and more particularly by the Diet of Nuremberg in 1355 and that of Metz in the following year, which ratified them by the famous Golden Bull, so called from the golden seal affixed to it. The principal provisions of this bull, which became one of the fundamental laws of the empire, and which is conceived in the most despotic terms, are, that the number of electors be seven, in conformity with the seven golden candle- sticks of the Apocalypse ; that each elector hold some gi'and office ; and that during vacancies of the Crown, or in the absence of the Emperor, the Duke of Saxony and the Count Palatine shall exercise sovereign power as vicars of the empire : the vicariate of the latter embracing Franconia, Suabia, Bavaria, and the Ehenish districts ; that of the former, all the provinces governed by the Saxon law. By this bull the claim of Bavaria to the electoral suffrage was entirely excluded. The want of union produced by the sovereign power of so many independent Princes was increased by a numerous nobility who acknowledged no superior. Next to the Princes were the Freiherrn, or barons, who like them received their fiefs with a banner, and equally possessed the right of administering justice. Among these were families who traced their descent beyond the establishment of feudalism, and boasted that they held their possessions only under Grod and the sun.^'' The Grerman Knight presents the image of feudalism more vividly than it can be found in any other country. In the northern parts of Germany, indeed, they had, at the period of which we treat, been brought under subjection to the civil power ; the Emperor Eodolph destroyed many of their castles in Thuringia in 1289 ; but in Franconia, in Suabia, and along the banks of the Ehine, they continued even in the sixteenth century to dwell in haughty solitude in their castles, defended by deep ditches and with walls twenty feet thick, whose ruins still lend a romantic interest to those districts. Eomance, however, has invested them with a charm which the sober breath of history dispels. Instead of being Knights-errant, ever ready to succour the distressed, the owners of these castles were nothing but law- less robbers, prepared for every deed of violence; armed with morion, breast-plate, and cross-bow, they lurked in the forests or scoured the highways, either in search of their private enemies or on the look-out for plunder. The Knights formed a subordi- nate but tumultuary power in the state : with the connivance of the Princes, they occasionally interfered in political questions ; and down to the period of the Eeformation we shall have to relate " Eanke, Deutsche Gesch. B. i. S. 66. Introd.] PEKATE TTARS. THE SECRET TRIBUXAL. 25 such deeds of Franz von Sickingen, Gotz von Berlichingen, and others. Besides these acts of violence and robbery, the Nobles and Knio-bts were often at variance among themselves, and carried on their Fekden, or private wars. Many ineffectual attempts were made to check this practice and to establish a permanent Landfriede, or public peace, or, at all events, to bring these wars within some bounds and regulations, as appears from an ordinance of Frederick III. in 1442 ; and we shall have occasion to advert, in the course of this history, to further endeavours of the like kind. So also attempts to punish criminal offences by the imperial courts, or to check them by the introduction of a general police, were for the most part utterly fruitless. In this disorganised state of society recourse was had to those secret and self-constituted tribunals which, like Lynch law in America or the Santa Hermandad of Spain, are sometimes found in imperfectly civilised nations. Such was the Vehii-gericht, or Secret Tribunal of Westphalia, whose principal seat was in the town of Dortmund, but whose ramifi- cations extended into the most distant provinces of Germany.-'^ This court is said to have originated from the severe laws of Charlemagne with respect to religion, which were confirmed by the Emperor Conrad 11. two centuries later. The judges appointed to execute them extended their application to cases which had not been contemplated, and gradually spread their authority over the Empire. The officers of this mysterious tribunal, who were unknown to the people, scrutinised either by themselves or through their emissaries the most hidden actions ; and all ranks of men trembled at their decrees, the more terrible as the}^ admitted of no appeal, and which were so suddenly executed, that the sheriffs often carried about them the sword or the fatal cord with which they executed their own sentences. The Vehvi-gericht existed till the reform of the Imperial Tribunal under the Emperor Maximilian, near the end of the fifteenth century. In the midst of all this discord and anarchy appeared one ele- ment of hope and progress. The German cities, and especially those belonging to the Hanseatic League, had -attained to gi-eat prosperity and civilisation. Art, commerce, and manufactures flourished ; and Germany supplied the north and east of Europe, even to the interior of Eussia, with its imports and products. Behind their walls the citizens were secure, and even in the field, by means of artillery, now coming into general use, were more than a match for the Knights and their followers, who either pos- ^ See Wigand, Fchm-Gericht Westphalens. 26 GERMAN CITIES. — BURGESSES OB^ THE PALE. [Inteod. sessed no cannon, or had no men capable of serving it. The cities also strengthened themselves, either by alliances with one another, or with various princes and nobles. On the coast of the Baltic was the centre of the Hansa, which overshadowed the power of the Scandinavian Kings, much more, therefore, that of the neigh- bouring Grerman princes. In other parts of Grermany, and especially in Franconia, Suabia, on the Upper Danube and on the Ehine, had arisen a number of free imperial cities, which, not being included in the dominions of any of the princes, depended immediately upon the Empire. In Suabia and Franconia these cities arose after the extinction of the Hohenstauffen dynasty in the thirteenth century ; which period also witnessed the rise of what has been called the hmnediate nobility, or nobles subject to no superior lord but the Emperor. The liberties and privileges of the imperial cities were fostered by the Emperors, in order that they might afford some counterpoise to the power of the prelates and nobles. Nuremberg was especially noted for the resistance w^hich it offered to the growing power of Brandenburg, as well as for its successful attacks upon the nobility. Its antique towers were the terror of the nobles, its magistrates the especial objects of their hatred. The Nuremberg troopers were wont to issue forth in great num- bers, and often made a lucky capture. Woe to the unfortunate knio'ht or noble who fell into their hands ! Neither the interces- sion of his relatives nor of the neighbouring princes could save his neck from the axe of the headsman. In short, the cities were the natural enemies of the princes, prelates, and nobles, with whom they waged continual war. Outside their walls, but wdthin the palisades which marked the boundaries of their territory, they afforded an as3dum to the discontented and fugitive peasantry of the feudal lords; who, from being thus domiciled, were called PfaJdbilrger, or burgesses of the pale. Such a state of society as we have here described was necessarily incompatible mth any strong political organisation ; in fact, almost the only institution which formed a bond of union among the various Grerman States, and gave the empire any consistency, was the Diet. Previously to the fourteenth century, the imperial authority had been something more than a shadow, and had performed that ofl&ce. But this a\ithority had been damaged by the quarrels of the Houses of Bavaria, Luxemburg, and Austria for the throne ; and as the power of the Emperor declined, that of the diets, as well as of the princes and electors, increased. The authority of the diets lasted down to the time of the Thirty Years' War ; after which period the various principalities assumed more distinct and IsTROD.] DIETS. HOUSE OF HABSBURG. 27 separate forms ; and the general affairs of Grermany, as an impe- rial Avhole, are almost swallowed up by the particular interests of its several leading states. The diets possessed the legislative, and even in some degree the executive power; and they enjoyed the all-important privileges of imposing taxes, and deciding on peace and war. The Emperor, the electoral, and other princes and nobles, appeared in the diets in person ; and in the early part of the four- teenth century some of the chief cities of the empire obtained the right of sending deputies. These, however, proved a troublesome element in the assemblies. The interests of the municipal towns were distinct from, and sometimes opposed to, those of the other estates; their deputies often dissented from the decrees of the diet; and during the Hussite war in 1431, we find the cities levy- ing their own separate army.^^ Thus by the power of the princes, on the one hand, and that of the diets on the other, the authority of the Emperors was reduced almost to a nullity. Many of them spent their lives in a state of degrading poverty, and hid their misfortunes by absenting themselves from their dominions. At the time, however, when this history opens, a family was in possession of the imperial crown. Which succeeded in rendering it hereditary, and by the wonderful increase of their powder excited during a long period the jealousy and alarm of the rest of Europe. This was the House of Habsburg, or Austria, whose importance in modern European history renders it proper to give a brief account of its origin and progress. In the interregnum and anarchy which ensued after the death of Eichard, Duke of Cornwall, in 1271, who, however, was no more than a nominal Emperor of Germany, the Electors, rejecting the pretensions of Alphonso, King of Castile, and Ottocar, King of Bo- hemia, conferred the imperial crown, at the instance of Werner, Elector of jMentz, on Eodolph, Count of Habsburg, in Switzerland. Rodolph had distinguished himself as a valiant knight and captain in the private wars which then desolated Germany, and he had obliged Werner by escorting him through Switzerland, when on his way into Italy. The zeal of Frederick of Hohenzollern, Burgrave of Nuremberg, was mainly instrumental in effecting the election of his uncle Rodolph ; while the slenderness of the latter's posses- sions, and the circumstance of his having three marriageable daughters, also contributed to the same end, by disarming the fears of the Electors, and offering them the prospect of forming advan- tageous marriages. After his accession, Rodolph conquered from «« Eauke, Deutsche Gcsck. B. i. S. 88. 28 HOUSE OF AUSTRIA. [Introd. Ottocar the* provinces of Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, and Windischmark, and in 1282, bestowed them jointly on his two sons, Albert and Eodolph, with the exception of Carinthia, w^hich he gave to Meinhardt, of the Tyrol, in reward for his services. Thus was founded the House of Austria. Albert alone survived his father, and, in conjunction with his nephew John, inherited all Eodolj^h the Grreat's possessions at his death in 1291. Eodolph had in vain endeavoured to procure the imperial cro^^^l for his son ; who was, however, elected on the deposition of Adolphus in 1298, and assumed the title of Albert I. He was assassinated in 1308 by his nephew John, from whom he had withheld some of the Habsburg possessions. Albert's son Frederick was elected, in 1314, as an anti-Emperor to Louis of Bavaria, but was overthrown at the battle of Miihldorf in 1322 ; and from this period till the election of Albert II. in 1438, the House of Habsburg remained excluded from the imperial throne, and were chiefly occupied with the affairs of their Austrian dominions. At the beginning of the fifteenth century we find these posses- sions, w^hich were now considerably enlarged, shared by three members of the famil}^, of whom one, called from his poverty, Frederick with the Empty Pocket, held the Tyrol and the an- cient territories of the House in Switzerland and Suabia. Frederick having, in 1415, assisted the escape of Pope John XXIII. from Constance, was excommunicated by the Council then sitting in that town, and was also placed under the imperial ban by the Emperor Sigisrnund. Frederick's possessions were now at the mercy of those who could seize them, and in a few days 400 towns declared against him. In this general revolt, the Swiss, with the exception of the miners of Uri, were especially active : they seized the ter- ritories so liberally bestowed upon them by the Council ; and it was now that Habsburg, the cradle and hereditary castle of the family, was laid in ruins, as it has continued ever since. From the time of Albert II., who, as we have seen, was also King of Bohemia and Hungary, the imperial crown was transmitted in the House of Austria almost as if it had been an hereditary pos- session ; and in the course of this history we shall see the descen- dants of Rodolph attaining to a power and preeminence which threatened to overshadow the liberties of Europe. After the death of Albert in 1439, the Grermans elected for their King, Frederick III., the elder son of Ernest surnamed the Iron, who was brother to Fre- derick with the Empty Pocket, and w^ho possessed Styria, Carinthia, Istria, and other provinces. Frederick HI. ruled Grermany, if such an expression can be applied to his weak and miserable reign, till Intsod.] rKEDERICK III. SWITZEELAXD. 29 1493, and he consequently occupied the imperial throne at the time when this history commences. Frederick was crowned King of the Eomans at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1442, and in 1451 he repaired to Eome to receive the imperial crown from the hands of the Pope. Nicholas V., who then filled the papal chair, received him with great magnificence ; but it was observed that the Emperor, till after his coronation, yielded precedence to the Cardinals. According to the strict order of this ceremony, it w^as necessary that Frederick should first receive the iron crown of Lombardy, which it was the privilege of the Archbishop of Milan to bestow ; but Frederick having for some reason declined to enter that city, the Pope with his own hands crowned him King of Lombardy, though with a reser- vation of the rights of the archbishop. On the same day (March 15th) Nicholas married Frederick to Eleanor, daughter of the King of Portugal, who had met him at Siena, and three days afterwards both received the imperial crown. This coronation is memorable as the last performed at Pome, and the last but one in which the services of the Pope were ever required.^^ After the ceremony, Frederick set off for Naples, with his consort, to visit King Alphonso, uncle of his empress. Frederick having been appointed guardian of Sigismund of the Tyrol, minor son of Frederick with the Empty Pockety and also of the infant Ladislaus Posthumus, son of Albert II., thus adminis- tered all the possessions of the Austrian family. Austria was erected into an arch-duchy by letters patent of Frederick III., January 6th 1453, with privilege to the archdukes to create nobles, raise taxes, &c. Duke Rodolph, who died in 1365, had indeed assumed the title of Archduke, but it had not been confirmed by the Emperor. The history of Switzerland, originally part of the Grerman Empire, is closely connected with that of the House of Austria. In 1308 -^ when Melchthal, Stauffacher, and Faust revolted from the House of Habsburg, Switzerland, or rather Helvetia, was divided into various small districts, or states, with different forms of government. Among these states were four imperial cities — namely, Zurich, Bern, Basle, and Schaffhausen ; while the cantons of 2^ Charles V. was crowTaed by the Pope the date of the final revolt, occasioned by at Bologna. the cruelties of Albert's bailiff Gesler, the 28 The cantons of Schwytz, Uri, and builder of the fortress of Zwing Uri, near Unterwalden had confederated themselves Altorf. before this time, as there is a document Besides Planta's book, Joh. von Miiller, extant relating to the confederacy dated Gesch. d. Schweitzer. Eidgenossenschaft, in August 1291, the year in which Rodolph and the works of Zschokke {Schweitz. of Habsburg died (Planta,if/6Z;. o/i/r/w'it/c Geifch. fur die Schweitzer), may be qow- Confcderacy, vol. i. p. 222). But 1308 is suited for the history of Switzerland. 30 , THE FOEEST CANTOXS. — THE EIGHT CAXTOXS. [Inteod. Schweitz, Uri, and Unterwalden, although already enjoying a democratic form of government, were nevertheless also subject to the Empire. There were besides a number of small sovereignties, among the most important of which were those of the House of Habsburg and of the Counts of Savoy, besides ecclesiastical domains and baronial fiefs. The insurrection of 1308 was caused by the attempt of Albert I. to reduce the free districts of Helvetia to subjection. He marched an army against the patriots; but during the expedition he was assassinated by his nephew John, as already mentioned. Some years afterwards, Albert's son Eodolph again attempted to reduce the three refractory cantons, but was com- pletely defeated by a much smaller force of the Swiss at the battle of Morgarten, November 16th 1315. After this event, the three cantons entered into a perpetual union (1318), which was gradually joined by the rest. Under Albert and Otho, the two surviving sons of the Emperor Albert I., the House of Habsburg considerably extended their paternal dominions in Switzerland. They obtained possession of Schaffhausen, Rheinfelden, and Brisach, as well as the town and county of Rapperschwyl in fief; they were masters of Thurgau and nearly the whole of Aargau; they were lords paramount in Zug and Lucerne, in the district to the south of the Lake of Zurich, and of the town and canton of Grlarus ; and their territories thus almost surrounded the confederated cantons. By the death of Otho and his two sons all these possessions fell to Albert in 1344. But the example of the three confederate cantons had awakened the spirit of liberty in the neighbouring districts ; Lucerne was the first to join them^^, after which the union was called the four Waldsfddte, or Forest Cantons. Zurich was next admitted into the Helvetic Confederacy (1351), which before the end of the following year was strengthened by the accession of Grlarus, Zug, and Bern. In 1385, fresh dissensions arose between the Swiss and Leopold, then head of the House of Habsburg, who endeavoured to reduce Lucerne to obedience, but was completely defeated at the fatal battle of Sempach (1386), in which he himself fell, with 2000 of his men, nearly a third of whom were nobles or knights. A desultory warfare was, however, still kept up ; and in 1 388 the Austrians were again defeated at the battle of Naefels. The Dukes of Austria now concluded a seven years' truce with the Swiss, which in 1394 was prolonged for twenty years ; and from this period we may date the establishment of the eight ancient cantons, which enjoyed some prerogatives not shared by the five admitted after the wars with 29 In 1332, according to Planta, vol. i. p. 297. Introd.] EXPEDITIOX OF CHARLES VII. AGAIXST BASLE. 31 Burgundy. This confederacy was at first called Les Ligues de Ice Haute Allemagne, or The Leagues of Upper German}^ The names of " Swiss " and " Switzerland " did not come into use till after the expedition of Charles VII. of France in 1444, undertaken at the request of the Emperor Frederick III., who wished to defend the town of Zurich, which had claimed his protection, against the attacks of the other cantons. The French King was not unwill- ing to employ in such an enterprise the lawless bands which swarmed in France after the conclusion of the truce with England. The French arms were directed against Basle, which, however, made an heroic defence : the Swiss died at their posts almost to a man ; and though the siege of Zurich was raised, the French did not ven- ture to pursue the retreating enemy into their mountains. It was daring this expedition that the French began openly to talk of reclaiming their rights to all the territory on the left bank of the Ehine as their natural boundary ^^; and though it was under- taken at the request of the Emperor, Charles VII. nevertheless summoned the imperial cities between the jNIeuse and the Vosges mountains to recognise him as their lord, alleging that they had formerly belonged to France. Verdun and a few other places complied ; but as the Grermans menaced him with a war, Charles was for the present obliged to relinquish these pretensions. Zurich renounced the connection which it had resumed with the House of Austria, and rejoined the Swiss Confederacy by the treaty of Einsie- deln in 1450. In the course of the fifteenth century the Swiss began to adopt tliQ singular trade of hiring themselves out to fight the battles of foreigners. Switzerland became a sort of nursery for soldiers, and the deliberations of their diets chiefly turned upon the propo- sitions for supplies of troops made to them by foreign princes; just as, in other countries, might be debated the propriety of exporting corn, wine, or any other product. But these mercenary bands proved often fatal to their emj^Joyers. If the price for which they sold their blood was not forthcoming at the stipulated time, they would often abandon their leader at the most critical juncture, and thus occasion the loss of a campaign ; instances of which will occur in the course of the following history. The peculiar arm of the Swiss infantry was a long lance, which they grasped in the middle ; and the, firm hold thus obtained is said to have been the chief secret of their victories. ^^ The French horsemen, when ^° " Rumor est (Delphinum) petiisse ^' Tillier, Gcsch. des Frcisfaatcs Bern, iirbeiiiBasiiiensem tanquam regni FraiK'i;e J>. ii. S. 510; ap. Micbelct, Hist, de France, sibi restitui." — JEneaa Sylvius, Epist. 87. t. vii. p. 285. 32 HUXGAHY. — BOHEMIA. [Introd. marching to the relief of Zurich, had felt to their cost the for- midable strength of the Swiss phalanx. Closely connected with the German Empire were the Kingdoms of Bohemia and Hungary, and more remotely that of Poland.^^ Albert, afterwards the Emperor Albert II., was the first prince of the House of Habsburg that enjo3^ed the crowns of Hungary and Bohemia, which he owed to his father-in-law, the Emperor Sigismund, whose only daughter, Elizabeth, he had married. Elizabeth was the child of Barbara von Cilly, Sigismund's second wife, whose notorious vices had procured for her the odious epithets of the " Bad " and the " German Messalina." Barbara had determined to supplant her daughter, to claim the two crowns as her dowry, and to give them, with her hand, to Wladislaus, the young King of Poland, who, though forty years her junior, she had marked out for her future husband. ^^ With this view she was courting the Hussite party in Bohemia: but Sigismund, a little before his death, caused her to be arrested : and, assembling the Hungarian and Bohemian nobles at Znaym, in Moravia, persuaded them, almost with his dying breath, to elect Albert as his successor. Sigismund expired the next day (Dec. 9th 1437). Albert was soon after recognised as king by the Hungarian diet, and immediately released his mother-in-law Barbara, upon her acjreeing^ to restore some fortresses which she held in Huncrarv. He did not so easily obtain possession of the Bohemian crown. That country was divided into two great religious and political parties — the Roman Catholics and the Hussites, or followers of the Bohemian reformer John Huss, who were also called '"' Calixtines," ^* because they demanded the cup in the sacrament of the Eucharist. The more violent and fanatical sects of the Hussites, as the Taborites, Orphans, &c., had been almost annihilated at the battle of Lipan in 1434, in which their two leaders, Prokop surnamed Holy, the bald, or shorn, and subsequently also called Prokop Weliky, or the Great, as well as his namesake and coadjutor Prokop the Little, were slain; and in June 1436 a peace was concluded at Iglau between King Sigismund and the Hussites. This peace was founded on what were called the Compactata ^^ For the history of Bohemia, see ^' Engel, Gesch. des ungarischen Eeiches, Palacky, Gesch. von Bbhmen : for Hun- B. ii, S. 362. gary, besides the collections of Schwandt- ** From calix, a cup. For the same ner and Katona, Pray, Amiales vetcrum reason, they were also called Utraquists, Hunnorum, ^t. ; Bonfinii, Hlstoria Pan- as receiving the Eucharist in Z/oM forms. nonica ; Engel, Gesch. des imgcirischen The Calixtines were that moderate section Eeiches ; Mailath, Gesch. der Mogyaren : of the Hussites whose tenets had been for Poland, Dlugossii, Historic PoloniccB ; at one time adopted by the University JekeD, Polens Staatsverdndcrungen. of Pmgue. Introd.] EEIGX of albert. 33 of Prague, an arrangement made between the contending parties in 1433, and based on the " Articles of Prague," promulgated in 1420 by the celebrated patriot leader Ziska, who still continues to be regarded as the national hero of Bohemia.^^ These Articles, which, however, were somewhat modified in the Covipadata, were, 1. That the Lord's Supper should be administered in both kinds ; 2. That the crimes of the clergy should, like those of laymen, be punished by the secular arm ; 3. That any Christian whatsoever should be authorised to preach the word of Grod ; 4. That the spiritual office should not be combined with any temporal com- mand. But although the peace of Iglau secured considerable religious privileges to the Hussites, a strong antipathy still pre- vailed betw^een that sect and the Eoman Catholics, of which the " Wicked Barbara " now availed herself. Albert was elected Kingr of Bohemia by the Eoman Catholic party in JNIay 1438 ; but the Hussites, incited by Barbara, in a great assembly which they held at Tabor, chose for their King the youthful Prince Casimir, brother of Wladislaus, King of Poland; a subject to wdiich we have already alluded in the account of the Turks. ^^ A civil w^ar ensued, in which Albert's party at first gained the advantage, and shut up the Hussites in Tabor : but Greorge Podiebrad compelled Albert to raise the siege ; and this was the first feat of arms of a man destined to play a distinguished part in history. The short reign of Albert in Hungary was disastrous both to himself and to the country. Previously to his fatal expedition against the Turks in 1439, to which w^e have already alluded, the Hungarian diet, before it would agree to settle the succession to the throne, forced him to accept a constitution which destroyed all unity and strength of government. By the famous Decreturti Alherti Regis, he reduced himself to be the mere shadow of a king ; while by exalting the Palatine-^^, the clergy, and the nobles, he perpetuated all the evils of the feudal system. The deputies of towns had been summoned by Sigismund to the Hungarian diet in 1405 : they were not, however, regularly called ; none appeared in the present assembly, and the cities consequently obtained no pri- vileges by the decree. The most absurd and pernicious regulations '^ The popular tale of Ziska having '^ The Palatine was a magistrate next directed his skin to be made into a drum, to the King in rank, who presided over though retailed by some grave historians, the legal tribunals ; and in the absence of is a fable. The principal articles of the the King discliarged his fimctions. The peace of Iglau will be found in Palacky, office was instituted by King Ladislaus I. Gesch. von Bohmen, B. iii. S. 224 f. ; towards the end of the eleventh century, whose work, founded on many unpublished The BicrcUim of Albert vnW be found in documents, is the best history of Bohemia. Engel, Gesch. des ungar. Reichcs, B. iii. 3« Above, p. 15. S. 17. VOL. I. D 34 POLAXD. — HOUSE OF JAGELLOX. [Ixtrod. were now adopted respecting the military system of the kingdom, and such as rendered it almost impossible effectually to resist the Turks. By the twenty-second article in particular, it was ordained that the arriere ban, the main force of the kingdom, should not be called out till the soldiers of the King and Prelates — for the Barons seemed to have shirked the obligation of finding troops — could no longer resist the enemy ; the consequence of which was that a sufficient body of troops could never be assembled in time to be of any service. On the death of Albert, Wladislaus III., King of Poland, was, as already said, elected to the throne of Hungary. Poland had first begun to emerge into importance in the reign of Wladislaus Loktek^^ in the early part of the fourteenth century. Its boundaries were enlarged by his son and successor, Casimir III., surnamed the Great, who having ceded Silesia to the Kings of Bohemia, compensated himself by adding Red Russia, Podolia, Volhynia, and other provinces to his dominions. Casimir, having no children, resolved to leave his crown to his nephew Louis, son of his sister and of Charles Robert, King of Hungary, although some of the ancient Piast dynasty of Poland still existed in Masovia and Silesia ; and with this view he summoned a national assembly at Cracow, which approved the choice he had made. This proceeding, how- ever, enabled the Polish nobles to interfere in the succession of the crown, and to render it elective, like that of Hungary and Bohe- mia ; so that the Polish constitution became a sort of aristocratic republic. The nobles also compelled Louis to sign an act exempt- ing them from all taxes and impositions whatsoever. ^^ With Casimir terminated the Piast dynasty (1370), which had occupied the throne of Poland several centuries. The feudal system was entirely unknown in that country. There was no such relation as lord and liegeman ; the nobles were all equally independent, and all below them were serfs, or slaves. On the death of Louis, in 1382, hiS' daughter Hedwig was elected Queen, whose marriage with Jagellon, Grand-duke of Lithuania, after he had previously been converted to Christianity, established the House of Jagellon on the Polish throne. Jagellon, who received at his baptism the name of Wladislaus, reigned till the year 1434 ; and it was he who, in order to obtain a subsidy from the nobles, first established a Polish diet."^^ Wladislaus, »^ We have retained the initial con- in 1320. Dlugoss, Hist. Polon. lib. is.. Bonant in the names of the Polish kings torn. i. p. 971. for tlie sake of distinguishing them from *^ Dlugoss, tbid. p. 1102. the Hungarian kings of the same name. '^ Ibid. lib. x. p. 180. Wladislaus Loktek was crowned at Cracow Introd.] WLADISLAUS ENTEES HUNGARY. 35 afterwards also King elect of Hungary, was his son and suc- cessor. Albert, besides two daughters, had left his wife Elizabeth pregnant ; and the Hungarians, dreading a long minority in case she should give birth to a son, compelled her to offer her hand to Wladislaus, agreeing that the crown should descend to their issue ; but at the same time engaging that if Elizabeth's child should prove a male, they would endeavour to procure for him the kingdom of Bohemia and the duchy of Austria ; and that he should moreover succeed to the Hungarian throne in case Wladislaus had no issue by Elizabeth. This arrangement was highly disapproved of by Frederick, Archduke of Austria, whom Albert, on his death-bed, had appointed one of the numerous guardians of his unborn child. Scarcely had the Hungarian ambassador set off for the Court of Wladislaus with these proposals, when Elizabeth brought forth a son, who, from the circumstances of his birth, was christened Ladislaus Posthumus. Elizabeth now repented of the arrangement that had been made ; and the news having arrived that the Archduke Frederick had been elected Emperor of Germany, she was induced to withdraw her consent to marry the King of Poland.''^ Messengers were despatched to recall the Hungarian ambassadors ; but it was too late — Wla- dislaus had accepted her hand, and prepared to enter Hungary with an army. Elizabeth, however, found a party to espouse her cause, headed by her uncle Count Cilly, the brother of her mother Barbara, together with John of Griskra, a Bohemian noble, the Archbishop of Grran, and several other lords and prelates. Eliza- beth and her infant son were conveyed to Stuhlweissenburg, where the child was crowned by the Archbishop of Gran. But the party of the King of Poland, especially as it was headed by John of Hunyad, proved the stronger. EHzabeth was compelled to abandon Lower Hungary and to take refuge at Vienna, carrying with her the crown of St. Stephen, which, with her infant son, she intrusted to the care of the Emperor Frederick III. (August 3rd 1440), who advanced on the crown a loan of 2500 Hungarian ducats for two years. Hostilities were continued between the party of Wladislaus and that of Elizabeth, who raised money by pawning her domains to Frederick ; but after some time, these resources being exhausted, and her opponents in great fear of the Turks, a peace was medi- *^ Accordingto some authorities, among the writers of the opposite party assert whom is ^neas Sylvius, she had agreed that her consent was unconditional, to the marriage only in the event that Engel, Gesch. des ungar. Beichcs, 13. iii. her child should prove a female ; while S. 30. D 2 36 PODIEBRAD, REGENT OF BOHEMIA. [Ixtrod. ated by Pope Eugeniiis IV., through his legate Julian Cesarini, in order that the whole force of the nation might be directed against the infidels. Elizabeth first proposed, among other things, that Wladislaus should renounce his riglit and title as King of Hungary ; should marry Anne, her eldest daughter, whilst his brother Casimir gave his hand to her second daughter Elizabeth ; and that Wladis- laus should be invested with the Hungarian regency till the infant Ladislaus had attained the age of fifteen years. But the Hungarian Council, as well as John of Hunyad, loudly rejected these condi- tions. Subsequently, in November 1442, Elizabeth and Wladislaus had an interview at Eaab, when a peace was agreed upon, the terms of which are unknown ; but it is probable that one of the chief conditions was a marriage between the contracting parties.*^ The sudden death of Elizal)eth, Dec. 24th 1442, not without suspicion of poison, prevented the ratification of a treaty which had never been agreeable to the great party led by John of Huuyad, whose recent victories over the Turks gave him enormous influence. The opposition of the Emperor Frederick to the pre- tensions of Wladislaus, the truce concluded between them, the successful campaign of Wladislaus and Hunyad, the peace of Segedin, its violation, the unfortunate expedition to Gallipoli, the battle of Varna, and death of Wladislaus, have been already noticed.'*^ The minority of Ladislaus Posthumus also occasioned distur- bances in Bohemia. In order to avoid that inconvenience, the States offered the crown first to Albert, Duke of Bavaria, and then to Frederick III., by both of whom it was refused. The two great Bohemian parties, the Catholics and the Calixtines, then agreed to elect the infant Ladislaus, and to appoint two regents dining his minority. Praczeck of Lippa was chosen for that office by the Calixtines, and Meinhard of Neuhaus by the Catholics. Such an arrangement naturally led to civil discord, and after a severe struggle, Praczeck and the Calixtines obtained the supreme au- thority. On the death of Praczeck in 1444, the Catholics at- tempted to restore Meinhard ; but the Calixtines again prevailed, and bestowed the Kegency on the celebrated Greorge Podiebrad. In 1450, the government of Podiebrad was confirmed by the States of Bohemia, Hungary, and Austria, assembled at Vienna; and he assumed at Prague an almost regal authority. He became the idol of the Bohemians, who, in 1451, would have elected him for their King, had not ^neas Sylvius persuaded him to remain faithful to the cause of young Ladislaus. " Enge], Gcach. des unqar. Belches, " Supra, p. 17 sqq. :B, iii, S, 55 f. Introd.] LADISLAUS POSTHUMUS IN HUXGART. 37 Meanwhile in Hungary, after the death of Wladislaus, his party gave out that he had escaped, and was still living in Poland ; and it was not till his death had been fully ascertained by an embassy to his mother. Queen Sophia, that a diet was held at Pesth, at WTiitsuntide, 1445, for the election of a new sovereign. By this as- sembly, Ladislaus Posthumus, now five years of age, was unanimously elected, and envoys were sent to demand him from Frederick, to- gether with the crown of St. Stephen. But this demand was refused except on conditions that were inadmissible. The civil war which followed the appointment of John of Hunyad as Grubernator, or Ee- gent, and his unfortunate campaign against the Turks in 1448, have been akeady mentioned. On the death of Sultan Amurath, early in 1451, John of Hunyad, like other Christian rulers, sent ambas- sadors to Mahomet II., and obtained from him a truce of three years. In 1453, shortly before the taking of Constantinople, Hun^^ad laid down his office of Grubernator, and young Ladislaus assumed the reins of government. Such was the state of the principal nations of eastern Europe at the time when this history commences. Of Eussia and the Scan- dinavian kingdoms there is at present no occasion to speak, as they were not yet in a condition to take a part in the general affairs of Europe; and we therefore turn to the southern and western nations. Of these the history and constitution, down to the fall of the Eastern Empire, have been so fully described by JNIr. Hallam ^*, that it will only be necessary to recapitulate such particulars as are indispensable to the understanding of the follomng pages. Italy first claims our attention"^^, as the nurse of modern civilisation ; and among the Italian powers the Eoman Pontiff, not only as a temporal Prince, but, by his spiritual pretensions, a European power of high importance. The prestige of his authority had indeed been already grievously shaken by the schisms of the Church, and the decisions of General Councils ; yet he still continued to exercise a prodigious influence on the political as well as religious concerns of Europe. As a temporal potentate the Pope had not yet attained to the full extent of his power ; nay, he hardly sat secure on his throne at ** In his Middle Ages. The reader liennes. For pai-ticiilar States: Venice, may also advantageously consult Dr. Vite d^ Biichi (in Muratori, Sc7'ipp.) ; Schmitz's Hist, of the Midd. Ages. Dam, Hist, de la Republiqne de Vcnise ; ^ For Italian history the collections of Hazlitt, Hist, of Vend. Rep. : for Milan, Muratori are the great storehouse : viz., Simonetta, Vita di Sforza ; Corio, Storia his Italicarum Rerum Scriptores, and his di Milayio: for Florence, Fabroni, Vita Annali dJ Italia; also the modern col- Cos mi : for Naples, Giannone, Istoria lection entitled Arcki via Storico Italiano, Civile del Regno di Napoli : for Kome, published at Florence: Denina, Rivolu- Anastasius, Vitce Pontijicum (in Mura- zioni d^ Italia ; Sismondi, Republiques Ita- tori), &c. D 3 38 PAPAL DOMns'IONS AXD CLAIMS. [Introd. Eome. In the middle of the fifteenth century, Stefano Porcari had revived the schemes of the tribune Rienzi, a hundred years before, and endeavoured to restore the image of a Roman republic. In January 1453 the plots of Porcari were for a third time dis- covered ; his house was surrounded by the Papal myrmidons, and he himself, with nine confederates, captured and executed. This, down to our own days, was, however, the last attempt of the sort. At this time the dominions of the Pope included the district north of Rome known as the Patrimony of St. Peter, together with some portions of Umbria, and the March of Ancona ; but the Holy See asserted its claim to many other parts of Italy, and especially to the exarchate of Ravenna, as the donation of Pepin. The extent of the exarchate has been disputed ; but its narrowest limits com- prised Ferrara, Ravenna, and Bologna with their territories, to- gether with the tract included between Rimini and Ancona, the Adriatic and the Apennines.^^ Its name of Romagna announced the Papal claim, and though many of its cities were independent of the Roman Court, some of their rulers acknowledged the sovereignty of the Pope, and accepted the title of " Vicars of the Church." ^^ The family of Este at Ferrara, of Bentivoglio at Bologna, of Man- fredi at Faenza and Imola, of Malatesta at Rimini and Cesena, had established their independence, though the Popes neglected no opportunity of asserting their pretensions, and often by force of arms. They also claimed Naples as a fief of the Church, by virtue of a treaty between its Norman conquerors and Pope Leo IX. in 1053 ; and the sovereigns of that country acknowledged themselves liegemen of the Roman See by payment of a tribute. With still less right, the Pope also asserted a feudal superiority over all the Sovereigns of Europe, claimed the states of all excommunicated princes, heretics, infidels, and schismatics, together with all newly discovered countries and islands. The rise and progress of that enormous spiritual influence which the Roman Pontiffs acquired in Europe have been described by Mr. Hallam"*^, and we shall here content ourselves with a brief description of the administrative system of the Papal Court, into which that writer has not entered. The Court of Rome, commonly called the Roman Curia, con- sisted of a number of dignified ecclesiastics who assisted the Pope in the executive administration.'*^ The Pontiff's more intimate *^ See Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. *^ The following description of the xlix. Court of Rome is principally taken from " Guicciardini, lib. iv. c. y. p. 108 Voight, Stimmen ans Rom, in Ton Rau- sqq. (ed. Paris, 1832). mer's Hist. Taschenbuch, 1833. ** Middle Ages, ch. vii. Intkod.] ROMAIS" COURT. CARDINALS. 39 advisers, or, as we should say, his privy council, were the College of Cardinals, consisting of a certain number of cardinal bishops, cardinal priests, and cardinal deacons. The cardinal deacons, at first seven and afterwards fourteen in number, were originally ecclesiastics appointed as overseers and guardians of the sick and poor in the different districts of Kome. Equal to them in rank were the fifty cardinal priests, as the chief priests of the principal Koman churches were called ; who, with the cardinal deacons, formed, in very early times, the presbytery, or senate, of the Bishop of Rome. From these churches they derived their titles, as, Bonifacius, Presbyt Tit S, Ccecilice, — the title afterwards borne by Cardinal Wolsey; Paulus, Presbyt. Tit 8. Laurentii, &c.^° According to some authorities, cardinal bishops were instituted in the ninth century ; according to others, not till the eleventh, when seven bishops of the dioceses nearest to Eome — Ostia, Porto, Velitrse, Tusculum, Prseneste, Tibur, and the Sabines — were adopted by the Pope partly as his assistants in the service of the Lateran, and partly in the general administration of the Church. In process of time, the appointment of such cardinal bishops was extended not only to the rest of Italy but also to foreign countries. Though the youngest of the cardinals in point of time, cardinal bishops were the highest in rank, and enjoyed the pre-eminence in the College. Their titles were derived from their dioceses, as the Cardinal Bishop of Ostia (Ostiensis), Pla- centinus (of Placentia), Arelatensis (of Aries), Eothomagensis (of Rouen), &c. But they were also frequently called by their own names. The number of the cardinals was indefinite and varying. The Council of Basle endeavoured to restrict it to twenty-four ; but this was not carried out, and Pope Sixtus V. at length fixed the number at seventy. The Council called the Consistory, which advised with the Pope both in temporal and ecclesiastical matters, was ordinarily private, and confined to the cardinals alone; though on extraordinary occasions, and for solemn purposes of state, as in the audiences of foreign ambassadors, &c., other prelates, and even distinguished laymen, might appear in it. Besides the cardinals and other high prelates, the Court of Rome was also formed by a great number of Papal officers, who had each so Ecclesiastical districts, or parishes, villages or chapels. The curis of several were caUed tituli, titles. The title of French cities, as Sens, Troies, Angers, cardincd was not peculiar to the priests of Soissons, were called cures-card inaux Rome. The priests of all episcopal, or down to the Revolution. Isl-dvtm, Hist. metropolitan, cities were distinguished by de France, t. iii. p. 99. that name from those who ministered in D 4 40 PAPAL CHANCERY, ROTA ROMANA, ETC. [Lntrod. his peculiar department. Such were the officers of the Roman Chancery, of whom the Protonotary, or Pmnicerms, was the chief. He was also called Datarius, from his affixing the date to acts of grace, grants of prebends, &c. ; whence the name of Dataria for that department. Under him was the Secretary of the Papal Bulls (Scriptor Literarmn Apostolicarwni), who was also the Pope's chamberlain. The manufacture of Bulls was conducted by a college of seventy-two persons, of whom thirty-four clothed in violet, and more distinguished than the rest, drew up from the petitions signed by the Pope, the minutes of the Bulls to be prepared from them in due and regular form. The rest of this college, who might be laymen, were called Examiners, and their office was to see that the Bulls were drawn up in conformity with the minutes. The Taxator fixed the price of the Bulls, which varied greatly according to their contents ; the Plumhator affixed the leaden seal, or bulla, whence the instrument derived its name. There were three Courts for the administration of justice; viz. a Court of Appeal, called in early times Capella, but afterwards better known by the name of Rota Romana ; the Signatura JiistiticE, and the Signatura Gratice. The Rota Romana was the highest tribunal of the Church. Its members, called Auditores Rotce, were fixed by Pope Sixtus IV. at twelve, and although paid by the Pope, were not necessarily Italians, but were often mixed with French, Spaniards, and Grermans. The Signatti^ra Gratice, where the Pope presided in person, and of which only select cardinals or eminent prelates could be members, decided cases which depended on the grace and favour of the Pope. The Signatura Justitice, besides various other legal affairs, especially determined respecting the admissibility of appeals to the Pope. To compliment and refresh the Pope, his cardinals and courtiers, with presents, was a very ancient custom ; but the numerous gifts of money which annually flowed to Rome were only one of the means which served to fill the Papal treasury. Another abundant source was the Papal Bulls, of which a great quantity was published every year. It was not the Apostolic Chamber alone that benefited : every officer employed in preparing the Bulls took his toll, from the Chief Secretary down to the Plumbator. Among other sources of revenue, besides the regular fees derived from investitures, &c., were the sale of indulgences and dispensations, the announcement of a year of grace, and what was called the Right of Reservation, by which the Popes claimed the privilege of filling a number of ecclesiastical offices and vacant benefices. This means had been gradually so much extended that at the time of the Schism offices were publicly Introd.] papal EEYEXUE. — THE CONCLAVE. 41 sold, and even the inferior ones brought large sums of money.-^^ It might be truly said with Jugurtha, Romce omnia venire — at Rome all things are venal. Never was so rich a harvest reaped from the credulity of mankind.^^ It remains to say a few words respecting the mode of electing the successors of St. Peter. In early times, the Pope was chosen by the people as well as by the clergy ; nor was his election valid unless confirmed by the Emperor; till at length, in 1179, Pope Alexander III. succeeded in vesting the elective right solely in the cardinals. In order to a valid election it was necessary that at least two thirds of the college should agree ; but as this circumstance had frequently delayed their choice, Pope Gregory X., before whose elevation there had been an interregnum of no less than three years, published, in 1274, a Bull to regulate the elections, which after- wards became part of the Canon Law. This Bull provided that the cardinals were to assemble within nine days after the demise of a Pope ; and on the tenth they were to be closely imprisoned, each with a single domestic, in an apartment called the Conclave, their only communication with the outward world being a small window through which they received their food and other neces- saries. If they were not agreed in three days, their provisions were diminished ; after the eighth day they were restricted to a small allowance of bread, water, and wine ; and thus they were induced by every motive of health and convenience not unneces- sarily to protract their decision. Such was the Papal government. The remainder of Italy was divided by a number of independent powers, of which it will be necessary to mention only the more considerable. These were two monarchies, the Kingdom of Naples and the Duchy of Milan ; and three republics, two of which, Venice and Grenoa, were maritime and commercial ; the third, Florence, inland and manufacturing. Of these republics, Venice was the foremost. Her power and pretensions both by sea and land were typified in her armorial device — a lion having two feet in the sea, a third in the plains, the fourth on the mountains.^^ Her territorial dominions, were, how- ever, the offspring of her vast commerce and of her naval supre- macy ; and it is as a naval power that she chiefly merits our 51 Le Bret, Magazin zum Gehrauch der christUch-kathoUschen Kirche ; and the Btaats- mid Kirchengeschichte, B. iii. S. 7 Jesuit Hunold Plattenberg, Notitia Con- £f, gregatiomim ct Tribunalium Curies Ro- " ^QQMxiVdJtovi, Antiq.Ital. Med.Mvi, mana, 1693. t. vi., and Mosheim, Instit. Hist. Eccl; " See the letter of the Emperor Maxi- Thomassin, Vetus ct nova Ecclesi(B Disci- milian I. to the Elector of Saxony, ap. j)linn; Walter, Lchrbuch des Kirchen- Kanke, Deutsche Gesch. B, i. S. 179. rechta ; Binterim, Denkwurdigkeiten der 42 VENICE AND HER TERRITORIES. [Inteod. attention. On the sandbanks formed by the alluvial deposits of the Brenta, the Adige, and other rivers, Venice, by many ages of industry and enterprise, had grown so great that towards the end of the thirteenth century she claimed to be Queen of the Adriatic, and extorted toll and tribute from all vessels navigating that sea. Every year on Ascension Day, the Doge repeated the ceremony of a marriage with that bride whose dowry had been wafted from every quarter of the globe, when, standing on the prow of the Bucentaur, he cast into her waters the consecrated ring, exclaiming : " Despon- samus te. Mare, in signum veri perpetuique dominii."^'' Some rag of alleged right commonly cloaks the most extravagant pretensions, and accordingly the Venetians pleaded a donation of Pope Alex- ander III., who had said to their Doge : — " The sea owes you submission as the wife owes her husband, for you have acquired the dominion of it by victory." Some subsequent holders of the see of St. Peter were not, however, inclined to recognise this liberal gift of their predecessor ; and it is related that Julius II. once asked Jerome Donato, the Venetian ambassador, for the title which con- ferred on the republic the dominion of the gulf. "You will find it," replied Donato, " endorsed on the deed by which Constantine conveyed the domain of St. Peter to Pope Silvester." We need not trace all the steps by which the Venetians gradually acquired the large possessions which they held in the middle of the fifteenth century, many of which had been acquired by pur- chase. Thus, the Island of Corfu, as well as Zara in Dalmatia, was bought from Ladislaus of Hungary and Naples ; Lepanto and Corinth from Centurione, a Grenoese, and Prince of Achaia ; Sa- loniki from Andronicus, brother of Theodore, Despot of the Morea, which, however, was wrested from their hands by the Tm-ks in 1430. As a naval power, the views of Venice were chiefly directed to the acquisition of maritime towns and fortresses ; but in Italy they were also straining every nerve to extend their territory, and had already made themselves masters of Padua, Vicenza, Verona, Brescia, Bergamo, Eavenna, Treviso, Feltre, Belluno, the Friuli, and a great part of the Cremonese. Venice presents, perhaps, the most successful instance on record of an aristocratical republic, or oligarchy. We shall not here enter into the details of its government, which have been described at length by Mr. Hallam.^^ However unfavourable to domestic 5* "We betroth thee, Sea, in sign of State Inquisitors. Daru's account of the our lawful and perpetual dominion." Inquisitors is now recognised as erroneous 5^ Middle Ages, vol. i. ch. iii. pt. ii. and exaggerated. {Hist, de Vcnise, liv, xvi. That writer, however, appears to have § 20.) His errors on this and other omitted the Zonta, or Giunta, and the subjects have been rectified bj Count Introd.] VEXETIAX COXSTITUTIOX. 43 liberty, the government of Venice was admirably adapted to pro- mote the interest of the state in its intercourse with other nations, and from a remote period its diplomatic service was admirably con- ducted. As early as the thirteenth century its ambassadors were instructed to note down everything worthy of observation in the countries to which they were sent ; and these reports, or Relazioni, were read before the Pregadi, or Senate, and then deposited among the archives of the state. The practice was continued to the latest times ; and there is a Relazione of the early period of the French republic, full of striking and impartial details.^^ Under the Venetian constitution, the power of the Doge was very limited, and, indeed, he was often no more than the unwilling puppet of the Council ; — a fact abundantly illustrated by the tragical story of Francesco Foscari, who held the dignity of Doge from 1423 to 1457, and consequently at the time when Constanti- nople fell. During his reign — if such it can be called, for to him- self it was little else than a source of bitterness and humiliation — Venice reached her highest pitch of prosperity and glory. Con- tinually thwarted by the ruling oligarchy, Foscari had twice ten- dered his resignation, which was, however, refused ; and on the last occasion, in 1443, he was obliged to promise that he would hold the office during life. A year or two afterwards he was compelled to pronounce sentence of banishment on his only surviving son, Jacopo, accused of receiving bribes from foreign governments. Still graver charges were brought against Jacopo, who died an exile in Candia, in January 1456. The aged Doge himself was deposed in 1457, through the machinations of his enemy Loredano, now at the head of the Council of Ten. He retired with the sympathy of the Venetians, which, however, none ventured to display; and a few days afterwards he expired. With short intervals of peace, he had waged war with the Turks thirty years ; and it was during his administration that the treaty was concluded with them which we shall have to record in the sequel. Before science had enlarged the bounds of navigation and opened new channels to commercial enterprise, Venice, from its position, seemed destined by nature to connect the Eastern and the Western Worlds. During many ages, accordingly, she was the chief maritime and commercial state of Europe. At the beginning of the fifteenth century, more than 3300 Venetian merchantmen, Tiepolo, in his Discorsi sulla Storia Copies of these papers were frequently Veneta, 4'c., and by Romanin, Gli In- made, which have been preserved in some quisitori di Stato. Comp. Hazlitt, Ven. of the principal liliraries of Europe, and Rep. vol. iii. p. 56 sq. form valuable and authentic materials ^ Eanke, Furstcn und Vblker, Vorrede. for hibtory. 44 GEXOA AXD HER COLONIES. [I NTBOD. employing crews of 25,000 sailors, traversed the Mediterranean in all directions, passed the Straits of Gribraitar, coasted the shores of Spain, Portugal, and France, as the vessels of Phoenicia and Carthage had done of old, and carried on a lucrative trade with the English and the Flemings. The Venetians enjoyed almost a monopoly of the commerce of the Levant ; but in that with Con- stantinople and the Black Sea they were long rivalled, and indeed surpassed, by the Grenoese.^^ Yet in the middle of the fifteenth century the commerce and the power of Grenoa, the second maritime republic of Italy, were in a declining state. As the Venetians enjoyed an almost exclu- sive trade with India and the East, through the ports of Egypt, Syria, and Greece, so the Grenoese possessed the chief share of that with the northern and eastern parts of Europe. The less costly, but perhaps more useful, products of these regions — wax, tallow, skins, and furs, together with all the materials for ship-building, as timber, pitch and tar, hemp for the sails and cordage — found their way to the ports of the Black Sea, down the rivers which empty into it ; and it was along these shores that the Genoese had planted their colonies. Early in the fourteenth century they had founded Caffa, in the Crimea ; and this was followed by the planting of other colonies and factories, as Tana, near Azof, at the mouth of the Tanais, or Don, and others ; some of which, how- ever^ were shared by the Venetians and other Italians. All the trade of this sea necessarily found its way through the Bosphorus, where it was commanded by the Genoese and Venetian establish- ments at Constantinople. The rival interests of their commerce occasioned, during a long period, bloody contests between the Venetians and Genoese for the supremacy at sea. Genoa had not the wonderfully organised government and self-supporting power of Venice ; she lacked that admixture of the aristocratic element which gave such stability to her rival, and was frequently obliged to seek a refuge from her own dissensions by submitting herself to foreign dominion : yet such was the energy of her population and the sti-ength derived from her commerce, that she was repeatedly able to shake off these trammels, as well as to make head against her powerful rival in the Adriatic. We find her by turns under the protection of the Empire, of Naples, of Milan, of France ; but as the factious spirit of her population compelled her to submit to these " An elaborate statement of the com- just before Ms death. Hazlitt, Ten. JRep. merce of Venice in 1423, will be found p. 27 — 35. in the speeches of the Doge Mocenigo Introd.] FLOREXCE. ITS G0YERX:MEXT. 45 powers, so the same cause again freed lier from their grasp. In 1435, the G-enoese revolted from Philip Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan, because that sovereign had dismissed Alphonso V., King of Naples, whom he had taken prisoner. From hereditary hatred to the Catalans, the Grenoese had supported the French prince Eene d'Anjou, in his claims to the Neapolitan throne, against the Spaniard Alphonso, and they now allied themselves with Venice and Florence against the Duke of Milan. This revolution, however, was followed by twenty years of civil broil, in which the hostile factions of the Adorni and Fregosi contended for the supreme power and the office of Doge ; the most important political and commercial interests of the republic were abandoned at the critical moment of the triumph of the Turks in 1453 ; and at that period the name of Genoa is scarcely heard of in the affairs of Italy. Florence, the third great Italian republic, presents a striking, and in some respects agreeable, contrast to those just described. Not so grasping as they, nor so entirely absorbed in the pursuit of material interests, her popular institutions favoured the develop- ment of individual genius, which the wealth derived from trade and manufactures enabled her to encourage and foster. Her in- land situation and the smallness of her foreign commerce rendered Florence more essentially Italian than either Venice or Genoa ; and accordingly we find her taking a stronger interest in the general affairs of Italy, and in the maintenance of its political equili- brium.^^ The Florentine government was freer than that of Venice, and more aristocratic than that of Genoa; a democracy, indeed, but led by the large-minded, liberal, and cultivated chiefs of the House of Medici. The commercial riches of that family enabled them to display their taste and generosity; and, under their auspices, Florence became the mother of modern European art and literature. It is not our purpose to enter into the obscure and intricate details of the Florentine constitution, which have been fully de- scribed by Mr. Hallam.^^ It will suffice to recall to the reader's memory that its basis was popular and in a great degree mercantile, resting on what were called the Arts (Arti), which were, in fact, the same as the guilds, or companies of trades, in England or Flanders. These were twenty-one in number; namely, seven superior ones, called the Arti Majori, which included the profes- sional classes, merchants, and wholesale dealers, as lawyers and notaries, physicians and druggists, importers of foreign cloth, 53 See Sismoudi, Repuhl. Ital. ch. Ivii. *' Middle Ages, chap. iii. pt. ii. t. Tiii. p. 34. 46 GOVERNMEXT OF THE ALBIZZI. [l NTROD. woollen merchants, silk merchants, and furriers ; and fourteen Arti Mlnorl, comprehending the lesser trades and retail dealers. It was only from among members of t\ie Arti that the Priors {Priori), or chief executive magistrates of the state, could be elected. These magistrates, ultimately eight in number, were chosen every two months, and during their tenure of ofhce lived at the public expense. After the establishment of the militia companies, the Gronfalonier ^^ of Justice, who was at the head of them, was added to the Signoria, or executive government, and, indeed, as its president. To assist the deliberations of the Signory, there was a college composed of the sixteen Gronfaloniers of the militia com- panies, and of twelve leading men called Buonuorriini, literally, good men, to whose consideration every resolution or law was sub- mitted before it was brought before the great councils of the state. These councils, which were changed every four months, were the Consiglio di Popolo, consisting of 300 plebeians, and the Consiglio di Comune, into which nobles also might enter. In extraordinary conjunctiu-es, the whole of the citizens could resolve themselves into a sovereign assembly of the people, or parliament, which was called Farsi Popolo, Among: the chano^es introduced into the Florentine constitution by Giano della Bella, towards the end of the thirteenth century, was the disqualification of the nobles to hold office. This gave rise to a singular practice. A noble might be elevated to the rank of a commoner, and to the enjoyment of civil rights, by his name being struck off the rolls of nobility — a proceeding, however, which does not appear to have deprived him of the privileges naturally be- longing to his station ; on the other hand, an unpopular plebeian might be ennobled, and thus disfranchised. But, besides the an- cient hereditary nobility, there gradually sprung up in a commer- cial town like Florence a sort of plebeian nobles, or Novi Homines, whose pretensions rested only on their wealth and in the discharge of the higher municipal offices ; such were the Kicci, the Alberti, the Medici, and others, who, in process of time, came themselves to be regarded as aristocrats by the democratic party. The most flourishing period of the Plorentine republic was the half century during which it was under the government of the Guelf, or aristocratic party of Maso de' Albizzi and his successor, from 1382 to 1434. The measures of these rulers were in sfeneral wise and patriotic ; they increased the prosperity of Florence, and at the same time upheld the liberties of Italy ; and their credit was ^ Gonfalionere means, literally, a standard-bearer; from gonf alone, a standard, or banner. Introd.] COSMO DE MEDICI. 47 sustained by a series of brilliant conquests, whicli subjected Pisa, Arezzo, Cortona, and, in short, half Tuscany, to the Florentine do- minion. Meanwhile the magistrates lived in a plain, unostentatious manner, and abused not their power for their own private ends ; the people, too, lived frugally at home, while the public magnificence was displayed in the churches, palaces, and other buildings : valu- able libraries were collected ; and painting, statuary, and architec- ture flourished. At this time we are told that Florence counted 150,000 inhabitants within her walls, and enjoyed a revenue of 300,000 gold florins, or about 150,000/. sterling. There were 200 woollen manufactories, which employed 30,000 hands, twenty wholesale cloth merchants, and eighty bankers who had bureaux and agents in all parts of Europe ; and though the situation of Florence excluded it from that large share of foreign commerce enjoyed by Grenoa and Venice — for it had no port of its own till it acquired Pisa by conquest, and Leghorn by purchase from the Grenoese early in the fifteenth century — yet even previously it had not been entirely destitute of maritime trade, finding a harbour for its ships either at Pisa, or in the Sienese port of Telamone. In 1434, Cosmo de' Medici succeeded in overthrowing Einaldo de' Albizzi and his party, and seizing the reins of government. The first known member of the Medici family was Salvestro, who, in 1378, had conducted a successful insurrection of the Ciompi, or Florentine populace. During the supremacy of the Albizzi, Gio- vanni de' Medici, the father of Cosmo, had filled some of the highest offices of state ; and at his death, in 1429, Cosmo took the direction of the party which had been formed for the purpose *of limiting the authority of the ruling oligarchy. Cosmo is described by Machia- velli as of a generous and affable temper ; of a demeanour at once grave and agreeable, he possessed, in addition to his father's virtues, far more talent as a statesman. The revolution of 1434, by which he attained the supreme power, must, however, be regarded as inaugurating the fall of the Florentine republic. In the previous year Cosmo had been banished by the party of Albizzi, and his recall was signalised by many acts of tyranny towards his opponents. He continued to hold power till his death in 1464; so that he was. the leading man at Florence at the period chosen as our epoch. After seizing the government, he continued to follow the trade of a merchant and banker ; and during his long administration, his views were constantly directed to the aggrandisement of his family. The preceding administration of the Albizzi, although more beneficial to their country, is almost forgotten, because, like the princes before Agamemnon, they found no bard or historian to record their 48 MILAN. — THE TISCOXTI. [I NTROD. praise ; whilst Cosmo de' Medici, a munificent patron of literature, had the good fortune to be tlie friend of many eminent writers. As his power was chiefly supported by the lower classes, he was enabled to extend it by means of his wealth ; and he at length suc- ceeded in. reducing the government to a small oligarchy, having, in 1452, vested the privilege of naming to the Signory in only five persons. To support his own dominion he courted the friend- ship of the tyrant P^'rancis Sforza, and, instead of endeavouring to erect a free state in Lombardy, assisted that prince to oppress the Milanese. Sforza, a condottiere and soldier of fortune like his father before him, obtained Milan partly by a fortunate marriage and partly by his arms. The history of the Visconti, his predecessors in the duchy, is little more than a tissue of crime and treachery, of cruelty and ambition. Originally an archbishopric, John Galeazzo Visconti procured in 1395 the erection of Milan as a duchy and imperial fief, by a treaty with the Emperor Wenceslaus and the payment of a large sum of money. This transaction introduced a new feature into Italian politics. The famous parties of the Gruelfs and Grhibelins, whose names remained more or less in use till the end of the 15th century, had at first little or nothing to do with the internal affairs of the different Italian states : they were merely, in a general sense, the watchwords of Italian liberty as opposed to imperial and Teutonic despotism: the Gruelfs supporting the policy of Eome, and the Grhibelins that of the Emperor. Thus some Italian republics were Grhibelin, whilst several tyrants had arisen among the Gruelfic cities. But after the Visconti had esta- blished themselves at Milan and acquired a preponderating influence in Italy, they began to consider their interests as indissolubly connected with monarchical principles ; and from this period every t3Tant or usurper, if he had before been Gruelf, became Ghibelin, and courted the friendship and protection of the dukes of Milan ; while, on the other hand, if a Ghibelin city succeeded in throwing off the yoke of its prince, it raised the Guelf standard, and sought the alliance of Florence, a city pre-eminently Guelf; and thus those party names became the symbols of domestic as well as foreign liberty or slavery. The Duchy of Milan descended in time to Philip Maria Visconti, the younger of Galeazzo's two sons. Philip had no children except an illegitimate daughter Blanche ; and Francis Sforza, whom Pope Eugenius IV. had made sovereign of the March of Ancona and Gonfalonier of the Church, aspired to her hand, in the hope that by such a marriage he might eventually establish Introd.] claims to TIIEIK SUCCESSIOX. 49 himself in the Milanese succession. His courtship was somewhat rough ; in order to win the daughter he made war upon the father. After the return of Cosmo de' Medici to Florence and the banish- ment of his rival, Einaldo de' Albizzi, Yisconti, at the instance of the latter, having engaged in a war with Florence and Venice, Sforza entered the service of the Florentines. His operations were, however, unsuccessful, and he found himself entangled in a most dangerous position near the castle of Martinengo, when he was unexpectedly relieved by a message from Duke Philip Maria. Disgusted with the insolence of his own captains, who, in contem- plation of his death, were already demanding different portions of his dominions, Philip offered Sforza the hand of his daughter Blanche, with Cremona and its territory as a dowry, and left him to name his own conditions of peace. The marriage was accord- ingly celebrated in October 1441 ; but Yisconti soon repented of his bargain, and entered into a new war in order to ruin his son- in-law, who again took the command of the Venetian and Floren- tine armies. Being hard pressed, the Duke had again recourse to Sforza, and offered him the Milanese succession as the price of his deserting his employers. The point of honour remained to be con- sidered, on which Sforza consulted his friend, Cosmo de' Medici, who advised him to follow no rule but his own interests, and to disregard his obligations to two states that had employed him only for their own advantage.^^ Visconti afterwards seemed disposed to break this agreement also ; but scarcely had the reappearance of danger from the further success of the Venetians again obliged him to throw himself into the arms of Sforza, when he was suddenly carried off by a dysentery, August 13th 1447. With Philip Maria terminated the dynasty of the Visconti, which, as bishops and dukes, had ruled Milan 170 years (1277 — 1447). As he left no male heirs, or, indeed, legitimate children of any kind, his death occasioned four claims to the succession, which must here be stated, as they formed the subject of wars and negociations which it will be our business to relate in the following pages. These claims were — 1. That of the Duke of Orleans, founded on his being the son of Valentina Visconti, eldest sister of the late Duke ; 2. That of Blanche, Philip's illegitimate daughter, and of her hus- band Sforza, who could also plead that he had been designated by Philip as his successor ; 3. That of Alphonso, King of Naples, which rested on a genuine or pretended testament of the deceased ^^ Simonetta, lib. viii. p. 148 (ed. 1544). tliose times, lets out some dirty secrets, This writer, who was Sforza's secretary, wliich convey a strange idea of the and who has MTitten a valuable history of political morality then in vogue. VOL. I. E 50 MILANESE REPUBLIC. [In TROD. Duke: 4. That of the Emperor of Grermany, who, in default of heirs, claimed tlie duchy as a lapsed fief. The question between Blanche and the House of Orleans rests on the issue, whether a legitimate collateral succession were preferable to an illegitimate but direct one ? According to the usages of those times, when bastardy was not regarded as so complete a disqualification as it is at present, and when there were numerous instances of illegitimate succession in various Italian states, this question should perhaps be answered in the negative. Sforza's pretensions, as well as those of the King of Naples, rested on the question, whether the Duke had power to appoint in default of natural heirs ; and, if so, which of the two were the more valid appointment : but it must also be recollected that Sforza's claim was further strengthened by his marriage with Blanche. Thus far, then, we might, perhaps, be inclined to decide in favour of Sforza. But the claim of the Emperor remains to be con- sidered. The charter to the Ducal House given by Wenceslaus at Prague, October 13th 1396, limited the succession to males, sons of males by a legitimate bed, or, in their default, to the natural male descendants of John Graleazzo, after they had been solemnly legitimated by the Emperor.^^ Milan, therefore, w^as exclusively a male fief. But there were no male heirs of any kind, nor has it been shown that the Duke had any power of appointment by will or otherwise. This seems to make out a clear case in favour of the Emperor, according to the general usage respecting fiefs, unless his original power over the fief should be disputed. But this was clearly acknow^ledged by John Graleazzo when he accepted the dukedom at his hands, and had indeed been always previously recognised by the Grhibelin House of Yisconti. It is true, as a modern writer observes ^^, that the sovereignty lay properly with the Milanese people; but they were unable effectually to assert it, and subsequently the pretensions actually contested were not those of the Emperor and the people, but of the Emperor and the claimants under the title of the Yisconti. The people, indeed, after the death of the Duke, under the leadership of four distinguished citizens, established a republic, while the council acknowledged Alphonso of Naples, and hoisted on the palace the Aragonese flag. Some of the Lombard towns, as " Annahs Mcdiolanenscs, t. xvi. p. 128, par les diplomes de Wenceslas ; ils fiirent ap. Sismondi, /^e^. Ital. t. ix. p. 282. des lors considert's commes les seicpieurs «' 8ismondi, Hep. Ital. t. ix. p. 263. Yet nnturels, ainsi qii'on rexprimait. et iion the same writer admits the efficacy of plus comme les tyraus de la Lombardie." the investitiire of Wenceslaus : " Les —Ibid. t. vii. p. 345. Viscontis re9urent une nouvelle existence Tntrod.] FEANCIS SFORZA, DUKE. 51 Pa via, Parma, and others, also erected themselves into independent republics ; some submitted to Venice, others to Milan ; and Asti admitted a French garrison in the name of Charles, Duke of Or- leans. The Venetians refused to give up the territories which they had conquered; and, under these circumstances, the republic of Milan engaged the services of Sforza, who thus became for a while the servant of those whom he had expected to command, though with the secret hope of reversing the position. It does not belong to our subject to detail the campaigns of the next two or three years. It will suffice to state generally that Sforza's operations against the Venetians were eminently successful, and that particu- larly by the signal defeat which he inflicted on them at Caravaggio, Sept. 15th 1448, when nearly their whole army was captured, they found it politic to induce him to enter their own service, by offering to instate him in the Duchy of Milan, but on condition of his ceding to Venice the Cremonese and the Grhiara d'Adda. The Venetians, however, soon perceived that they had committed a political blunder in handing over Milan to a warlike prince instead of encouraging the nascent republic ; and disregarding their en- gagements with Sforza, they concluded at Brescia a treaty with the Milanese republicans (Sept. 27th 1449), and withdrew their troops from Sforza's army. But that commander had already reduced JMilan to a state of famine ; and knowing that there was within its walls a former officer of his own, Graspard di Vimercato, on whose services he might rely, Sforza boldly ordered his soldiers to approach the city, laden with as much bread as they could carry. At a distance of six miles they were met by the starving population ; the bread was distributed, and Sforza advanced without resistance to the gates. Ambrose Trivulzio and a small band of patriots would have imposed conditions before he entered, and made him swear to observe their laws and liberties : but it was too late — the populace had declared for Sforza ; there were no means of resisting his entry ; and when he appeared on the public place, he was saluted by the assembled multitude as their Duke and Sove- reign. This revolution was accomplished towards the end of February 1450. During the next few years, however, Sforza had to contend with the Venetians for the possession of his dominions. The capture of Constantinople caused the Italian belligerents to reflect on the pernicious nature of the contest in which they were engaged ; and Pope Nicholas V. summoned a congress at Kome to consider of the means of making head against the common enemy. None of the Italian powers, however, were sincere in these negociations ; E 2 52 TREATY OF LODI. — NAPLES. [Introd. not even Nicholas liimst-lf, who had learned by experience that the wars of the other Italian States assured the tranquillity of the Clnu'ch. The Venetians, exhausted by the length of the war, and finding that the congress would not succeed in establishing a general peace, began secretly to negociate with Sforza for a separate one. This led to the Treaty of Lodi, April 9th 1454. The Marquis of ^Slontferrat, the Duke of Savoy, and other princes, were now compelled to relinquish those portions of the Milanese which they had occupied ; and in this manner, together with the cessions of the Venetians, Sforza recovered all the territories which had belonged to his predecessor.®'* The remaining Italian States, with the exception of the Kingdom of Naples, are not important enough to arrest our attention. The chief of them were F'errara, then ruled by the illustrious House of Este, jNIantua, under the Gronzagas, and Savoy. The Counts of Savoy traced their genealogy from the tenth century. The Emperor Sigismund, in the course of his fi-equent travels, having come into Savoy, erected the county into a duchy in favour of Amadeus VIII., wdio w^as afterwards Pope Felix V., by letters patent granted at Chambery, February 19th 1416.®^ Sigismund exercised this privi- lege on the ground that Savoy formed i^art of the ancient German kingdom of Aries, and in consideration of a paltry loan of 12,000 shield- francs. At the time w^hen this history opens, Alphonso V., surnamed the Wise, had been more than ten years in possession of the Neapolitan throne, after a hard struggle with a rival claimant, the French Prince Kene d'Anjou. The pretensions of the House of Anjou were originally derived from the donation of Pope Urban IV. in the middle of the 13th century. The Norman conquerors of Naples had consented to hold the kingdom as a fief of the Koman See, and the Norman line was represented at the time mentioned by Conradin, grandson of the Emperor Frederick II. ; w^hose uncle Manfred, an illegitimate son of P>ederick, having expelled him and usurped the throne, Urban offered it to Charles, Count of Anjou, brother of Louis IX. of P>ance. Manfred was defeated and slain in the battle of Benevento, 1266; and two years afterwards Conradin, who had been called in by the Neapoli- tans, was also defeated at Tagliacozzo, and soon after put to death by order of Count Charles, who thus established in Naples the first House of Anjou. The crown w\as, however, disputed by Don Pedro III., King of Aragon, who had married a daughter of " Sismondi, Bipuhl Hal. t. ix. p. 415 « Guichcnon, Hist. G'enkoJ. dcla Boy ale ^^*1' Maisun dc Savoic, p. 456. Intjiod.] house of AiVJOU. ALPHOXSO Y. 53 Manfred; a war ensued, and Pedro succeeded in seizing Sicily, and transmitting it to his posterity. The first House of Anjou continued in possession of Naples down to the reign of Queen Joannal. ; who,having been dethroned inl 38 Iby Charles of Durazzo, her heir presumptive, she with the sanction of the Pope called in from France a younger branch of the house — namely, Louis, Duke of Anjou, brother of Charles V., whose son, after the assassination of Charles of Durazzo in Hungary in 1385, actually ascended the throne with the title of Louis 11. The reign, however, of this second House of Anjou was but short. Louis was driven out the same year by Ladislaus, son of Charles of Durazzo, who, in spite of all the efforts of Louis, succeeded in retaining the sovereignty till his death in 1414. He was succeeded by his sister, Joanna II., who, though twice married, remained childless. In these circumstances Joanna had displayed so much favour towards the Colonna family that it was expected she would bequeath her crown to a member of it ; but from this purpose she was diverted by her paramour Caraccioli. Pope Martin Y., who was a Colonna, piqued at this change in her behaviour, determined if possible to dethrone her in favour of Louis III., a young prince of fifteen, and son of Louis II., who had died in 1417 ; and with this view he engaged Attendolo Sforza, a renowned condottlere, and father of Francis Sforza, whose history we have already re- lated. Attendolo Sforza, who had been constable to Joanna II., but through the enmity of Caraccioli was now alienated from her, was to invade the Neapolitan dominions with an army, while Louis III. was to attack Naples from the sea. In this desperate situation Joanna invoked the aid of Alphonso V., sovereign of the lately reunited kingdoms of Aragon and Sicily, and promised, in retvu'n for his services to adopt him as heir to her dominions (1420). These terms were accepted : Alphonso was solemnly proclaimed the successor of Joanna ; the Duchy of Calabria was made over to him as security ; and having frustrated the enterprise of Louis, he fixed his residence at Naples as future king. Such was the origin of the second claim of the House of Aragon to the Neapolitan throne. To make it good, Alphonso had to undergo a struggle of many years' duration, of which we need mark only the leading events. Perceiving that tke Queen and Caraccioli meant to betray him, Alphonso endeavoured to secure their persons ; but having failed in the attempt, Joanna cancelled his adoption as heir to the crown, substituted Louis III. in his stead, and, having reconciled herself with Sforza, obtained the assistance of his arms. The war dragged slowly on ; Sforza was accidentally E 3 54 REVOLUTIONS OF NAPLES. [l NTROD. drowned in the Pescara, January 4th 1424, when his command devolved to his son Francis ; and Alphonso, having been obliged to return to Aragon by an invasion of the Castilians, left his brothers, Don Pedro and Don Frederick, to conduct his affairs in Naples. But they were betrayed by their condottiere Caldora, and Joanna re-entered Naples with her adopted son Louis III. of Anjou. In 1432 a revolution, chiefly conducted by the Duchess of Suessa, having accomplished the death of Caraccioli, who had disgusted every body, and at last even Joanna herself, by his insolence and brutality, the Duchess and a large party of the , Neapolitan nobles invited Alphonso to return ; and as he had now arranged the affairs of Aragon, he accepted the invitation. But his expedition was unsuccessful. Louis III. repulsed his attacks on Calabria ; and after some vain attempts to induce Joanna to recall her adoption of that prince, Alphonso concluded a peace for ten years, and retired from the Neapolitan territories early in 1433. The death of Louis in 1434, followed by that of Queen Jo- anna II. in February 1435, again threw Naples into anarchy. Joanna had bequeathed her crown to Bene, or Eegnier, Duke of Lorraine, the next brother of Louis, who had succeeded to Lor- raine as son-in-law of the deceased Duke Charles ; but Antony Count of Vaudemont, brother of Charles, contested with him this succession, defeated him, and made him prisoner ; nor was he re- leased from captivity till 1437, two years after the death of Joanna. In this state of things the Neapolitan nobles again called in Alphonso ; but the partisans of the House of Anjou were supported by Philip ^laria Visconti, Duke of Milan, who could dispose of the maritime forces of Gfenoa, then under his government ; and on the 5th of August 1435, one of the most bloody sea-fights yet seen in the Mediterranean took place between the Grenoese and Catalan fleets. That of King Alphonso was entirely defeated, all his ships were either captured or destroyed ; and he himself, together with his brother John, King of Navarre, and a great number of Spanish and Italian nobles, were made prisoners. But Alphonso showed his great qualities even in this extremity of misfortune. Being carried to Milan, he so worked upon Visconti by his address, and by pointing out the injurious consequences that would result to him from establishing the French in Italy, that the Duke dismissed him and the other prisoners without ransom. By this step, however, as we have already said, Visconti lost Genoa; for the Genoese, disgusted with this mark of favour towards their ancient enemies the Catalans, rose and drove out the Milanese governor. Alphonso now renewed his attempts upon Naples and the war Introd.] RENE d'aXJOU. 55 dragged on five or six years ; but we shall not follow its details, which are both intricate and unimportant. The Pope, the Venetians, the Grenoese, the Florentines, and Sforza favoured the cause of the House of Anjou ; the Duke of Milan hung dubious between the parties ; and the Condottieri sold themselves to both sides by turns. In the absence of Eene, his consort Isabella displayed abilities that were of much service to his cause ; and Eene himself after his liberation appeared off Naples with twelve galleys and a few other ships. But nothing important was done till 1442, when Alphonso succeeded in entering Naples through a subterranean aqueduct which in ancient times had been used for the same purpose by Belisarius. Eene soon after abandoned - the contest and retired into France, and Alphonso speedily obtained possession of the whole kingdom.^^ Having made peace with Eugenius IV., and recognised him as the true head of the Church, that pontiff confirmed Alphonso's title as King of Naples, under the ancient condition of feudal tenure ; and even secretly promised to support the succession of his natural son Ferdinand, whom Alphonso had made Duke of Calabria., or, in other words, heir to the throne. Eene made a fruitless attempt in 1453 to recover Naples, which he never repeated. His quiet and unambitious character, testified by the name of " le bon roi Eene," led him to cede his claims both to Lorraine and Naples to his son, and to abandon himself in Provence to his love for poetry and the arts. Here he endeavoured to revive the days of the Troubadours, and the love-courts of Languedoc; but he had more taste than genius, and his efforts ended only in founding a school of insipid pastoral poetry. His children had more energy and ambition: Margaret, the strong- minded but unfortunate consort of our Henry VI.; and John, whose efforts to recover the Neapolitan crown there will be occasion to relate in the following pages. John, who assumed the title of Duke of Calabria, proceeded into Italy in 1454, and was for some time entertained by the Florentines; till their policy requiring the accession of Alphonso to the peace which they had concluded with Venice and JNIilan, John was sent back over the Alps. The Spanish peninsula was divided, like Italy, into several independent sovereignties." During the tardy expulsion of the « The title of this prince, as King of ' Charles I. (the Emperor Charles Y.), Naples, was Alphonso I. with a supplement containing: a brief " The great historian of Spain is the abstract of events down to 1621, Zuri- Jesuit Mariana, whose work extends from ta's Amialcs de Aragon, also commenc- the earliest times to the accession of ing from the earliest period, are very E 4 SPAIN. — CASTILE. [l NTROD. Moors from the nortli of Spain, many Christian kingdoms and principalities were gradually formed, as those of Oviedo, Leon, Navarre, Sobrarva, Castile, Aragon, Barcelona, Valencia, &c. ; but in the middle of the fifteenth century these had been reduced to the three Kingdoms of Xavarre, Castile, and Aragon, which now occupied the whole peninsula with the exception of the Kingdom of Portugal in the west and the jMoorish Kingdom of Grranada in the south. Of these Navarre comprised only a comparatively small district at the western extremity of the Pyrenees ; to Aragon were attached the partly independent provinces of Catalonia, A'alencia, and Murcia ; while Castile occupied, with the exceptions before named, the rest of Spain. The Kingdom of Castile was founded by Don Ferdinand, son of Sanchez, surnamed the Great, King of Navarre. * Sanchez had conquered Old Castile from its Sovereign Count, and at his death in 1035 left it to Ferdinand, who assumed the title of King of Castile, and subsequently added Leon to his dominions. It belongs not to our plan to trace the history of the Spanish monarchies through the middle ages.^^ It will suffice to observe that the boundaries of Castile were gradually enlarged by successive acquisitions, and that in 1368 a revolution which drove Peter the Cruel from the throne established on it the House of Trastamare, which continued to hold possession. In 1406 the Crown devolved to John II., an infant little more than a twelvemonth old, who w^ore it till 1454, and was consequently King at the time when this history opens. His father Henry III., who died at the early age of twenty-seven, had ruled with wisdom and moderation, but at the same time with energy. An armament w^hich he had prepared against the jNIoors in the very year of his death will convey some idea of the strength of the kingdom. It consisted of 1000 lances, or harnessed knights, 4000 light cavalr}^ 50,000 infantry, and 80 ships or galleys ; and though Henry did not live to conduct the war, it was for some time prosecuted with vigour and success. But the long minority of John II. exposed the kingdom to confusion and anarchy ; and subsecjuently the weakness of his mind, though he possessed no unamiable disposition, rendered him only fit to be governed by others. During nearly the whole of his reign Don Alvaro de Luna, Constable of Castile, possessed a nearly unlimited power. It was the hope of crushing this haughty favourite that detained Al- ample for tho reign of Ferdinand the «« The reader will find a sketch of the Catholic. The English reader may con- history and constitution of the .Spanish suit Robertson, Charles V., Introd. ; kingdoms during this period in Mr. Modern Univ. Hist. vol. xvi. ; Prescott, Hallam's Middle Ages, chap. iv. Ferdinand and Isabella, vol. i. Introt).] JOHX II. AND ALVARO DE LUXA. 57 phonso V. of Aragon in Spain, and prevented hina from prosecuting his claims on Naples, as already related. Alphonso's brother Don John, who subsequently became King of Navarre, and the Infant Don Henry, though Aragonese by nation, had large possessions in Castile ; and being grandees of that country, considered themselves entitled to a share in the government, for which they entered into a long but unsuccessful struggle. Alphonso V. after his return from Italy proclaimed his determination to invade Castile, and, as he said, to release the young King from Alvaro's tyranny ; and though the matter was temporarily arranged through the mediation of John of Navarre, yet the unsettled state of the relations between Castile and Aragon detained Alphonso three years in the latter country. In 1429, indeed, John II., at the persuasion of Alvaro, invaded Aragon with a large army, and committed fearful devas- tations ; and in the following year, Alphonso, whose views were turned towards Italy, abandoned his brother's cause and concluded with John a truce of five years. After this period the wealth and power of Alvaro went on wonderfully increasing. He obtained the greater part of the con- fiscated possessions of the Aragonese Princes ; and as he was the only man capable of inspiring the haughty Castilian Grrandees with awe, he was invested by the King with an almost absolute authority. He could muster 20,000 vassals at his residence at Escalona, where he held a kind of court, and was surrounded with guards after the manner of royalty. The extent of his power may be in- ferred from the circumstance, that when the King became a widower, the Constable, without any notice, contracted him to the Portuguese princess Isabella ! Alvaro had, however, to maintain a constant struggle with the Castilian Grrandees, with whom at length, even the King himself combined against him. In 1453 he was entrapped at Burgos, his house was beleaguered, and he was forced to capi- tulate, after receiving security under the royal seal that his life, honour, and property should be respected. But he was no sooner secured than his vast possessions were confiscated, and he himself being subjected to a mock trial, was condemned to death, and executed like a common malefactor in the public place of Valla- dolid (July 1453). The fortitude with which he met his fate turned in his favour the tide of popular opinion ; nor does it appear that he had done anything to deserve his death. John II. soon found to his cost the value of Alvaro, and that he had no longer any check upon the insolence of the Grandees. He sur- vived the constable only a year, and died in July 1454, leaving a son, who ascended the throne with the title of Henry IV. ; and by 68 AEAGON. ALPHOXSO V. [Inteod. his second consort, a dauorhter, Isabella, afterwards the famous Queen of Castile, and a son named Alplionso. Aragon, like Castile, was first elevated to the dignity of a kingdom in favour uf a son of Sanchez the Great of Navarre, namely, Don Kamiro. Jts territories were gradually extended by conquest. In 1118, the King Don Alonso, besides other conquests, wrested Saragossa from the JNIoors, and made it, instead of Huesca, the capital of Aragon. In 1137, Catalonia became united to Aragon by the marriage of the Aragon ese heiress, Petronilla, niece of Alonso, with Don Eaymond, Count of Barcelona. This was a most important acquisition for Aragon ; for the Catalans, a bold and hardy race, being excellent sailors, enabled the Aragonese monarchs to extend their dominions by sea. In the fourteenth century, the Catalans had come to be considered the third naval power in Europe, and excelled only by the Venetians and Grenoese, whom they appear also to have rivalled in the freedom of their institutions.^^ Under Don James of Aragon (1214-1276) Mi- norca and Valencia were recovered from the Moors and added to the kingdom, though these states, as well as Catalonia, enjoyed an independent government. James' son, Don Pedro III., as already mentioned, -wrested Sicily from the tyrannical hands of Charles of Anjou. On his death in 1285, Don Pedro left the crown of Sicily to his second son, Don James ; and from this period Sicily formed an independent kingdom under a separate branch of the House of Aragon, down to the death of Martin the Younger in 1407. That monarch dying without legitimate children, the throne of Sicily came to his father, Martin I., or the Elder, King of Aragon ; and the two kingdoms remained henceforth united till the beginning of the eighteenth century. On the death of Martin the Elder in 1410, the male branch of the House of Barcelona, in the direct line, became extinct, and various claimants to the Crown arose.^^ A civil war ensued, till at length, in June 1412, a council of arbiters, to whom the dis- putants had agreed to refer their claims, decided in favour of Ferdinand of Castile, nephew of Martin by his sister Eleanor, (iueen of that country. Ferdinand, who was uncle to the minor King John II. of Castile, resigned the regency of that country on ascending the throne of Aragon. He was a mild and just prince, and reigned till his death in 1416, when he was succeeded by his son, Alphonso V., whom we have already had occasion to mention in the affairs of Naples. After obtaining that kingdom in 1442, he » Siijmondi, liq^. Ital t vi. p. 83. ™ See a table of them in Hallam, vol. ii. p. 40. Introd.] CASTILLiX CO^^STITUTIOX. 59 never returned to his Spanish dominions. On his death in 1458, Alphonso left Xaples, as we have said, to his natural son Ferdinand ; but he declared his brother John, King of Navarre, heir to Aragon and its dependencies ; namely, Valencia, Catalonia, Murcia, Majorca, Sardinia, and Sicily ; and that prince accordingly ascended the Aragonese throne with the title of John II. While they existed as separate monarchies, both Castile and Aragon enjoyed a very considerable share of liberty. The con- stitution of Castile bore a striking resemblance to our own in the time of the Plantagenets. Before the end of the twelfth century, the deputies of towns and cities appear to have obtained a seat in the Cortes'^^, or national assembly, which before that period consisted only of the Clergy and Grandees. The Cortes continued pretty fairly to represent the nation down to the reign of John 11. and his successor Henry IV., when the deputies of many towns ceased to be summoned. The practice had, indeed, been previously irregular, but from this time it went on declining ; apparently, however, not much to the regret of the burgesses, who grudged defraying the expenses of their representatives ; and by the year 1480 the number of towns returning members had been reduced to seventeen. Alphonso XL (1312 — 1350) had previously re- stricted the privilege of election to the municipal magistrates, whose number rarely exceeded twenty-four in each town. The members of Cortes were summoned by a writ of much the same form as that in use for the English Parliament. The legislative power resided with the Cortes, though it was sometimes infringed by royal ordinances, as it was in the earlier periods of our own history by the King's proclamations. The nobles, not only the higher class of them, or Ricos Hovihres, but also the Hidalgos, or second order, and the Cavalleros, or knights, were exempt from taxation ; and this was also, in some degree, the case in Aragon. The power of the monarch was still more limited in Aragon than in Castile. At first the King was elective ; but the right of election was vested only in a few powerful barons, called from their wealth, Los Ricos Hombres, or the rich men. The King was inaugu- rated by kneeling down bare-headed before the Justiciary, or chief judge of the kingdom, who himself sat uncovered. In later times the Cortes claimed the right, not indeed of electing the King, yet of confirming: the title of the heir on his accession. The Cortes of Aragon consisted of four Orders, called Brazos, or arms — namely, 1. The Prelates, including the commanders of the military orders, who " The earliest instance on record of at Burgos in 1169, Prescott, Ferdinand popular representation in Castile occurred and habdla, vol. i. p. 19. GO CONSTITUTION OF ARAGON. [Introd. ranked as ecclesiastics ; 2. The Barons, or ricos homhres ; 3. The In- fanzunes, that is, the equestrian order, or knights ; 4, The Deputies of the royal towns. Traces of popular representation occur earlier in the Iiistory of Aragon than in that of any other country ; and we find mention made of the Cortes in 1133. The towns that returned deputies were few ; but Some of them sent as many as ten representatives, and none fewer than four. The Cortes both of Castile and Aragon preserved a control over the public expendi- ture ; and those of Aragon even appointed, during their adjourn- ment, a committee composed of members of the four estates to manage the public revenue, and to support the Justiciary in the discharge of his functions. This last magistrate {el Justicia de Arar/on) was the chief administrator of justice. He had the sole execution of the laws : appeals might be made to him even from the King himself, and he was responsible to nobody but the Cortes. He had, however, a court of assessors, called the Court of Inquisi- tion, composed of seventeen persons chosen by lot from the Cortes, who frequently controlled his decisions. The Justicia was appointed by the King from among the knights, or second order of nobility, never from the ricos homhres. At first he was removable at pleasure; but in 1442 he w^as appointed for life, and could be deposed only b}'- the authority of the Cortes. Catalonia and Valencia also enjoyed free and independent go- vernments, each having its Cortes, composed of three estates. It was not till the reign of Alphonso III. (1285 — 1291) that these two principalities were finall}'- and inseparably united with Aragon. After this period, general Cortes of the three kingdoms were indeed sometimes held ; yet they continued to assemble in separate chambers, though meeting in the same city. Of the commercial greatness of Catalonia, there will be occasion to speak in another part of this work."^ The military orders form so prominent a feature of Spanish institutions, that it will be proper to say a few words respecting them. The Spaniards had three peculiar orders, those of Calatrava, St. lago, and Alcantara, besides the Knights Templars and Knights of St. John, common to them with the rest of Europe. The first two of these were established in the twelfth century; the last was merely a subsequent offshoot from that of Calatrav^. These orders were governed by elective Grand Masters, who enjoyed an almost regal power, and possessed their own fortified towns in different parts of Castile. The Grand-Master of St. lago, especially, « See Book II. Ch. I. Iktkod.] the MILIT.\EY OKDERS. 61 was reckoned next in dignity and power to tlie King. The order could bring into the field 1000 men-at-arms, accompanied, it may be presumed, by the usual number of attendants, and had at its disposal eighty- four commanderies and two hundred priories and benefices. These orders being designed against the Moors, who then held possession of a large part of Spain, had originally a patriotic as well as a religious destination, and were at first very popular among the people. The Knights took the vows of obedience, poverty, and conjugal chastity. The turbulent nobles of Spain, like those of Grermany, carried on private feuds with one another, and sometimes levied war against the King himself. The Aragonese nobles, indeed, by the .Privilege of Union, asserted their constitutional right to confede- rate themselves against the Sovereim in case he violated their laws and immunities, and even to depose him and elect another King if he refused redress. The Privilege of Union was granted by Alfonso HI. in 1287, and in 1347 it was exercised against Peter IV.; but in the following year, Peter having defeated the confederates at Epila, abrogated their dangerous privilege, cut the act which granted it into pieces with his sword, and cancelled or des- troyed all the records in which it was mentioned or con- firmed. It will appear from the preceding description of Spain, that, although she already possessed, in the middle of the fifteenth cen- tury, the elements of political power, she was not yet in a condition to assert that rank in Europe which she afterwards .attained. Castile and Aragon were not yet united ; the Moors still held the Kingdom of Grranada in the south, and their reduction was to form one of the chief glories of the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella. The Kingdom of Portugal, the remaining division of the Spanish peninsula, is not of sufficient importance in European history to claim any lengthened notice."^ Alphonso, or Alonso, Count of Portugal, first assumed the title of King of that country after his victory over the Moors at Ourique in 1139 ; and in 1147 he ac- quired Lisbon through the assistance of some crusaders driven thither by stress of weather. The Kings of Portugal, like those of Spain, were continually engaged in combating the Moors, but their history presents little of importance. The line of Alphonso continued to reign uninterruptedly in Portugal till 1383, when, on the death of King Ferdinand, John I. of Castile, who had married his natural daughter Beatrix and obtained from him a promise of " The chief histories of Portugal are, Historias Portugesas ; De la Clecle, Hist. Manuel de Faria y Sousa, Ejpitoine de las Gen. dePort.; and the Mod. Un. Hist. 62 PORTUGAL. [l NTROD. the Portuguese succession for the issue of the marriage, claimed the throne. But the Portuguese, among whom, like the Moors, the custom prevailed of giving the sons of the concubine equal rights with those of the wife, declared John the Bastard, the illegitimate brother of Ferdinand, to be their King ; and after a civil war of two years' duration, he was with the assistance of England established on the throne, with the title of John I., by the decisive battle of Aljubarota (1385). The war with Castile continued nevertheless several years, till it was concluded by the peace of 1411; by v,^hich Henry III., the son and successor of John I. of Castile, engaged to abandon the pretensions of his mother-in-law Beatrix. John the Bastard thus became the founder of a dynasty which occupied the Portuguese throne till 1580. He married Philippa, daughter of John, Duke of Lancaster (1387), by whom he had a numerous issue. The reign of John, who was an able and energetic sovereign, was distinguished by the maritime enterprises conducted by his constable, Nuno Alvarez Pereira. In 1415, Pereira, accompanied by the King and his three surviving sons, took Ceuta in Africa from the Moors, fortified it, and filled it with a Christian population. John's fourth son, Henry, who obtained the name of "the Naviga- tor," devoted himself entirely to maritime affairs, and the sciences connected with them ; thus giving an impulse to maritime dis- covery, for which the Portuguese became renowned, as there will be occasion to relate in the sequel. John I. was succeeded in 1438 by Alphonso V., who reigned till 1481. In 1433 John had transferred to Lisbon the royal residence, which had previously been at Coimbra. It remains only to notice that group of western nations — namely, France, England, and Burgundy, or the Netherlands, whose position brouo^ht them into such close relations, and too often of a hostile character. It is presumed that the reader has already acquired from other sources "'^ a competent knowledge of their earlier history and constitution down to the close of the middle ages, and therefore no more mil here be said than may be necessary to acquaint him with the posture of their affairs at the period when this narrative commences. '* See for France and Bnrgnncly Hal- history of France and Burgundy are : lam's Middle Ages, chaps, i. and ii. ; for Olivier de la Marche, Mvinoires {\iZo — England, chap, viii., as well as the 1475): Monstrelet, Chroniqucs (1400 — Constitutional History ; and for the gene- 1467); Thomas Basin, ^/s?!, Cnroli VII.; ral state of society in Europe, Mid. Ages, Pasquier, Eechcrchcs de la France ; chap. ix. Barante, Hist, dcs Dues de Buurgogne. The chief authorities for the early Intkod.] FRANCE. TREATY OF TROYES. 63 In 1453, the same year that Constantinople fell before the Turkish arms, the English were at length finally expelled from France. The civil dissensions that had formerly prevailed in that country, fomented by Philip surnamed "the Grood," Duke of Burgundy, facilitated the acquisition of the French crown by Henry V. The lunacy of Charles VI. of France occasioned a struggle for the supreme power between Louis Duke of Orleans, the King's brother, and Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, grand- father of Philip the Grood. On the death of Philip the Bold in 1404, the contest was continued by his son, John sans Peur, or the Fearless, who in 1407 caused the Duke of Orleans to be assassinated at Paris, and openly avowed and justified the deed. A civil war now ensued. France was divided into two parties : the A7magnacs, so called from the Count of Armagnac, father- in-law of the young Duke of Orleans; and the Cf. Philelplii ^i)?s^. p. 19o (eel. *- Hist. Ber.Venet.-^. Ill, aip.Zmkeiseu, 1502). B. ii. S. 377. « Engel, B. iii. S. 349 f. unci Anm. VOL. I. H 98 PEACE BETWEEN VEXICE AND THE TORTE. [Book I. Venetians ceded Scutari and its territory, Kroja, the islands of Lemnos and Negropont, and the highLands of ^laina, and engaged to restore within two months all the places which they had captured during the war. They also agreed to pay the Grand Seignior a yearly sum of 10,000 ducats, in lieu of all customs on Venetian goods imported into Turkish harbours. The Sultan, on his side, restored all the places in the Morea, Albania, and Dalmatia, except those before specified. Although the states of Europe had done little or nothing to assist Venice in her arduous struggle with the Turk, they agreed in abusing the peace which necessity had imposed upon her. While the Venetian commerce was secured by this treaty, that of the Grenoese in the Black Sea had been nearly annihilated during the last few years of the war. In 1475, Caffa, their principal colony, fell into the hands of the Turks, whence Mahomet ex- tended his dominion over the smaller settlements. Although Caffa had capitulated, the Turks, with their habitual disregard of such engagements, carried off 40,000 of the inhabitants ; many of the principal citizens were barbarously tortm-ed and killed, and fifteen hundred of the most promising youths were incorporated in the Janissaries. The peace enabled Mahomet to direct his operations against Hungary and Italy. In 1479 the Turks made dreadful incursions into Sclavonia, Hungary, and Transylvania ; but Paul Kinis, Count of Temesvar, whose name was long a terror to them, and Stephen Bathori, Voyvode of Transylvania, inflicted on them a memorable defeat on the Brotfeld, near Szasz Varos, or Broos (October 13th). An anecdote will show the brutality of these wars. At a supper after the victory, the bodies of the Turks were made to supply the place of tables, and Count Kinis himself danced to the sound of military music, holding a dead Turk between his teeth.''^ This signal defeat put a stop for some time to the Turkish incursions. Mahomet soon after the peace wrested three of the Ionian Islands, St* Maura, Zante, and Cephalonia, from the despot of Arta. This conquest afforded the Sultan an opportunity to display one of those singular caprices in which despotic power alone can indulge. He caused some of the inhabitants to be conveyed to the islands in the Sea of Marmora, where he compelled them to intermarry with Africans, in order that he might have a race of coloured slaves I'** The Turks also made an ineffectual attempt to « Engel, B. iii. S. 366. The Hunga- exhibited to the Hungarian Diet in 1492 rians adopted the Turkish custom of {ib. p. 48). cutting off the heads of their fallen foes. " Cantacusino, ap. Zinkeisen, B. ii. S. Two waggon-loads of Tiirks' heads were 449. Chap. I.] EETROSPECT OF ITALIAN AFFAIRS. 99 « take Ehodes, which was valiantly defended by the knights under their Grrand-Master, Pierre d'Aubusson. The aid afforded to the knights, on this occasion, by Ferdinand of Naples, determined Mahomet to undertake an expedition against that monarch. The state of Italy was favourable to such an attempt ; but, before relating its progress, it will be proper to take a brief review of the history of that country. The treaty of Lodi before mentioned "^^j to which Alphonso, King of Naples, acceded in January 1455, might have secured the peace of Italy, but for that monarch's implacable hatred of Grenoa. The domestic factions of this city, and Alphonso's superiority at sea, compelled the Grenoese to purchase the aid of France by sub- mitting themselves to Charles VII., who invested John, Duke of Anjou, with the government of Grenoa. This appointment of his ancient enemy incited Alphonso to still more vigorous action, and the fall of Grenoa appeared imminent, when she was unexpectedly delivered by the death of the Neapolitan King, June 27th 1458. In spite of some defects, Alphonso must be regarded as one of the greatest and most generous princes of the fifteenth century. He was both wise and courageous, he loved and patronised literature, and he was remarkable for a liberality which not unfrequently degenerated into profusion. His chief defects were his immeasur- able ambition and his unbridled licentiousness. His last amour with a certain Lucretia d' Alagna, the daughter of a Neapolitan gentleman, has been recorded by the good pontiff Pius II., without a word of censure, in the CorriTnentaries written after he was seated in the chair of St. Peter.''^ Alphonso, as we have said in the Introduction, appointed by his will his natural son Ferdinand to be his successor on the throne of Naples ; and, in spite of his illegitimacy, Ferdinand had been recognised by two successive Popes, Eugenius IV. and Nicholas V., as rightful heir. In order to strengthen his son's claim, Al- phonso had restored to the Neapolitan States the right of electing their own King and making their own laws ; and the States, out of gratitude for the recovery of these privileges, had confirmed the title of Ferdinand (1443). Calixtus III., however, who filled the papal chair at the time of Alphonso's death, refused to invest Ferdinand with the sovereignty of Naples, on the pretence that the " Introduction, p. 52. tcUi, called Panhormita, from his birtli- *« Lib. i. p. 27 (ed. Frankf. 1614). place Palermo. This work, entitled !)«'«;« Piiis indeed believed Lucretia to be as et Facta Alphonsi Regis Aragvnia, has chaste as her namesake of antiquity. The been illustrated by the comments of Life of Alphonso has been written by his Piccolomini, or ^neas Sylvius, and has counsellor and secretary, Antonio Eicca- been frequently printed. E 2 100 REVOLT OF THE XEAPOLITAX BAROXS. [Book I. war with Grenoa prevented the forces of Italy from being employed against the Turks ; but in reality, it is said, with the ambitious view of raising one of his nephews, the Duke of Spoleto, to the ^Neapolitan throne. This Pontiff, by name Alphonso Borgia, a native of Valencia in Spain, founded the greatness of the Borgian family, whose name has become synonymous with infamy. In the year of his accession, he bestowed the purple on his nephew Ro- drigo Borgia, afterwards notorious under the title of Alexander VI. as the most mcked and profligate Pontiff that ever polluted the chair of St. Peter. On the news of Alphonso's death, Calixtus published a bull in which he claimed Naples as a fief escheated to the Church ; and he endeavoured to procure the assistance of the Duke of Milan, in order to carry out his views upon that kingdom. But the strong matrimonial connection between the Houses of Naples and Milan — Ferdinand's son Alphonso, Duke of Calabria, having married Sforza's daughter Hippolyta (1456), while at the same time the Duke of ]Milan's third son, Sforza Maria or Sforzino, was betrothed to Ferdinand's daughter, Isabella — as well as poli- tical reasons, induced Sforza to support the cause of the Neapolitan monarch. From the opposition of Calixtus, Ferdinand was soon delivered by the death of that Pontiff, August 6th ; and his suc- cessor, Pius II., acknowledged Ferdinand's claims, exacting however a yearly payment, and the cession of Benevento, Ponte Corvo, and Terracina, which had formerly belonged to the Church. Pius also effected a marriage between his nephew, Antony Piccolomini, and Mary, a natiu-al daughter of Ferdinand's. That monarch's most formidable opponents were the Neapolitan Barons, who led by G-ian Antonio Orsino, Prince of Taranto, the uncle of Ferdinand's own consort Isabella, revolted against him. The malcontents having in vain offered the Crown of Naples to Charles, Count of Viana, eldest son of John II. of Aragon, as well as to John himself, applied to the Duke of Anjou, who was still residing at Grenoa as representative of the French King; and they experienced from him a more favourable reception. The modera- tion of John of Anjou had rendered him popular with the Grenoese ; and when he communicated to their Senate the offer that had been made to him, they voted him a force of ten galleys, three large transports and a subsidy of 60,000 florins. John's father, Rene, who had renounced in his son's favour his claims to the Neapolitan throne, also assisted him with twelve galleys, which had been assembled at Marseilles for the crusade against the Turks, but which the French King now permitted to be employed in the pro- jected enterprise against Naples. Chap. I.] JOHN OF ANJOU IJSTADES NAPLES. 1 01 Ferdinand, who was supported by the Pope and the Duke of Milan, endeavoured to detain John of Anjou at Grenoa by inciting against him the former Doge, Campo Fregoso, who was discontented with the French because they had not rewarded him for his cession of that city. On the 13th of September Campo Fregoso with other exiles attempted to take Grenoa by a nocturnal assault, which however was repulsed, and Campo Fregoso slain. Delivered from this danger, John of Anjou hastened on board his fleet, and on the 5th of October appeared off Naples; which city, as Ferdinand was absent in Calabria, would probably have fallen into his hands, but for the vigilance and courage of Queen Isabella. In all other respects John's enterprise was eminently successful. He was joined by the chief Neapolitan nobles, and Nocera opened its gates to him. The events of the following year (1460) were still more in his favour. He defeated Ferdinand Avith great loss in a battle near the SarnO (July 7th), and that monarch with difficulty escaped to Naples with only twenty troopers. Towards the end of the same month, Ferdinand's generals, Alexander Sforza and the Count of Urbino, were also signally defeated in a bloody and. obstinate battle at S. Fabriano. All the strong places in Campania and the Principato -now surrendered to the Duke of Anjou, who, had he marched directly on Naples, would probably have taken that city, in which there was a large party in his favour. Ferdinand, in this low ebb of his fortunes, is said to have owed the preser- vation of his crown to the great qualities of his consort. Isabella, accompanied by her children, requested contributions for her husband's cause in the streets and public places of Naples; and her fine countenance, her dignified, yet modest and en- gaging, address, proved in most cases irresistible. In the dis- guise of a Franciscan friar she also proceeded to the camp of her uncle, the Prince of Taranto, and besought him that, as he had raised her to a throne, he would permit her to die in pos- session of that dignity. Moved by her entreaties, Orsino adopted a policy which caused the Duke of Anjou to lose the fruits of his victories, and by interposing delays led him to fritter away his strength in small undertakings. From this time the cause of the Duke of Anjou began to decline. In 1461 Ferdinand was assisted by Scanderbeg at the head of 800 horse ; who are said to have been paid by Pope Pius II. out of the money raised by the council of Mantua for a crusade against the Turks. Pius also assisted Ferdinand with his spiritual weapons, threateninor with excommunication all who should favour the cause of Anjou. The loss of Grenoa by the French through the impolitic H 3 102 AFFAIRS OF FLOREXCE. [Book I. conduct of Charles YIL, the death of that monarch and consequent accession of Louis XI., who was little disposed for foreign enter- prises, were also fatal blows to the cause of the Duke of Anjou. Louis even formed an alliance with Francis Sforza, the friend of Ferdinand, and from motives of self-interest, the warmest opponent of French influence in Italy. Duke John was defeated by- Ferdinand in an engagement near Troia, August 18th 1462 ; and in the following year the defection of some of his adherents, and the death of Orsino, by which all the possessions and fortresses of that Prince came into the hands of Ferdinand, determined John to quit Italy. His aged father Kene had indeed come to his aid with a fleet ; but as the French King had abandoned both to their fate, they returned to France (1464), and subsequently enrolled themselves among the enemies of Louis XL About the same time Genoa, with the concurrence of the French monarch, fell under the dominion of the Duke of Milan. The same year (1464) was marked by the death of Pius IL, already related, and that of Cosmo de' Medici. During the last years of his life, Cosmo, debilitated by ill-health, had intrusted the administration of Florence to Luca Pitti ^7, who availed himself of his friend's retirement to promote his own advancement. His rule was harsh and tyrannical, and is said to have been regarded by Cosmo with sorrow. The year after Cosmo's death the Florentines paid a high tribute to his memory by causing the title of " Father of his Country " to be inscribed upon his tomb. His contemporary, Pope Pius IL, who could have been swayed by no motives of self- interest, has left a noble portrait of Cosmo in his Commentaries.*^ It was not so much by the extent of his wealth '*^, as by the appli- cation which he made of it, that Cosmo gained his influence and credit. Far from relying on that pomp and show which are so captivating to the vulgar, his manner of life, both public and private, was of the plainest and most unostentatious kind. He employed his riches, not in dazzling the eyes of his fellow-citizens *' Pitti erected the palace still bearing sums owing to him in those countries ; his name, which, wdth its beautiful gar- and the money advanced by his agent in dens and rich collections of works of art, England to Edward IV. is said to have continues to form one of the chief attrac- supported that monarch on the throne tions of Florence. during the war of the Eoses. Macchiav. *■ Lib. ii. p. 50, ed. Frankf. 1614. Istor. Fior. lib. rii., and Comines, ap, *® His wealth is said to have been so Roscoe, Lorenzo de' Medici, vol. i. p. 65. great, as even to affect the policy of Other authorities, however, state that nations. When Alphonso of Naples Cosmo's capital never exceeded 240,000 leagued himself with the Venetians florins (/^/ 'Eylyi'eT6 re xS-y^ [xeu S-nfioKpaTia, father's death, deemed it prudent to €p7(jj 5e virh rod irpwrov dvZphs dpxh- — travel in disguise, lest some feudal lord Thucyd. ii. 65. through whose territory he passed should ^* It may serve to show the still bar- seize his person in order to_ extort a barous state of manners, that Galeazzo, ransom. Muratori, Annall, t. is. p. 295. who was in France at the time of his B 4 104 DEATH OF TETER DE' MEDICI. [Book I. and were declared enemies of their country ; others were banished, and some were even tortured and put to death. Peter now began to govern dictatorial ly ; and he assumed those airs of princely state which his more prudent and moderate father had carefully avoided. Yet a grand festival was celebrated to thank God tliat the demo- cracy had been preserved ! The Florentine exiles, with the assist- ance of Venice, raised a considerable army, which they placed under the command of Bartholomew Coleone, a famous condottiere. The Florentines also armed, and were assisted wdth troops by Ferdinand of Naples and Galeazzo Sforza. The latter joined the Florentine army with a body of cavalry; but, either through cowardice or inability, proving rather a hindrance than a help, Peter de' Medici invited him to Florence, whilst the Florentine general, Frederick of Montefeltro, Count of Urbino, was instructed to deliver battle in his absence ; and accordingly a bloody but in- decisive engagement took place near LaMolinella, July 25th 1467. Galeazzo, offended by this slight, returned to Milan; and the Venetians were obliged to abandon an enterprise which they had formed against that city in case Coleone should have proved victorious. Pope Paul II., with a view to compose these differences, but without consulting the parties interested, published the terms of an arbitrary peace (February 2nd 1468), in which he appointed Coleone general of a league against the Turks, with an annual subsidy of 100,000 ducats, to be paid rateably by the different states ; and he threatened to excommunicate those who should refuse to accede to the treaty. Venice alone, however, in whose favour it was drawn, could be brought to assent ; and as Milan, Florence and Naples refused to contribute, and answered the threat of excommunication with the counter one of a general council, Paul was induced to retract, and in April published a more moderate and equitable peace, to which all the belligerent states agreed. Peter de' Medici, whose violence is lamented by Macchiavelli, took a fearful vengeance on the families of those who had promoted the war. The short remnant of his life offers little of importance. He expired December 2nd 1469, leaving two sons, Lorenzo and Julian, and two married daughters. Lorenzo, who was now twenty- one years of age, had even in his father's lifetime been intrusted with some share of the public business, and had displayed con- siderable ability. We learn from his own memoirs that on his father's death he was requested by the leading men of Florence to assume the administration, as his father and grandfather had done before him.^^ "^ Ricordi, ap. Roscoe, Life of Lorenzo de' Medici, vol. i. Aj^p. p. 348. Chap. I.] ELECTION OF POPE SIXTUS IV. 105 On July 26th 1471, Pope Paul IL expired of apoplexy. Vanity and selfishness were his chief characteristics. He was only forty- eight years of age at the time of his elevation to the tiara, and being remarkably handsome, proposed to take the title of Formoso ; a folly from which it was difficult to dissuade him. Paul was also suspicious and cruel, and rendered himself notorious by his per- secution of learned men. He regarded the members of the Eoman Academy, established towards the close of his pontificate by Pomponio Leto, Platina, and other distinguished men, as enemies who were plotting against his own safety and the peace of the Church ; and under pretence that they were heretics or atheists, caused several of them to be apprehended and subjected to the torture, at which he himself presided. Agostino Campano died under the hands of his officers ; yet neither plot nor heresy could be discovered. The impunity with which the Popes escaped the councils held in the early part of the fifteenth century, was well fitted to inspire them with a reckless contempt for public opinion ; and from that period down to the Eeformation, it would be difficult to parallel among temporal princes the ambitious, wicked, and profligate lives of many of the Eoman Pontiffs. Among these, Francesco della Eovere, who succeeded Paul II. with the title of Sixtus IV., was not the least notorious. Born at Savona, of an obscure family, Sixtus raised his nephews, and his sons who passed for nephews, to the highest dignities in Church and State, and sacrificed for their aggrandisement the peace of Italy and the cause of Christendom against the Turks. Of his two nephews, Julian and Leonard della Eovere, the former, afterwards Pope Julius II., was raised to the purple in the second year of his uncle's pontificate, while Leonard was married to an illegitimate daughter of King Ferdinand of Naples. Peter and Jerome Eiario, who passed for the sons of Sixtus's sister, were commonly supposed to be his own. Peter Eiario, bred as a low Franciscan friar, became, in a few months, and at the age of twenty-six, Cardinal of San Sisto, Patriarch of Constantinople, and Archbishop of Florence ; but in a few years debauchery put an end to his life (1474). For Jerome Eiario was obtained the county of Imola from the family of Manfredi, and he was married to Catherine Sforza, a natural daughter of the Duke of Milan. Italy was at that period in the highest bloom of material pro- sperity, destined soon to wither through the decay of Genoese and Venetian commerce, and the losses inflicted on the Church by the Eeformation. But its manners, though cultivated, were stained 106 ASSASSIXATION OF GALEAZZO SFORZA. [Book I. with a shameless libertinism, and many of its princes, as well as its Popes, were models of tyranny and profligacy. Among such princes, Galeazzo Maria, Duke of Milan, was conspicuous. Ga- leazzo was not altogether devoid of the talent which had dis- tinguished his father; he possessed some eloquence, and his manners were elegant and dignified. But he was a tyrant after the old Greek and Roman type. Not content with the death of his victims, he buried them alive, or amused himself with their tortures : he not only dishonoured the wives and daughters of the noblest families, but sought a further gratification in acquainting husbands and parents with their shame. Among those whom he had injured, two men of nobler race than himself. Carlo Visconti and Girolamo Olgiati, with Lampugnano, a patrician friend, ani- mated by the exhortations of Colas de' Montani, a distinguished scholar, resolved to rid the world of such a monster, and to esta- blish a republic at Milan. The confederates agreed to execute their plot during the celebration of an annual festival in the cathedral, on the 26th of December 1476. The Court, with its attendants and guards, being assembled in the cathedral, Lampu- gnano approached the Duke as if to ask a favour, and saluting him with his left hand, stabbed him twice or thrice with the other ; while Visconti and Olgiati, pretending to hasten to Galeazzo's as- sistance, completed the work which their companion had begun. But to their shouts for a republic not a voice replied. Lampugnano was cut down in the church ; his confederates escaped for the moment, but were discovered a few days after. Visconti was cut to pieces at the time of his captin-e ; Olgiati was reserved for an execution preceded by dreadful tortures, during which he made his political confession, founded on the maxims of the ancients. As John Galeazzo, the son and successor of the murdered Duke, was a child of eight years, his guardianship, as well as the regency, was assumed by his mother. Bona, or Bonne, of Savoy, sister-in-law of Louis XL Bonne entrusted the conduct of affairs to Ciecco Simonetta, brother of the historian, who had been in the service of Francis Sforza. In May 1477, four of Galeazzo Maria's brothers, namely, Sforza, Duke of Bari, Ludovico, or Louis, surnamed II Moro, from a mother's mole, Ottaviano, and Ascanio, took up arms and attempted to seize the government. Their plan was frustrated by Simonetta ; Ottaviano was drowned in attempting to escape by fording the Adda ; the other three brothers were captured and banished. A fifth, the eldest, Philip, acquiesced in the regency of Bonne. Italy was at this time divided into two great parties or leagues. Chap. I.] LEAGUES OF NOETH AN J) SOUTH ITALY. 107 So intimate a connection, cemented by the marriage already men- tioned, had been formed between Sixtus IV. and Ferdinand of Naples, as excited the jealousy and suspicion of the northern states of Italy ; and Lorenzo de' Medici, alarmed by the circumstance that Frederick of Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, who had com- monly fought in the service of Florence, had joined the Pope and Ferdinand, had, towards the end of 1474, succeeded in form- ing a counter-league with Venice and Milan. The Venetians were offended with Sixtus because he had diverted to his own purposes the sums which he had raised under pretence of a cru- sade, and left them to struggle unassisted with the Turks; and with Ferdinand, because he had opposed their design of obtaining possession of Cyprus, by availing themselves of the dissensions in that island. For some years, however, the peace of Italy remained undis- turbed, till the affairs of Florence afforded Sixtus IV. an oppor- tunity to gratify his enmity against the House of Medici, excited by the protection which Lorenzo had extended to Niccolo Vitelli, Lord of Castello ; thus frustrating the Pope's designs on that place in favom- of his nephew, Jerome Riario. Though the forms of a republic were still observed, Lorenzo and Julian reigned almost • despotically at Florence. But they had neither the application nor the abilities of their grandfather ; their commercial speculations had been unfortunate, and they had abused their power by applying the public money to cover their losses. This state of their affairs had inspired their enemies with the hope of overthrowing them. Among these enemies were their com- mercial rivals, the ancient family of the Pazzi. Sixtus had gratified his hatred of the Medici by transferring to Francesco Pazzi, who had established a bank at Rome, the office of treasurer of the Holy See. In 1478, Francesco, with the connivance of the Pope and the active co-operation of his nephew, formed that plot against the Medici, known as the " Conspiracy of the Pazzi ; " ^^ and Sixtus was base enough to make his great-nephew, Raphael Riario, a mere youth of eighteen, who was studying at Pisa, an instrument in the plot. Raphael was made a cardinal, and sent to Florence as legate, in order that his house might become the rendezvous of the conspirators. The plan was to assassinate Julian and Lorenzo, and then to seize the government. After one or two failures, it was resolved to perpetrate the murders in the cathedral ^^ An account of this conspiracy has jurationis Pactiana Commentarium in been written .by Politian, the friend and Eoscoe's Life vf Lorenzo, vol. i. App. jproUge of the JMedici. See the Con- ixi. 108 CONSPIRACY OF THE PAZZI. [Book I. itself, during the celebration of a solemn high mass on the 26th of April 1478 ; and the elevation of the Host was to be the signal for the deed of blood. But here an unexpected difficulty arose. The soldier who had undertaken to despatch Lorenzo, scrupled to commit the act at the very altar of God, although it had been sanctioned by Salviati, Archbishop of Pisa, as well as by Cardinal Eiario ; and so common was this feeling among the hravi of the time, that it was found necessary to secure the services of two priests ; the only order of men, according to an observation of the historian Gralli, sufficiently at ease inside a church to make it the scene of such a crime.^^ The cathedral was filled with worshippers or spectators, but Julian was not among them. Francesco Pazzi and Bernardo Bandini repaired to his house, accompanied him to the church with every mark of friendship, and when the bell announced the elevation of the Host, despatched him with their daggers. The priests who were to murder Lorenzo were either less adroit or determined than their confederates, or Lorenzo was more wary or more active than his brother. He succeeded in gaining the sacristy with only a slight wound in the neck ; and, bolting the door, secured himself till some friends came to the rescue. Meanwhile the Archbishop Salviati and his associates had gone to the Public Palace to seize the magistrates ; but the Gronfalouiere Petrucci, and the Priors, assisted by their servants, made a stout resistance, till the populace, who mostly favoured the Medici, came to their aid. The attempt of Pazzi's uncle to rouse the people, who, parading the town with a body of soldiers, called on them to assert their liberty, utterly failed. He was only answ^ered with shouts of Palle ! Palle I the rallying cry of the Medici.^^ When the magistrates learned the death of Julian, and the attempt upon Lorenzo, their indignation knew no bounds. Salviati, who had been secured during the tumult, was immediately hanged in his archiepiscopal robes outside a window of the Palace, and by his side Francesco Pazzi, who had also been seized. The populace executed summary justice on seventy persons of distinction belonging to the Pazzi party, including the two priestly assassins ; and 200 persons more were subsequently put to death. Thus terminated a con- spiracy whose nature, the persons engaged in it, and the place of its execution, all tend to show, as a modern writer ^^ has observed, the practical atheism of the times. Many European Sovereigns manifested on this occasion their ^* Ap. Sisraondi, Bep. Ital. ch. Ixxxv. borne in the escutcheon of the Medici. ^ From the ;palle d'oro, or golden balls, ^ Voltaire, Essai sur les j\I<£urs. Chap. I.] SIXTUS IV. ATTACKS THE FLOREXTIXES. 109 sympathy witli Lorenzo. Louis XL, especially, expressed in a letter to him the greatest indignation at the Pope's conduct; he even threatened to cite Sixtus before a general council, and to stop the annates ; and he sent Philip de Comines to Florence to assure Lorenzo of his protection. Even Mahomet 11. showed a friendly feeling towards the Florentine ruler by delivering up Bandini, who had sought refuge at Constantinople. But the Pope, supported by King Ferdinand, and impelled by the ambition of his nephew, displayed the most cynical contempt for public opinion. He ful- minated acrainst the Florentines the censures of the Church for hanging an Archbishop and imprisoning a Cardinal, his great- nephew, Raphael ; he placed them under an interdict, annulled their alliances, and forbade all military men to enter into their service. By these steps his spiritual weapons were pressed into the support of the carnal ones, which he also adopted. In conjunction with King Ferdinand he despatched an army into Tuscany ; and, to prevent the Florentines from being succoured by Milan, he created employment for the forces of the Regent Bonne by exciting an insurrection at Grenoa, which, however, was only partially suc- cessful. At the instigation of Sixtus, Prosper Adorno, who governed Genoa for the Regent, threw off his allegiance, and defeated a Milanese army in the pass of the Bochetta, August 7th 1478. But the success of Adorno w^as frustrated by raising up against him a rival, Battista Fregoso, who, with the help of Ibletto de' Fieschi and his party, drove out Adorno, and made himself Doge. The Riviera di Levante, however, still remained in the hands of Adorno. The Pope also excited the Swiss to hostilities against Milan, and this step was combined with a profitable speculation. A board of priests was established in Switzerland to decide cases of conscience, as well as to sell indulgences, which were despatched thither in great abundance, and proved a very marketable commodity among a people who hired themselves out to slay and plunder ; insomuch that Sixtus himself was astonished at the large sums which he drew from so poor a country. The Papal Legate excited the animosity of the Swiss against the Milanese Government on the subject of a chestnut w^ood in the Val Levantina, on the southern side of the St. Gothard, which had been made over to the canton of Uri by Galeazzo Maria in 1466, by a treaty called the Capitulate of Milan.^"^ The wood had remained in dispute, and towards the close of 1478 the men of Uri, assisted by other cantons, carried their devastations as far as Bellinzona. Hostilities were con- " Planta, Helvetic Confederacy, yoI. ii. p. 204. 110 REVOLUTIOX AT MIL AX. [Book I. tinued with varied success till Louis XI. succeeded in mediatinjj a peace. Meanwhile the combined Papal and Neapolitan armies had entered Tuscany, the former under the command of the Duke of Urbino, while that of Ferdinand was led by his son and heir, Alphonso Duke of Calabria. The Pope demanded that Lorenzo de' Medici should be surrendered into his hands. As the Floren- tines had at first neither general nor army, the allies succeeded in taking several places ; but Lorenzo at length managed to procure the services of Hercules, Dnke of Ferrara, as well as of Robert Malatesta, Lord of Pesaro, Giovanni Bentivoglio of Bologna, and other experienced captains ; and the Florentine cause was proceed- ing pretty favourably in 1479, when it received a severe shock by a revolution that occurred at Milan. Louis the Moor, paternal uncle of the young Duke of Milan, having formed an alliance with San Severino, a celebrated condottiere, appeared suddenly before the Milanese town of Tortona (August 10th), and was admitted by the Grovernor ; whence marching upon Milan, he found the same reception. The Duchess Bonne was now advised to re- concile herself with Louis; but that Prince, in whose hands the chief fortresses had been placed, soon displayed his true colours. Three days after entering Milan, he caused Simonetta to be con- fined in the Castle of Pavia, where he was subjected to a trial accompanied with dreadful tortures, and in the following year he was beheaded. Louis then caused the majority of John Grale- azzo, who was only twelve years of age, to be proclaimed, in order that he himself might reign in his nephew's name, and Bonne retired to Abbiate Grosso. This revolution deprived Lorenzo de' Medici of the alliance of Milan, as the new Regent was on good terms with the King of Naples, .who restored to him his brother's Duchy of Bari. The Florentines were also alarmed at the defeat of their army by the Duke of Calabria at Poggio Imperiale ; and even the friends and partisans of Lorenzo threatened him with desertion. In this crisis of his fortunes, Lorenzo adopted the bold step of proceeding in person to the Court of the treacherous Ferdinand ; where by his talents, address, and eloquence, he made such an impression on that monarch that he succeeded in effecting not only a peace but a league with him (March 1480). This clandestine treaty made the Venetians as angry with Lorenzo as the Pope was with King Ferdinand, and they found no difficulty in persuading Sixtus to form a league with themselves ; of which his nephew, Jerome Riario, Count of Imola, was appointed Captain-General. Jerome Chap. I.] THE TURKS IXYADE APULIA. Ill now diverted his arms from Tuscany into Eomagna, drove the noble House of Ordelaffi from Forli, and was invested by Sixtus with the Lordship of that city. Such was the state of Italy when Mahomet II. determined on the expedition before alluded to against Ferdinand of Naples, in revenge for the aid which he had given to the Knights of Rhodes. It is admitted by the Venetian historians that their Republic, with the view of ruining Ferdinand, not only made the peace already mentioned with the Pope, but also sent ambassadors to the Grand Seignior to incite him to invade Ferdinand's dominions, by repre- senting to him that he was entitled to Brindisi, Taranto, and Otranto, as colonies formerly belonging to the Byzantine Empire : though it is probable that they did not communicate to Sixtus the step which they had taken. ^^ The landing of the Turks in Apulia induced the Pope to pardon the Florentines and reconcile them with the Church. Twelve of the leading citizens of Florence were despatched to Rome, where they were compelled to make the most abject submissions, and to receive at the hands of the Pope the flogging usually inflicted on such occasions ; and by way of penance the Florentines were ordered to fit out fifteen galleys against the Turks. Notwithstanding the peace between King Ferdinand and Lorenzo de' Medici, the Neapolitan army, under the Duke of Calabria, was still in Tuscany, when in August 1480, the Turks, under Keduk Achmet, Pasha of Vallona, effected a landing in Apulia. They took Otranto, put the greater part of the inha- bitants to death, sawed the Commandant and the Archbishop in half, and committed many other atrocities. They also attacked Taranto, Brindisi, and Lecce; but the approach of the Duke of Calabria compelled them to re-embark, leaving, however, a garrison of 8000 men in Otranto. The Pope, alarmed by the Turkish invasion and the menacing demands of King Ferdinand, who threatened that if he was not immediately assisted, he would treat with the invaders, and faci- litate their march to Rome, formed a league with Milan, Ferrara, G-enoa, and Florence ^^ ; and in order to provide more speedy succour, he sent his own plate, as well as that of some of the churches, to the mint. Ferdinand also received a few troops from his son-in-law, King Matthias of Hungary, and from Ferdinand of Aragon. The Venetians, on the other hand, assisted the Turks to *8 See Navagiero, Stor. Venet. in Mura- de Venise, Ht. xviii. §§ 3, 4. tori, Ital. Ecr. SS. t. xxiii. p. 1165; 8a- *^ See the Bulls in Raynaldus, t. x. nuto, ibid. xxii. p. 1213. Cf. Daru, Hist. p. 610 sq. 112 DEATH OF MAHOMET II. [Book I. victual Otranto. In 1481 the Turks made a fresh attempt on the Terra di Otranto, but could not penetrate the lines of the Duke of Calabria; and as the Neapolitan fleet was superior at sea, the garrison of Otranto began to feel the approach of famine. The unexpected news of Mahomet's death added to their discourage- ment, and on the 10th of September they capitulated. The Duke of Calabria, following their own example, violated the capitulation, and having captured some of the Turks after they had set sail, compelled them to serve in the army and in the galleys. Mahomet's death took place May 3rd 1481, in his camp near Grebise, while on his way to Scutari; and with him expired his magnificent projects, which amounted to nothing less than the entire extinction of the Christian name. He was fifty-one years of age, of which he had reigned thirty. Possessing some of the qualities of a great and noble nature, he was nevertheless the slave of passion and caprice, which often betrayed him into acts of the basest perfidy and most revolting inhumanity. He was, perhaps, the greatest conqueror of his martial race ; yet not a mere destroyer, for he could also construct and reorganise, as appears from the laws which he prescribed for his own state, and from the manner in which he preserved and adorned Constantinople. Having thus brought down the conquests of the Turks and the affairs of Italy to the death of Mahomet II., we shall now direct our attention awhile to the nations of Western Europe. Chap, n.] THE DAUPHIX LOUIS IX BRABAXT. 113 CHAPTER 11. After the expulsion of the English from France, the remainder of Charles VII.'s reign affords few events of importance, besides his quarrel with his son, the Dauphin Louis, and the flight of the latter to the Court of Burgundy. Louis, after his banishment into Dauphine^, displayed in the government of that province, in a manner remarkable in so youthful a prince, the same principles which afterwards guided his conduct as King of France. He cultivated the friendship of the people, and endeavoured to depress the nobles, whom he forbade to exercise the right of private war ; tie introduced many reforms into the administration of the pro- vince, which gave it the air of a little kingdom ; he established a parliament at Grrenoble and a university at Valence ; he coined money bearing his own image and superscription ; he raised a considerable army, and he negotiated with foreign princes on the footing of an independent sovereign. Against his father he waged open war. The hatred and jealousy between Charles VII. and his heir went on increasinof, and in 1456 Charles resolved on reducincr his rebellious son, and bringing Dauphin e under the power of the Crown. Louis felt that, from the want of gens cVarines, he could bring no force into the field able to cope with his father's^, and under pretence of joining the expedition which the Duke of Bur- gundy talked of preparing against the Turks, he fled to the Court of that Sovereign, where he met with a magnificent reception. Philip, however, would offer nothing but his mediation ; and he even made a sort of apology to Charles VII. for receiving Louis, protesting that he meant only *the good both of father and son. But all negotiations proved unavailing, and Louis remained in Brabant, where he was treated with regal magnificence : a residence was assigned him at Genappe, near Nivelle, with a monthly pension of 2500 livres; and it was here that, to amuse his leisure hours, the Gent nouvelhs Nouvelles were composed, in imitation of the Decameron of Boccaccio. Charles VII. was accustomed to say ^ See above, p. 72. ^ See his letter, ap. Micfielet, Hist, clc France, t. viii. p. 99. VOL. I. I 114 CHARACTER OF LOUIS. [Rook I. that the Duke was sheltering the fox that would at last devour his hens. The residence of Louis at the Court of Burgundy afforded him, indeed, ample opportunity to observe all the weak points of his future enemy, and the foundation was now laid of that antipathy between the heirs of Burgundy and France, which afterwards proved of so much political importance. No characters could well be more dissimilar than those of the two young princes. That of Louis offers the picture of a personage not often seen in the world — a royal cynic. In those days of pomp and magnificence, which, as we have seen, were pre-eminently cultivated at the Belgian Court, Louis felt and displayed a profound contempt for all the trap- pings of state, and for everything that savoured of chivalry. In public conferences and assemblies, where the nobility and crown vassals vied with one another in all the splendour of silk and velvet, gold and precious stones, Louis appeared in a short coat, an old doublet of grey fustian, and a scurvy felt hat. Such a temper was naturally accompanied with a turn for irony and raillery. Louis took no pride in his rank and station ; the only thing on which he piqued himself was, being more dexterous and able than others. Yet his simple, or rather mean, way of life, did not arise from the love of hoarding, but from the desire of employing the money which he saved in undertakings that might be useful to his interests. Ex- pediency was his only rule ; and throughout his life he preferred diplomacy to arms. In disposition he was sly and dissembling, also cruel where he deemed it necessary for his purpose. But there was a singular, and apparently incongruous, trait, in the character of this hard-hearted man of the w^orld — he was weakly superstitious: not according to the superstition of his age, which delighted in the splendour of public worship, in magnificent religious founda- tions, and in the glorification of the clergy, but of a superstition trivial, debasing, centering wholly in himself. He cared little for the precepts of religion, and delighted in humiliating the clergy ; yet he constantly wore round his neck a huge wooden paternoster. In short, he was directly opposed to the spirit of the middle ages, which it seemed to be his mission to destroy. Such a temperament had led the Dauphin to hate and despise his father, the trifling, dissipated, extravagant Charles, and it now set him against the Count of Charolais, the son and heir of Philip, afterwards known as Charles the Bold. That young prince, though sedate and devout, was haughty, imperious, obstinate, and in- flexible; a great admirer of that ancient chivalry which Louis so much despised, and finding his chief amusement in reading books relating to it. War was his favourite jDassion, and he de- Chap. II.] DAUPHIXE UXJTED TO FRAXCE. 115 lighted in feats of arms and in bodily exercises. Like Louis, he was at variance with his father, being displeased with the favour shown by Philip to his ministers, the Crois ; and on this sub- ject a violent scene took place in 1457, when the old Duke was so enraged ae to draw his sword. In pursuance of his habitual policy with regard to France, Philip the Grood had compelled his son to marry a French Princess, Isabella of Bourbon, though the Count of Charolais's own views were directed towards a daucrhter of Richard, Duke of York ; a connection which might have afforded him a prospect of the English throne. After the flight of Louis, Charles VII. took possession of Dauphine, which was now finally reunited to the French monarchy, and never again administered as an independent sovereignty.^ Charles did not feel himself strong enough to make war upon the Duke of Burgundy, but jealousy and hatred were rankling in his breast ; he took every occasion to thwart Philip's interests, and affected to treat him with a hauteur which must have been very galling to " the great Duke of the West." During the remainder of his reign Charles suffered no further se- rious disquietude from the English. A ray of glory might have been imparted to his declining days, had he known how to use the oppor- tunity which fortune threw in his way, by the making over to him of the sovereignty of Genoa by the Doge Campo Fregoso in 1458 ; when Charles, as already related, made the Duke of Anjou Gro- vernor of that city. But the ill policy of the French King soon proved fatal to his dominion at Grenoa. During the wars of the Roses in England, Charles naturally sided with ^Margaret of Anjou and the House of Lancaster, while the cause of York was espoused by the Duke of Burgundy. Charles was unreasonable enough to insist that the Genoese should aid Margaret with a fleet ; and urged them to spend their blood and treasure, while he husbanded his own, in a cause to which they were perfectly indifferent. The anger of the Genoese was roused by this injustice ; they rose and expelled the French Governor and garrison (March 9th, 1461); and an army which Charles despatched against them in the follow- ing July was utterly defeated. Towards the end of his life, Charles VII. seems to have enter- tained the project of disinheriting the rebellious Louis, and leaving the crown to his second son, Charles, a purpose from which he is said to have been diverted by the councils of Pope Pius II.'' His last days were passed in an alternation between a wretched listless- ^ Sisraondi, Hist, des Frangais, t. xiy. p. 3. * Raynaldus, anno 1461, t. x. p. 282. I 2 116 ACCESSION OF LOUIS XI, [Book. I. ness and those sensual pleasures which hastened his end. At last he fell into so deep a state of dejection as to fancy that all the world, and especially his son, the Daupliin, were engaged in a leagfie to poison him ; and obstinately refusing all sustenance, he literally died of starvation, July 22nd 1461. The Dauphin, now Louis XL, was still at the Court of Burgundy when his father expired.'' . With his characteristic dislike of pomp and magnificence, he declined Philip the Good's offer to escort him into France with a numerous retinue of knights ; and he set off with only a few attendants to take possession of his new kingdom. The contrast between the two sovereigns was strikingly displayed at Louis' coronation, which took place shortly afterwards at Kheims. . The Duke of Burgundy appeared there with a splendour worthy of an Emperor ; whilst the French King, as he rode before in mean and shabby attire, resembled some valet sent to announce the approach of the Duke. The latter's retinue, both men and horses, were almost buried under the weight of rich velvets adorned with jewels and massy golden chains ; the very beasts of burthen had velvet housings embroidered with the Duke's arms, and silver bells tinkled on their necks. One hundred and forty superb chariots, over which floated Philip's banners, conveyed his gold and silver plate, the money that was to be thrown, the wine that was to be distributed, to the populace ; while fat Flemish bullocks and small sheep of the Ardennes, destined to supply the banquets, closed the procession. The King, on the other hand, in his ostentatious poverty, assumed a corresponding air of humble devotion. He was constantly on his knees; he could not be raised from them when he received the sainte ampoule, or when the Duke of Burgundy, as premier Peer of France, put the crown upon his head. Yet amidst all this affected humility, Louis' penetrating glance, the ironical smile that played about his lips, betrayed his true character to the intelligent observer. After the coronation, magnificent tournaments were celebrated at Paris, at one of which Louis contrived an exhibition that at once gratified his cynicism, and gave presage of what he was meditatincf asrainst the desfenerate feudal lords. After the Count of Charolais and the rest of the nobles had jousted, and jDaraded before the spectators their splendid accoutrements, their jewellery and their plumes, a strange champion, grotesquely attired, as well as his horse, in the skins of wild beasts, suddenly entered the lists, and * Louis' first act was to arrest the gundy ^"ith a safe-conduct to treat with Duke of Somerset, who had entered Bur- the Duke. Martin, t. yi. p. 522. Chap. II.] HIS FIRST ACTS. 117 dismounted one after another all those gorgeous knights; while the King, hidden behind some Parisian ladies, quietly enjoyed the spectacle from a window. He had selected and handsomely paid a tall and vigorous Gendarme, who, mounted on a strong and fiery steed, overthrew all who ventured to oppose him. Louis' first acts foreshowed the policy of his future reign — to lower the aristocracy, the church, and ever3rthing that could offer a counterpoise to the royal authority. After the coronation ban- quet, Philip the Grood had knelt down before him and solicited a pardon for all who had offended him during his father's life ; and Louis, who could hardly refuse the first request of his benefactor, promised compliance, mth certain exceptions. But he did not observe even this qualified promise, and Philip foretold the resist- ance of the persecuted nobles. The way in which Louis received the addresses of the clerg-v, was in the highest deo^ree rude and un- mannerly. He stopped the Archbishop of Eheims, who was also Chancellor of France, at the first word ; and his reception of the celebrated Cardinal Bessarion, whom the Pope had sent to com- pliment him, was still worse. The learned Byzantine had prepared a long and somewhat pedantic speech ; but the King cut him short with a line from the Latin grammar : Barbara Grceca genus re- tinent quod habere solebanti ^ On the other hand, he despatched letters to his "good towns," calling on the inhabitants to hold tnem well for the King — that is, against the governors, whom he suspected. These demonstrations did not remain mere idle words, but were soon followed up with corresponding acts. In order to curtail the jurisdiction of the Parliaments of Paris and Toulouse, he created that of Bordeaux ; he established at Bourges a rival uni- versity to that of Paris, which intercepted the students of the south ; and he published several ordinances respecting ecclesiastical matters, claiming the disposal of benefices, and forbidding all appeals to the Pope. One of the most remarkable of these was the ordinance of July 20th 1463, commanding the clergy to make within a year a return of all church property, "in order that they may no longer encroach on our signorial rights, nor on those of our vassals." He banished the papal collectors, and seized the temporalities of two or three cardinals ; among them, those of the Cardinal of Avignon, one of the richest of pluralists, from whom he obtained the revenues of the bishoprics of Carcassone and Uzes, of the abbey of St. John d'Angely, and several others.^ In order to degrade the aristocracy, Louis elevated farmers and « Michelet, Hist, de France, t. yiii. p. 206. ' Bid. p. 185 sqq. I 3 118 DUCHY OF BRITTANY. [Book I. lawyers to the rank of nobles. But his main efforts were directed aofainst the holders of the larere French fiefs, several of whom might be regarded as rivals to the Crown. After Burgundy, the principal of these was the Duke of Brittany, whose fief was dis- similar to those of the rest of France. There prevailed in Brittany a sort of clanship somewhat analogous to that of the Scotch High- lands ; the Duke styled himself Duke " by the grace of God ; " he spoke of his royal and ducal powers, and wore a crown instead of the ducal hat. The pretensions of the Dukes of Brittany to inde- pendence had been favoured by the long struggle between France and England, and the question of homage to the Crown of France had been renewed at the accession of each Duke. The celebrated constable. Count Eichemont, who, by the somewhat tragical death of his three nephews, succeeded to the Duchy of Brittany in 1457, with the title of Arthur III., had done only simijle homage : that is, he neither took off his belt nor bent his knee, but standing, and girt with his sword, he placed his hands between those of Charles VIL, and pronounced the accustomed formula, which, however, was re- ceived with reservation by the French monarch. The latter claimed a liege homage, which would have obliged the Duke to follow his banner in war, and to sit in his courts of justice; in short, to be a peer of France, a title by which the Dukes of Brit- tany would have thought themselves degraded. The question therefore was not one merely of rank and honour : it involved the more substantial points of feudal services and payments, as also what were called the droits regaliens, or the privilege of appointing to bishoprics and receiving the first fruits during vacancies. At the accession of Louis XI., Brittany was held by Duke Francis IL, the nephew of Eichemont, who demurred to the King's demand of formal liege homage ; and, in order to fortify himself against any attempts at compulsion, he contracted an alliance with the Duke of Normandy. The latter duchy, by a policy which it is difficult to explain, had been conferred by Louis on Count Charolais, together with a revenue of 36,000 livres and the Hotel de Nesle at Paris. Louis can hardly be suspected of gi'atitude. One motive might have been that Charolais was at variance with his father ; or Normandy might have been considered more easy to reduce if placed in the hands of a sort of foreign sovereign. Be this as it ma}^, Louis, with his usual caution and foresight, did not immediately resort to open violence against the Duke of Brittany, but first of all proceeded to place the kingdom in such a state as might enable him to enforce his demands with safety. He first directed his views to the south, and, in an expedition which he Chap. II.] TRUCE OF HESDIN. 119 undertook in 1462, he recovered Eousillon from the Kino- of Aragon, and assigned it to the Count de Foix. This donation was accompanied with other acts calculated to make him popular among his subjects in those parts. Thus, he exempted Dauphine from the game laws, and granted to Toulouse, which had suffered from a great fire, an exemption from taxes for a century. A little afterwards he renewed his alliance with the Swiss, or Ligues de la Haute Allemagne, and with Francis Sforza, Duke of ]Milan, to whom, as we have said, he abandoned all the French claims on Grenoa and Savona, with the reservation of the sovereignty. But what lay nearest his heart was the recovery of the towns on the Somme, which had been pledged to the Duke of Burgundy, and by which that potentate might have opened to the English the road to Pa,ris. By the Treaty of Arras, Louis was entitled to repurchase these towns ; but he seems to have promised Count Charolais that he would not do so duringr the lifetime of the latter's father. He preferred, however, that his money should go into the hands of Philip's favourites, the Crois, rather than into those of his heir ; and Charolais protested in vain. Thus, in October 1463, the towns of St. Quentin, Peronne, Amiens, Abbeville, in short, all those on the Somme and in Picardy, were reannexed to the Crown of France ; but Orchies, Douay, and Lille, which had been pledged at an earlier period, remained in the hands of the Duke of Burgundy. In order to raise the necessary sum of 400,000 crowns, the King, besides taxing his towns, also laid his hands on the sacred deposit in Xotre Dame, the money of suitors, widows, and pupils placed there by the Parliament of Paris. Another measure of precaution was the truce which he concluded with Edward IV. at Hesdin (October 27th, 1463). This monarch had mounted the throne only a few months before Louis ; but the wars of the Eoses still continued in England. Soon after his accession, Louis had lent some assist- ance to Henry VI. ; and, on the other hand, a large naval expe- dition, undef the command of the Earl of Warwick, had been fitted out against France in 1462 ; but Warwick had contented himself with makinor a triflinor descent at Brest.® After these precautions Louis prepared to strike a blow against the Duke of Brittany, who on his side had not been improvident or idle. He had confirmed his alliance mth Count Charolais, as Duke of Normandy (March 1464); he was negotiating with 8 Michelet {Histoire de France, t. viii. that not a word of all this is to be found p. 146) insinuates that Wanvick had alrea- in Lingard_ or Tui-ner. We shall return dy been bovght by Louis ; and observes, to this subject further on. I 4 120 MEASURES AGAIXST BRITTAXY. [Book I. Edward IV., to whom he promised to transfer the homage of Brittany ; and he entered into a league with the malcontent Dukes of Bourbon and Berry, and with John of Anjou, Duke of Lorraine and Bar, son of Rene, titular King of Naples. It being im- portant for Louis to crush so dangerous a vassal, he caused an army to assemble gradually and secretly on the frontiers of Brit- tany ; and he then announced to Francis II. that he would no longer be permitted to style himself Duke " by the grace of God," nor to exercise the prerogatives of a Sovereign Prince. The Duke of Brittany did not venture on a direct refusal of these commands ; but he alleged the necessity of consulting his States, and the whole matter was referred to an assembly to meet at Chinon in Sepjtember, where nothing was concluded. Louis knew that his policy had excited the distrust and hatred of the French nobility, and that a great confederacy was organis- ing against him. His dissembling yet decisive character inspired the nobles with fear ; and De Breze concentrated this feeling in an epigram, when he remarked that the King's horse did not carry him alone, but all his council. Not that Louis repelled advice ; on the contrary, he gave everybody an attentive hearing ; but ended by deciding for himself. The lurking discontent wanted only an occasion to explode, w^hich was soon afforded by a hasty step of the King's. Louis was aware that Eomille, Vice-Chancellor of Brittany, was one of the chief agents in hatching the confederacy against him ; that he was Accustomed to travel about disguised as a monk, and was now at Gorcum, in Holland, with the Count of Charolais. The King, therefore, resolved to seize him and his papers, and it is said the Count of Charolais also ; and he despatched thither the Bastard of Eubempre, a notoriously bold and desperate character, in a smuggling vessel ; but Rubempre's appearance in the streets of Gorcum excited suspicion, and he was apprehended. The Duke of Burgundy w^as informed that Louis, guided by certain astrologers, who had foretold the Duke's ap- proaching death, had resolved on kidnapping his successor ; and the king's known addiction to astrology lent a colour to the charge. To clear his honour the King sent an embassy to the Court of Philip, consisting of the Count d'Eu, the Archbishop of Narbonne, and the Chancellor, Pierre de Morvilliers. The last discharged his mission with insolence. He reproached the Count of Charolais with his connection with the Duke of Brittany, demanded that Rubempre should be released, and that Olivier de la Marched The author of the contemporary Comines begin, who was then in the Memoirs. It is at the period of this service of the Duke of Burgundy, but embassy that the Memoirs of Philip de afterwards attached himself to Louis XI. Chap. II.] ' LIGUE DU BIEX PUBLIC. 121 who had incriminated the King, should be surrendered, as well as a Jacobin, who had abused him in his sermons. When the Ambassadors were departing. Count Charolais bade the Archbishop of Narbonne recommend him very humbly to the King, and tell him that he had received a fine reprimand from his Chancellor, but that Louis should repent of it before a year was past. This breach with Burgundy encouraged the French nobles to fly to arms. They communicated with one another by means of envoys, who were recognised by a knot of red silk at their girdles ; and towards the end of 1464 was concluded at Paris, the con- federacy known as the Ligue, or Emprise du Bieii Public, a name, as Sismondi observes, which shows that some deference was beginning to be paid to public opinion. More than five hundred princes, knights, squires, and ladies, are said to have enrolled themselves in this league. It was favoured by the clergy, whom Louis had offended by the measures before adverted to, as well as by excluding Bishops from the Parliament of Paris ; and they allowed the agents of the nobles to meet in the Cathedral of Xotre Dame. Philip the Grood, fearing the rash and precipitate temper of his son, stood aloof from this confederacy: and it was only. at the persuasion of his nephew, John, Duke of Bourbon, that he was at length induced to join it. Bourbon, who had done good service against the English, had been alienated from the King by the refusal of the constableship on the death of Eichemont, as well as by being deprived of the government of Guienne. The duchy of Bourbon lies in the heart of France, but John also possessed im- mense estates in the south, so that his territory might be said to extend from Bordeaux to Savoy. Among other principal leaders besides the Duke of Brittany, were the Duke of Alenpon, Count Armagnac, and John of Anjou — the last had joined the league much against the inclination of his father Eene. The House of Anjou had been hurt by the surrender of Genoa, which diminished their chance of recovering Naples ; while the Orleans family had also been offended by the King's alliance with Sforza, the old Duke, Charles, claiming Milan, as we have said, through his mother Valentina Visconti. The confederates published violent manifestos in which they denounced the acts of the King, and they declared that their revolt had no other object than the good of the people. The King on his side despatched letters through the kingdom in which he pointed out the evils that would spring from this '^ false and damnable rebellion;" and he asserted, perhaps with truth, that if he had consented to increase the pensions of the nobles, and 122 CIVIL WAR IN FRANCE. * [Book I. allowed them to oppress their vassals as before, they would never have thought of the public good. Stratagem and negociation, Louis' familiar arts, were now of no avail ; it was necessary to oppose force by force, and he applied himself to the levying of an army. He increased the pay of the military, and, to meet this charge, he laid on taxes which con- siderably damaged his popularity. Abroad he entered into alliances with the Bohemians and with Venice, and he endea- voured to conciliate the Pope ; but the only foreign aid which he actually received was from the Duke of Milan and the King of Naples, who were naturally pleased that he should support them against the pretensions of his own vassals. Sforza sent his son Galeazzo Maria with troops ; and King Ferdinand despatched some galleys to cruise on the coast of Provence. Louis also courted the Medici ; and it was now that he allowed Pietro to insert the lilies of France in his armorial bearings — a favour that was probably bought. It was at this conjuncture (June 1464), that, in order to procure rapid intelligence from all parts of the kingdom, Louis first established posts, in imitation of tliose of ancient Eome, with relays of horses at every four leagues ; a very necessary step towards his policy of centralisation. In March 1465, the King's brother, Charles, Duke of Berri, from whom he had been some time estranged, joined the league and went into Brittany. This was the signal for the civil war which ensued, known as the guerre du bien public ; and in May almost the whole kingdom, except Lyon, Dauphine, the greater part of Auvergne, Languedoc, and Gruienne, had risen in arms. The King first led his forces against Bourbon ; but learning that the Duke of Brittany was in his rear, and that the Count of Charolais was marching on Paris at the head of 26,000 men, he hastened towards the north. The Duke of Brittany was on the Loire, Charolais on the Somme ; and their design was to form a junction in the Isle of France and occupy Paris. Charolais' military character was precipitate and rash, and his natural imprudence was increased by his father's advice to strike hard, accompanied with a promise that he himself, if necessary, would come to his aid at the head of 100,000 men. Charolais penetrated to Paris without waiting for the Duke of Brittany ; but his army was ill- organised and disciplined, and the Parisians made a valiant defence. Whilst the Count was hesitating whether to retreat or to await the arrival of his confederates, Louis unexpectedly approached, the banner of the Oriflamme glittering in his ranks, which, during the domination of the English, had lain forgotten. This is the last Chap, n.] BATTLE OF MOXTLHERY. 123 time that the appearance of this celebrated standard is recorded. Louis attacked the Burgundian army at Montlhery, July 16th 1465. The accounts given of this battle by the two contemporary chroniclers, Philip de Comines and Olivier de la Marche, are not easily to be reconciled. Both leaders are said to have displayed personal valour, and both claimed the victory. Charolais remained in possession of the field, but he retired next day to Etampes, where he was joined by the Dukes of Brittany and Berri ; while Louis seems to have reaped the more substantial advantage of the day, as he lost fewer men, and entered Paris as a conqueror. About the middle of August the army of the league, which had received large reinforcements, and had been joined by many of the confederate princes, reappeared before Paris. A body of Swiss, in the service of the Duke of Lorraine, w^ere now first seen in France, and were conspicuous by their evolutions and discipline. Louis had gone into Normandy to hasten the levies in that quarter, and mean- while the Duke of Berri invited the Parisians to a negociation at Beaute-sur-Marne, where he endeavoured, though without success, to persuade them to open their gates to him. In a few days Louis returned with the Norman levies ; but though the hostile armies lay opposed to each other till September, only a few unim- portant skirmishes took place. As Louis was master of the Seine down to the sea, he could always command a supply of provisions, and was therefore in no hurry to risk a battle ; he trusted rather to delay, and the effects which he hoped to produce through intrigue and address on princes of such dissimilar characters and interests as those now leagued against him. He also relied on some diversions that were making in his favour. Graleazzo Sforza had entered Dauphine with 5000 men, and the citizens of Liege, with whom Louis had signed a treaty at the breaking out of the war, had risen in rebellion against the Duke of Burgundy, and after sending him a defiance at Brussels, had laid siege to Limburg. The King had also incited the inhabitants of Dinant to revolt ; and they had ravaged the county of Namur, and suspended on a gallows before the gates of Bouchain an efiigy of Charolais, with an insulting inscription, designating him as a bastard and a son of the old Bishop of Liege. These were blows struck in the heart of the enemy's dominions ; the Count of Charolais became anxious to make his peace with Louis, in order that he might be able to chastise the insolence of his rebellious subjects; and negociations between the King and the league were opened at Charenton. Louis, who had no pride, or at all events never suffered it to interfere with his interests. 124 TREATIES OF COXFLANS AND ST. MAUE. [Book T. flattered the vanity of Charolais by going thither in person, without askinor for securities or hosta^^es. He even condescended to say that the Count had fulfilled the promise made to his ambas- sadors — namely, that their master should repent his insolence before a year was expired, for he confessed that he repented of it already. Eouen had opened its gates to the Duke of Bourbon ; the example had been followed by some other towns of Normandy, and the demands of the princes and nobles became so extravagant, that Louis at first refused to listen to them. They were all, how- ever, for the private advantage of the confederates ; not a word about the " public good," except that they stipulated for an assembly to consider of some reforms in the constitution. Sforza advised Louis to concede every thing, in order to dissipate this formidable conspiracy, and to fulfil the conditions or not, according to circumstances. But Louis was not behind the subtlest Italian as a diplomatist. He improved upon this advice, and granted even more than the confederates asked ; seeing that the more he now conceded, the more ready would the people be to help him hereafter. He distinguished the Duke of Bm^gundy from the other members of the league, and concluded with him a separate treaty at Conflans, October 5th. The terms seemed most dis- advantageous to the crown of France; that especially by which the Count of Charolais recovered for himself, and his next heir, the towns of Picardy, with liberty to the King, after the demise of both, to repurchase them for 200,000 gold crowns. The treaty with the other princes was signed at St. Maur des Fosses, October 29th. The King's facility was calculated to excite suspicion; but the nobles were carried away by the advantages offered to them, as well as by the example of Charolais. Nothing was said by them respecting the Etats Generaux, who might have questioned the concessions they had obtained ; but in order to save appearances, they stipulated that the King should call an Assembly of Notables, to consist of twelve prelates, twelve knights and squires, and twelve lawyers. At the very time he was making these concessions, Loviis entered a formal protest against them in the Parliament of Paris, as extorted by force, and therefore null and void ; and the Parliament on their side registered the protest with reservations, declaring themselves under constraint. By the failure of the League of the Public Grood — for the treaty of St. Maur, notwithstanding its vast concessions, must be regarded as the consummation of its failure — not only was the fate of the French aristocracy decided, but also the future colour of the Chap. II.] EEAXXEXATIOX OF NOEMAXDT. 125 French constitution. The barons of England, uniting their cause with that of the people against King John, established their own influence and the liberty of all. The French nobility, standing by themselves, and contending at once with King and people, finally lost every remnant of power, and paved the way for democracy and despotism. But their success would perhaps have been still more fatal to France. Under an aristocratical oligarchy public liberty might have been still more compromised ; while France, instead of becoming a compact and powerful monarchy, would probably, like Grermany, have had the elements of its strength dissipated among a confederacy of feudal Princes. The first employment of Louis after his deliverance from the immediate danger was to upset the treaty by which he had effected it. With this view he entered privately into negociations with the Princes and nobles. He seemed mindful of the old fable of the bundle of rods, to be broken separately though infrangible while united. To conciliate Bourbon the King made him his lieutenant in the south, and conferred on the Bastard of Bourbon the office of Admiral of France. The renowned Dunois, the old Bastard of Orleans, was detached from the interests of that House by giving his son the hand of one of the Princesses of Savoy.^*^ The Con- stable St. Pol, uncle to the Queen of England, was seduced by the prospect of advantageous marriages for himself and family. Even the Count of Charolais, now a widower, was propitiated by the offer of the hand of Louis' infant daughter, Anne, afterwards the celebrated Anne of France, with Champagne and the Laonnois as a dowry. But most of these promises Louis had no intention to keep, and his treacherous projects were favoured by the mutual jealousy of the Princes. The Dukes of Brittany and Normandy (Charolais) quarrelled on their journey from Paris to Eouen. Francis wanted to seize the governorship of that city, and the principal offices, civil and military, of Normandy, in order to indemnify himself for the expenses oi the war. He appealed to force, and was supported by the King, who ceded to him the droits regaliens of that province, made him a present of 120,000 gold crowns, and came to his assistance with an army. Their united forces soon reduced Normandy, the towns of which made no defence, and that province was declared reannexed to the French crown (Jan. 21st 1466). This event was accompanied with a double perfidy. The King neglected to fulfil his promise of bestowing Normandy on his brother, the Duke of Berri, and " Louis himself had mairied the daughter of Louis, Duke of Suvoy. 126 DEATH OF PHILIP THE GOOD. [Book I. the offer of Anne was transferred to the Duke of Calabria, but with no better intention of fulfilling it. In this state of things small attention was paid to the provisions of the treaty. The Notables, charged with the reformation of abuses, assembled, indeed, but were so selected as to leave the King nothing to fear from their proceedings. Meanwhile the Count of Charolais was employed in punishing the towns of Liege and Dinant, in whose favour Louis had made no stipulations in the Treaty of Conflans, though it was he who had incited their rebellion. He sacrificed Liege to his desire of conci- liating Bourbon, whose brother Louis had been made bishop of that city by Philip the Grood ; and in order that Louis might re-enter his diocese, from which he had been expelled, it was necessary that the King should withdraw his protection from the revolted citizens. The towns were reduced, condemned in heavy fines, and compelled to recognise the Duke of Burgundy as their governor and protector. Soon afterwards, however, both towns renewed their acts of violence and disobedience; and in August (1466) Charolais appeared before Dinant with a large army, battered it with his artillery, razed it to the ground, and massacred the inhabitants in cold blood, 800 of whom, tied together in couples, were thrown into the Mouse. This horrible example procured the submission of Liege. That town was spared, but Huy and St. Trojen, which lay in its juris- diction, were abandoned to be plundered by that part of the army which had not participated in the spoils of Dinant. Charolais must not bear alone the execration merited by these atrocious acts. The old Duke Philip was present before Dinant, and, though he was esteemed more merciful than his son, he re- fused to listen to any conditions. It was one of the last acts of his reign; he expired June 15th 1467. His title of " the Grood" was derived from a certain sensual good humour, which often passes with the vulgar for good nature, and supplies the place of virtue. By his last will he directed that his heart should be carried to Jerusalem ; for the Asiatic Princes at this time leagued against the Sultan Mahomet 11. had promised to place him on the throne of that kingdom.^ ^ By the accession of Charles, Louis foresaw that a war with Burgundy would soon become inevitable, and, in contemplation of it, he used every art to increase his popularity among his own subjects. He particularly cultivated the friendship of the Parisians, spoke familiarly with all, dined and supped with the principal magistrates and citizens, and engaged his Queen to make bathing ^' Sanuto, Vitc de' Buchi, ap. Muratori, SS. t. xxii. p. 1184. Chaf. n.] UNPOPULARITY OF CHARLES THE BOLD. 127 parties with their wives. From his former intimacy with Charles he was well acquainted with all the weak points in his character, and he prepared to take advantage of them. That Prince, who has obtained the surnames of " the Terrible,*' " the Bold,*' and " the Eash," was of middle stature, of dark complexion, and of commanding aspect. In many respects he was the reverse of his father. He was temperate and true to his marriage vows, warlike, inured to hardship and fatigue ; but improvident, overbearing, and cruel. While Philip was regretted, his son soon became universally hated ; by the people, for his hostility to their municipal privileges, and the heavy taxes which he imposed upon them ; by the nobles, for the haughtiness of his manners, and the inexorable severity with which he punished their excesses. Peace, order, and economy were the things chilfly coveted by the commercial Netherlanders : Philip had studied to maintain them, but by Charles they were neglected. The luxury and splendour of the court and nobles were excessive ; while the middle and commercial classes, though wealthy, were frugal and orderly in their mode of living ; and they were particularly annoyed by the troops, commanded for the most part by bastard sons of the nobilit}^, who lived almost at free quarters upon them. The elements of discontent were, therefore, sufficiently abundant, and, in order to foment it, Louis retained agents in the principal Burgundian towns. Soon after his accession, Charles had repaired to Grhent, when the citizens, discontented with a tax called La Cueillette, rose in insurrection, subjected the Duke to a kind of durance, and com- pelled him to repeal the obnoxious tax. This example operated in other towns, and Louis availed himself of the conjuncture to excite fresh disturbances in Xiege. But that town was again soon reduced by Charles ; Louis, as usual, having abandoned it to its fate. The state of the western provinces of France rendered it highly inexpedient for Louis to provoke immediate hostilities with the Duke of Burgundy. That prince, in spite of their recent quarrels, was again leagued with the Duke of Brittany, at whose court the Duke of Berri, enraged at his disappointment respecting Normandy, was now residing; and all the King's endeavours to conciliate his brother proved unsuccessful. The Dukes of Burgundy and Brittany were negociating with Edward IV. of England, and towards the close of 1467 the long-protracted endeavours of these princes were brought to a fortunate conclusion.^- A marriage was '2 An elaborate treaty of commerce, to Burgundy, Nov. 24tli, 1467, Rjmier, t. xi. "be in force thirty years, was concluded p. 591. An abstract in Macpherson, between Edward IV". and the Diike of An7ials of Cummcrce, \ol.i. -g. 683. In the 128 TREATY OF AXCEXIS. [Book I. arranged between Charles and Margaret of York, Edward's sister, which was celebrated with great pomp at Bruges in July 1468 ; and thus the blood of the House of Burgundy was once more mixed with that of the Plantagenets. Edward promised 3000 English archers to assist in an invasion of Normandy, on condition that the places conquered should be made over to England. But before any fruits could be derived from this alliance, Louis had contrived to render harmless the league between the Dukes of Burgundy and Brittany. In accordance with his usual policy, he appealed against the princes to the people, and summoned the States Greneral to meet at Tours in April 1468. Their composition was more than usually democratic. Most of the peers of France were absent, whilst one hundred and ninety-two deputies attended from sixty-four of the principal towns of France. The indignation excited by the alliance of the Dukes with England operated in favour of the King. The Assembly, although it complained of many domestic grievances, unanimously disapproved a separation of Normandy from the Crown ; and they were of opinion that "Monsieur Charles" (the Duke of Berri) ought to be very well satisfied with his brothers handsome offer of a pension of 60,000 livres, seeing that an edict of Charles the Wise assigned only 12,000 to a younger son. Armed with this decision of his States, Louis hastened to strike a blow against Brittany, before the English succours could arrive. Besides the dread inspired by his arms, the King had gained by his liberalities the Sire de Lescun, the chief counsellor and favourite of Francis, who persuaded his master to a truce, and finally to subscribe the peace of Ancenis, September 10th, 1468 ; by which he abjured all alliances except the King's, and submitted the question of " Monsieur Charles' " appanage to the arbitration of the Duke of Calabria and of the Chancellor of Brittany. The Duke of Berri subsequently acceded to this treaty. One motive with Francis for entering into it, was the non- appearance of the Duke of Burgundy. Charles had been retarded by fresh symptoms of an outbreak at Liege ; whither had returned, armed with clubs and other rustic weapons, a crowd of half-naked, half-starved fugitives, who had been living in the woods. When Charles arrived on the Somme, nothing could equal his surprise at receiving a copy of the treaty ; he could not be persuaded but that it was a stratagem contrived to arrest his advance, and he was on the point of hanging, for an impostor, the herald who brought the document. But when the truth, by further confirmation, at following June a treaty of the same kind, ciples, was also concluded with Brittany, but on broader and more liberal prin- Kymer, ibid. p. 618. Chap. II.] LOUIS EXTRAPPED AT PEROXXE. 129 length stared him in the face, he displayed a readiness to neo-o- ciate ; and the King himself, although he seemed to have Charles at an advantage, according to his habitual polic}^, preferred di- plomacy to arms. His reliance, however, on his o^\ti superior dexterity brought him into a very awkward dilemma. He re- solved on personally visiting Charles at Peronne, as he had pre- viously done at Charenton during the war du Men public ; though he had no security but a letter of the Duke's, in which he said, that happen what might, the King should come, remain, and depart in safety. On October 10th, the day after Louis' arrival at Peronne, news came from Brabant, that the citizens of Liege had surprised Tongres on the night of St. Denis (8th to 9th October), and killed the bishop and canons in the presence of Louis' agents. At this news Charles affected a violent rage, and confined Louis in the castle, whence he c.ould descry the tower where Charles the Simple had died as the prisoner of Heribert de Vermandois. The Duke's courtiers begged him not to spare " the universal spider," now at last caught in his own web ; but Charles w^ould have gained nothing by the King's death, and he contented himself with extorting from him some very hard conditions. Louis was re- quired to confirm the treaty of Arras and Conflans, to convert the Duke of Burgundy's dependance on the French Crown into a mere empty homage for separate provinces, to abrogate the jurisdiction of the French Parliament in Flanders, to abandon the revenues of Picardy, and to confer on his brother, the Duke of Berri, the provinces of La Brie and Champagne instead of Nor- mandy. Louis subscribed these terms, October 14th, but with the secret determination, in this case perhaps justified by the circumstances, to break them on the first opportunity. The Duke of Burgund}-, aware of the King's superstition, would not receive his oath except on a piece of the cross of St. Laud, which Louis always carried wdth him. This precious relic, which derived its name from having been long kept in the church of St. Laud at Angers, was reputed to be a portion of the true cross ; it had alwa3^s accompanied Charlemagne on his journeys, and Louis was known to entertain the opinion that if he perjured himself upon it he w^ould die within the year. But the hardest condition of all, if Louis retained any moral sense or feeling of honour, was, that he was compelled to accompany the Duke of Burgundy to Liege, and to behold the chastisement of those very citizens whom his own arts had excited to rebellion. He carried out, however, to the last the new character he had VOL. I. K 130 CHARLES ACQUIRES ALSACE, ETC. [Book I. assumed of Charles' friend. Far from appearing at Liege as a mere forced and unwilling spectator, he exhibited himself before the town with the cross of St. Andrew in his hat, and to the cry of thjs citizens Vive la France! responded with a shout of Vive Boiivgogne! Yet on this occasion he displayed as much military courage as moral cowardice, and repulsed a sortie from the town with great coolness, when the Duke had quite lost his head. Liege was taken by assault on Sunday October 30th, when the Duke of Burgundy exhibited the most deliberate cruelty in his treatment of the citizens. Those who had survived the assault and sack were proceeded against for weeks, nay months, after- wards, with a show of judicial inquiry; but few escaped except those who could purchase their lives, and thousands were either hanged or drowned in the Mouse. The town was burnt with the exception of the religious edifices and the houses belonging to the canons and priests, and yens cV armies w^ere despatched into the Ardennes to make an end of those miserable fugitives who had not already died of cold and hunger. Louis had been permitted to return to France, November 2nd, more vexed perhaps at being overreached than at the loss of his honour : but for the present, at least, he considered it advisable to carry out the stipulations of Peronne; and he ordered the treaty to be published at Paris, and to be registered by the Parlia- ment. Yet with all his cynicism he could not help feeling his degradation. He displayed an unaccustomed sensitiveness to public opinion, especially that of his capital ; he passed on to Tours instead of entering Paris ; and he ordered all the jays and other talking birds of this city, which made the streets resound with allusions to Peronne, to be delivered up to his Commissary. On the other hand, Charles the Bold now began to push those ambitious projects of founding a Burgundian kingdom, which had been entertained by his father; and with that view he entered into negociations with the Archduke Sigismund of the Tyrol, surnamed the Weak, w^ho was then staying in the Netherlands. In con- sideration of a sum of 80,000 ducats, Sigismund pledged to Charles in 1469 all the rights and possessions of the House of Habsburg in Alsace, the Breisgau, the Sundgau, the forest towns of the Ehine, and the county of Pfirt, or Ferrette. Charles thought of nothing less than overthrowing the King of France, and even obtaining the imperial crown after the death of Frederick III.; little dreaming that his aspiring aims were only preparing the way for his own destruction. An unguarded expression of the Duke of Burgundy's seemed to Chap. II ] CAEDINAL DE LA BALUE. 131 the superstitious yet unscrupulous mind of Louis to afford him a loophole of escape from his oath. He had suddenly asked the Duke at parting what he should do in case his brother were not content with the portion assigned him ? And Charles had care- lessly answered that he must satisfy him in some other way, and that he left the matter to them. Kegarding this answer as absolv- ing him from his terrible oath, Louis offered his brother the Duchy of Aquitaine in place of Champagne and La Brie ; but the Duke of Berri, who was at that time governed by the counsels of the Cardinal de la Balue, would by no means consent to the exchange. La Balue, a roguish simoniacal priest, whom Louis had raised from a low condition to the height of trust and power, had sold himself to the Duke of Burgundy, and it is suspected to have been through his machinations that Louis was entrapped at Peronne : after which, finding that he had lost the King's confidence, he attached himself to the Duke of Berri. This was far from being the only instance in which Louis was betrayed by his ministers ; for, clever and unprincipled himself, he selected his advisers for the same qualities. He was a great admirer of Italian politics, and especially of the government of Venice, in whose principles he had employed two Venetians to instruct him. A certain flexibility of conscience was in his view a recommendation of a states- man, provided it were combined with the requisite dexterity and audacity ; and thus, for instance, Pierre de Morvilliers, Bishop of Orleans, was actually under prosecution for malversation in his judicial functions as conseiller-clerc in the Parliament of Paris, at the very time when he was made Chancellor. It was, therefore, no wonder that Louis was often deceived, for which he had nobody but himself to blame. On discovering the treachery of La Balue, he caused him to be apprehended, together with the Bishop of Verdun, his creature ; he sequestered the Cardinal's enormous wealth, and he requested the Pope to send two apostolic vicars into France, to try these clerical offenders. But the Court of Rome was indignant at the arrest of a prince of the Church ; and Louis, afraid to put La Balue to death, subjected him to a punish- ment which the cardinal himself is said to have suggested in the case of another criminal, and which had been long in use in Spain and Italy. Louis confined him in an iron cage eight feet square, in the dungeon of the Chateau d'Onzain, near Blois, where he I'e- mained ten years without being brought to a trial. The Bishop of Verdun was sent to the Bastille. After the removal of these counsellors, the King effected an arrangement with the Duke of Berri, April 1469; the latter consenting to accept Guienne and a K 2 132 LOUIS XT. AXD WARWICK. [Book I. great part of Aquitaine, in compensation for Normandy, and binding himself by an oath on the Cross of St. Laud not to marry Charles' daughter, the heiress of Burgundy. By this arrangement Louis removed his brother from the sphere of the Duke of Burgundy's influence, rendered him an object of suspicion to the Duke of Brittany, and opposed him to the English, whose views were still directed towards Guienne. The Duke of Burgimdy expected that his brother-in-law, Edward IV., would make a descent on Guienne in 1470 ; but this was prevented by the insurrection of the Duke of Clarence, undertaken at the instigation of Warwick, whose daughter that Prince had married. The secret history of the Courts of England and France at this period is so important that we must take up the subject a little earlier. After the marriage of Edward IV. with Elizabeth Woodville, in 1464, the advancement of Elizabeth's family by marriages gave great umbrage to many of the nobility and espe- cially to Warwick, who had also other causes of discontent. That nobleman, with his two brothers, the Archbishop of York and Lord Montague, now Earl of Northumberland, had hitherto governed the kingdom ; but since the appearance of this rival family, the King seemed to have grown weary of Warwick's counsels. The first open symptom of coldness, however, between Edward and that nobleman arose on the occasion of the marriage of Margaret of York and the Duke of Burgundy, before mentioned. Warwick had advised a union with a French Prince, and Edward had authorised him to negociate with Louis on the subject; for which purpose Warwick proceeded to Eouen, in 1467. Here he was treated by the French King in the most intimate and confidential manner. The wall between their lodgings was pierced, in order that they might confer at all hours unobserved ; Louis, by his presents and flattering attentions con- verted W^arwick into a lasting friend, and from this time they appear to have kept up a constant secret correspondence.'^ At the very same time the Bastard of Burgundy was in London, employed, it was suspected, in negociating the marriage which afterwards took place between Charles and Margaret. Warwick returned in a month or two, accompanied by certain French ambassadors, whose object it was to prevent this marriage and the alliance that must spring from it between Edward and Charles, now become, by the death of liis father, Duke of Bui'gundy ; and they offered Edward an annual pension from the King of France, as well as to refer his claims to Normandy and Aquitaine to the " Michelet, Histoire de France, t. ix. ap. Turner, Middle Ages, vol. iii. p. 281. p. 42 ; Hearne's Fragments, p. 296 sqq. Chap. II.] WARWICK AND EDWARD IV. 133 decision of the Pope. Bribery and corruption were Louis's familiar arts ; and it is not improbable that the bearer of such a messasfe to his sovereisrn was himself not insensible to the charms of gold ; a supposition which would at least explain much that is acknowledgfed to be unaccountable in the conduct of Warwick.^"* Edward rejected the proposals made to him by France, and Warwick retired in discontent to his castle at jNIiddleham, in York- shire. In his absence he was accused of being a secret partisan of the House of Lancaster at the French Court, and a watch was placed upon his actions : but a reconciliation took place between him and Edward ; Warvnck again appeared at Court in 1468, and even escorted Margaret through London when proceeding to her husband in Flanders. Clarence's marriage with Isabella, daughter of Warwick, took place at Calais, in July 1469, contrary to the inclination of King Edward. At this very time an insurrection broke out in York- shire, in which county the Nevilles possessed their principal interest. The Earl of Northumberland, Warwick's brother, though he defeated the rebels, did not efficiently quell the insurrection ; and the insurgents were subsequently headed by two relatives of Warwick, the Lords Fitzhugh and Latimer, who openly avowed their object to be the removal of the Woodvilles. The King now summoned Clarence and Warwick to meet him at Nottingham, where he told Warwick that he did not believe the reports that were circulated to his prejudice. But soon after the royalists were defeated by the insurgents ; when Earl Eivers and Sir John Woodville, the father and brother of Queen Elizabeth, being captured, were executed by the order, or pretended order, of Clarence and Warwick. The two last, together with the Arch- bishop of York, now sought the King at Olney, and in fact made him their prisoner, and he was placed at Middleham under the custody of the Archbishop.'^ There are still some circumstances in Warwick's conduct at this period which it is difficult to explain, even on the assumption that he was the secret and bribed partisan of Louis and the House of Lancaster. Such was his putting down the insurrection in Scotland, in favour of Henry VL, in August 1469 ; which, if that assumption be adopted, can only be attributed to his not being yet thoroughly decided. For the release of Edward IV. a little after, " See Hume, vol. iii. p. 234. M. Miche- duct, previously to Edward's marriage at let does not hesitate to charge War\\dck least, to jiistify the suspicion, with having received bribes from Louis '^ See Lingard, History of Fmgland. as early as 1462 {Hist, de France, t. viii. Lingard is the first modern historian who p. 146), but there seems little in his con- has revived this well-authenticated fact. K 3 134 WARWICK TAKES REFUGE IN FRAXCE. [Book I. an explanation has been offered by a recent historian. It appears from the manuscript chronicle of John de Vaurin, a contemporary writer^^, that the Duke of Burgundy addressed a threatening letter to the mayor and citizens of London, in case they did not behave loyally to their King, and that Warwick, though feigning to know nothing of the letter, permitted Edward to depart to London. It is probable enough that the large commerce which the London- ers enjoyed with the Low Countries would have rendered a war with the Duke of Burgundy highly unpopular; and they may have remonstrated with Warwick, and procured the liberation of Edward. A reconciliation now took place, which seemed to be sincere : Edward granted a pardon to Warwick, Clarence, and the other rebels, and promised his youthful daughter to the son of Northumberland. Early in 1470, the project above alluded to of invading France in concert with the Duke of Burgundy was agitated ; but suspicion still prevailed between the King and Warwick, and the expedition was prevented by an insurrection in Lincolnshire, headed by Sir Robert Welles, and supported by Clarence and Warwick. The rebels were defeated ; Warwick and Clarence were proclaimed traitors, and sailed for Calais with eighty ships , but Warwick's lieutenant in that place, instead of admitting him, fired on and repulsed his fleet. Warwick then sought an asylum from Louis, who placed Harfleur at his disposal (May 1470) ; and English ships, sailing from that port, annoyed the commerce of the Netherlands, carried fifteen Belgian vessels into the Seine, and publicly sold at Eouen the goods captured from the Duke of Burgundy's subjects. Charles the Bold remonstrated with Louis, who pro- mised satisfaction, but at the same time instructed his admiral to repel any attack that the Duke's fleet might make on the English ships. Louis was not prepared, however, for an open rupture with that prince, and with a view to conciliate him, he sent, in July, an embassy to St. Omer, which Charles received with more than his usual haughtiness. He had caused a throne to be erected higher than any ever raised for king or emperor ; the canopy was of gold, the steps were covered with black velvet, and upon them were ranged in due order his princes, prelates, and barons, his knights of the Toison d'Or, and the great officers of his state and household. Although the French ambassadors fell upon their knees, Charles '^ See Michelet, Hist, de France, liv. omitted in IMr, Bruee's History of King xvi. (t. vi. p. 299). That historian says, Edward IV.' s Arrival in England (Cam- that some passages in the Chronicle which den See.), would have wounded English pride are Chap. II.] 1>VARWICK .VXD QUEEX MARGARET RECONCILED. 135 did not even deiofn to salute them, but with his hand making a sicfn to them to rise, addressed them in a speech interlarded with oaths ; refused to listen to their proposals of accommodation, and finally disqpissed them from his presence with marks of the greatest anger. Meanwhile Louis had succeeded in effecting a reconciliation between War^\dck and Margaret of Anjou, who was then residing in France. The powerful Earl had put her friends to death, had thrown her husband into prison, and proclaimed her infant son a bastard born in adultery ; yet, such are the victories often achieved by political interest over the most sensitive feelings of human nature, an alliance was effected between these once mortal enemies, and it was agreed that this very son of ^largaret's, the last hope of the House of Lancaster, should be united to Warwick's second daughter. In order to effect this reconciliation, Louis had assured Margaret that he was more beholden to War^sick than to any man living ; an extraordinary confession, which strongly confirms the suspicions of the Earl's integrity. ^^ An armament was then pre- pared in the French ports : Warwick, accompanied by the Admiral of France, landed at Dartmouth ; the standard of the Eed Rose was again displaj'ed in England ; and in the short space of eleven days was accomplished that surprising revolution which restored Henry VI. to the throne. Edward IV., abandoned both by nobles and people, fled to Lynn in Norfolk, where he embarked for Flanders (Sept. 1470). The Duke of Biu-gundy afforded his brother-in-law an asylum, but at once declared that he could not openly interfere in the affairs of England ; and he acknowledged the restored monarch. This revolution encouraged Louis to dispute the validity of the Treaty of Peronne. In spite of his order that it should be regis- tered, the Parliam.ent of Paris had demurred to do so, on the ground that its provisions were at variance with the fundamental laws of the kingdom, and consequently ipso facto null and void ; and they proceeded to resume their jurisdiction in Flanders, which the treaty had abrogated, by summoning Flemish subjects before them, and by receiving appeals from Flemish tribunals. These proceed- ings threw Charles into transports of rage. He caused the French summoning officers to be imprisoned, and executed such of his subjects as had appealed to the French Parliament. But Louis pro- ceeded steadily in his plans. His next step was to declare certain baili\vicks for which the Duke of Burgundy should have done homage escheated to the crowTi ; and, as he turned a deaf ear to " HarL MSS. ap. Turner, Mid. Ages, toL iii. p, 284. K 4 136 BATTLES OF BARXET AND TEWKESBURY. [Book I. all Charles's remonstrances on the subject, the latter called upon the Dukes of Lorraine and Brittany, who had been securities for the due execution of the treaty, to enforce its provisions. The King, who had made up his mind to proceed to extremities^ in order to support his cause by the public voice of the nation, sum- moned an assembly of Notables to meet at Toius, to whom he submitted the whole question (Nov. 1470). This assembly declared the Treaty of Peronne to be null and voidy and pronounced the Duke of Burgundy guilty of high treason on a long list of charges that had been brought against him ; in pursuance of which verdict the Parliament of Paris was instructed to proceed against Charles, and an officer was despatched to Ghent to summon him to appear before that court. The astonishment and rage of the haughty Duke at this summons may be readily imagined. With savage eyes he glared in silence on the messenger, then cast him into prison ; but after a few days sent him back without an answer. The conjuncture was unpropitious for Charles. His finances were biurthened by the aid he was secretly lending to Edward IV. for the recovery of his throne ; and the fate of the expedition undertaken by that prince, which we need only briefly recall to the reader's memory, was still undecided. Edward, accompanied by his brother, Eichard Duke of Grloucester, sailed from Veere in Zealand, March 10th 1471, with some Flemish vessels, and a force of 2000 men ; and having landed at Ravenspur, in Yorkshire, he marched to London, entered that city wdthout opposition, and recommitted Henry VI. to the Tower. Warwick despatched Clarence against his brothers ; but that prince, as Edward knew before he sailed, had returned to his allegiance, and, instead of opposing the King's advance, joined him with all his forces. Warwick, who had himself marched against Edward, was defeated and slain at Barnet, April 14th. On the very same day Queen Margaret and the Prince of Wales, accompanied by a small French force, had landed at Weymouth, and were afterwards joined by the partisans of the Red Rose, and by the remains of Warwick's army. But Edward defeated them at Tewkesbury, May 4th, before they could form a junction with the Welsh ; the young Prince of Wales, who was captured together with his mother, was slain, almost in the King's presence, by Clarence and Gloucester, and Mar- garet was thrown into the Tower, in which fortress her unfortunate husband expired a few days after, murdered, it has been supposed, but without adequate or indeed probable testimony, by the hand of Gloucester. Louis, meanwhile, had commenced hostilities Avith the Duke of Chap, n.] TEUCE BETWEEN FEAXCE AND BURGUNDY. 137 Burgundy, though not in an open and vigorous manner, but by- instructing the Constable Dammartin to inflict what injury he could. Charles on his side had invaded France with a large army, burnt Piquigny, crossed the Somme, and laid siege to Amiens, when all of a sudden, without any apparent motive, except perhaps the uncertain state of things in England, he began to negociate Avith the King, and on April 4th a provisionary truce of three months was concluded. Louis, besides his habitual dislike of war, was induced to agree to this suspension of arms from his knowledge that his brother, as well as the Duke of Brittany, was in correspond- ence with Charles. The truce, which was subsequently prolonged till June 13th 1472, brought a good deal of obloquy on the King : the Duke of Brittany called him the roi couard, and the Parisians vented their contempt and ridicule in libels and abusive ballads. Louis combated this feeling by striving to render himself popular. He visited the leading citizens, showed himself at the Hotel de Ville, and on St. John's day lighted with his own hand the accus- tomed bonfire. By such arts did he secure the affections of the volatile Parisians. The success of Edward in England turned the scale in favour of the Duke of Burgundy, and, instead of Louis receiving, as he had expected, 10,000 English archers from Henry VI., the might of England was now ranged on the side of Burgundy. Nevertheless, Charles observed the truce, though both parties stood watching each other, and resorted to all the arts of cabal and intrigue. The chief source of Louis' anxiety was the conduct of his brother. After their reconciliation, the King had presented the Duke of Berri, now called the Duke of Guienne, with the order of St. Michael, which he had recently instituted. These orders were not then regarded as merely honorary. The members of one were obliged to the observance of very strict duties towards the head and chapter, and bound themselves by an oath not to enter any other ; and hence the acceptance by the Duke of Brittany of the Bur- gundian order of the Toison d'Or^^ was naturally regarded by Louis as an act of hostility. But, notwithstanding this pledge of reconciliation by accepting the order of St. ^Michael, the Duke of Gruienne had kept up his connection with Charles. The birth of a Dauphin in June 1470, afterwards Charles VIIL, by disappointing any hopes which the Duke of Guienne might have entertained of succeeding to the Crown of France, naturally rendered him more " The order of the Toison cV Or, or riage with Philippa of Portugal, Jan.- Golden Fleece, was instituted by Philip 1430. See Eeiffenberg, Hist, dc la Toi- the Good, on the occasion of his mar- so7i (T Or. 138 GUIEXXE AXXEXED TO FRAXCE. [Book I. disposed to seize all present advantages. Contrary to the oath which he had taken, he was now in warm pursuit of Charles's daughter Mary, the heiress of Burgundy ; though, in order to throw dust into the King's eyes, he pretended to be seeking the hand of a daughter of the Count of Foix. Charles the Bold, taking advantage of the embarrassed state of the King's relations, both foreign and domestic, pressed the con- version of the truce into a peace, negociated at Kocroi October 3rd 1471, by which, among other advantageous conditions, the Duke recovered the towns of Amiens, St. Quentin, Eoie, and Mont- didier. But Louis delayed to ratify the treaty ; Charles continued to intrigue with the French princes, and in 1472 the league was re-ororanised. At the head of it were the Dukes of Gruienne and Brittany, the Count of Foix and Beam, heir presumptive of Navarre, and even the King's own sister, the Duchess of Savoy. Nearly all the south of France seemed prepared to arm against the King. But the grand project of the league, the marriage of the Duke of Gruienne to Mary of Burgundy, was distasteful to their ally, Edward IV., as, in case of the death of the infant Dauphin, it would have invested the Duke of Gruienne with a power very formidable to England ; and Edward made it a condition of his joining the league that they should abandon a project which, indeed, was not very palatable to the Duke of Burgundy himself. AMiile matters were in this state, the Duke of Guienne expired at Bordeaux, May 24th 1472. He had long been in an ill state of health; but his death happened so opportunely for the King, that it was immediately ascribed to poison, though the suspicion seems to rest on no adequate foundation. Louis had made every preparation to take advantage of his brother's death : large bodies of troops had been assembled on the borders of Poitou and Saintonge ; parties had been organised in Bordeaux and the other principal cities; and no sooner had the Duke expired, than the King's generals entered Gruienne, and without striking a blow reduced that great province to obedience under the Crown. The government of it was then intrusted to the Lord of Beaujeu, brother of the Duke of Bourbon. Fortified by this event, the King refused to ratify the treaty of Eocroi ; and Charles the Bold, burning with rage and mortifica- tion, prepared for immediate war. His military force, which was modelled on that of France, was of the most formidable descrip- tion. He could bring into the field 2200 lances, each attended by a squire, an arm-bearer, and eight heavily armed foot soldiers ; also 4000 archers, 600 musqueteers, and 600 artillerymen, making a total Chap. II.] WAK BETWEEN FRAXCE AXD BURGUXDY. ]39 of near 30,000 men. Having crossed the Somme, Charles took Xesle by assault, a small place defended by only five hundred francs- archers ; who, little accustomed to regular warfare, had let fly some arrows during a parley, and killed a herald. When master of the town, Charles took a terrible vengeance ; entering on horseback a church where the archers and many of the inhabitants had taken refuge, he encouraged his men to slaughter them in cold blood, ex- claiming that it was a pretty sight, and that he had plenty of good butchers with him. On the following day he ordered the town to be burnt, and such of the archers as had escaped his fury to be hanged or mutilated. These and similar deeds obtained for him the name of Charles " the Terrible." The Duke then proceeded to Eoie, which immediately capitulated ; and it was here that he first published his declaration of war against the King, in a violent manifesto, in which he accused Louis of attempting his life, as well as of poison- ing his own brother. The progress of the Duke was arrested at Beauvais, which, although unfortified, made so obstinate a defence, that towards the end of July he was obliged to abandon his attempt upon it. He then proceeded into Normandy, where he took and burned several towns, and committed terrible devasta- tions. But he was unable to make himself master of Eouen ; his army had dwindled down to 8000 men ; and as the season was drawing to a close, he commenced a retreat in September. Meanwhile the arms of the King had not been unatteoded mth success. The French garrisons in Amiens and St. Quentin had made incursions far into the Netherlands, and other bodies of French troops had overrun and ravaged Burgundy and Franche Comte. Louis himself, at the head of a large force, had not only prevented the Duke of Brittany from forming a junction with Charles the Bold, but had even penetrated as far as Nantes. He was at the same time making conquests more congenial to his temper and habits. He had gained over Lescun, the chief counsellor of the Duke of Brittany ; and it was about the same time that Philip de Comines abandoned the service of Charles the Bold for that of the King, with whom he had become acquainted at Peronne. Comines foresaw that the violence, cruelty, and obstinacy of Charles must ultimately work his destruction, whilst he found every day fresh reason to admire the prudence and ability of Louis. Not- withstanding his successes, Louis concluded a year's truce with the Duke of Brittany, and another of five months with Charles the Bold (November 3rd 1472), during which affairs were to remain in statu quo. The truce was frequently renewed, for Charles, after this repulse, changed his whole line of policy, and, abandoning 140 LOUIS XI. EXCOURAGES TRADE. [Book I. his designs against France, endeavoured to extend his power on the side of Germany. Louis, on the other hand, was seeking to enrich his subjects by the benefits of commerce. In 1472, by his granting to the town of La Eochelle the singular privilege of liberty to trade with the English and other enemies of the state, even while they should be waging war with France, that city became a sort of independent maritime republic. In the following year Louis concluded treaties with Hamburg, Bremen, Lubec, and other Hanseatic towns, the commercial rivals of the Netherlands, which were admitted to an unrestricted trade with France. Chap. III.] CHAELES THE BOLD ACQUIKES GUELDERLAND. 141 CHAPTEE III. The mind of Charles the Bold at first floated among uncertain schemes ; he thought of a kingdom of Belgic Gaul, a kingdom of Burgundy, a vicariate of the empire with the title of King ; and he even entered into negociations with George Podiebrad, King of Bohemia, who undertook to assist him to the empire after the death of Frederick III. It was with these views that Charles had ob- tained from Sio^ismund the Weak the assiofnment of the Rhenish provinces before alluded to ; and in 1472 he added to these acqui- sitions by the purchase of Guelderland. It was through one of those revolting crimes, so common in the middle ages among sovereign Houses, that Charles obtained pos- session of this province. Arnold, Duke of Guelderland, had in his old age married a young wife, who soon became weary of him, and, to get rid of him, entered into a conspiracy with her step-son, Adolphus. On a cold winter's night, in 1470, the unnatural Adolphus seized his old father, who was sick and in bed, dragged him five leagues barefooted over the snow, and confined him in the basement of a tower, lighted only by a small loop-hole. The Duke of Burgundy, perceiving the advantage that might be made of this event, contrived that both the Pope and the Emperor should call upon him to liberate Duke Arnold, who was his relative ; and, in obedience to their commands, he summoned Adolphus to appear at his court, and to bring his aged father with him. Charles's attempts to reconcile them were unavailing; Adolphus proved refractory both to reason and coercion ; and, having attempted an escape from the durance in which he was placed, was recaptured and kept in prison till Charles's death. After his son was thus disposed of, Arnold, to punish him, sold the Duchy of Guelderland and the county of Zutphen to Charles for the almost nominal sum of 90,000 ducats and a yearly pension ; when Charles took armed pos- session of these territories ; and in order to obtain investiture of them from the Emperor, as well as to negociate with him respect- ing other schemes of ambition, he invited Frederick to an inter- view at Treves, in September 1473. His plans seem now to have settled in the revival of the ancient Burgundian kingdom, into 142 Charles's xegociatio>'s with Frederick hi. [Book i. which, however, Charles's French fiefs could not enter ; and it was, therefore, to consist of the provinces and towns of the Netherlands, the bishoprics of Utrecht, Dole, and Liege, Griielderland, and the Austrian possessions in Alsace and Suabia, transferred to Charles by Sigismund. With these views, Charles represented to Frederick that he would make him more powerful and respected than any Emperor had been for three centuries; and he vividly described the irre- sistible force that must necessarily arise from the union of their rights and possessions.^ The chief inducement, however, held out to the Emperor to place the new crown upon the brow of Charles was a marriasfe between Frederick's son Maximilian and Charles's daughter Mary, the heiress of Burgundy. But this marriage of policy would never have been effected through nego- ciation, had not love lent its assistance. Maximilian, then a youth of fourteen, with blooming countenance and flowing locks, dressed in black satin and mounted on a superb brown stallion, won all hearts at his entry into Treves, and especially that of Mary. In all other respects, nothing could be more unsuccessful than this interview. The two Sovereigns were of the most opposite characters : Frederick, slow, pedantic, and cautious, was hurt and offended by the pride and insolence of the Duke ; while Charles could not conceal his contempt for the poverty of the Grermans and the impotence of their Emperor, who was quite thrown into the shade by his own magnificence. Louis XL employed his arts to sow dissension between them, and secretly warned Frederick that the Duke cherished designs upon the empire. But there was little need of the French King's intrigues to defeat a negociation in which neither party was sincere. Charles had been offering his daughter to Nicholas, Duke of Lorraine, at the very time when he proposed her to the Austrians, and Frederick was alarmed at the opening prospect of Charles's ambition, by his demand to be made Imperial Vicar. The interview, which had lasted two months, amid a constant alternation of fetes and negociations, was unexpectedly brought to an abrupt termination. Charles was so sure of success that he had made all the necessary preparations for his expected ' coronation in the church of Notre Dame ; the requisite seats had been prepared, and a splendid throne erected ; a crown and sceptre, a superb mantle embroidered with pearls and jewels, in short, all the insignia of royal dignity had been provided, and his consort had been brought to Treves to partake in the august ceremony. But two days before the time appointed for it, Frederick, whose ' Schmidt, Gesck. der Dcutschen, B. vii. Kap. 24. Chap. III.] CHAELES LAYS SIEGE TO XEUSS. 143 suspicious temper had been roused by Charles's refusal that Maximilian and Mary should be betrothed previously to the coro- nation, suddenly left Treves, and stole down the Moselle in a boat, without so much as taking leave of the Duke, or even acquainting him with his intended departure ! Charles was deeply wounded by the Emperor's flight, which cast upon him an air of ineffaceable ridicule ; and we may imagine that Louis XI. was not among those w^ho laughed least. Charles, however, had obtained investiture of Gruelderland and Zutphen ; and he soon after prosecuted his ambitious plans, and avenged himself for the Emperor's slight at the expense of the See of Cologne. Eobert, Archbishop and Elector of Cologne, had been involved in disputes with his chapter ; some of His towns, as Bonn, Cologne and Neuss, or Nuys, had thrown off their allegiance ; and the chapter had elected Hermann, landgrave of Hesse, as protector or administrator of the diocese ^, between whom and Robert a war arose. After his flight from Treves, Frederick proceeded to Cologne, where he took part with Hermann and the chapter against Eobert. The latter sought the assistance of Charles the Bold, w^ho, in July 1474, appeared with a large army before Neuss, which was defended by Hermann. Neuss was among the most strongly fortified places of that period, and the siege of it, which lasted nearly a year, is one of the most remarkable of the fifteenth century.'"^ It is unanimously agreed by contemporary writers that Charles's efforts on this occa- sion were the cause of his ultimate ruin. ' Besides his own large army, and his immense artillery, he had hired some thousands of mercenaries, and especially several Italian condottieri; and for these preparations, though he was the richest Prince in Europe, he had been obliged to procure a loan from the Bank of Venice. At the opening of the siege, the Duke caused 6000 cavaliers, clothed in the superb armour of that period, to parade round the town ; a spectacle w^hose grandeur could not be equalled by any modern army. The Duke himself made the most active personal exertions ; but thouojh the little orarrison of 1500 Hessians was reduced to the extremity of eating horse-flesh, whilst Charles's camp abounded with provisions, and he himself kept a splendid table, at which foreign ambassadors and other distinguished guests were daily entertained, he could not prevail over that little band. * Ecclesiastical establishments fre- See Planta, Helvetic Confederacy, vol. i. quently placed tliemselves under some p. 112, note. secular protector, called in G-erman ^ The details of the siege of Neuss are Kastcnvogt, or Schirmvogt, in Latin Cas- related l>y Lochrer, Gcsch. der Sfadt taldus, or more frequently Advocatus. Neuss (1840), from original documents. 144 NEUSS RELIEVED BY THE IMPERIALISTS. [Book I. Frederick bad promised to take the command of an Imperial army wliich he intended to raise ; but with the characteristic sh^wness of the Grerman body, it was not ready to march till the spring of 1475 ; and the Emperor then prudently resigned the command to the Elector Albert Achilles of Brandenburg, an able general, with whom was joined Prince Albert of Saxony. The contingents of the different provinces marched under their particular standards. At the head of the troops of the Imperial cities the little ensign of the Empire was alternately borne by the captains of the towns of Strasburg, Cologne, Augsburg, Nuremberg, Frankfort, and Ulm; while the immediate nobility of the Empire marched under the famous standard of St. Greorge, the guard of which was confided by turns to the knights of Franconia and Suabia. The chapter of Cologne and the Khenish Princes had also entered into a treaty wdth Louis XI., who promised to attack the Duke of Burgundy with 30,000 men ; but he did not keep his word, and was perhaps retarded by a league which Charles had formed against him with Edward IV. Louis, however, lent some money to the Swiss, who invaded the Burgundian States, committed considerable devasta- tion, and took the town of Hericourt, November 13th 1475; and they subsequently united in their confederacy some of the places belonging to the Duke of Burgundy. Charles had already delivered many fruitless assaults on Neuss, when, in May 1475, on the approach of the Imperial army, which numbered upwards of 50,000 men, he ordered another attack ; but his troops were repulsed with great slaughter. Charles had now lost the pith of his army, and if an attack had been made upon it, according to the advice of the Elector of Brandenburg, it miofht no doubt have been annihilated. But Frederick listened to the proposals of the Duke for a renewal of the marriage treaty between Maximilian and his daughter, together wdth an immediate payment of 200,000 crowns ; and Charles raised the siege of Neuss June 28th, which had lasted since the 29th of July of the preceding year. A peace was concluded (July 17th) between the Emperor and Charles, by which both parties sacrificed those whom they had pretended to assist ; and the Duke of Burgundy was thus extricated from this immediate danger, but only to pre- cipitate himself soon afterwards into another which proved his destruction. The league just alluded to between him and Edward IV. had been contracted in July 1474. Edward stipulated to pass the seas with an army, and to challenge the Crown of France ; he was to obtain at least the provinces of Normandy and Guienne, while Chap, ni.] PEACE OF PECQUIGXY. I45 Charles reserved for himself only Nevers, Champagne, and the towns on the Somme. He was probably never serious in the matter, and wished merely to divert the attention of Louis ; but the English, after losing a great deal of time in preparation, at length, in July 1475, landed at Calais an army of 15,000 men-at- arms and 15,000 archers, led by the King in person. Charles, as we have seen, had at that time raised the siege of Neuss ; and though he joined the English about the middle of July, he gave them no assistance, and would not permit them to enter his towns ; St. Pol, also, the Constable of France, who was in league with the Duke, but alarmed with what he had undertaken, fired on the English army when it appeared before St. Quentin. Disgusted at this reception, Edward listened to the overtures of Louis XL, and on August 29th a peace was concluded at Pecquigny. Louis agreed to pay down 75,000 crowns, and 50,000 more during the joint lives of himself and the English King; and it was stipulated that the Dauphin, when of age, should marry Edward's eldest daughter.'^ Louis is said to have obtained this peace by a liberal distribution of bribes to some of the chief English nobility. The most honourable part of it is the stipulation which he made for the release of his unfortunate relative, Margaret of Anjou, for which he paid 50,000 crowns more. She was liberated from the Tower in the following January, and conducted into France. This treaty was arranged during a short absence of the Duke of Burgundy, who, on his return to the English camp, found every- thing concluded. He had now leisure to turn his arms against the Duke of Lorraine, who, during the siege of Neuss, had joined the Swiss, had defied Charles in his camp, and had invaded and plundered Luxembourg. In order to explain this conduct of the Duke of Lorraine, w^e must trace his history a little further back. Eene d' Anjou, titular King of Naples, as the son-in-law of Charles of Lorraine, had succeeded to the Duchy on Charles's death ; but his title was contested by Antony of Vaudemont, the brother of Charles, who, with the help of the Duke of Burgundy, defeated and captured Eene, and threw him into prison, as before related. To procure his release, Eene was obliged to give his daughter Yolande in * Rymer's Fcedera, t. xi. p. 804 sqq., t. ward had borrowed 5000/. from Lorenzo xii. p. 15. Louis engaged that the Bank of the Magnificent and Jiiliano, Eynier, xii. the Medici should guarantee the payments; pp. 7, 9. At that time the ohl French a fact which has escaped Roscoe and all cro^\^l was worth 45, 2d. English; the the other historians of the Medici, though new crown, or ecu de soleil, As. Zjd., as calculated to convey a high notion of the settled by the commissioners of the two commercial greatness of that house. See countries in Jan, 1480, Rymer, t, xii, p. 'M.acTph.evsons Hist, of Commerce, vol. i. p, 115, 698, note. In June of the same year, Ed- VOL. I. L 146 CHARLES THE BOLD CONQUERS LORRAINE. [Book I. marriage to Antony's son PVederick ; and he afterwards vacated the duchy in favour of his son John, titular Duke of Calabria. John, on his death, was succeeded by his son Nicholas, the prince to whom, as before mentioned, Charles the Bold offered his daughter ; but Nicholas dying suddenly in August 1473, the duchy again reverted to Rene, who was still alive, but too old to reign, and it was conferred on his daughter Yolande. She vacated it in favour of Rene II., her youthful son by Frederick, and it thus returned to the House of Vaademont : but Charles the Bold, who hated and suspected that family, caused the young Duke to be seized, and carried into his own territories ; nor would he release Rene till he had extorted from him a treaty which made Lorraine completely dependent on Burgundy. It was in revenge for this treatment that Rene II. had joined Charles's enemies, as before related. After the peace with the Emperor, the Duke of Burgundy took the field against the Duke of Lorraine, having first concluded at Soleure a nine years' truce with Louis XL Each abandoned to the other his 'protege — Louis, the Duke of Lorraine ; Charles, the Constable St. Pol, who had taken refuge at his court. St. Pol had committed great treasons against the King ; and he was brought to trial and beheaded on the Place de Greve, November 24th. The judicial execution of so great a nobleman, issued of the House of Luxembourg, and allied to most of the sovereigns of Europe, showed that the times had much changed since the League du bien public, Louis' abandonment of Rene, though not so heartless as the conduct of Charles, who had trafficked with the life of the man who had confided in him, was still a glaring example of his faithless policy ; for he had sworn by the Pdque Dieu that if he thought Rene in danger, he would come to his assistance : yet he did not stir a finger. Lorraine fell an easy prey to Charles, who took Nanci before the end of November 1475. Contrary to his usual custom, he spoke the inhabitants fair, declared his intention of making Nanci his residence, and of incorporating Lorraine with Burgundy. Charles next turned his arms against the Swiss, whom he hoped to overcome as easily as Lorraine. He had to deal, however, not onl}^ with the Smss, but also with the German towns pledged to him l)y Sigismund of the Tyrol. Charles had made himself per- sonally unpopular with the Swiss and Alsatians by his proud and overbearinor conduct ; and the Alsatians were also further alienated by the violence and extortion exercised by Charles's bailiff, Peter von Hacrenbach, and the kniofhts whom he favoured. This discontent was fomented by Duke Sigismund. Hagenbach was seized and brought to a formal trial; and the judges, who had already made up their minds, sentenced him to be executed at Breisach. Chap, in.] HIS WAK WITH THE SWISS. 147 Louis had observed these political blunders of Charles, and he used all his endeavours to increase the animosity which they were naturally calculated to produce. He had contracted an alliance with Frederick III. against the Duke of Burgundy ; and though the enmity between the Swiss and the House of Hapsburg seemed irreconcilable, yet, with the same view of injuring Charles, he had succeeded in bringing about a treaty between them. Previously to this, Louis had himself formed, in January 1474, a compact called the " Perpetual Alliance," with the eight Cantons of which the Swiss confederacy then consisted ; and this remarkable treaty served as the basis of all subsequent ones between France and Switzerland down to the time of the French revolution. It secured troops for the French Kings, subsidies for the Swiss proletarians, commissions and pensions for the higher classes. Louis promised yearly 20,000 francs in quarterly payments so long as he lived, and the Swiss undertook to provide soldiers whom he was to pay ; the cantons were to enter into no truce or alliance without the French King's consent, and he on the other hand promised to make them parties to all his treaties. But though Louis had thus fortified himself by alliances against the Duke of Burgundy, he did not openly break the truce w^hich he had made with that prince : and taking up his residence at Lyon, he remained on the watch for any opportunities which the rash expedition of Charles might throw in his way. The Burgundian army which marched against the Swiss in January 1476, was chiefly composed, after the feudal fashion, of men of various nations, called together only for a short time, and having different kinds of weapons and methods of fighting ; so that they were no match for the Swiss and German levies, composed of soldiers inured to arms, and exercised in military discipline. Charles was joined on his march by large bodies of Italians, whose leaders were men of the worst character ; yet he gave them all his confidence. He had especially employed two Neapolitans to raise troops for him among the Italian bandits, James Graliot and Count Campo Basso ; the latter was a traitor who sold the secrets of the Duke to Louis XL, and hinted how the King might seize and murder him. A more respectable coadjutor was Frederick, son of the Neapolitan King Ferdinand, whom Charles had enticed with the offer of his daughter. When the S^viss heard of the approach of the Duke of Bur- gundy, they were seized at first with some alarm. They repre- sented to him that theirs was a poor country, and that the spurs and horses' bits of the Burgundian knights were of more value than L 2 148 BATTLE OF GRANSON. [Book I. the whole Swiss nation could pay, if captured, for their ransom ; and they offered, but without effect, to restore the territory of the Pays de Vaud, which they had conquered from the Count de Remont. The Pays de Vaud was occupied by the Bernese troops, and they had garrisons in Grranson and Yverdun ; but Charles's army had taken possession of the greater part of that district, when he himself appeared, early in the spring of 1476, before Granson, and took the town and castle. The Swiss army had concentrated itself at no great distance, and everybody advised Charles not to abandon his advantageous position, covered by the lake on one side, and by his artillery on the other. He was, however, too proud and rash to listen to such remonstrances, and on March 3rd he delivered battle. Nothing could be more unskilful than his array. He himself led the van, which, instead of consisting of bowmen and light troops for skirmishing, was composed of his most choice gens cVaimes; and, as the road was hemmed in by the lake and mountains, they had no room to deploy. To receive the charge the Swiss had fixed the ends of their long lances in the earth ; and in order to draw them from this position by a feint the Duke ordered his first line to retreat ; but this manoeuvre alarmed the second line, which took to flight. At this crisis the troops of other cantons arrived ; the deep tones of the trumpet of Uri resounded in the valley, making concord with the shrill horns of Unterwalden and Lucerne. The cry of Sauve qui pent ! rose among the Burgundians. Nothing could stop them longer. The Duke himself was carried away by the stream of fugitives ; but the loss was ridiculously small on both sides. The Swiss captured all the Duke's artillery and camp, and bm-st without ceremony into his vast and splendid tent, lined with red velvet. His jewels were all spilt on the ground ; the Fuggers alone were rich enough to purchase the large diamond which had once sparkled in the diadem of the Great MoguP, and the splendid Italian hat of yellow velvet, circled with precious stones, which a Swiss soldier, after placing it on his own head, had flung away with a laugh of contempt.^ This victory, though so easily won, acquired a great military repu- tation for the Swiss. But they did not use their advantage skilfully. Although they occupied the passes leading into Burgundy, they neglected those towards the Pays de Vaud, and Charles penetrated through them to Lausanne, in the neighbourhood of which he long ' This great diamond was sold "by a the tiara of the Pope. Barante, Hist, dcs mountaineer for a florin to a neighbour- Dues de Bourgogne, t. vii. p. 220 (ed. ing cure, and passing from hand to hand, 1836). •was at length bought by Pope Julius II. ® Fugger, Miroir de la Maison d'Au- for 20,000 gold ducats. It stiU adorns trkhe, ap. Michelet, t. is., p. 230. Chap, in.] BATTLE OF MORAT. 149 lay encamped, till his army was sufficiently recruited to venture another attack. He then marched against the town of Morat ; but it was so valiantly defended during a fortnight by Hadrian von Bubenberg, that the Swiss army had time to come to its relief. The united force of the cantons had been joined by the nobility of Suabia and the Tyrol, by the vassals of Duke Sigismund, and by the con- tingents of Basle and of the towns of Alsace ; the young Duke Eene of Lorraine also fought with them with enthusiasm. The Burgundian army is said to have been thrice as strong as the Swiss ; yet the latter began the attack, June 22nd, and Charles again rashly abandoned an advantageous position to meet them. This time his defeat was bloody, as well as decisive. His loss is variously estimated at from 8000 to 18,000 men^, including many distin- guished knights and nobles ; among them the Duke of Somerset, who led a band of English archers in the service of Charles. The latter, with only eleven attendants, after a flight of twelve leagues, arrived at Merges, on the Lake of Greneva, and proceeded thence to Grex. He had sunk into a state of the deepest despondency ; he suffered his beard and nails to grow ; and his countenance resembled that of a madman, so that his courtiers and servants feared to approach him. Rene II. took advantage of Charles's distress to attempt the recovery of his Duchy of Lorraine ; with which view he hired some Swiss and Grerman mercenaries and opened a secret correspondence with the Italian condottiere Campo Basso. With this force and the assistance of his own subjects, Eene drove the Burgundians from the open country into the town of Nanci, to which he laid siege. Rubempre the commandant relied for the defence of the place chiefly on a body of English archers, who not choosing to endure the famine which ensued in a cause in which they were engaged merely as mercenaries, compelled him to surrender the town (October 1476). The rage of Charles at this news was uncontrollable ; though the winter was approaching, he resolved immediately to attempt the recovery of Nanci, which he instructed Campo Basso to invest: and he himself joined the besieging army in December. He had been able to procure but little assistance from his subjects. To his applications for money the Flemings made a jeering answer, that they had none to spare, but that they would expose their lives to bring him back in safety to his own dominions, ' The force of armies, and the nura- taries a hideous monument, which the bers of shiin or wounded are very little French, or rather perhaps some Burgun- to be relied upon in these remote periods ; dian regiments, destroyed when passing but the bones of those slain in this this spot in 1798. engagement formed during three cen- L 3 150 DEATH OF CHARLES THE BOLD. [Book T. Meanwhile Eene was approaching to raise the siege with a well disciplined army which it was evident Charles's force would be unable to withstand ; yet he would listen to no counsels of retreat. All day long he lay in his tent reading or affecting to read, and nobody ventured to approach him ; till at last M. de Chimai, with something like self-devotion, entered his presence and told him that he had only 4000 men in fighting order. " Ee it so," replied the Duke : " if necessary I shall fight alone." It was evident that mortified pride would drive him to attempt the most desperate risks. He assaulted the town in the very presence of Kene's army : the assault was repulsed, and Eene then offered him battle, January 5th 1477. Before it began, Campo Basso went over to the enemy with his Italian troops. Charles displayed both valour and conduct in the engagement, and was well supported by his nobles ; but it was from the first a hopeless struggle, and after the fall of Eubempre, Charles ordered a retreat towards Luxembourg. Campo Basso, however, had taken up a position to intercept it ; Charles's army broke and fled in all directions, and he himself urging his horse over a half-frozen brook, was immersed and slain unrecognised. Thus perished miserably, in the midst of his ambitious dreams, Charles of Burgundy, the great Duke of the West. The peasants now rose on all sides, and for many days Lorraine presented a scene of murder and pillage. On January 10th a messenger appeared before Louis XL sent by Eene to relate the finding of the Duke of Burgundy's body, and bearing with him Charles' battered casque in proof of his tale. By this victory young Eene II. recovered Lorraine. Louis betrayed an indecent joy at the death of an enemy whom he had not ventured openly to oppose. Immediately after the defeat of the Duke of Burgundy at Gfranson, he had already begun to profit by his misfortunes. He caused a process for high treason to be instituted in the Parliament of Provence against the aged Eene, who had assisted Charles ; and, to frighten the old man, a dreadful sentence was pronounced against him. But Louis then entered into negotiations with him ; and he was compelled to make his daughter Margaret, who had just been dismissed from her captivity in London, renounce the inheritance of Provence in favour of Charles du Maine, the childless son of her father's brother; at whose death in 1481, Provence devolved to the French crown. Eene was compensated with the Duchy of Bar, and the payment by Louis of Margaret's ransom. The death of Charles offered the opportunity of seizing Burgundy, the most important of all the fiefs of France. Immediately on Chap. IH.] LOUIS XI. SEIZES BURGUXDY. 151 receiving intelligence of that event, the King ordered La Tremouille, who commanded a corps of observation in the territory of Bar, and Chaumont d'Amboise, Grovernor of Champagne, to take military- possession of the two Burgundies, and to announce to the inha- bitants his intention of affiancing his god-danghter, Mary of Bur- gundy, to the Dauphin. At the same time, royal letters were addressed to the " good towns " of the Duchy to recall to their recollection that the said Duchy belonged to the crown and kingdom of France, though the King protested that he would protect the right of Mademoiselle de Bourgogne as if it were his own. Louis also revived his claim to Flanders, Ponthieu, Boulogne, Artois, and other lands and lordships previously occupied by the Duke of Burgundy. In order to conciliate John, Prince of Orange, whom he had formerly despoiled of his principality, and who had been confi- dentially employed by the Duke of Burgundy, the King named him his Stadtholder in the duchy and county, and promised to restore his estates. Commissaries were appointed to take possession of Burgundy, who required the Burgundian States, assembled at Dijon, to do homage to the King of France within a space of twelve days: but the States raised a difficulty by asserting that they did not believe in Charles's death ; a very common opinion, though his body had been exhibited six days at Nanci. A report ran that he was a prisoner in Grermany ; another that he was hidden in the recesses of the forest of Ardennes. In their dilemma, the States appealed to Charles's daughter, Mary, and the faithful counsellors by whom she was surrounded ; who answered that Louis' claim to Burgundy was unfounded ; that duchy being in a different situation from other fiefs vested as appanages in French princes ; and at all events, if the King insisted on reuniting Burgimdy to the French crown, that it contained several lordships to which he could make no pretensions ; especially the counties of Charolais, Macon and Auxerre. The Burgundians, however, did not think it prudent to incur Louis' anger, and did him homage, January 19th 1477 : though a few towns, as Chalons, Beaune, Semur, made some show of resistance. Franche Comte also submitted, though in a feudal point of view this province was dependant not on the crown of France but on the empire. Mary herself was in still greater embarrassment than the Bur- gundians. The different provinces of the Netherlands had their own separate rights and privileges, and all of them had more or less felt themselves aggrieved by the despotic and military au- thority exercised by Charles's ministers. The wealthy and indus- trious citizens of Bruges, Antwerp, Brussels, and other towns had L 4 152 EMBAKRASSMENT OF MARY. [Book I. been oppressed and disgusted by the insolence and extortion of Charles's nobles ; and they rose in opposition to the collectors of the taxes. The States assembled at Ghent, before they would support the government with their money, obtained a promise from Mary that their privileges should be confirmed, and the abuses of the previous government abolished. It was on this occasion that she granted to the Hollanders and Zealanders the charter called the Grand Privilege, by which all the rights of sovereignty were trans- ferred to the States. Mary agreed by this instrument that she would neither raise taxes nor conclude a marriagfe without their consent ; that they might assemble without her authority ; that she would undertake no war, not even a defensive one, without their approval ; that the right of coining money should be vested in them ; lastly, that they should choose the magistrates, and that she should only enjoy the privilege of selecting from the names presented to her. Louis must have seen that insurmountable difficulties opposed the marriage of the Dauphin and the heiress of Burgundy. Mary was twenty, while Charles the Dauphin was only eight, and deformed in person ; moreover, what probably Louis did not know, Mary's heart was engaged to Maximilian. The French King, however, was bent on despoiling her either by fraud or force, and in order to embroil matters, he sent Oliver Necker to demand her hand for his son. This man, born of low parents at Tielt near Courtrai, had been the King's barber, whence he was advanced to be valet, and finally ennobled, with the title of Count de Meulant. Oliver appeared as plenipotentiary at Ghent with laughable magnificence. His secret object, however, was to excite sedition, and his house became the rendezvous of all the turbulent spirits in the city. Mary gave him a public audience in the Council House, where he presented his credentials, but declared that he could deliver the message confided to him only in private. He was told that such an audience could not be granted to a person of his rank, and that if his message were a proper one, it might be delivered in public. As he still persisted in his silence, the bystanders began to hoot ; the mob outside took up the clamour and threatened to throw the Count into the river ; upon which he slunk away as quickly as possible. Meanwhile the King was engaged in reducing the towns in Picardy. At Peronne he was waited on by Mary's Chancellor, Hugonet, and the Sire d'Humbercourt with a letter in which she signified that the government was in her hands, naming the members of it, and that Hugonet and Humbercourt had full powers Chap, m.] HER PLEXIPOTEXTI ARIES EXECUTED. 153 to treat. In reality, however, Mary was entirely under the control of the Flemish States, who contemplated erecting a sort of republic, and had appointed a Eegency quite independently of her. Louis had not listened to her ambassadors, who had scarcely departed when a deputation came to him from the states of Flanders and Brabant to negotiate a peace ; and they remarked that jNIary was entirely guided by the advice of her three Estates. " You are deceived," answered Louis ; " Mademoiselle de Bourgogne conducts her affairs through people who do not msh for peace ; you will be disavowed : " and he handed to the deputies the credentials pre- sented to him by Mary's ambassadors. The deputies returned in a furious passion to Grhent, where they presented themselves at the levee of the Duchess to give a public account of their mission. When they mentioned the credentials, Mary exclaimed that it was an imposture, and that she had never written anything of the kind. At these words the Pensionary of G^hent, the head of the depu- tation, drew the fatal despatch from his bosom, and handed it to her before the assembly. Mary was struck dumb with astonishment and shame. The same evening Hugonet and Humbercourt were arrested. They had previously been very unpopular ; the people were lashed into fury against them by the addresses of certain intriguers ; they were arraigned, and after being dreadfully tortured, were con- demned to death. Having vainly entreated in their favour the judges at the Hotel de Ville, Mary hastened to the Marche du Vendredi, where the people were assembled in arms ; and ascend- ing the balcony of the Hoog-Huys, with tearful eyes and dishevelled hair, implored the people to spare her servants. Those in the neighbourhood of the Hoog-Huys cried out that the prisoners should be spared ; but the remoter crowd, who beheld not the spectacle of Mary's touching grief, persisted in the sentence. After a momentary contention, the merciful party was forced to yield ; and Mary returned to her palace, her heart swelling with unspeakable anguish at the treachery of Louis. Three days after Hugonet and Humbercourt were executed (April 3rd 1477). After this bloody catastrophe, Louis altered his tone. He com- plained loudly of what had been done ; stepped forward as the protector of Mary, who had been kept a kind of prisoner, and declared the democrats of Ghent and Bruges guilty of high treason. Nothing seemed to resist the progress of the French; they occupied Hainault, threatened Luxembourg, and penetrated into Flanders. At length Ghent, Bruges, and Ypres, awoke and put on foot an army of 20,000 men, though scarcely to be called 154 MAERIAGE OF MAEY AND MAXIMILIAN". [Book I. soldiers. The command of them was given to the impious Adolphus of Gruelderland, who after the death of Charles had been liberated from his imprisonment by the citizens of Ghent, and had set up pretensions to the hand of Mary. He led the Fle- mings to Tournay ; but here the men of Bruges began to quarrel with the men of Ghent ; the French seizing the opportunity, defeated both, and Adolphus of Guelderland, after a brave defence, was slain (June 27th 1477). Such was the end of one of Mary's suitors. She had had several more : as the Dauphin ; the son of the Duke of Cleves ; young Ravenstein ; the Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV. ; Lord Rivers, brother-in-law of the same monarch ; and Maximilian of Germany. Various circumstances had prevented the Emperor from pursuing the Burgundian match for his son during the life- time of Charles ; and indeed, as we have seen, he had been leagued with the Swiss against that Prince ; but in April a formal embassy had arrived at Bruges, whither Mary had retired after the tragedy of Ghent, to demand her hand for Maxi- milian. That prize was an object of so much contention and intrigue that it required all the address of Mary's confidants, Madame Hallewyn, Olivier de la Marche, and Charles's widow, Margaret of York, to procure the ambassadors an audience ; though, according to the account in the Weisskunig, Mary had already opened a 'secret correspondence with the Archduke. It had been arranged by Mary's council that she should confine herself to giving the German ambassadors an audience, and should post- pone her reply ; but when the ambassadors recalled to her recollec- tion a written promise which she had made to marry Maximilian, and a ring which accompanied the letter, and inquired if she was willing to keep her promise, policy gave way to love, and she at once acknowledged her engagement. She was betrothed, April 21st; but four months elapsed before the Austrian Prince came to seek his bride in Flanders. This was owing partly to the want of money, partly to the dilatoriness of Frederick. The bridegroom was so poor that Mary is said to have advanced to him 100,000 florins in order that he might make a befitting appearance in Ghent. The espousals, which took place August 18th 1477, laid the foundation of the future greatness of the House of Austria. The states and towns of the Netherlands had employed the interval between the death of Charles and the betrothal of his daughter not only to obtain from Mary the confirmation of their ancient privileges, but also to extort new ones. Maximilian, brought up in the tenets of the Hapsburg family respecting the Chap. III.] WAR BETWEEN" FRAXCE AXD BURGUXDY. 155 divine rights of Princes, looked with no favourable eye on these citizens ; and his own character in turn was not much calculated to please a somewhat coarse commercial people. He was a polished knight and even a poet, after the fashion of those times ; and worse still, a poring, tasteless devotee of the old school learn- ing. Instead of marching against the French, who were burning several of the Belgian towns, he repeated at Bruges the celebra- tion of his wedding, and then retired to Antwerp^ where he lived in ease and luxury. The attention of Louis, however, was diverted from Belgium by the affairs of P ranche Comte and Burgundy. Louis had recovered Tranche Comte, chiefly through the influence of John, Prince of Orange, whom as we have said, he had made governor of that province ; but being jealous of the Princes's influence there, he soon began to raise up rivals against him, and he refused to restore John's estates. This drove the Prince into open rebellion. He renewed his allegiance to Mary, whose father-in-law the Em- peror, in a proclamation, reminded the inhabitants of Franche Comte of their duty to the Empire. The Prince of Orange at the head of a considerable force defeated Louis' lieutenant Craon, at Yesoul (March 19th), and took possession of that town, as well as of Eochefort and Auxerre in the name of Mary. In this state of things Louis proposed a truce to Maximilian and Mary, to which they foolishly assented (September 1477). The French King likemse secured himself on the side of England by renewing the truce of Pecquigny for the term of his own life and that of Edward IV. The House of York was indeed hampered by its own quarrels, in which, early in 1478, Clarence fell a victim to the unappeased resentment of the King, and to the machinations of his brother the Duke of Grloucester. Louis is said to have been consulted respecting that unfortunate prince, and not obscurely to have advised his death by quoting a line from Lucan.^ In January 1478, Maximilian and Mary purchased a peace with the Swiss by the payment of 150,000 florins; but Louis was still able, by means of bribery, to secure the services of those venal mountaineers. Little, however, was done in that year, and in July the truce between the French Kincr and the Flemish sovereigfus was renewed for a twelvemonth : only to be broken, however, in the spring of next year, when the Netherlanders resumed the offensive, seized Cambray, and invaded the Vermandois. Louis contented himself with holding them in check, and directed all his * Cabinet de Louis XL, ap. Martin, t. vii. p. 136. 156 PROYEXCE A^iS^EXED TO FEAJS'CE. [Book I. efforts towards Franche Comte, where the Sire de Chaumont, assisted by large bodies of Swiss, soon overran the whole province. Dole, the chief town, though valiantly defended by the students of the University, who were cut to pieces in a sally, was taken, sacked, and burnt, when most of the other towns quietly submitted. Yet they were plundered by the Swiss ; for pillage, as well as pay, was the object of their service. The French were not so successful in Flanders, where they had to contend with the terrible leaders of the Walloons ; men whose character may be inferred from their names, as the Boar of the Ardennes and the Bull-calf of Bouvignos. These leaders, with the Prince de Chimai and others, invaded Luxembourg with 10,000 men. Maximilian himself entered Artois and Hainault, and com- pletely defeated the French at Gruinegate, a hill near Terouenne in Artois; but he neglected to make any good use of his victory, which, in fact, had cost him so dear that he had been obliged to abandon the sieofe of Terouenne. War was still conducted in a most barbarous manner. Maximilian caused the French com- mandant of the little town of Malaunoy to be hanged, because his obstinate resistance had delayed the Flemish army three days ; and Louis in retaliation hanged near fifty of his prisoners of the highest rank ; seven on the spot where his commandant had been executed, and ten before the gates of each of the four towns of Douay, St. Omer, Lille, and Arras. The letters of Louis at this period abound with a sinister gaiety ; he talks of nothing but hanging and making heads fly.^ The war after this period offers nothing worth recording. On August 27th 1480, a truce was concluded for seven months, which was afterwards prolonged for a year. During this truce the King reviewed, near Pont de I'Arche, an army of 30,000 combatants, in- cluding 6000 Swiss — the first instance on record of a camp oi manoeuvre in time of peace. In 1481 died Charles du Maine, the last heir of the second House of Anjou. The agreement by which Provence was to fall to the Crown on this event, has been already mentioned, and, as Charles made Louis his heir, Anjou and Maine also fell to him, as well as the claims of that House on Naples : a fatal legacy, which Louis XI's. practical and prosaic mind neglected to pursue, but which was destined to be the source of many mis- fortunes to his successors. Eene had died in the previous year. The annexation of Provence with its ports made France a great maritime power. Another death of more importance was that of Mary of Burgundy, • Martin, t. vii. p. 130. Chap, ni.] DEATH OF MART OF BURGUNDY. 157 March 27tli 1482, in consequence of a fall from her horse at a hawking party near Bruges. She left a son and a daughter, Philip and Margaret; a second son, born in September 1481, had died immediately after baptism. Mary with her last breath recom- mended her husband to the Netherlanders as the guardian of her son Philip, now four years of age ; but they erected a kind of republic, and paid not the slightest heed to Maximilian. He w'as recognised, indeed, as Regent in Hainault, Namur, Brabant, and some other provinces where the Kabbeljauwen^^, or democratic party prevailed ; but the Hoehs, or aristocrats, were against him, and the Flemings would not hear of his guardianship. The citizens of Grhent seized the person of young Philip, and the Flemish Notables, supported by a cabal, long since entered into with the French King, appointed a regency of five nobles, who immediately began negotiations for a peace wdth France. They opposed Maximilian on all points, even the disposal of his daughter, whom they wished to betroth to the Dauphin, and to send into France for her education. The health of Louis was now fast declining. He had been struck with an apoplexy, which had impaired his mental as well as his bodily faculties, and had reduced him to a living skeleton : yet he persisted in directing everything. He was grown so sus- picious that he avoided all the large towns, and at length almost entirely confined himself to his castle at Montils-lez-Tours, in Touraine, which, from the triple fortification of ditch, rampart, and palisades with which he surrounded it, obtained the name of Plessis.^^ Forty crossbow-men lurked constantly in the entrench- ment, and during the night shot at everybody who approached ; while a strong guard surrounded the castle and occupied the rooms. All round Plessis were to be seen corpses hanging on the trees ; for Tristan I'Ermite, provost of the Marshalsea, whom Louis called his compere, or gossip, caused persons to be tortured and hanged without much troubling himself for proofs of their mis- deeds. All day might be heard around the castle the screams of agonizing wretches ; others disappeared noiselessly in the river. '^ '" These two parties came into exist- ence after the death of William IV., Count of Hainault, in 1355 ; with whom expired the line of Hainault, which also held HoDand and Zealand. The original principles of these parties are not known, but at a later period the KcMc/Jcmwrn, or Cod-fish party, represented the munici- pal faction, while the Hocks (fish-hooks) were the nobles, who were to catch and control them. Motley, Butch Bcp. vol. i. p. 40. " From Pleisseicium, or Plexitium, an enclosure (locus undique clausus. Du- cange). The Prevut des Marechaux, or dc la Marechansscc, was an officer whose duty it was to guard the highways. ^^ Such is the account of Claude de Seissel, whicli, from his enmity to Louis, may be a little exaggerated ; but Comiues 158 PEACE OF AKRAS. [Book I. Louis had sent his queen into Dauphine ; his son was educating or rather growing up without education, at the Chateau d'Amboise. Louis was accustomed to say that he would always be wise enough if he knew these five Latin words : Qui nescit disshnulare nescit regnare.^^ Even Louis' daughter Anne, and her husband, the Sire de Beaujeu, were rarely permitted to see the King, though they had always been faithful and affectionate. He was attended only by astrologers and physicians, and some of those low people in whose society he delighted. In order to divert himself, he sent for rare animals from distant climates, and hired musicians and peasants who danced before him the dances of their countries. From the King's fear of death, Jacques Coictier, his physician, gained a great ascendant over him, and being a brutal and avaricious man, extorted 10,000 gold crowns a month, beside making the King give him several Lordships and the presidency of the Chambre des Coniptes. Pope Sixtus IV., aware of the King's abject superstition, sent him so many relics from Eome that the people became riotous at the spoliation of the churches. Among them were the corporal, or holy cloth, on which " Mon- seigneur Pierre " had sung the mass, the rods of Moses and Aaron, &c. Yet, which is a most singular trait in his character, Louis remained to the day of his death inaccessible to the influence of the clergy. It was from such a retreat that Louis pushed his old policy of bribery, espionage, and cabal, with more vigour than ever. We have already alluded to his intrigues with the Flemings : he caballed not only with the Flemish aristocracy but also with the demagogues of Ghent, two of whom, E}Tn and Coppenole were subsequently executed. Thus as the King was dropping into his grave, he confessed that greater advantages were offered to him by the guardians of Philip than he could ever have expected. Maxi- milian, who kept memoranda of all the insults and injuries he had ever received from the French, maintained the war as a sort of point of honour, though it had been vmattended with any im- portant operations ; but his influence ceased with the death of his wife, and the Eegents concluded a peace at Arras, December 23rd 1482. The principal article stipulated the future marriage of Margaret, then two years' old, and the Dauphin Charles, and that she should be educated in France. Artois, Burgundy, with the Lord- ships of Macon, Auxerre, Bar-sur-Seine, and Noyers, were to be shows that groat cruelties •wero exercised " "He who cannot dissemble, knows at Plessis and elsewhere. See Martin, not how to rule." t. vdi. p. 145, ^ Chap, ni.] DEATH OF LOUIS XI. 159 her dowry, and were to remain in the hands of Louis ; but these territories were to revert to her brother Philip if the marriage was not consummated, or if Margaret died without children. In pur- suance of the treaty the infant Margaret was carried to Paris. Louis XL expired August 30th 1483, in his sixty-first year. He was a bad man but a politic King, and laid the foundation of that centralisation and that absoluteness in the French monarchy which were at length brought to completion by Cardinal Eichelieu. In these plans, however, he was much assisted by fortunate circum- stances. The death of his brother gave him Gruienne ; that of Charles the Bold enabled him to take possession of Burgundy ; while Anjou, Maine, and Provence, fell to him by the extinction of the House of Anjou. Louis favoured industry, and encouraged all ranks of men, even ecclesiastics and nobles, to devote themselves to commerce ; he planted mulberry trees, and endeavoured to in- troduce the culture of the silk-worm iuto France : he brouo^ht skilful workmen from Italy in order to establish the manufacture of stuffs of gold, silver, and silk ; and Tours became under his auspices what Lyon is now on a larger scale. Yet in spite of the favour he had always shown to the middling and trading classes, he was as unpopular among them as he was among the nobility. It was indeed impossible that such a character should inspire love : and even, without any personal considerations, and merely in a political point of view, the popularity which his other measures were calculated to win was forfeited by the heavy taxes which his system of policy compelled him to impose. Taxation had been almost tripled since the death of Charles VII., owing to the large army maintained by Louis, the number of his spies and secret agents, and the vast sums which he spent in bribery and corruption in most of the comts of Europe. Louis XL was the first to assume officially and permanently the titles of " Very Christian King " and " Majesty," though the former had been occasionally used before.^* Charles VIII. , the son and successor of Louis, was in his four- teenth year at the time of his father's death, and therefore accord- ing to the ordinance of Charles V. had attained his majority. But though there was no occasion for a regency, Charles's tender years, '* The principal authorities for the separate editions. The Chroniqv.es dcs reign of Louis XL and the aflfairs of Dues dc Boiirgngne of Chastcllain, and Burgundy during that period are, the those of Jean Molinet, are in Buchon's Mhnoires of Philippe de Comines, of Chroniques nationalcs Fran^-aises, t. xli. Olivier de la Marclie, and of Jean de sqq. The reader may also consult Duclos, Troyes, all of which are in Petitot's Hist, de Louis XL collection. Of Comines there are several 160 ANNE OF BEAUJEU GOVEEXS. [Book I. coupled with his feebleness both of mind and body, rendered him unfit immediately to assume the reins of government ; and Louis had foreseen and provided for this contingency by naming Charles's sister, Anne, who was eight years his senior, to carry on the government till her brother should be in a condition to undertake it. Anne .had secured the favour and approbation of Louis by many qualities which resembled his own ; and he was accustomed to say of her, in his usual cynical way, that " she was the least foolish of any woman in the world : for as to a wise woman, there is none." Her masculine understandinc^ and couraofe would indeed have rendered her worthy of the throne of France if it could have devolved to a female. Anne's husband, Peter of Bourbon, Lord of Beaujeu, — whence she was commonly called "la Dame de Beaujeu" — a man of good sense and some practical ability, was little consulted by her in the administration of affairs, though a useful instrument in carrying out her views. But Louis, Duke of Orleans, who had married Joanna, the second daughter of Louis XL, and v/ho as first Prince of the Blood con- sidered himself entitled to direct the King, felt himself aggrieved by this arrangement. The first days of emancipation from the iron rod of his father-in-law were, however, devoted not to ambition but to pleasure. This young prince of twenty- one was united to an ugly wife for whom he felt no affection ; and immediately after the death of the King he commenced a round of dissipation, in which women, dice, tournaments and the luxuries of the table succeeded one another by turns. He soon, however, occupied himself vdih the more dangerous schemes of ambition, and entered into intrigues with Maximilian of Burgundy, Francis II. Duke of Brittany, and several of the French nobles ; and thinking to obtain his ends through the people he persuaded the Council to summon the Etats-Generaux to meet at Tours January 5th 1484. To divert the storm which she foresaw, Anne sought by her measures to gain the love and confidence of the people. She abandoned the hated tools of her father, and among them Oliver Necker, who was condemned to death for various crimes ; one of the blackest being his having caused a prisoner to be executed whose wife had sacrificed to him her honour as the price of her husband's life. Even Philippe de Comines was compelled to retire. The taxes which weighed most heavily on the people were abolished, and a body of 6000 Swiss, besides other mercenaries, was dismissed. With the princes and nobles Anne adopted the politic arts of her father, and gained many of them to her cause by a skilful distri- bution of money and honours. The Duke of Orleans and the Chap. III.] DISTURBANCES IX BRITTAXY. 161 Counts of Angouleme and Dunois were each presented with a company of 100 lances and a considerable yearly pension, and the Duke also received the confiscated estates of Oliver Necker. By these means Anne contrived to render the proceedings of the Etats harmless against her.'^ The Duke of Orleans, however, was not appeased by his pensions and honours, and some disturbances in Brittany afforded him an opportunity to display his discontent. Landois, the minister and favourite of Duke Francis, a tailor by origin, had driven the Breton nobles to revolt by his cruelties, who, having failed in an attempt to seize him at Nantes, had assembled at Ancenis; and hereupon Landois, with the consent of Duke Francis, invited the Duke of Orleans into Brittany, holding out to him the prospect of marrying the eldest daughter and heiress of Francis, although negotiations were actually on foot for betrothing her to the Archduke JNIaxi- milian. Francis himself was the last male representative of the House of Montfort ; but he had two daughters, Anne and Isabella, and as Brittany was not a male fief, it would of course descend to the elder. The Duke of Orleans listened to the proposal made to him, and in April 1484 proceeded into Brittany ; but the story of his having been captivated by the personal charms of Anne can hardly be true, as that princess was then only eight years of age. The Breton nobles were now proceeded against with the greatest cruelty. Their houses were razed, their woods cut down, and in their despair they resorted to the French Eegent for protection ; binding themselves by oath to acknowledge the French King as their natural lord after the death of Duke Francis, with reservation however of the ancient laws and customs of Brittany. On the other hand the Duke of Orleans, proclaiming that he intended to deliver the King from those w^ho held him prisoner, formed a league with Count Dunois, the Duke of Alen^on the old Constable of Bourbon, and other malcontent princes ; and he persuaded the ParHament of Paris to annul the decree of the Etafs-Generaux which invested Anne with the regency. But the machinations of this faction were disconcerted by the death of Landois, who was the soul of it. Duke Francis and his minister having despatched an army to reduce the malcontent barons at Ancenis, the ducal forces, inspired by the universal hatred against Landois, joined the insurgents, and marched upon Nantes ; the inhabitants of that ^5 Their proccedicgs are published system of government both civil and among the Documents inidits sur V liistoire ecclesiastical of those times. de France, and throw great light on the YOL. I. M 162 HENRY TUDOR IX BRITTANY. [Book I.^ city rose, Landois was seized in the very chamber of the Dukey and hanged after a summary process, July 14th 1485. The Duke of Orleans and the confederate 23rinces had also lost an ally by the revolution which placed Henry VII. on the throne of England. After the battle of Tewkesbury in 1474, Henry Tudor, Earl of Kichmond, flying by sea, was driven on the coast of Brittan}^, where Francis afforded him protection; engaging how- ever that Richmond should undertake nothing against the crown of Edward IV. After the death of that sovereign, Landois, with a view to strengthen his own power in Brittany, had resolved to take advantage of the troubles in England to assist Richmond to the throne, and to effect a marriage between him and the heiress of Brittany ; and he gave him 5000 men to invade England. The issue of that first unfortunate attempt against Richard III. is well known. It was frustrated without a single battle ; the Duke of Buck- ingham, who had declared for Richmond, being deserted by his troops, was captured and beheaded ; the rising of the Bishop of Ely also failed, and the Bishop of Exeter and Marquis of Dorset, Henry's supporters on the southern coast, were glad to escape to Brittany on the approach of Richard. Meanwhile Richmond and his Breton forces had been detained by contrary winds ; and finding on his arrival on the English coast that the plot had failed, he did not even land. About Christmas 1483, the English emigrants in Brittany, who were pretty numerous, held a meeting in a church at Rennes, and swore allegiance to Henry, on condition that he should marry the eldest daughter of Edward I,V. The news of this proceeding caused Richard III. to strain every nerve in order to get rid of Richmond ; and Landois, who found his own designs frustrated by the projected marriage between Henry and Elizabeth of York, entered into negotiations with Richard. The English King promised military assistance against the insurgent Breton barons, engaged to confer the estates and honours of Richmond on the Duke of Brittany, and to present Landois with the confiscated properties of the English emigrants, on his undertaking to seize and imprison Henry ; but the latter having got intelligence of this design, escaped with great difficulty into Anjou a little before the day appointed for its execution ; and Duke Francis, who does not appear to have known the whole extent of Landois' base plan, dismissed the other English emigrants, who were received and sheltered by the French Regent. In 1485, Richmond, with the assistance of the Frehch Court, made preparations in Normandy for another invasion of England. The Regent was induced to take this step by Richmond's promise to Chap, in.] ACCESSION OF HEXRY VII. IX EXGL.iXD. 163 convert the truce between England and France into a peace, and to withdraw the pretensions of the English Crown to Normandy, Anjou, and the other provinces which had formerly belonged to it. The result of Kichmond's second attempt we need not detail. He sailed from Harfleur August 1st 1485, with less than 2000 men, and landing at Milford Haven was joined by large bodies of the Welsh and English ; Eichard was defeated and slain in the battle of Bosworth, August 22nd : and Henry Tudor mounted the throne of England with the title of Henry VII. By the death of Landois and of his ally Eichard III., the con- federate princes foui^d all the hopes of their faction disconcerted ; and although they had armed their vassals and hirelings, they were glad to submit to the terms dictated by the Eegent Anne. Dunois was banished to Asti in Piedmont, a town belonging to the Duke of Orleans ; while the latter was obliged to allow the King's troops to take possession of all his fortresses. The Constable Bourbon escaped with impunity, in consideration of his great age, and because the Eegent's husband was his heir. The Duke of Brittany, in a treaty concluded at Bourges, acknowledged himself the vassal of France, though the question whether he owed simple or liege homage was still left undecided ; and thus was terminated what has been called la guerre folle, or the foolish war. The Eegent Anne, however, foresaw that the future union of Brittany with France, though promised by the Breton States, would ever be a matter of great uncertainty, as Francis was bitterly averse to it ; but the step which she took to give additional support to the claim of her brother Charles had an opposite effect to what she intended. In the preceding century, the possession of the Duchy had been an object of contention between Charles of Blois and John of Montfort. The latter, from whom Duke Francis was descended, had prevailed ; but the claims of the House of Blois had been transmitted to that of Penthievre, and had come by marriage to John des Brosses : from whom and his wife they had been purchased by Louis XL Anne procured from Madame de Brosses a confirmation of this transfer to her brother Charles VIII. : a step which so highly incensed Francis that he called his States together in I486, and extorted an oath from them on the consecrated host, the gospels, and the relics of the holy cross, that after his death they would recognise his two daughters as the only true heirs of the Duchy, and would oppose with all their might any other pretenders. Some successes of the Archduke Maximilian in I486, who had not hitherto been able to accomplish anything for his confederates^ M 2 164 DISTURBANCES IX FLANDERS. [Book I. the French princes, again awoke the hopes of the latter, and led to a new coalition. In 1485, ]\Iaximilian seemed to have brought his disputes with the towns and states of the Netherlands to a happy termination. Having quieted the disturbances in Liege, Utrecht, and Holland, he had leisure to proceed against the Flemings, who had compelled him to intrust his son Philip to their guardianship, just as they had obliged him to send his daughter Margaret into France. After taking some other Flemish towns, he appeared before Grhent, the seat of the regency, and compelled it to a capitulation, by which he recovered the guardianship of his son Philip. Some of the German soldiery having excited a disturbance by their mis- conduct, which was resented by the citizens, Maximilian seized the occasion as a pretext for depriving Grhent of its fortifications and artillery. He also raised the taxes, publicly tore the charter of the city, abolished the democratic government of the guilds, and established an aristocratic council in its place. In February 1486, the Emperor Frederick had procured his son to be elected King of the Romans, and in the following April Maximilian was crow^ned at Aix-la-Chapelle by the Archbishop of Cologne. Maximilian now determined on breaking the treaty of Arras, and entering Artois with a considerable army, he took Terouenne and Sens ; but the Duke of Crevecoeur, the French general, by keeping within the fortified places, exhausted Maximilian's resources, and oblicjed him to dismiss his mercenaries and retreat. In the following year, 1487, the French took St. Omer, and gained a victory near Bethune. The war, however, was carried on by neither side with vigour, Maximilian being involved in contentions with Grhent and Bruges, and the Regent wishing to destroy the faction of the Dukes of Orleans and Brittany before putting forth her whole strength in Artois. The disturbances in Flanders soon assumed a very serious aspect. Maximilian having caused Adrian de Vilain, one of the demasfofrues of Grhent, to be seized and carried off to Brabant, the prisoner contrived to escape by the way, and having returned to Grhent, he succeeded in exciting an insun-ection. Meanwhile Maximilian had been entrapped to Bruges by a stratagem. Against the advice of all his friends he accepted the invitation of the inhabitants to attend the celebration of Candlemas; but he had not been lonof there when news arrived that Ghent was in full revolt (February 10th 1488) ; and on Maximilian's preparing to proceed thither, the citizens of Bruges shut their gates, and tumidtuously demanded the dismissal of his obnoxious counsellors. Chap. III.] MAXIMILIAX SEIZED AND IMPEISONED. 165 Maximilian displayed great intrepidity and presence of mind in this conjmicture; and he addressed the people several times durino- three days that he went about in danger of his life. On the fourth the rioters broke into his palace ; Maximilian fled for refuo-e to the house of a grocer in the market-place, where he was made a prisoner, and subsequently carried to one deemed more secure. His suite were pursued by the infuriated populace ; several were seized and tortured, and sixteen w^ere executed ; among whom was Peter de Langhals, the scout or mayor of Bruges. In vain did the States of the other provinces threaten and remonstrate. Maximilian was kept a prisoner till May 16th, nor was he released till he had agreed to a burthensome and dis- graceful capitulation, and given three of the leading nobles as hostages for the performance of it. By this capitulation he pro- mised the Flemish malcontents to observe the treaty of Arras; to renounce the guardianship of his son Philip, so far as Flanders was concerned ; to restore the popular government in Grhent and Bruges; to release Flanders from all connection with Germany, and to withdraw his Grerman troops from that province within three days, and from the rest of the Netherlands within eight. He was obliged to read these conditions from a lofty scaffold erected in the market-place, and to swear in the most solemn manner to observe them. These occurrences prevented Maximilian from executing his part of the agreement with the Dukes of Brittany and Orleans, and the new coalition of French princes before-mentioned, which included, besides those dukes, Dunois, who had now returned from Asti, the Count of Angouleme, the whole house of Foix, the Sire d'Albret, and his son John (who had become by marriage King of Navarre), the Prince of Orange, the G-overnor of Guienne, the Duke of Lor- raine, and several other princes. A want of concert, however, prevailed among them. By prompt action the Regent succeeded in occupying Guienne, the seat of the greatest danger, and in com- pelling the submission of Angouleme and D'Albret. The rest of the malcontents fled to Brittany ; but the principal nobles of that duchy, in number more than fifty, were jealous of the Duke of Orleans, and suspected some of the other confederates of treachery : and they entered into an agreement with the French Court to compel Duke Francis to dismiss them. Accordingly, when a French army entered Brittany, Francis found himself deserted by a great part of his troops. We shall not pursue the details of the war which followed. In May 1488 the Dukes of Brittany and Orleans were declared guilty j» 3 16G DEATH OF DUKE OF BEITTAXY. [Book I. of high treason, and to enforce this decree against them, a fresh army of 12,000 men, under La Tremouille, was despatched into Brittany. The malcontents were completely defeated in the battle of St. Aubin, July 27th 1488, when the Duke of Orleans and the Prince of Orange were made prisoners. Among the forces of the Duke of Brittany was a body of 400 English archers, commanded by Lord Woodville, brother of the Queen Dowager, who had obtained the secret permission of Henry VII. to lead them into France. After the defeat, Woodville and all the English were mercilessly put to death by the French ; as well as a body of Bretons accoutred in the garb of Englishmen, and wearing the red cross in order to strike greater terror into the enemy. The Prince of Orange, who had put on the red cross, and only saved himself by tearing it off, and hiding himself under some dead bodies, was sent to the Castle of Angers. The Duke of Orleans, after being carried to several fortresses, was at length confined in the Tower of Bourges. After this defeat the rest of Brittany speedily submitted, and Duke Francis was obliged to accept at Sable the hard conditions imposed upon him in the name of Charles VIII. ; one of the principal of which was that neither of his daughters should be given in marriage without the consent of the French King. Scarce was the treaty signed when Francis died, September 9th 1488 ; upon which the Council of France immediately claimed the guardianship of his daughters, and required that the eldest, Anne, should not assume the title of Duchess till commissioners had decided between her claims and those of Charles. Francis by his v/ill had appointed the Marshal de Eieux to be Eegent, or protector, of the duch}^, and guardian of his daughters. De Bieux would have married Anne, who had not yet attained her twelfth year, to the Sire d'Albret, who was at least forty-five, though Anne testified the greatest repugnance to the match ; and as De Eieux pressed his plan, and as great part of Brittany was occupied by the French troops, Anne fled to Ehedon, and afterwards, by invitation of the citizens, took up her abode at Eennes, where she patiently awaited the assistance promised by Henry VII. of England. The alliance of that cautious and niggardly monarch had been sought both by the Eegent of France and the Duke of Brittany ; the former had pressed, if not for assistance, at least for neutrality ; while Francis had urged all his former services towards Henry as a claim for his support. The English monarch, mth his usual tem- porising policy and aversion to war, had left matters to take their Chap. IH.] MAXDIILLiX MAERIES AXXE OF BRITTAXY. 167 course, trusting that Brittany would prove a match for the French arms ; and had only rendered the small and indirect assistance of Woodville's corps. But the warlike spirit and ancient animosity of the English towards the French revived at the prospect of Brittany being swallowed up by France, and Henry saw himself under the necessity of taking some decisive step. In the present temper of the nation it was not difficult to procure a considerable subsidy ; and by a treaty concluded with the Marshal de Eieux on the part of Anne, he agreed to maintain at least 6000 men in Brittany from February till November 1489 ; the cost of which, however, he was to be repaid, and to receive two seaport towns as security. One of the conditions of the treaty was, that the hand of Anne should not be disposed of without Henry's consent. ^^ Alliances were at the same time made with Maximilian and with Ferdinand of Spain. In pursuance of this treaty, the English landed early in 1489, under the command of Lord Willoughby de Broke, and about the same time (May), 2000 Spaniards made a descent in Morbihan. The French retired into their garrisons, and left the English and their allies masters of the open country, hoping to wear them out by the length and desultory nature of the warfare. And so indeed it proved ; for the English, finding they could obtain no assistance from so feeble and divided a court as that of Brittany, departed when the term of their engagement had expired, without having achieved anything considerable. De Rieux had brought Henry to consent to Anne's marriage wdth the Sire d'Albret; but the aversion of Anne, seconded by the Chancellor Montaubauj who represented that D'Albret's power was not sufficient to be of any use to Anne in her present neces- sities, at length obtained a commutation of this marriage for one with Maximilian, which was celebrated by proxy in 1490. But neither was Maximilian in a condition to lend any effectual assist- ance ; and all that Anne obtained by this union was the title of Queen of the Eomans. We shall here resume that prince's history. The Emperor Frederick III. would not acknowledge the capitulation which his son had made with the Fleminofs, and he endeavoured to raise an army in order to take vengeance on them for the insult offered to the Empire by the imprisonment of the King of the Eomans. The Diet assembled for that purpose produced, however, little but long speeches ; and but for the zeal and patriotism of Duke Albert of Saxony, who furnished troops from his own resources, nothing could " Rjmer, t. xii. p. 362. M 4 168 MAXIMILIAN CHASTISES THE FLEMINGS. [Book I. have been attempted in the Netherlands. Frederick accompanied the imperial army of which Duke Albert was general ; and in a Diet held at Mechlin, he procm'ed the treaty extorted from Maxi- milian to be annulled, and the warmest resolutions to be adopted against the Flemings. The war which followed, however, does not present any events of importance. The siege of Grhent was attempted, but aban- doned (July 1488) ; and the French on their side, alarmed at the prospect of havirg to contend at once with Germany, England, and Aragon, did not venture to attack Duke Albert. In 1489 the Eegent Anne made proposals for a peace to the German States assembled at Frankfort ; and though JNIaximilian was at first averse to it, by the advice of the German princes, a treaty was concluded July 22nd, on the basis of that of Arras. Charles VIII. promised his friendly intervention to restore the obedience of the provinces of Flanders, Brabant, and their adherents to Maximilian, and he engaged to re-establish in their estates, D'Albret, Dunois, and their allies, ]\Iaximilian making the same promise with regard to the adherents of France in the Netherlands ; but the question respect- ing the liberation of the Duke of Orleans, as well as some other points, was referred to an interview to take place in three months between the very Christian King and the King of the Eomans. Charles agreed to evacuate his acquisitions in Brittany, but certain conditions were attached which afforded a loophole for opening up the whole treaty. The assistance of the French being thus mthdrawn from his domestic enemies, Maximilian soon got the better of them. Hav- ing assembled his Kabbeljauwen adherents at Leyden, under the name of the States of Holland, he pursued the war with the Hoeks, and took from them the town of Eotterdam. The Flemish towns and Philip of Cleves, their leader, now submitted, and a treaty was concluded, October 1st 1489, by which they agreed to recog- nise Maximilian as Eegent, to pay him a compensation of 300,000 gold pieces, and to compel the counsellors who were in office at the time of his imprisonment to ask pardon on their knees, bare- headed, dressed in black, and mthout their girdles. Having brought the affairs of the Netherlands to this happy conclusion, Maximilian repaired to Austria, leaving Albert of Saxony, the Count of Nassau, and the Prince of Chimai stadtholders in the Low Countries. In the following year their fleet of thirty-eight ships, commanded by Jan von Egmont, obtained a complete victory over that of the Hoeks, July 21st 1490, and captured the Hoek leader. Chap, ni.] CHARLES YIII. BEGINS TO REIGN. 1G9 Francis von Brederode, who died soon afterwards of his wounds. Duke Albert remained imperial stadtholder in the Netherlands till his death in 1500. We have already mentioned Maximilian's marriage with Anne of Brittany in 1490. The method of its celebration by proxy, conducted after a Grerman fashion, afforded the French some merriment. The Duchess being put to bed, a naked sword was placed at her side, and Maximilian's representative, the Count of Nassau, holding his credentials in his hand, placed his naked leg next to the sword. This laughable consummation was at first re- garded as legal ; but as Maximilian delayed to appear in Brittany, the French jurists found time to declare the wedding null ; and their decision was confirmed by a decree of the Council, which pro- nounced the ceremony an unseemly trick. In fact the French Court had determined that the heiress of Brittany should marry Charles YIII. ; and the KSire d'Albret, then commandant of Nantes, who had given up all hopes of Anne for himself, was bribed to forward their views by a large sum of money, a pension of 25,000 francs, the restitution of his estates, and other favours. Early in 1491, D'Albret betrayed Nantes to the French. The young Duchess, who was at Rennes, was now in a dangerous position, and Maximilian's lieutenants were precluded from lending her any assistance by insurrections in the Nether- lands. The heavy taxes and the tampering with the currency had caused symptoms of rebellion in Ghent. In Friesland, Jan von Egmont having caused two men to be executed for refusing, to pay the tax called Knight-Money, the people rose and assembled under a banner in which was depicted a loaf and cheese ; whence these insursrents were called the bread and cheese folk. Towards the end of 1491 they seized Alkmaar. A third insurrection was excited by the French, who persuaded the young Duke of Guelder- land, then in their custody, to make an attempt for the recovery of his duchy, and they supported him with one thousand horse. His cause was also espoused by Robert and Eberhard de la Mark, by the Bishop of Liege, and by Rene II., Duke of Lorraine. Meanwhile Charles VIIL, qualified by his advancing years, had begun to take a greater share in the government. The Sire de Beaujeu, husband of the Regent Anne, had become Duke of Bourbon by the death of the old Duke in April 1488 ; he and his consort often retired to their estates, and Anne no longer appeared so frequently in the Council, though her influence continued paramount with the King. The first decisive step by which the a 70 CHARLES VIII. MAERIES AXNE OF BEITTAXY. [Book I. King manifested that he was no longer in tutelage, was the libera- tion of his brother-in-law, the Duke of Orleans. Notwithstanding the Duke's neglect of Joanna, and his project of obtaining a divorce, she was devotedly attached to him ; she had insisted on sharing his captivity, and had frequently, but in vain, im- plored her sister, the Regent, for his liberation. She had more success with Charles. She threw herself at his feet, and by tears and entreaties obtained her prayer ; though Charles could not help remarking, that he prayed Heaven she might never have cause to repent it. One evening, on pretence of hunting, Charles rode towards the tower of Bourges, and stopping at a little distance, sent for the Duke. It was nearly three years since Louis had crossed the threshold of his prison. As he approached the King, he threw himself on his knees and burst into tears ; but the King fell on his neck, and gave him every token of esteem and affection. A solid proof of his sentiments was his bestowing the government of Normandy on Louis (May 1491). After his liberation, the Duke of Orleans abandoned all his designs upon Anne of Brittany, from gratitude both to his wife and to the King ; and indeed any further prosecution of them would have been unavailing. Charles YIII. having entered Brittany with large forces, and sat down before Rennes, where the Duchess was residing, her counsellors and friends advised her to capitulate. On November 15th a treaty was made, by which Charles and Anne agreed to refer their respective claims to the decision of twenty-four commissaries ; Rennes was to be placed in the hands of the Dukes of Orleans and Bourbon ; and a pension of 40,0t)0 crowns was assured to Anne in case her pretensions were rejected. Anne also stipulated that she should have liberty to retire into Germany to her husband, the King of the Romans. But this was only meant for the public eye, and to deceive the representative of Maximilian. In secret another engagement had been entered into, which was to deprive that prince at once of a wife and a son-in-law. It has been already related that Charles VIII. had been affianced to Maximilian's daughter, Margaret of Austria, who had been sent into France for her education. Her tender years, for she was now only eleven, had prevented the consummation of the marriage, and Charles resolved to substitute Anne of Brittany in her place. The acquisition of that duchy seemed to outweigh the probable loss of Artois and Franche Comte, the dowry of Margaret. On the very day that the treaty was signed, the King entered Rennes, and had Cbap. ni.] IL\GE OF MAXIMILIAX. 171 a long conversation Avitli the Ducliess ; and three days afterwards they were secretly affianced. The King then set off for Langeais, in Touraine, where he was soon joined by Anne, and their marriage was pubHcly solemnised, December 16th 1491. Anne was then near fifteen ; Charles twenty-one. By the marriage contract, they mutually assigned to each other their pretensions to the duchy, and Anne, whose sister had died the year before, engaged, in case she should survive the Kingj not to contract a second marriage, except with a future King of France or his presumptive heir. The couple thus singularly united, formed the most striking contrast, both in mind and person. Anne was eminently hand- some, of majestic presence, of bold and energetic character; while Charles was deformed in body, and weak and fantastic in mind. A celebrated Italian physiognomist ^^ of that age describes him as having a great head, a long nose, and large prominent eyes ; though his body was robust, his legs were weak and slender. Brantome, and some other French writers, have characterised him as a great king, apparently from admiration of his extravagant plans of ambition, though he was entirely deficient in the qualities necessary for their execution. He seems indeed to have possessed courage, and a certain goodness of heart ; but he was so illiterate, as scarcely to be able to read ; he was without prudence or judg- ment, and averse to all labour and application. The rao-e and astonishment of Maximilian at the news of the double injury inflicted on him may be imagined. Thoughts of vengeance immediately rose in his mind, but without any prospect of being able to gratify them ; for he could expect assistance neither from the empire nor from the Netherlanders ; his only hope rested on England, 'which he thought would not suffer Brittany to be incorporated with France. Henry YIL, however, though he allied himself vdth Maximilian, was moved thereto rather by the hope of extracting supplies from his subjects than by any serious idea of making war upon France. ^laximilian addressed long, but un- heeded, manifestoes to the European Courts, in which he satisfac- torily proved how much he had been injured; and he sent the Count of Xassau to Paris to demand back his daughter Margaret and her dowTy; but the French King, relying on the cabals and disturbances which he hoped to excite in Flanders, returned an evasive answer. The greater part of the year 1492 elapsed without much being " Bartholemew Codes, ap. MartiD, t. vii. p. 226. 172 TREATY OF ETAPLES. [BookT, done. Henry YII. had procured large sums from his ParliamenI: on the pretext of the war, which had excited considerable enthusiasm in England; nothing less was dreamt of than the conquest of France, and many pledged or sold their manors to appear in the field and partake the expected triumph. Yet, though Henry declared himself ready for action in May, the expedition was put off under various pretences till October, when 1500 English men- at-arms and 25,000 foot encamped before Boulogne. Henry however, had been long before negotiating with the French Government, and on Sept. 3rd, a formal treaty was concluded at Etaples. By subsequent conventions'^ (Nov. 3rd and Dec. 13th) Charles VIII. engaged to pay Henry within fifteen years 620,000 gold crowns in the name of Anne of Brittany, as an indemnity for the English succours; and also 125,000 gold crowns in his own name, as arrears of a pension formerly promised to the Kings of England for a hundred years by Louis XI. through his plenipo- tentiary, the Bishop of Elne, though Louis himself had never ratified it, and had broken off all connection mth England after the death of Edward IV. Henry VII. excused himself to his sub-» jects for this peace by alleging that he could expect no assistance either from Maximilian or Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. These monarchs had, indeed, concluded a treaty wdth Charles at Barcelona, Jan. 19th 1493, by which the latter, in his anxiety to remove all obstacles to the Neapolitan expedition that he was contemplating, had restored to them Eoussillon and Cerdagne, without exacting the repayment of the sums formerly advanced by Louis XL on these two counties. ^^ The recovery of these pro- vinces was regarded by the Spaniards as only second in importance to their recent conquest of Granada. The war with Maximilian now alone prevented Charles from crossing the Alps. Maximilian had met with some successes. Arras had been delivered to him a little after Bapaume had been taken ; while a general insurrection had 1 roken out in Franche Comte after the repudiation of Margaret. The French arms would no doubt have retrieved these checks ; but negotiations were opened, and a peace concluded between Charles and ^Maximilian at Senlis, May 23rd 1493. The Princess ^Margaret was given up as well as the provinces which formed her dowry, a few towns ex- " RjTTier, t. xii. pp. 506, 509. enterprise of Charles. See Prescott, Fcrd. *^ Ferdinand does not appear, as many and Isahdla, vol. ii. p. 250. Tlie treaty historians have asserted, to have hound is in Dumont, Corp. Dipl. t. iii. pt. ii. himself by this treaty not to oppose the p. 297 sq. Chap, in.] PEACE OF SENLIS. 173 cepted, which were to be permanently retained, and a few others which were to be held till the majority of Philip. Margaret after- wards contracted two unfortunate marriages ; first, with Don Juan heir of Castile, and after his premature death, with Philibert, Duke of Savoy, who also died, leaving her a second time a widow at the age of twenty-four. At a later period, under Charles V., she became renowned as the prudent and politic ruler of the Netherlands. By these sacrifices, in order to obtain a peace with his immediate neighbours, did Charles prepare for his rash expedition into Italy ; but before relating the events which it produced, we must return to the affairs of that country, and of the rest of Europe. 174 PROCEEDINGS OF POPE SIXTUS IV. [Book I. CHAPTER IV. No sooner was Pope Sixtus IV. delivered from the apprehensions inspired by the presence of the Turks in Italy^, than he imme- diately recommenced the prosecution of his ambitious designs for the aggrandisement of his nephew, the Count of Imola. In order to provide funds for his extraordinary expenses he monopolised the sale of wheat in the States of the Church ; he rendered venal all the offices of the Apostolic Court, and openly advertised them for sale with the prices affixed ; nay, he even sold, though rather more secretly, a good many benefices, and some cardinals' hats.^ He intrigued wdth the Venetians in order to rob Hercules d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, of his dominions, and to divide them between Venice and his nephew; and war was declared against the Duke in May 1482. Hereupon the King of Naples, the Duke of Milan, and the Florentines, who had in vain endeavoured to dissuade the Pope from this step, recalled their ambassadors from Rome, and declared in favour of the Duke of Ferrara. The Venetians took Rovigo with its Polesini^, together 'with several other Ferrarese towns, and were approaching Ferrara itself, when they were suddenly deserted by their ally. This conduct of the Pope was partly occasioned by the altered views of his nephew, who had been gained over by the magnificent promises of the Courts of Spain and Naples, and partly by his own apprehensions respecting the good faith of the Venetians, whom he suspected of a design to retain Ferrara for themselves. Through the mediation of Ferdinand of Spain, a peace was concluded towards the end of the year between the Po]3e and the Duke of Ferrara's allies, and thus at the beginning of 1483 nearly all Italy was arrayed against Venice. The Duke of Calabria was now enabled to relieve Ferrara by passing with his army through the Papal territories ; and the Pope, as the Vene- tians would not listen to his exhortations to lay down their arms, * See above, p. 111. Popes, toI. i. p. 412 (Mrs. Austin's transl.). ^ He established whole collet^es, the pla- " The isles formed by the Adige, Po, ces in which were sold for 200 or 300du- Tartaro, and other rivers on the north- cats a piece. Some of these bore the most east coast of Italy, are called Pohsini. singular titles, as, for instance, the " Col- That of Rovigo is one of the largest and lege of a hundred Janissaries." Ranke, most fertile. Chap. IY.] ELECTION OF mNOCEXT VIII. 173 did not scruple to excommunicate them for pursuing the very same course in which he had before encouraged and assisted them. But the Venetians, unlike the Florentines, disregarded these censures, and appealed from the Pope to a future council, before which Sixtus was summoned to appear by the Patriarch of Aqui- leia ; they forbade their clergy even to open the Papal bulls, and punished such ecclesiastics as refused to perform divine service. The attention of Sixtus and his nephew was distracted by dis- turbances in the Papal States, while a misunderstanding between Louis the Moor and the Duke of Calabria, enabled the Vene- tians to detach Milan from the League. Their fleet took several Neapolitan towns, and even laid siege to Taranto ; and at length, in spite of all the efforts of Sixtus to prevent it, they suc- ceeded in effecting a peace at Bagnolo (August 7th 1484) with all the belligerents, except the Pope himself and Ferdinand of Naples, and all northern Italy was thus reduced to tranquillity. The Venetians were the only gainers by this treaty, which secured to them Eovigo and its Polesina. Sixtus IV. expired a few days after, it is said, of vexation, that nothing had been done for his nephew, and for the maintenance of the papal authority. This successor of St. Peter took a pleasure in beholding the mortal duels of his guards, for which he himself sometimes gave the signal. He was succeeded by Cardinal Grian Batista Cibo, a Genoese, who assumed the title of Innocent VIII. Innocent was a weak ma,n, without any decided principle. He had seven children, whom he formally acknowledged ^, but he did not seek to advance them so shamelessly as Sixtus had advanced his nepheivs. Yet he endeavoured to procure sonae advantages for his family from the disturbances which broke out about this time at Naples. Alphonso, Duke of Calabria, who was universally hated for his luxury and pride, had persuaded his father to impose new burthens on the nobles ; whereupon the barons revolted, and appealed to the Pope as Lord-paramount ; Innocent accepted the appeal, demanded the tribute formerly payable by the Crown of Naples, instead of the palfrey with which his predecessor had been content, and cited King Ferdinand to appear at Eome. A war now broke out between Eome and Naples, in which the Venetians and Greuoese supported the Pope, while Florence and Milan joined Ferdinand. But the Duke of Calabria carried his arms to the walls of Eome and shut up Innocent in his capital, who, in these straits, was glad to accept the me- * Hence the epigram concluding with the line : " Hunc merito poterit dicere Eoma patrem." 176 GOVERXMEXT OF LORENZO De' MEDICI. [Book I. diation of Ferdinand of Aragon, Lorenzo de' Medici, and other potentates. The King of Naples was desirous of peace in order to put down his rebellious barons, and he therefore listened to the conditions proposed with the secret determination not to observe them. A peace was patched up August 12th 1486, after which Ferdinand began to take vengeance on his nobles, whom he had eno^ao-ed to spare ; and most of them became his victims, except the Prince of Salerno and the sons of the Prince of Bisignano, who escaped to the Court of France. Ferdinand also neglected to fulfil the conditions which he had stipulated with the Pope : the latter for some time contented himself with remonstrating, till in 1489 he formally excommunicated the Neapolitan monarch and deprived him of his kingdom. Ferdinand appealed to a council, and pre- parations for war were made on both sides ; but Innocent proceeded no further, and Lorenzo de' Medici, who was the friend of both parties, mediated between them. Lorenzo, who had experienced much inconvenience from the enmity of the late Pope, had courted the friendship of Innocent, whose son Franceschetto Cibo, was given in marriage to Lorenzo's daughter ; and the Pope this year bestowed a Cardinal's hat on Lorenzo's son John, afterwards the celebrated Pope Leo X. But as John was then only fourteen, the consecration was deferred till 1492. During the intervening years, Italy was in the enjoyment of peace, for which she was in a great degree indebted to the polic}^ of Lorenzo, whose connection with the Pope had established his power on new foundations. In foreign affairs he used it with justice and moderation. He had become as it were the balance point of the Italian States-^; and as he repressed the jealousies and aggressions of the petty but ambitious princes by whom he was surrounded, so likewise he himself abstained from any attempt to extend the Florentine dominion at the expense of his neigh- bours. But with regard to the internal affairs of Florence his power was not exercised with a similar moderation : his yoke became heavier every day. About the year 1489 he began to assume the title of Principe del Governo, or chief of the govern- ment^, a name hitherto unknown in Florence; and the interests of the state were sacrificed in order to support his commercial credit. In 1490 a sort of national bankruptcy ensued. The interest of the public debt was reduced from three to one and a half per cent., many religious foundations were suppressed, and the coin was debased in order to rescue the bank of the Medici from ^ Filippo de' Nerli, ap. Roscoe, Lo- ® Scipione Ammirato, lib. xxvi. p. 184, renzo de' Medici, vol. ii. p. 34. ap. Sismondi, Ilcp. Ital. oh, xc. Chap. IV.] DEATH OF LOREXZO DE' MEDICI. 177 ruin. After this crisis, Lorenzo, who though still in the prime of life, was subject to ill health, began to think of retiring from public affairs ; but whilst he was meditating this scheme, a more violent ac3ess of his disorder, which seems to have been unskilfully treated by his physicians, carried him off at his villa at Careggi, April 8th 1492, in the forty-fourth year of his age. His political character has been variously estimated by different writers, according to their principles or prejudices, but none can deny him the praise of having been a warm and enlightened patron of literature and art. Peter, the eldest of the three sons of Lorenzo, succeeded to his father's power, at the age of twenty-one. His tall, strong and active frame qualified him for those robust exercises in which he delighted, and in which his pride chiefly lay ; under the tutorship of Politian he had made such advances in classical learning as his faculties permitted ; he had a good address, a facile elocution, an harmonious voice, and the gift of poetical improvisation, so common among the Italians, and rendered so easy by their language. But his understanding was weak ; he was proud and overbearing, and could brook no opposition ; he applied himself but little to public business, yet he pretended that the state should blindly follow his directions. Pope Innocent VIII. did not long survive his friend and ally Lorenzo. He expired July 25th 1492 ; a pontiff who, if not dis- tinguished by eminent ability or virtue, was at least exempt from the blind nepotism and the atrocious crimes by which some of his predecessors and followers were characterized. The great defect of his administration was want of vigour. If he did not commit crime himself, he tolerated it in others, and under his reign Rome became a scene of robbery, violation, and murder. According to the contemporary Journal of Stefano Infessura '^, Innocent endeavoured to prolong his days by the transfusion of blood ; but three boys who had been used for that purpose, having died under the operation, the Jewish physician who had advised it fled, iu order to avoid making more victims. The barbarous state of the science of medicine in those days is also shown by the treatment of Lorenzo de' Medici, who was probably killed by the rich potions formed of peaids and other jewels that were administered to him.^ Pope Innocent VIIL was succeeded by the atrocious Cardinal Roderigo Borgia, a Spaniard of Valencia, where he had at one time ' Ap. Sismondi, Jlep. Ital. t. xi. p. 555. in Eccard's Hist, Med. JEvi, t. ii. Leipsic, It should be remarked that Mm'atori, 1723. in his edition of this Diario in the ^ Roscoe, Lorenzo d^ Medici^ vol. ii. p. Scriptores, has somewhat mutilated it. 232. It will be found in its perfect state VOL. I. N 178 ACCESSION OF POPE ALEXAXDER VI. [Book I. exercised the profession of an advocate. After his election he assumed the name of Alexander VI. Of twenty cardinals who entered the conclave, he is said to have bought the suffrages of all but five ; and Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, whom he feared as a rival, was propitiated with a present of silver that was a load for four mules. Alexander's election was the signal for flight to those cardinals who had opposed it. Griuliano della Eovere retired to his bishopric of Ostia, where he fortified himself for a siege ; and afterwards by way of greater security, he proceeded into France ; while the youthful Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, then only in his seventeenth year, retired to Florence. Pope Alexander had by the celebrated Van- nozza, the wife of a Roman citizen, three sons : John, whom he made Duke of Gandia, in Spain ; Caesar and Geoffrey ; and one daughter, Lucretia, whose morals would have better entitled her to the name of Messalina.^ Italy, which now seemed so peaceable, prosperous, and happy, was on the eve of becoming the scene of those foreign invasions which long deluged her fields with blood, and ended by reducing some of her most fertile provinces under transmontane domina- tion. The prince whose counsels brought this misfortune on his country became deservedly one of the chief sufferers by them. The marriage which had been long arranged between John Galeazzo, the young Duke of Milan, and Isabella, daughter of Alphonso, Duke of Calabria, was consummated in 1489. As Galeazzo, though now arrived at the age of manhood, was of so weak a capacity as to be totally incapable of governing, his uncle, Ludovico, continued to engross all the power of the state ; nay, according to the testimony of a contemporary historian'", he scarcely allowed the young Duke and his consort the common necessaries of their station. But Isabella, a woman of spirit and ambition, though aware of her husband's incapacity, considered herself at least entitled to rule in his place ; and she complained of the bondage in which he was held to her father Alphonso. The latter persuaded King Ferdinand to send an embassy to Milan to remonstrate with Louis ; who, alarmed at the hostility which he foresaw from Alphonso after he should have succeeded to the throne of Naples, an event which might be soon expected, as well as at a ' Theprincipal sources for the atrocious be suspected of sometimes exaggerating, life of Alexander VI. are, Stefano In- as he applies to Alexander stories already fessura before mentioned, who was secre- related by Boccaccio. See Ranke, Zur tary to the Eoman Senate and people, Kritik neuerer Geschicht-schreibcr, sub and the Diary of John Burchard (in nom. Eccard), who was Alexander's master of ^° Corio, Storia di Milano, ap. Sis- the ceremonies. Burchard, howeyer, may moudi, lUp. It. eh. xcii. Chap. IV.] SPANISH HISTORY EESUMED. I79 league entered into between Ferdinand and Peter de' Medici beo^an to concert measures of defence. With this view he arranged an alliance with Pope Alexander, through his brother Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, the Roman Vice-chancellor, which the Venetians were also induced to join (April 21st, 1493). In the same year the Pope married his daughter, Lucretia Borgia, to Griovanni Sforza, Lord of Pesaro. Louis also treated with Maximilian, who became Emperor in August, to procure for himself the title of Duke of Milan, to the exclusion of his nephew, John Graleazzo ; and to draw the bonds of connection closer, he concluded a marriage between Maximilian and Bianca Maria, sister of Graleazzo, which was celebrated at Milan, December 1st. But not content with these precautions Louis despatched, in 1493, an embassy to Charles VIII. of France, exhorting him to claim the cro^vn of Naples, and assuring him of success in such an enterprise through the support of Milan, Venice, and the Pope ; and Alexander VI. is said to have joined in soliciting Charles to attack King Ferdinand. The French monarch was easily persuaded to revive the preten- sions of the House of Anjou ; but before we relate the results of his expedition we must bring dowii to the same period the histories of Spain and Grermany, which countries bore no inconsiderable part in the events which ensued. Henry IV. of Castile ^\ commonly called the Impotent, was, if possible, still weaker than his father, and was governed as abso- lutely by Don Juan Pacheco, Marquis of Villena, as John II. had been by Alvaro de Luna. After divorcing his first wife, Blanche of Aragon, by whom he had no children, Henry espoused in 1455 Joanna, sister of Alphonso V. of Portugal, a young, handsome, and lively princess ; but who, like her husband, has incurred the charge of shameless profligacy. No issue appeared from this marriage till 1462, when Joanna was delivered of a daughter, of whom Beltram de la Cueva, Joanna's reputed paramour, was very generally thought to be the father. So strong was the belief in the illegitimacy of the infant Princess, who obtained the name of La Beltraneja from her putative father, that the nobles banded together for the redress of grievances, refused the oath of fealty which Henry required them to take to her, as heir presumptive, and demanded that Henry's half-brother, Alphonso, should be acknowledged as successor to the throne and committed for safe custody into their hands. The King complied with this demand, but on the condition of Alphonso's future union with the child, whom he regarded as his own daughter. Henry also named a " See Introduction, p. 57. N 2 180 HENKY IV. OF CASTILE DEPOSED. [Book I. committee of five nobles for the reform of abuses ; but they carried their plans so far that Henry was persuaded to disavow their acts. Hereupon the nobles proceeded to depose their Sovereign after the theatrical fashion described by the Spanish historians. An image of the King, clothed in his robes of state, and seated on a throne, was placed on a lofty scaffold erected near the town of Avila : the figure was publicly arraigned from a written manifesto, and as each article was read, was despoiled of some part of its paraphernalia. The Archbishop of Toledo tore the oi'own from its brow; the Marquis of Villena, so lately the King's chief favourite, wrested the sceptre from its hand ; the Count of Placentia snatched the sword of justice from its side, and the image was- at last hurled headlong from the throne. Don Alphonso was then installed in the vacant seat, and received the homage of the assembled nobles (1465). The majority of the nation, however, and even some of the nobles, disapproved of this act, and sided with the King. For a while Henry and x\lphonso both maintained their respective Courts and exercised all the functions of royalty ; till after a few years a furious civil war which had ensued was checked by the sudden death of Alphonso at the early age of fifteen (July 5th 1468). His party now proclaimed his sister Isabella Queen of Castile ; but as she steadily refused to accept that title so long as her brother Henry lived, it became necessary to effect an accommodation. Henry consented without much difiiculty to grant a general amnesty; to dismiss to Portugal his Queen Joanna, whose un- chastity was notorious ; and to confer on Isabella the principality of the Asturias, the appanage which gave title to the heir apparent of the monarchy. At an interview between Heniy and Isabella at Toros de Guisando in New Castile, September 9th 1468, the King solemnly recognised his sister as his successor, and the nobles tendered to her the oath of allegiance. The splendid prospect now opened to Isabella naturally at- tracted to her numerous suitors ; among whom are mentioned a brother of Edward IV. of England, probably Richard, Duke of Grloucester ; the Duke of Guienne, brother of Louis XI. of France ; and her own kinsman Ferdinand, son of John II. of Aragon. The addresses of the last were viewed with most favour by Isabella, as well from the political advantages of such a match, as from the personal qualities of Ferdinand, who was then in the flower of his age. But to some of the nobles, and especially to the Marquis of Villena, who had now rejoined Henry IV. and regained his former influence, a union of the crowns of Castile and Aragon was regarded Chap. IV.] MAERIAGE OF FERDIXA^^D AXD ISABELLA. 181 with aversion; and they entered into the views of their weak monarch, who was still bent on the succession^ of his reputed dauofhter Joanna. In order to defeat the marriao^e between Fer- dinand and Isabella, King Alphonso of Portugal was invited to demand Isabella's hand; but her refusal was supported by the sentiment of the nation, and the attempt only lu'ged Isabella and her adherents to hasten on the marriage with Ferdinand : an event ardently desired by John II., who wdth the view of rendering his son more worthy of Isabella's hand, had already made him King of Sicily, and associated him with himself in the government of Aragon. On January 7th 1469, a marriage contract was con- cluded, by which Ferdinand, in order to conciliate the Castilians, relinquished to his consort all the more essential rights of the Castilian sovereignty. But Ferdinand w^as obliged to seek his betrothed under circumstances of considerable danger. His father being engaged in a war with the revolted Catalans, headed by John of Anjou, could not spare an adequate force to escort Ferdinand into Castile, w^ho therefore resolved to proceed thither in disguise. With six attendants, who assumed the character of commercial travellers, he threaded his way through a country patrolled by the Castilian cavalry, and studded with castles belonging to the oppo- site faction ; having, for better concealment, assumed the disguise of a servant, and performing at the inns all the menial offices attaching to that character. After various adventures he arrived in saf'ety at Duenas in Leon, October 9th, and a few days after had an interview with Isabella. That Princess was in the neighbouring city of Valladolid, whither she had been carried by the Archbishop of Toledo, in order to protect her from a plan formed by Villena to seize her at her residence at Madrigal. The marriage was per- formed on the 19th of October ; and these joint heirs of one of the greatest monarchies of Europe, w^ere so poor as to be obliged to borrow money in order to defray the expenses of its celebration. Ferdinand was now in the eighteenth year of his age. His complexion was fair, his eye vivacious, his forehead lofty and ample ; while his muscular and well-knit limbs were developed and invigorated by the sports and warlike exercises in which he de- lighted. His address was courteous, and his fluent words, uttered in a somewhat shrill and treble voice, might indicate to a shrewd observer a character afterwards noted for perfidy and dissimulation. Isabella was a year older than her' husband. She too was fair ; her auburn locks inclined to red, and her lustrous blue eyes ex- pressed both feeling and intellect. In stature she exceeded the average of her sex. Her demeanour was dignified and reserved, N 3 182 HISTORY OF DOS CARLOS. [Book I. and her taste had led her to cultivate literature, of which we find no trace in Ferdinand. The Prince who thus ultimately united the two chief mo- narchies of Spain had, originally and by birth, no prospect of so brilliant a fortune. He was born March lOth 1452, and was the offspring of John 11. of Aragon by his second w^ife, Joanna Henriquez, daughter of the Admiral of Castile, and of the royal blood of that kingdom. But John, who was then viceroy of Aragon for his brother Alphonso, had three children by his former wdfe, Blanche, daughter of Charles III. of Navarre, and widow of Martin, King of Sicily ; namely, Don Carlos, who, as heir apparent, bore the title of Prince of Viana, and two daughters, Blanche and Eleanor. Don Carlos is known by his virtues and his misfortunes. At the death of his mother Blanche, he should have succeeded to the throne of Navarre ; but John II. was by no means disposed to relinquish the title which he had acquired by marriage, and Carlos consented to be his father's viceroy. But even this dignity he was not permitted to enjoy unmolested. John having sent his Queen Joanna into Navarre to share the government with Carlos, a civil war ensued ; Carlos was supported by the faction called the Beaumonts, Joanna by that of the Agramonts. John hastened to the assistance of his consort, and defeated and captured his son near Aybar. After a captivity of some months the voice of public opinion rather than his own paternal feelings compelled John to reinstate Don Carlos in Navarre ; but that Prince, to avoid en- countering the factions w^hich prevailed there, took refuge at the Court of his uncle Alphonso, King of Naples, and after the death of that monarch in 1458, retired into Sicily, where, in a secluded convent near Messina, he devoted himself to a life of study. But his father^John, wdio by the death of Alphonso had now become King of Aragon, jealous of his son's popularity with the Sicilians, lured him back to Spain wdth the fairest promises. John soon threw off the mask. Carlos having listened to the overtures of Henry IV. of Castile for a marriage with his sister Isabella, John and his consort hastened to prevent an act wdiich would have defeated their darling project in favour, of their son Ferdinand. Carlos received an invitation to Lerida, and having unthinkingly accepted it, was arrested and confined in the mountain fortress of Morella, on the borders of Valencia. But the Catalans, by whom Carlos was as much loved, as John II. and his consort were hated and suspected, flew to arms ; the insurrection spread to Aragon itself, and John found himself compelled to release his son, w^ho repairing to Barcelona, was received with joyful and triumphant Chap. IY.] FERDINAND HEIR TO ARAGON. 183 acclamations by the people. The Catalans now insisted that John should recognise Don Carlos as his heir, and make him governor of Catalonia for life. But when fortune seemed at least weary of persecuting this excellent prince, he was carried off by a fever, September 23rd 1461, in the forty-first year of his age. Strong suspicions were entertained that his death was occasioned by a lingering poison administered to him by order of his stepmother, during his captivity. ^^ Don Carlos was highly accomplished. He was an artist, a musician, and a poet ; but philosophy and history were his favourite studies, and his progress in them is displayed by a translation of Aristotle's Ethics, published at Saragossa in 1509, and by a chronicle of NaTarre from the earliest period to his own time, which still exists in manuscript. In Catalonia he was regarded as a saint and martyr ; miracles were performed at his tomb for centuries, and a touch of his amputated arm was deemed capable of healing diseases. By the death of Don Carlos, the succession to the Crown of Navarre devolved to his sister Blanche, the divorced wife of Henry IV. of Castile ; and that amiable princess now became an object of jealousy not onl}^ to her father but also to her younger sister, Eleanor, married to the Count of Foix, to whom John 11. had promised the reversion of Navarre after his own death. Gaston de Foix, the offspring of this union, had married a sister of Louis XI. ; and it had been provided in a treaty between that monarch and John II., that in order to secure the succession of the House of Foix to Navarre, Blanche should be delivered into the custody of her sister. John executed this stipulation without remorse. Blanche was conducted to the Castle of Orthes in Beam (April 1462), where, after a confinement of nearly two years, she was poisoned by order of her sister Eleanor. Immediately after the death of Carlos, John II. caused the Aragonese to take the oath of allegiance to Ferdinand, as heir apparent ; and he was conducted to Barcelona by his mother in order to receive the same homage from the Catalans. But though that object was effected, the Catalans soon after displayed such symptoms of violence and insurrection, that Joanna found it expe- dient to fly with her son to Grerona, where they were besieged in the tower of a church, in which they had taken shelter. In order to rescue his Queen, John II. was obliged to have recoiurse to Louis XL, who by treaties effected in 3Iay 1462 engaged to come to his assistance with a considerable force ; but required that the *2 This yiew is unhesitatingly adopted the authorities on the subject are coJ- bj Sismondi, -Sep. ltd. ch. Ixxxi., where lected (t. x. p. 330, ed. 1815). N 4 184 EEVOLT OF THE CATALANS. [B OOK counties of Roussillon and Cerdagne should be pledged to him for the expenses of the war. The approach of the French re- leased Joanna from her dangerous situation; but their invasion brought matters to a crisis in the province. The Catalans, renouncing their allegiance to King John and his son, declared their constitution to be a republic, of which the King was only the first magistrate, elected by the people, and liable to be deposed by them. A civil war ensued which lasted some years. The Catalans elected for their King Don Pedro of Portugal, a descendant of the House of Barcelona ; and on the death of that Prince, in June 1466, they offered the crown to Rene of Anjou, who by his mother, Yolande, was grandson of John I. of Aragon. Rene delegated the enterprise to his son John, titular Duke of Calabria and Lorraine, who, with the approbation of Louis XL, entered Catalonia with 8000 men (1467). A temporary loss of sight prevented the King of Aragon from taking an active part against his enemy, but his place was well supplied by his intrepid consort. John of Anjou, who had been proclaimed King at Barcelona, was carried off by a con- tagious disorder towards the end of 1470, and was interred in the sepulchre of the princes of Catalonia amid the regrets of the people. The Catalans still continued their resistance, and it was not till 1472 that John IL was able to enter Barcelona, which had been blockaded by sea and land. It was during this civil war that Ferdinand effected his marriage with Isabella, as before related. After that event, Henry lY. and his consort, in order to exclude Isabella from the throne, solemnly swore to the legitimacy of their daughter Joanna, and secured the assistance of France in her favour. She was affianced, though only in her ninth year, to the Duke of Gruienne, the discarded suitor of Isabella. Louis XL readily entered into an arrangement which promised to rid him of his troublesome brother, and it was also approved of by many of the Spanish grandees, especially the Pachecos. The provinces of Biscay, Gruipuscoa, and Andalusia, and in the last the noble House of Medina-Sidonia remained however faithful to the cause of Isabella. She and Ferdinand kept their little court at Dueiias ; but so extreme was their poverty that they could hardly defray their ordinary domestic expenses. Soon after the submission of Barcelona, Ferdinand was summoned from Duenas to the assistance of his father. Roussillon and Cerdagne, indignant at the extortions of their new rulers, rose and massacred the greater part of the French garrisons in the principal towns (February 1473) and revolted to their ancient sovereign Chap. IV.'] DEATH OF HEXRY lY. OF CASTILE. 185 John II. ; Salces, Collioure and the castle of Perpignan alone re- mained in the hands of the French. John threw himself into the town of Perpignan, which was immediately invested by a large army under the Duke of Savoy ; and though it was exposed at once to their fire and to that of the castle, John, now near eighty years old, w^as constantly observed in the most exposed and dangerous places, armed cap-a-pie and on horseback, encouraging his men by his example and exhortations. The siege had already lasted between two and three months, when Ferdinand suddenly appeared descending the mountains at the head of a considerable army, which had joined his standard on his way through Aragon. At this unexpected apparition the French fled precipitately, burning their tents and abandoning their sick and wounded. An affect- ing interview ensued between John and his son and deliverer, in the presence of both the armies, after which they entered the town in triumph. An arrangement was now made between the two crowns. Roussillon and Cerdagne were declared neutral, and placed under officers appointed by both sovereigns, till John should have paid the sum for which they had been pledged ; in default of which within a year from September iVth 1473, the provinces were to be permanently ceded to France. John having failed to make the stipulated payment, the provinces were reduced by Louis XI. in 1475, and remained in possession of the French till the treaty of Barcelona in 1494. Meanwhile the cause of Isabella was making progress every day in Castile. The propriety and sedateness of her behaviour, which formed so great a contrast to the indecorum of her brother's court, gained her many adherents, and even Henry IV. himself seemed to have pardoned his sister's marriage. In an interview at Segovia contrived by the governor of that city (December 1473), Henry led Isabella's palfrey through the streets, and welcomed Ferdinand with tokens of good will. That monarch died December 11th 1474, without naming his heir, and with him expired the male line of the House of Trastamare. He was the last sovereign wdio ruled Castile as a separate kingdom. His ill qualities as a ruler proceeded rather from weakness than wickedness; and he was perhaps on that very account all the more dangerous to his subjects. The objections to the legitimacy of Henry's daughter Joanna were only presumptive ^'^ ; Henry had always acknowledged her as his offspring ; and according to a maxim of the Roman law, the " For the grounds of these presumptions see Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella, vol. i. p. 209, note (ed 1842). 186 ACCESSION OF QUEEN ISABELLA. [Book I. nuptials indicate the father. But Isabella's claim was founded on the stronger ground of the consent of the nation through the Cortes, who had done homage to her during the lifetime of her brother Henry, and now refused to swerve from their decision. Two days after Henry's death she had accordingly been proclaimed, jointly with her husband Ferdinand, at Segovia, where she was then residing ; and had been enthroned with great state in the principal square of the city. The example of Segovia was followed by most of the principal towns; the chief grandees, with few exceptions, tendered the oath of allegiance, and the Cortes which assembled in the following February gave their sanction to all these proceedings. But while the nation thus assented to the accession of Isabella, doubts were raised as to her title by her own husband and his family, who maintained that the crown of Castile, like that of Aragon, could not devolve to a female, and that Ferdinand himself was the nearest male representative of the house of Trastamare. The establishment of such a pretension would have been fatal to the independent authority of Isabella. After careful inquiry, how- ever, it was proved that the succession in Castile and Leon was not limited to males, and in a settlement founded on the marriage con- tract, provision was made for Isabella's due share of authority : an arrangement with which Ferdinand was highly dissatisfied, and it required all the sweetness and moderation of Isabella's character to induce him to submit. Joanna had still some powerful supporters, who applied for as- sistance to Alphonso V. of Portugal, her uncle, whose victories in Barbary had obtained him the name of the " African." Alphonso undertook this enterprise against the advice of his more prudent counsellors ; and as the Duke of Gruienne, to whom she had been promised, was now dead, it was arranged that Alphonso should marry his niece, then thirteen years of age. The French King was also enticed into the league, and invited to attack Biscay, by promises that the conquered territory should be ceded to him. In May 1475, Alphonso invaded Castile with an army of 20,000 men, and directing his march towards Placentia, was there affianced to Joanna. They were then proclaimed sovereigns of Castile, and an envoy was despatched to Kome to procure a dispensation for their marriage. Into the details of the war which ensued, it is not necessary to enter. Suffice it to say, that the exertions of Ferdinand and Isabella were favoured by the dilatoriness of Alphonso, who was completely defeated by Ferdinand at Toro, in March 1476. The Castilian malcontents now made their submissions ; and on the Chap. IV.] ACCESSION OF KIJS^G FERDINAND. 187 approach of Ferdinand with his victorious army the French also retired from Gruipuscoa. Alphonso afterwards endeavoured to pro- cure fresh assistance from Louis XI. ; but that wily monarch, after detaining him a whole twelvemonth at his Court, ended by making an arrangement with Ferdinand and Isabella. To console himself for his credulity, Alphonso undertook a pilgrimage to Palestine ; but on his return, revived his enterprise against Castile. Donna Beatrix of Portugal, however^ the sister-in-law of Alphonso, and aunt of Isabella, succeeded in mediating a peace ; and by a treaty ratified by the court of Lisbon September 24th 1479, Alphonso re- nounced his pretensions to the hand of Joanna, and to the Castilian throne. It was also agreed that Alonso, or Alphonso, Prince of Portugal, should marry the young Infanta of Castile.^"* Thus was terminated the war of the Castilian succession. Joanna, dissfusted with the world, and especially by the cruel irony of offering her the hand of the infant son of P^erdinand and Isabella, born in 1478, retired to the convent of St. Clara, at Coimbra. King Alphonso was preparing to imitate her example, at Veratojo, when he died rather suddenly at Cintra, August 28th 1481. John II. of Aragon expired at Barcelona, January 20th 1479, at a very advanced age : a monarch alike distinguished in the cabinet and the field. Ferdinand now succeeded to Aragon and its depen- dencies ; and thus the crowns of that country and of Castile became subsequently united. Navarre devolved to John's guilty daughter, Eleanor, Countess of Foix; but she only lived three weeks to enjoy her crown. This period was marked by the establishment of the Santa Her- Tnandad, or Holy Brotherhood, and also of the Inquisition in Castile. The Hermandad was a body of about 2000 police, armed and mounted, for the purpose not only of putting down the robberies and violence which everywhere abounded, but also of forming a check upon the power of the nobility* The faith of the Jews sup- plied the pretext for establishing the Inquisition, but it was their wealth that afforded the motive.'^ The prospect of a rich harvest of confiscations caused Ferdinand to lend a willing ear to the bigoted suggestions of the Dominicans for the erection of a severer tribunal, which the natural benignity of Isabella's character led her to op- pose ; and it was only after the continued importunities of the clergy, backed by the persuasions and arguments of her husband, ^* This marriage was consummated in as •well as in Italy and other countries, 1490; but Alonso was killed a few was a mere ecclesiastical court ; andhere- months after by a fall from his horse. tics had hitherto been more mildly dealt '^ The ancient Dominican Inquisition with by the Spaniards than by any other which had existed in Spain since 1233, people. M'Crie, Rcf. in S;pain, p. 82 sq. 188 ESTABLISHMENT OF SPAXISII IXQUISITIOX. [Book I. that she at length consented to procure the authority of Rome for the erection of the Holy Office in Castile. The co-operation of Pope Sixtus IV. was readily obtained. By a bull, dated November 1st 1478, the Spanish sovereigns were authorised to appoint in- quisitors in the matter of heresy; and in September 1480 the tribunal appears to have been erected. It began its horrible mission early in 1481, and before the close of that year, nearly 300 persons, many of them of estimable character and high station, had fallen victims in the autos da fe, or acts of faith, — such was the revolt- inof name — of Seville alone. In these acts, which seemed to partake both of a sacrifice and an execution, the pale and spectral convict issued from his dungeon, clad in a coarse woollen garment or frock, called san benito, bearing on a yellow ground a scarlet cross, and embroidered with representations of flames and demons. The whole number of victims throughout the kingdom is reckoned at 2000 burnt alive in that year, and more than the same number in effigy ; besides whom, 17,000 were said to be reconciled ; that is, the capital punishment was commuted for fine, imprisonment, or some other smaller penalty. The most trivial presumption sufficed to convict a man of Judaism ; as wearing better clothes on the Jewish Sabbath, having no fire in the house on Friday evening, eating with Jews, and other things of the like nature. The inquisitors soon extended their researches from Jews to Christians suspected of lieres}^ What constituted heresy was of course left to the judg- ment of the Dominicans, who were sometimes so ignorant as to condemn opinions derived from the fathers of the Church. The accuser was generally a debtor of the accused, who found, through the tribunal, a compendious way of paying his debts. The modern Inquisition was finally established in Spain by two bulls of Pope Sixtus IV. (August 2nd and October 17th 1483). ^^ It was intro- duced into Aragon by Ferdinand in 1484, but it was not till the reign of Philip II. that it obtained there the same unlimited power as in Castile. The Spanish Inquisition has been commonly regarded as an ecclesiastical usurpation, and has been so described even by Llorente ; but in fact it was the very reverse. Although armed with spiritual weapons, it was nothing but a royal court, subject to the King's visitations, who appointed and dismissed the judges ; '^ The best account of the Inquisition and after its abolition in 1808, he began is contained in Don Juan Antonio Llo- to compile his work from the archives of rente's, Hist. Critique cle F Inquisition de the tribunal. Notwithstanding his former rEspac/ne, 4 vols. 8vo. (French transl.) occupation he has executed his task Llorente was himself secretary of the impartially. Puigblanch's Inquisition Holy Office in Madrid from 1790 to 1792 ; Unmasked may also be consulted. Chap. IY.] THE MOOKISH KINGDOM OF GEAXADA. 189 and when Ximenes demurred to accept on the court a layman no- minated by the King, Ferdinand told him plainly that the whole jurisdiction of the tribunal was derived from the royal authority. The confiscated property of the condemned went into the King's treasury, and formed a regular source of his income. Besides robbing the rich, another object of the institution was to break the power of the great. No grandee however powerful could escape this tribunal. Even in the time of Ferdinand, its jurisdiction was sometimes extended beyond heretical cases; Charles Y. subjected to it the bishops who had taken part in the insurrection of the communities ; and Philip II. brought under its cognisance ques- tions of commerce, art, and navigation. Thus it was declared heresy to sell arms or ammunition to the French ! In short, the tribunal formed part of those ecclesiastical spoils by which the Spanish government became so powerful, such as the nomination to bishoprics, the administration of the grand-masterships of the religious orders, &c. Eome, which had no similar institution till half a century later, regarded the Spanish Inquisition with a jealous eye, and offered to it every possible opposition.^^ Against another class of infidels, the Yloors of Granada ^^, Fer- dinand began a nobler warfare. The Spaniards of the north had been for centuries pressing on the Moors. By the end of the eleventh century they had advanced under the banner of the Cid, from the Douro to the Tagiis ; and though for a century or two afterwards the Moors were supported by fresh immigrations of their Mahometan brethren, the decisive victory of Navas de Tolosa, in 1212, gave a permanent check to their ascendancy in Spain. Under James I. of Aragon, and St. Ferdinand of Castile, Yalencia, Murcia, and Andalusia were successively wrested from them, and by the middle of the thirteenth century their empire had been reduced to the province of Granada. That fertile country, how- ever, abounding both in mineral and agricultural wealth, possessing excellent harbours, and enjoying an extensive commerce, embraced all the elements of a powerful kingdom, with a military force of 100,000 men. The Alhambra, whose ruins still attract and reward the curiosity of the traveller, overlooked and commanded the capital from the summit of one of its hills ; and its light and fairy-like " Eanke, Fiirsten und Volker, B. i. S. Paris, 1846). The two most important 242 f. . avithorities jfor the war of Granada arc, *8 For the Spanish- Arabian kingdom the Chronicles of Fernando del Piilgar see Viardot, Hist, dcs Arahes et dcs and Antonio de Lebrija. "Washington Maures dJEsjpagne, and Count Albert de Irving's Chronicle of the Conquest of Circonrt, Hist, dcs Maures Mudejares et Granada combines historical accuracy des\ Morisqtces, ou des Arahes d' Esjyagne, with poetical narration. See Prescott, ^ous la doiiiiiiation des Chretiens (3 vols. Ferd, and Isabella, toI. ii. p. 98 sq. 190 WAR OF GRAXADA. [Book T. architecture, which displayed a great advance in art since the buikiing of the celebrated mosque of Segovia, was said to be capable of sheltering 40,000 persons. The Moors of Granada, by contact with the Spaniards, had lost much of the oriental cast of manners. An unreserved intercourse seems to have obtained between the two nations in the intervals of their almost constant wars ; and the Moorish cavalier was as famed as the Christian for honour, courtesy, and valour. Granada was defended by numberless fortresses. Its military force chiefly consisted of light cavalry, whose mode of warfare was of an irregular, guerilla nature ; and the Moorish cross- bowmen were famed for their skill. The use of gunpowder was early known among the Moors — some have attributed to them the application of it to warlike purposes — as well as the manufacture of paper, and many discoveries in medicine and chemistry. The war which terminated in the conquest of Granada by the Spaniards, was provoked by the fiery hatred which the Caliph, Muley Abul Hacen, bore to the Christians. Towards the end of 1481, Muley surprised the town of Zahara, on the frontiers of Andalusia, and carried off the inhabitants into slavery. This feat the Spaniards soon after retaliated, by surprising in like manner the mountain fortress and town of Alhama, within eight leagues of Granada. The safety of the Moorish capital demanded the recovery of this place, and in March 1482, the Caliph appeared before it with a considerable army, but was compelled to raise the siege on the approach of the Duke of Medina-Sidonia. It was, however, again invested by the Moors, and finally relieved by Ferdinand in person (May 14th 1482). Meanwhile Isabella had prepared a fleet and army; but the dissensions of the Moors promised the Christians more success than the progress of their own arms. The Sultana Zoraya, jealous of the favour displayed by the now aged Caliph towards his offspring by a young Greek slave, excited a rebellion against him : Abul Hacen fled to Malaga, and Zoraya's son, Abu Abdallah, or, as he is called by the Spaniards, Bo'abdil, was proclaimed in his stead. In the spring of 1482, Boabdil was captured during an incursion which he had made towards Cordova ; but the Spaniards soon after- wards released him, with a view to keep alive the quarrel between him and his father, who still held a part of Granada. The war dragged on several years without any important event. Queen Isabella often appeared among her troops on horseback, and clad in complete armour. In the Spanish service, besides a body of Swiss, was a band of 300 English archers, commanded by Scales, Lord Elvers, of the blood-royal of England. The Moors, disgusted Chap. IY.] FALL OF THE MOOKISH EMPIRE IX SPAIX. 191 with a treaty which Boabdil had made mth the Spaniards, substi- tuted for him his uncle Abdallah " El Zagal," or the " Valiant ; '' and Abul Hacen dying shortly after, the Moorish kingdom was distracted mth the contending factions of the uncle and nephew. Meanwhile the tide of Christian conquest flowed steadily on- wards, in spite of the military talent of El Zagal, and the many castle-cro^vned steeps which had to be reduced by arms. In 1487 Malaga surrendered, after a three months' siege by sea and land, and Ferdinand and Isabella made their triumphal entry, August 18th. The whole of the inhabitants were reduced to slavery, and the de- populated city replenished with Christians, attracted thither by grants of houses and lands. El Zagal soon after surrendered that part of Grranada which he held, and received in return the district of Andaraz, with the title of king ; but subsequently repenting of his deed, passed over- into Africa, where he ended his days in in- digence. In April 1491, Ferdinand sat down with a large army before the capital of Grranada, then deemed the largest fortified city in the world. The war was conducted on both sides quite in the spirit of chivalry; personal combats frequently took pJace, and King Abdallah was generous enough to recompense with his own sword and a magnificent present a Christian knight who had given con- spicuous proofs of valour. At length the Moors, alarmed at the Spaniards having converted their camp into a town of stone houses, which still bears the name of St^ Fe, surrendered, November 25th 1491. By the capitulation conducted by Gonsalvo of Cordova, the Moors were left in the enjoyment of their religion, laws, and pro- perty, and vessels were to be provided for such of them as preferred passing over into Africa. But the news of the capitulation was received with displeasure by the people ; symptoms of insurrection began to appear ; and it was found advisable to anticipate the day fixed for the surrender by effecting it on the 2nd January 1592. On that day Abdallah, issuing forth from his capital with a splendid retinue, presented Ferdinand with the keys of the Alhambra; and Granada was then entered by the Spanish troops, headed by the Grrand-Cardinal Mendoza. Meanwhile the abdicated King pro- ceeded on his route towards the Alpuxarras, where a petty sovereignty had been assigned him, and from a rocky eminence, still called El ultimo Sospiro del Moro, or " the last sigh of the Moor," bade a long farewell to the scene of his former power and grandeur. This unfortunate monarch shortly after passed over to Africa, and was slain fighting for a prince who was his kinsman. Thus fell the Moslem empire in Spain, after it had existed nearly 192 RECEPTION OF COLUMBUS AT BARCELONA. [Book I. seven centuries and a half. The tidings of the capture of Granada were received throughout Europe, and especially at Rome, with joy and gratulation, for the event was regarded as in some degree compensating for the occupation of Constantinople by the Turks. King Ferdinand " whose manner was," says Bacon '^, " never to lose any virtue for the showing," in his letters to different European courts, recounted at large." with a kind of holy ostentation," all the particulars of his conquest. He had displayed his usual religious punctilio on the occasion, and refrained from entering the city till he had seen the cross erected on its highest tower, and the place thereby made Christian. By the conquest of Grranada the whole of Spain, with the exception of Navarre, was consolidated into one great kingdom, and w^as thus prepared to take a leading part in those political affairs which were soon to engage the attention of Europe ; while the long wars by which the conquest had been achieved, had served as a training school for that redoubtable soldiery and those famous captains who for a considerable period rendered Spain one of the first military powers in the world. The Spanish sovereigns, while still before Granada, blotted this fair chapter in their history by issuing a cruel edict against the Jews. The Inquisition, in spite of its activity, had failed to effect all that had been expected from it ; the great mass of the Jews still remained unconverted ; and the clergy now revived against them all the odious accusations of sectarian bigotrj^, which were greedily swallowed by the multitude. The Jews offered to buy immunity ^\ith 30,000 ducats ; and the Spanish sovereigns were listening to the offers of one of their body when Torquemada, the chief inquisitor, burst into the room, and brandishing aloft a crucifix, flung it upon the table, bidding his sovereigns to sell their master like Judas Iscariot. This insolent act excited nothiug but superstitious awe in the bigoted minds of Ferdinand and Isabella, who, regardless of the impolicy as well as of the injustice of the measure, issued an order for the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, March 30th 1492. Nearly the whole race departed rather than sacrifice their religion to their worldly interests. It was not till near the end of May 1492, that Ferdinand and Isabella quitted Granada. After a sojourn in Aragon they pro- ceeded into Catalonia, where Ferdinand had a narrow escape from assassination by a lunatic in his own palace at Barcelona. In the spring of 1493, while the Spanish sovereigns were still residing in that city, Columbus arrived there after his return from the dis- covery of America, and was received by Ferdinand and Isabella '^ Hist, of Henry VU. (inKennet, vol, i. p. 603). Chap. IV.] AFFAIRS OF BOHEMIA. 193 ■with honours which that ceremonious Court had never before con- descended to. bestow on a subject of his rank. Cohuiibus narrated his adventures before the sovereigns ; and the success of his voyage was attested not only by various products of those newly discovered countries, as gold dust, tropical plants, birds, and animals, but also by some of the native islanders whom he had brought with him. Thus within a short period Spain was suddenly raised to a very high degree of power, not only by the amalgamation of its principal kingdoms, but also by the acquisition of a rich and almost boundless empire on the other side of the Atlantic. A few more years and these vast dominions were to be still further increased by the addition of the Grerman Empire, whose history, with that of its connected kingdoms, we shall here briefly resume. The elevation of the heterodox Greorge Podiebrad to the Bohemian throne ^° gave great offence to Pope Pius II., who endeavoured to abolish the Compadata, or religious privileges of the Hussite party ; but the Papal Legate, Fantino della Valle, having made an insolent harangue in the Diet, Podiebrad caused him to be imprisoned and kept on bread and water. Paul II., the successor of Pius, carried his anger still further. In June 1465 he issued a Bull, deposing the Bohemian sovereign as a heretic, and intrusted the Emperor with the execution of the sentence. As neither Frederick III. nor the Grerman States seemed inclined to enter the lists against Podiebrad, the Pope next applied to Matthias Corvinus, who, dazzled with the prospect of the Bohemian crown, accepted the authorit}^ of the Apostolic Chair as a sufficient warrant for attackino^ his unoffendinoj father-in-law. For some time hostilities were covertly conducted on both sides ; but early in 1467, Matthias made large preparations for open war, giving out that they were intended against the Turk. As Frederick had assisted Matthias by allowing the Pope's missionaries to preach the Bohemian crusade in Germany and Austria, Podiebrad declared war against him and invaded Austria (January 1468) ; an act that occasioned an alliance between Frederick and Matthias ; and as the latter w^as now unmolested by the Turks, with whom he was even suspected of having concluded a treaty, and as the Pope had supplied him with 50,000 ducats towards the expenses of the enterprise, he resolved to invade Bohemia. He obtained the co-operation of his subjects by a trick unworthy of a great prince. He caused two captured Turks, who had been carefully instructed in the part they were to play, to be introduced before the National Council, where, in the name of their master the Sultan, they sued 20 See aboTG, p. 89. VOL. I. O 194 MATTHIAS COltVIXUS ATTACKS PODIEBRAD. [Book I. for a truce. Matthias acted his part in the scene to admiration. He declared that, as a Christian Prince, he could enter into no written treaty with infidels ; but he bade the pseudo-ambas- sadors take back his verbal promise of peace ; and he closed the sitting with an h^^pocritical speech, in which he declared that, however repugnant to his private feelings, his duty as a good Catholic superseded his obligations towards Podiebrad as a father- in-law, and justified the step he was about to take. The Council acquiesced in his views, and war was declared against Bohemia, April 8th 1468.^^ Podiebrad secured the neutrality, and at length the assistance, of Casimir of Poland, by promising the Bohemian succession to the Polish Prince Wladislaus; a choice acrreeable to the Bohemians, as Wladislaus was descended from their favourite monarch, Charles IV., and spoke their language ; nor was he esteemed so inimical to the Calixtine doctrines as Matthias and Ferdinand. In 1468 Matthias entered Bohemia and invested Spielberg. Near that town an interview took place between him and Podie- brad, which ended in the latter challenging his son-in-law to single combat ; but as Matthias insisted on fighting on horseback the duel went off. Spielberg held out till February 1469. After its fall, Matthias marched on Kuttenberg; bnt in the defiles near Semtisch, his army, consisting principally of cavalry, got entangled in some abattis, and being unable either to advance or retreat, he was compelled to propose a truce, which was concluded at Stern- berg, April 7th. Matthias, however, almost immediately violated it. He resumed hostilities, overran Moravia and Silesia, and being elected King by a mock diet of the Catholic party at Olmiitz, was crowned by the Papal Legate (May 3rd). Meanwhile Frederick being released by this war from all ap- prehension on the side of Bohemia, that weak and superstitious monarch, who had neglected to provide Matthias with the succour he had promised, seized the opportunity to discharge a vow of a pilgrimage to Eome ; and he arrived in that city about Christmas 1468, with an escort of five hundred horse. Here he gave con- vincing proofs of his devotion to the Holy See. He fell twice on his knees as he approached the Pope, enthroned in the cathedral, and a third time when near enough to kiss Paul's hands and feet ; he occupied a throne which had been prepared for him, but which was so low that his head just reached to the Pope's feet ; in the habit of a deacon, he exercised the imperial privilege of intoning the gospel ; and when Paul mounted his hackney, he hastened to 2' Engel, Gesch. des ungar. Be'ichs, B. iii. S. 285 f. Chap. IV.] DEATH OF PODIEBEAD. I95 hold the stirrup of the holy Father. All these petty humiliations have been carefully recorded in the annals of the Roman Church by sacerdotal pride.^^ Frederick obtained on this occasion the Pope's permission to erect the bishoprics of Vienna and Neustadt, and to bestow at his own pleasure the 300 prebends which he founded. ^^ The election of Matthias just recorded, drew Podiebrad and Casimir closer together. It was agreed that Podiebrad should give his daughter, Ludmilla, to Casimir's son, Wladislaus, and cause him to be chosen King of Bohemia; in return for which Casimir was to support Podiebrad with his arms, and to employ for him his influence with the Pope. On the other hand Matthias sought the aid of Frederick III. ; and in February 1470, he paid the Emperor, who had now returned from Italy, a visit at Vienna. Here the maofnificence of the Huno-arian Kinor formed a strange contrast with the Emperor's narrow way of living ; and Frederick was also outshone by the voluntary homage which Matthias, as the foremost champion of Christendom, received from various Italian States. The Florentines sent him a present of lions, the Ligurians of arms, the Venetians of silk stuffs, the Neapolitans of horses, the Pope subsidies from the Sacred College.^* The demands of Matthias seemed to rise with his good fortune. He required that Frederick should give him his daughter Cunigund in marriage, that he should renounce the Huno-arian title and succession, and should return the 60,000 ducats he had received for the crovvm of St. Stephen : but the Emperor's anger was roused by these demands ; an altercation ensued, in which he reproached Matthias with his low birth ; and the latter soon after stole away without taking leave. The Bohemian war dragged on without much vigour, and on March 22nd 1471 Greorge Podiebrad died. In the following May the Bohemians confirmed the election of Wladislaus, who with a small army penetrated to Prague, where he received the crown, August 22nd. In September, Casimir, second son of the Polish monarch, after publishing at Cracow a manifesto in which he claimed the crown of Hungary in virtue of his descent from Eliza- beth, second daughter of the Emperor Albert and sister of King Ladislaus Posthumus, and denounced Matthias Corvinus as a tyrant and usurper, invaded Hungary with a considerable force ; but instead of meeting with the assistance which he expected from ^- See Eaynaldivs, Ann. Eccl. ann. *' Vienna had previously been in the 1468, t. X. p. 464 ; Diario di Stefano In- diocese of Passau. fessiira, Card. Papiens., ap. Sismondi, 5ep. -* Engel, B. iii. S. 30o. Ital. ch. Lxxxi. o 2 196 TREATY OF KOEXEUBURG. [Rook I. the malcontents, he found a large force arrayed against him, and was compelled to make a precipitate retreat. Meanwhile Frederick, though pretending to favour Matthias, secretly assisted his rival Wladislaus ; but his weakness obliged him to have recourse to the basest duplicity. He had promised to hold a Diet at Augsburg in 1473 in which he would invest Matthias with the crown of Bohemia and recognise him as an Elector of the empire ; yet, so far from fulfilling his engagement, the affairs of Bohemia were not even mentioned in that assembly, and in the follomng year he concluded a formal alliance with Casimir of Poland. The King of Hungary, however, was able to make head against all his opponents. His troops made devastating incursions both into Bohemia and Austria, and penetrated as far as Augsburg, where the Emperor was residing ; while Matthias himself with his Black Legion advanced to Breslau, and established there a fortified camp on which Casimir and Wladislaus could make no impression. He also despatched his generals Zapolya and Kinis into Poland, who penetrated to the gates of Cracow, committing such devastations that Casimir sued for peace ; and on December 8th 1474 a truce of three years and a half was accordingly concluded.^^ In 1476, Matthias celebrated his marriage with Beatrix, daughter of King Ferdinand of Naples, to which we have already alluded. Meanwhile covert hostilities were still carried on between the Hungarian King and the Emperor, which in 1477 again broke out into open war. Frederick now invested Wladislaus with the Bohemian electorate; but his arms were no match for those of Matthias, who invaded Austria, laid siege to Vienna, and com- pelled Frederick to fly into Styria. Frederick, who was now anxiously engaged about the marriage of his son Maximilian with Mary of Burgundy, proposed a peace, and, by way of inducement, held out to Matthias the hope that he would assist his brother-in- law, one of the sons of Ferdinand of Naples, to wrest Milan from the Graleazzi. By the treaty of Korneuburg, concluded December 1st 1477, the Emperor, in spite of his former investiture of Wladislaus, engaged to invest Matthias with Bohemia ; who, however, was to make good his own claim, and also to support the Emperor against any attacks which he might incur in consequence of his act. Frederick was also to pay 100,000 ducats for the expenses of the war ; one half at Martinmas 1478, and the remainder in a twelvemonth. Matthias now published the Emperor's investiture in his favour, and the revocation of that of Wladislaus, and he attempted to ^ Engel, B. iii. S. 334 ff. Chap. JY.} PEACE OF OLMUTZ. — CAPTURE OF VIENNA. 197 reduce Bohemia ; but the inhabitants were unfavourable to his cause, and made a strenuous resistance. This circumstance, as well as a formidable inroad of the Turks (August 1478), turned his thoughts towards peace ; especially as he was desirous of punishing the Emperor, who had neither kept his word with regard to Italian affairs nor made the stipulated payments. He therefore concluded what was called a ^' perpetual peace " with the Kings of Bohemia and Poland at Olmiitz (July 1479), reserving to himself the eventual right of succession in Bohemia, while Wladislaus ceded to him the provinces of Lusatia, Moravia, and Silesia. His hands being thus at liberty, the Hungarian King de- clared war against Frederick. It was protracted several years, and was often interrupted by truces, but was devoid of important events, till in June 1485, Vienna, from the effects of famine, was obliged to capitulate ; and that capital was entered by Matthias and his Queen. Frederick fled to Lintz ; but not feeling himself in safety there, began a wandering life in Germany, proceeding with a suite of eighty persons from convent to convent, and from one imperial city to another, living at their expense, and vainly en- treating the aid of the States against Matthias. At length he obtained a small supply of troops, and prevailed on Duke Albert of Saxony, a general of renown, to take the command of them ; but these succours arrived too late. Neustadt, the favourite residence of Frederick, had agreed to capitulate on the 16th August 1487, if not relieved before that day ; and Duke Albert had not got further than Lintz on the 14th, where he found neither money nor provisions to enable him to proceed. Matthias now completed the reduction of Lower Austria; while Duke Albert marched with his army into Styria. He was followed by the Hungarians ; but after a few unimportant skirmishes, negotia- tians were opened at Margendorf, November 22nd, and a truce was concluded till a treaty of peace should be finally arranged. During this war Matthias caused the power and dignity of the Hungarian Palatine, which seem hitherto to have been very un- defined, to be settled and ascertained by a law passed by the Diet (1485). It was arranged that if the King died without issue, the Palatine should have the first vote in the election of his successor ; in case the heir was a minor, the Palatine was to be his guardian ; and during an interregnum, he was empowered to assemble the Diet: in short, by these and several other regulations, that magistrate was invested with an almost regal power. Matthias's alleged reason for this step, was his necessary absence from his kingdom on account of the affairs of Austria ; though his real design was to o 3 198 DEATH OF MATTHIAS CORVIXUS. [Book I. appoint a man to this great office, wlio after his decease should assist his natural son, John Corvinus, to obtain possession of the Hungarian throne. To promote the interests of that son had long been the object of all Matthias's efforts. Honours had been gradually heaped upon him ; he had been created Count of Hunyad and Duke of Liptau ; and it had even been contemplated to bestow Austria upon him. A marriage had also been nego- tiated for John with Bianca Maria Sforza, sister of Graleazzo jNIaria, Duke of Milan, to which Louis the Moor had given his consent, though on condition that John Corvinus should be immediately declared successor to the Hungarian throne : a condition, however, with which Matthias could not comply ; for though he had lived ten years with his consort Beatrix without having issue, yet the birth of an heir was still not impossible. Beatrix was naturally opposed to all these plans in favour of John Corvinus ; her feelings were shared by many of the nobles, and a secret opposi- tion had gradually been formed against Matthia.s and his son, the former of whom had quitted Vienna in a very declining state of health. ^^ Negotiations for a peace with Frederick were con- tinued; and it was agreed that the terms should be definitively settled at a personal interview at Lintz, between Matthias and the Emperor's son Maximilian, King of the Eomans, which was fixed for the 13th September 1489. The King of Hungary w^as too ill to keep this appointment ; but he sent his minister, the Bishop of Grosswardein, to Lintz, to express his great esteem for Maximilian, in proof of which he forwarded a present of 400 casks of wine, 400 oxen, and 12,000 ducats. He offered to restore Austria for 70,000 ducats, and thus put an end to the war ; but though Maximilian strongly urged his father to close with this proposal, Frederick, reckoning on the speedy death of the Hungarian King, of which he was assured by astrological predictions, declined to enter into any stipulations, as it had been agreed that, in case of Matthias's death, the conquered territories were to revert to him without payment. Early in 1490, Matthias, summoning all his strength, proceeded to Vienna, in order to be nearer to Lintz; where on Palm Sunday, April 4th, after an early visit to the church, he was struck with an apoplexy, which carried him off two days afterwards, in his forty-seventh year. Besides his distinguished abilities as a statesman and captain, Matthias Cor- ■^ Matthias was a martyr to the gout, rex primus inventor fait ; Listli, ap. and to alleviate its pains while travelling, Kovachich, Scrip. Min. t. i. p. 333, in En- he invented a carriage with springs, gel, B. iii. S. 427). which was called a coach (Currus Cochy Chap. IV.] WLADISLAUS ELECTED KING OF HUNGARY. 199 viniis was a munificent patron of learning. He founded a university at Buda ; invited to his Court the most learned Italians ; employed many persons to collect and transcribe Greek manu- scripts ; and formed an extensive library, which, however, was for the most part destroyed after the capture of Buda by the Turks in 1527. The competitors for the vacant Hungarian throne were the Emperor Frederick, his son Maximilian, Wladislaus of Bohemia, Albert, his brother, and John Corvinus. During the last illness of her husband, Beatrix had employed all her eloquence, her sighs, and tears, to obtain from him her own nomination as reigning Queen and heiress of the kingdom ; but this Matthias refused, on the ground that the Hungarians would never submit to be governed by a woman. The power of nominating la}^ principally with Stephen Zapolya, who had been appointed Palatine by Matthias, and with Urban Dotzi, Bishop of Erlau, and John of Prossnitz, Bishop of Grrosswardein. The last had under his command all the mercenary troops, and the Black Legion in Moravia. IMatthias had made a great mistake in selecting Zapolya as Palatine and guardian of his son's interests, who, assisted by the two prelates just mentioned, managed that the choice of the Hungarians should fall on Wladislaus, King of Bohemia (July 14th 1490). Wladis- laus was a weak prince, and the internal dissensions in Bohemia, as well as the almost constant wars in which he was engaged with Hungary, had obliged him to concede a large share of independence to the landed aristocracy of Bohemia, as well as to the municipal towns. It was the former circumstance that had recommended him to the Hungarian nobility ; who, after his election, proceeded to tie up his hands by all kinds of capitulations, and to render him in fact completely powerless. Maximilian now attempted the recovery of Austria from the Hungarians, a task rendered easy by the hatred with which they had inspired the inhabitants. The Viennese admitted him into their city, August 19th, and he immediately proceeded to attack the citadel, which was garrisoned by 400 Hungarians. The first assault was repulsed, and Maximilian himself wounded ; but a few days after the Hungarians capitulated. Maximilian, after recover- ing several more of the Austrian towns, even broke into Hungary, and took Stuhlweissenburg, or Alba Hegia (Nov. 19th)"; but he was hindered by his finances from pushing his successes much further. His troops would not quit Alba Kegia till they had re- " MaximHian's oy>'n Tagebiich, or April 1810, is the best authority for these Journal, published in Hormayr's Arc hi v. alFairs. O 4 200 TREATY OF PRESBURG. " [Book I. ceived double pay for its capture ; and though he advanced a few miles on the road to Buda, and caused it to be summoned, his messenger, the poet Ludwig Bruno, was haughtily repulsed. Maxi- milian therefore found it necessary to evacuate Hungary before the close of the year ; and he returned into Germany with the hope of collecting a fresh army. But the Diet which met at Nuremberg in April 1491, would grant him nothing. The Hungarians soon after retook Alba Regia ; and as Maximilian's attention was also attracted at this period by the affairs of Brittany '^^, he made proposals for a peace. A congress was accordingly held at Presburg ; and on Nov. 7th 1491, a treaty was concluded which proved of remarkable importance for the House of Austria. By this convention, Wladis- laus and his male heirs were recognised as Kings of Hungary: but in default of 'the latter, the House of Habsburg was appointed to succeed, subject, however, to the approbation of the Hungarian Diet. All the Austrian hereditary possessions were restored to Frederick, who, on his side, evacuated his conquests in Hungary and Croatia. Wladislaus further engaged to pay 100,000 ducats for the expenses of the war; and in case of failure of heirs of his own, to assist the House of Habsburs^ in obtaininor the crown of Bohemia. Wladislaus's brother, John Albert, disgusted at being thus en- tirely excluded from all prospect of the Hungarian Crown, resorted to arms ; but was soon reduced to obedience : and the death of their father, Casimir of Poland, June 7th 1492, afforded an opportunity of giving Albert some compensation. At the request of their widowed mother, Wladislaus renounced his claim to the Crown of Poland in favour of his brother, and assisted in procuring his election. Frederick III. did not long outlive these events. After his re- turn to Austria he abandoned the cares of government to Maxi- milian, and retired to Lintz, where he died, August 19th 1493, at the age of seventy-eight, and after a reign of fifty- three years. He had previously sustained with great fortitude two amputations of the leg for cancer; but an inordinate indulgence in melons brought on a dysentery, which proved fatal. Frederick was in person tall and handsome, and of a majestic presence. He was a man of small mind, and one of those characters whose good qualities are neutra- lised by bordering too closely on the neighbouring vices. His religion, degenerating into superstition and bigotry, made him the slave of the Pope ; his prudence was nearly related to cunning, his foresight to suspicion, his firmness to obstinacy, his mildness to want of spirit. Under him the Imperial crown reached perhaps its 28 See above, p. 169. Chap. IY.] THE SUABIAX LEAGUE.' 201 lowest point of degradation ; yet, notwithstanding his impotence as a sovereign, he became by a series of fortunate chances, the founder of the greatness of his House ; to which, though he himself scarcely enjoyed a moment of security, even in his own dominions, he seems to have looked forward with a sort of prophetical confidence. '^^ We cannot quit the history of the Empire under Frederick III. without adverting to the establishment of the Suabian League, effected towards the close of his reign. The object of this League was to put down private wars, and to support the Landfriede, or public peace. Some of these private wars were of the most absurd description. Thus the Lord of Prauenstein declared war against the city of Frankfort because the daughter of one of the citizens refused to dance with his uncle ; the baker of the Count Palatine Louis defied the cities of Augsburg, Ulm, and Eothwell ; and a private individual named Henry Mayenberg even made a decla- ration of war against the Emperor himself : but when waged by powerful nobles or princes these wars occasioned great desolation and misery. The more immediate object of the Suabian League was to repress the violence of the Bavarian Duke Albert of Munich. The Dukes of Bavaria had allied themselves with King Matthias in opposition to Frederick, and endeavoured to separate themselves from the Empire ; Duke Albert had married the Emperor's daughter Cunigund without his consent, and had obtained from her uncle Sigismund the reversion of the Tyrol as her dowry, v/hich should have reverted to Maximilian. Albert had also seized Katisbon, and was contemplating further acquisi- tions. To repress these violences, as well as to restrain all similar ones that might arise among themselves, by referring their differ- ences to arbitration, the States of Suabia, at the instance of Frederick, organised in 1488 the League in question, which was soon afterwards joined by other principalities, as Wurtemberg, Brandenburg, the Elector of Mentz, &c. The number of Im- perial cities that abounded in the district of Suabia greatly facili- tated the accomplishment of the scheme. In the spring of 1492, the troops of the League and of the Empire, commanded by Frederick of Brandenburg, assembled in the presence of Maxi- milian on the Lechfeld, an extensive plain between Augsburg and the Tyro], watered by the river Lech. At this threatening de- monstration, Albert, deserted by his relatives, and at war with his own knights, found it prudent to submit. He surrendered 23 He adopted as the. Austrian motto, iiniverso," and in German, " Alles Erd- the vowels, A E I U, which, in Latin, reich ist Oesterreich unterthan." (All stand for, "Aiistrise est iraperare orbi the world is subject to Austria.) 202 ACCESSIOX OF MAXIMILIAN I. [Book I. Eatisbon, and reconciling himself with Frederick, finally joined the League. This association remained in force till the year 1533, and is said to have destroyed one hundred and forty strongholds of the nobles and banditti. As Maximilian had been elected King of the Romans some years previously, he succeeded at once to the Imperial throne on the death of his father Frederick. The defeat of a large body of Turks, who had penetrated as far as Laybach, by Maximilian in person, threw a lustre on the commencement of his reig^n. A few months after he married, as already related, the sister of the Duke of Milan ; a match to which he seems to have been allured by the largeness of the dowry, and by the opportunity which it might afford him of acquiring an influence in Italian affairs. Having thus given a general, view of the principal European States, down to the period of the invasion of Italy by Charles YIIL, we shall now proceed to narrate that expedition. Chap. Y.] VISIOXARY SCHEMES OF CIURLES VIII. 203 CHAPTER V. The weak mind of Charles VIII. of France was filled with visions of glory and conquest ; he deemed himself a paladin, and christened his only son Eolando after the hero of Eoncesvalles. Louis XI. had prudently declined to prosecute the claims to Naples bequeathed to him by Charles du Maine ; in the mind of his son the conquest of that kingdom was to be only^the stepping-stone to the empire of the East, and the expulsion of the Turks from Constantinople. Charles assumed the title of King of Jerusalem, and received without a smile the homage paid to him by his courtiers as Greek Emperor ; which title, as we have said, he had purchased from Andrew Pal^eologus.^ His impolitic enterprise against Naples was warmly opposed by his sister, the late Regent, and by all the old statesmen of the school of Louis XL ; but nothing could divert him from what he called his " voyage cVItalie,^'' in contemplation of w^hich he had made friends with his neighbours by three dis- advantageous treaties ^ ; and he was supported in his scheme by interested politicians, as Etienne de Vesc, formerly his ixdet de cJiamhre, but now first president of the Chambre des Comytes, and by Briponnet, Bishop of St. Malo, who expected to gain a cardinal's hat. In the spring of 1494 Charles VIII. despatched ambassadors to some of the principal Italian States to solicit their assistance in re- covering Naples. King Ferdinand had died January 25th, and the kingdom had devolved to his son Alphonso II., who was still more odious and unpopular than himself; for, with all his harshness and cruelty, Ferdinand possessed some good qualities. He loved and encouraged literature and art ; he patronised Laurentius Valla, and Antonius Panormita, and his own letters and speeches, which have been published, display both eloquence and erudition. But Alphonso was nothing but a rough unlettered soldier. Charles VIII. found slight encouragement from the Italians, except Louis the 1 See above, p. 77. The deed of ^ xhat of Etaples with Henry VII., of transfer is given by M. de Fonceaux in Senlis with Maximilian, and of Barcelona the Acad, des laser, t. xvii. p. 539, and in with Ferdinand and Isabella. Roseoe's l^o X. vol. v. p. 96. 204 CHARLES VIII. CROSSES THE ALPS. [Book I. Moor, with whom he had a secret engagement, by which Louis undertook to provide him with troops and money, on condition of recei^dng the protection of the French and the Principality of Taranto, after the conquest of Naples should have been accom- plished. The Venetians, alleging their danger from the Turks, declared that they should remain neutral. The Florentines, agreeably to their ancient traditions, would have sided with the French, but Peter de' Medici, who had entered into a treaty with Alphonso, while protesting his affection for France, gave the ambassadors an evasive answer. Pope Alexander VI., though, as we have said, at first inclined to France, had begun to perceive that the establishment of a great foreign power in Italy would defeat his plans for the aggrandisement of his nephews. Alphonso, too, after the death of his father, had courted the Pope's friendship, and an intimate alliance had sprung up between them, cemented by the marriage of their natural children, Sancia, daughter of Alphonso, and Alexander's son Greoffrey. Alexander had therefore exhorted Charles to submit his claims to the decision of the Holy See, and subsequently, as Lord Paramount of Naples, had invested Alphonso 11. with that kingdom.^ The conduct of the French King displayed little of the vigour requisite for the great enterprise in which he had embarked. Although the French army had assembled at the foot of the Alps, he wasted his time at Lyon in tournaments, festivals, and amours, and when he was at length driven from that city by a pestilence he found that he had squandered all his money. The undertaking seemed on the point of being abandoned, when a loan of 50,000 ducats from a Milanese merchant enabled the army to resume its march. Charles crossed Mont Genevre September 2nd 1494, and passing through Susa and Turin, was met at Asti by Louis Sforza with a brilliant retinue, including man37- ladies. Charles now renewed the follies of Lyon, and contracted a disorder by his debaucheries which detained him at Asti till the 6th of October. He was still so poor that he was comj^elled to borrow and pledge the jewels of the Duchess Dowager of Savoy and the Marchioness of Montferrat in order to proceed. Louis the ]\Ioor, who had accompanied the King as far as Piacenza, was recalled to Milan by the death of his nephew, the Duke Graleazzo Maria, who expired ' Guicciardini's Storia cPItalia begins Guillaume de YilleneuTe, Hist, de la •with the invasion of Charles VIII. and Guerre de Charles VIII. en Italic, and runs to 1534 : from which period it is con- Andre de la Vigne, whose Journal de tinned by Botta to 1789. Other aiitho- Charles VIII. ends with the King's re- rities for the period are the Latin turn to Lyon, 1495. history of Arnold le Feron (1494 — 1546), Chap. V.] THE MEDICI EXPELLED FEOM FLOEENCE. 205 in the Castle of Pavia, October 22nd, at the age of twenty-five. The death of this young prince was universally ascribed to poison administered to him by order of his uncle, and the proceedings of Louis strongly confirm this suspicion. Graleazzo had left an infant son ; but Louis, on the pretence that the times were too dangerous for a minority, caused himself to be elected Duke by a body of his partisans ; and his title was afterwards confirmed by a diploma which he obtained from the Emperor. The widowed Duchess, Isabella, was confined with her children in the Castle of Pavia. At Piacenza Charles held a council respecting the route to be adopted. The union of Tuscany with the Pope and the King of Naples seemed to impose an impenetrable barrier to the advance of the army ; but it was known that there was a strong party in Florence opposed to the Medici ; and though Charles had driven from France all the agents of that family, he had respected the privileges of the other Florentine houses of commerce. Pisa also expected her liberation at the hands of the French, and it was resolved to proceed through Florence and Pome. No sooner did the French enter Tuscany than the lurking discontent against Peter de' Medici exploded. Conscious of his danger he hastened to Sarsanella to deprecate the anger of the French King, and, without even con- sulting his fellow-citizens, agreed to give Charles immediate pos- session of all the Tuscan fortresses, including Leghorn and Pisa, on condition that they should be restored after the conquest of Naples. He also undertook to supply Charles with a loan of 200,000 florins, in consideration of which Florence was to be taken under the protection of France ; and it was agreed that a treaty of peace, embracing these conditions, should be executed at Florence. The facility with which Peter de' Medici made these large concessions excited the astonishment and ridicule even of the French themselves.'* Very different were the feelings of the Florentines, who, however much they desired the French alliance, were indignant at the pusillanimous submission of Peter. On his return he found the gates of the Public Palace closed and guarded, the interview which he requested with the magistrates wns refused, and symptoms of tumult appeared among the people. In vain did the young Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici proceed with his servants and retainers through some of the principal streets shouting Palle! Pallel the well-known rallying cry of his famil}^ — not a voice responded. At the Porta S. Gallo, Peter and his brother Julian also attempted to excite a movement in their favour by distri- * Comines, liv. vii. ch. 7. 206 SAVONAROLA'S EMBASSY TO CHARLES VIIL [Book I. buting money among the popuLace, but they were answered only with menaces ; and alarmed by the sound of the tocsin they fled to the Apennines, where they were soon joined by the Cardinal m the disguise of a Franciscan. The Signoria now declared the Medici traitors, confiscated their possessions, and offered a reward for their heads ; at the same time Charles allowed the Pisans to expel the Florentine magistrates; and the Lion of Florence was precipitated into the Arno amid cries of Viva Francia! This revolution had placed a remarkable man at the head of the Florentine republic — Jerome Francis Savonarola, born at Ferrara in 1452, of an illustrious Paduan family. Savonarola's genius in- clined him to the monastic profession, and at the age of twenty- three he took the vows in a Dominican convent at Bologna. His learning procured him the office of a public teacher ; but his fanaticism led him to indulge in fantastical prophecies, and to em23loy himself in interpreting the Apocalypse. In 1489 he pro- ceeded to Florence, and began to advocate a reformation of the Church. His arguments, however, were not drawn, like those of Luther and Zwingli afterwards, from reason and authority, but from enthusiasm and prophecy, and he pretended to support them by working miracles. He also advocated civil liberty ; and while as a religious reformer the wicked lives of the Popes supplied him abundant^ with topics, so as a political one he denounced the tyrannical domination of the Medici. He regarded Lorenzo de' Medici as the destroyer of his country's freedom ; he wo aid neither visit him nor show him any marks of respect ; and when Lorenzo, struck by the monk's reputation, sent for him on his deathbed, Savonarola refused him absolution because he would not promise to restore the popular government. Such a character was most formidable to a ruler like Peter de' Medici. Savonarola seized the moment to overthrow him, and at the head of a Florentine embassy appeared before Charles VIIL at Lucca, where he addressed that monarch in the style of a prophet, and promised him victory in this world, paradise in the next, pro- vided he protected Florence. Charles replied with vague pro- testations, and entering Florence November 17th, took up his residence in the palace of the Medici. But he mistook the deference and honour with which he was received for tame submission. The wealth of the city was tempting, and Charles imagined that it lay at his disposal : he intimated his intention of recalling Peter de' Medici, of appointing him his lieutenant, and of imposing a fine upon the citizens. But he had miscalculated his own strength and the disposition of the Florentines. The solid palaces of Florence, Chap. V.] THE FRENCH ENTER ROME. 207 Avitli small windows at a great elevation from the ground and secured by massive bars of iron, have the air of prisons and the strength of fortresses, for which indeed they often served in the factious wars of the republic. These the wary Florentines had filled mth armed men, and they had also given notice to the surrounding peasantry to hasten to the assistance of the town at the first sound of the tocsin. When the citizeos energetically protested against the intentions of Charles, he exclaimed, "Then I shall order my trumpets to sound." — " Sound them ! " replied Pietro Capponi ; " they shall be answered by the tocsin ! " and with these words he snatched from the King's secretary the royal ultimatum and tore it into shreds. Charles was thunderstruck. Fresh nego- tiations were entered into ; the French King abandoned the Medici, and contented himself with a subsidy of 20,000 ducats and the military occupation of some of the principal Tuscan towns. Dur- ing their stay at Florence, the French pillaged the palace of the Medici, in the Via Larga, when all its rich collections of art and literature were dispersed and lost. Charles now resumed his march towards Eome, and Pope Alex- ander YI., alarmed at his approach, anxiously debated whether he should fly with his cardinals, or endure a siege, or submit to the French. At length he decided to resist, and allowed Ferdinand, Duke of Calabria, to enter Rome with a division of the Neapolitan army ; but s}anptoms of insurrection in the city and surrounding country obliged the Pope again to negotiate. Charles refused to treat till he had entered Rome, into which he was admitted December 31st; the Neapolitans defiling through the gate of St. Sebastian while the French were entering on the opposite side by the Porta del Popolo. Their van began to enter the gate at three in the after- noon, and it was nine before the rear had passed by torchlight. In front marched serried battalions of Swiss and German lansquenets, whose robust and warlike figures were displayed to advantage by their tight jackets and pantaloons of variegated and brilliant colours. Their arms were long pikes, enormous halberds, arquebuses, and two-handed swords. The first rank of each battalion wore helmets and cuirasses ; and to every 1 000 men Avas assigned a company of 100 fusiliers. Then came the French light infantry and cross- bowmen, mostly Gascons, and remarkable for agility rather than strength. These were followed by long columns of the corti'pagnies cVordonnance, about 1600 lances, or 9,600 horsemen. The King himself came next, surrounded by 100 gentlemen and 400 archers, in magnificent costumes, forming his household guard. He was clad in gilt armour adorned with jewels, and wore his crown. 208 NEGOCIATIOXS BETWEEN THE POPE AND SULTAN. [Book I. An eye-witness describes him as the ugliest man he ever saw, but is loud in praising the appearance of his troops.^ The rear was brought up by thirty-six brass guns, with a number of culverins and falconets. The lightness of this artillery, which was drawn by horses instead of teams of oxen as formerly, and the rapidity with, which the guns were manoeuvred, excited the surprise of the Italians. The infantry had also adopted many evolutions in manoeuvring and fighting, which showed much improvement in the art of war. The whole French army, including camp followers, amounted to between 50,000 and 60,000 men. Alexander VI. had shut himself up in the Castle of St. Angelo. His fears were not groundless, for he had many active enemies about the King, and esjjecially Cardinal Julian della Rovere, who advised Charles to call a council, depose the Pope, and reform the Church.. The Cardinal had in his possession proofs of certain negotiations into which Alexander had entered with Sultan Eajazet, w^ho well knew that the views of the French King extended to Constanti- nople. Such was the friendship of the heads of Islam and of Chris- tendom, that the Pope was said to make bishops and cardinals at the nomination of the Sultan. Their alliance was cemented by a singular circumstance. After the death of Mahomet II. in 1481, his grand vizier, Mahomet Mischani, wishing to secure the succession for the Sultan's younger son Dschem, or Zizim, to the prejudice of Bajazet, the elder, for some time concealed the death of Mahomet till Zizim should arrive in Constantinople. But the secret got wind ; the Janissaries with wild cries broke into the seraglio, demanding to see their master, and when the}^ beheld the Stdtan's corpse, cut down his faithless vizier. Parading the streets of Constantinople with. Mischani's head on a lance, they shouted for " Sultan Bajazet and double pay ! " and when the new Sultan at length arrived in the capital from his government of Amasia, he found himself obliged to comply with their demand. Zizim, who was in Caramania at the time of his fathers death, succeeded in seizing Prusa ; but be was defeated by Bajazet in a decisive battle on the plains of Jenischer, and fled into Egypt, where he was honourably received by the Sultan ; and after another unsuccessful attempt to wrest the sceptre from his brother, he found an asylum among the knights of Rhodes, with only thirty attendants. To secure so valuable a pledge, the knights, with the consent of Pope SixtusIV., sent Zizim to France (1483), where he * "La pill bella gonte non fu ^4sta Telini, ap. Kanke, Popes, vol. iii. App. mai." — Diario di Sebastiano di Branco de p. 260 (IVIrs. Austin's transL). Chap. V.] STORY OF ZIZIM. 209 was kept several years in different fortresses belonging to tliem in that kingdom. Bajazet cultivated a good understanding with the knights as the keepers of his brother, allowed them 45,000 ducats 3''early for his maintenance, and made them the costly present of the right hand of St. John the Baptist^ one of the most precious relics in St. John's church at Ehodes. At length in 1489, Pope Innocent VIII., by granting extraordinary privileges to the Order of St. John, and making their Grand-Master a cardinal, induced the latter to deliver up Zizim, who arrived at Rome under the escort of Guido de Blanchefort, prior of Auvergne. In the following year. Innocent, finding all his attempts to get up a crusade abortive, negotiated a treaty with Bajazet, from whom he received the arrears of Zizim's pension, together with some rich presents. He had previously refused the much higher offers of the Sultan of Egypt; which included 400,000 ducats for Zizim's ransom, the re-erection of the kingdom of Jerusalem, and in case of success against Bajazet, the restoration of all the Turkish pos- sessions in Europe. Under Pope Alexander VI., Zizim became the victim of the most detestable policy. In Alexander's negotiations with the Sultan, with a view to obtain the latter's assistance against the French invaders, it w^as represented to be Charles's object to get possession of Zizim's person, in order to make use of him in his designs upon the Turkish empire ; and at the same time the payment of the yearly pension was strongly pressed. Bajazet pro- mised the desired assistance, and in his letter to the Pope expressed without circumlocution the great pleasure it would afford him if his Holiness would as quickly as possible release his brother from all the troubles of this wicked and transitory world in any way that seemed to him most fitting and agreeable. When this service should have been performed and proved by the receipt of Zizim's body, then the Sultan w^as ready to pay 300,000 ducats wherewith to purchase any territories that Alexander might desire for his sons.^ It is not clear how far Alexander was inclined to accede to Bajazet's offers ; and the negotiations were still going on when Charles VIII. appeared in Italy. It would not have been difficult to frame an accusation against Alexander ; his crimes were only too many and notorious. Cardinal Sforza and several of his colleagues charged him truly with having ® The whole correspondence between 525 sqq.). The particular letter alluded Pope Alexander VI. and Sultan Bajazet . to, dated Sept. loth 1494, will also be will be found in the Freuves et Ohscrva- found in the LetUre di Frincipi, t. i. tions appended by Godefroy to his p. 4 ; and in Roscoe's Leo X. vol. v. p. edition of Comines (Paris, fol. 1649, p. 106 sq. VOL. I. P 210 SPAIN OPrOSES CHARLES'S EXPEDITIOX. [Book I. purchased the pontificate, forgetting, however, that they them- selves had been the sellers ! But among his numerous enemies he had at least one friend who enjoyed the ear of Charles — Briponnet, Bishop of St. Malo, who had been gained with a cardinal's hat. He and a few other courtiers spoke in favour of Alexander ; and Charles declined the magnificent part of reforming the Church. On January 11th 1495, a treaty was concluded between him and the Pope, by which Alexander agreed to leave Civita Vecchia, Terracina, and Spoleto in the hands of the French till the conquest of Naples should have been effected, and to deliver Zizim into Charles's hands for six months ; for which the French, King was to pay down 20,000 ducats, and to procure the security of Venetian and Florentine merchants for the restoration of Zizim at the expiration of the stipulated period ; but Alexander would not promise Charles the investiture of Naples, except " with reser- vation of the rights of others." He consented, however, that his bastard son, the Cardinal of Valencia, should follow the French Kino- to Naples, with the title of legate, but in reality as a hostage. This was the notorious Caesar Borgia, who, according to the remark of G-uicciardini, seemed to be born only that a man miglit be found wicked enough to execute the designs of his father. Charles conducted himself while at Rome as supreme master, except that he submitted to perform in the church of St. Peter the deo-rading ceremonial invented by the pride of the Eoman pontiffs. He quitted Rome January 28th 1494^ carrying with him Caesar Boro-ia and Zizim. But Caesar escaped the following day, and Zizim did not long survive. He was already attacked with a lino-ering disorder, of which he expired, February 28th, at the age of thirty-five. It was very generally believed that a slow poison had been administered to him before he left Rome by order of Pope Alexander ; who was willing either to earn the Sultan's blood- money, or at least to frustrate the plans of Charles, which the pos- session of Zizim's person would have helped to forw^ard.^ The unfortunate Zizim is described as having somethmg noble and royal in his aspect ; his mind had been cultivated by the study of Arabic literature ; his address was polite and engaging, and he had borne his misfortunes at once with dignity and modesty. At Velletri Charles was overtaken by Don Juan de Albion and Antonio de Fonseca, the ambassadors of Ferdinand and Isabella, who w^ere instructed to declare that their sovereigns would not permit the Aragonese dominion in Naples to be overthrown. Alex- ' Guicciardini, lib. ii. (vol. i. p. 220, the charge against Alexander YI. are eol- ed. Milan, 1803). The authorities for lectedhyBavn, Hisl. de Vc}iise,]iY.xx.^ 8. Chap. V.] ACCESSION OF FERDIXAND II. AT NAPLES. 211 ander VI., in order to obtain the interference of the Spanish so- vereigns in this matter, had granted them several important privi- leges; among them the title of '^ Catholic " (1494), in consideration of their eminent virtues, and their zeal in defence of the true faith, as shown in the subjugation of the Moors, the purification of the Jewish heresy, and other acts. The Spanish ambassadors now exhorted Charles to submit his claims to the arbitration of the Pope ; and affirmed that if he declined this method, the treaty of Barcelona recognised their master's right to interfere in defence of the Church. Ferdinand had, indeed, sent an ambassador to Charles at Vienne, before he crossed the Alps, to protest against any attempt upon Naples.^ But the French had put quite a different interpretation on the treaty of Barcelona, and at Velletri Charles and his generals attacked the ambassadors in the most furious terms, reproaching them with the perfidy of their masters. Fonseca replied to these remarks by publicly tearing up the treaty; a coup de theatre which seems to have been prepared some months beforehand.^ This protest of Spain did not arrest the advance of Charles. Two little towns in the Campagna which resisted were taken by assault, and the garrisons were barbarously put to the sword, a manner of making war w^hich greatly alarmed the Italians, accus- tomed to their own almost bloodless combats. ^° A French corps had penetrated into the Abruzzi, and as they advanced the people everywhere rose in their favour, such had been the revolting despotism of Alphonso and his father. Although Alphonso, as we have seen, had displayed considerable military talent, he was struck wdth terror at the approach of the French. As soon as his son, the Duke of Calabria, returned from Eome, Alphonso abdi- cated in his favour, and the former, now aged twenty-five, ascended the Neapolitan throne with the title of Ferdinand II. The abdicated monarch, who is said to have been haunted with con- stant visions of the nobles he had put to death, retired with his treasure into Sicily, where he died a few months after in a convent at Mazara. Ferdinand II., in order to prevent the French from entering the Terra di Lavoro, had posted himself with all his forces in the defiles of San Germano, near the river Garigliano; but on the * Prescott, Ferd. and Isabella, vol. ii. p. and Castracaro, which lasted several 253.* hours, and were attended with important ^ P. Martyr, Opits Epistt. lib, vii. Ep. consequences; yet in the first not a 144. single man was slain, and in the second '" Macchiavelli {Istorie Fiorentine, lib. only one, who had fallen from his horse V.) records two engagements, at Anghiara and was suffocated in the mud. f2 212 CHARLES VIII. EXTERS NAPLES. [Book I. approach of the French the Neapolitan infantry disbanded them- selves, and Ferdinand retired with his rjens d'arraes to Capua, with the view of disputing the passage of the Volturno. The rumour of a sedition, however, called him to Naples, and when he returned to Capua he found the gates closed against him, G-ian Giacopo Trivulzio, one of his principal commanders, having treacherously entered into a capitulation with the French, and gone over to the service of Charles. Ferdinand now hastened back to Naples, but found it in all the tumult of insurrection ; wherefore, leaving some troops to hold the castles, and burning or sinking all the vessels which he could not carry off, he retired to Ischia, and afterwards sailed to Sicily with about fifteen ships. '' On the following day, February 22nd 1495, Charles entered Naples amid the acclama- tions of the populace : a few days after the castles capitulated ; and in a few weeks the whole of the kingdom had submitted, with the exception of five or six towns and a few fortresses. All Europe was struck with amazement at this sudden and un- expected conquest. Pope Alexander YI. observed that the French " had overrun Italy with wooden spurs, and conquered it with chalk ; " in allusion to a custom of the French officers of wearing wooden spurs when riding merely for pleasure, and to the practice of marking with chalk the quarters destined for the soldiery after a march. But the very facility of Charles's success was fatal to its permanence. The Italians became the objects of contempt to him and his young courtiers. Instead of securing the places that still held out, Charles plunged headlong into all the luxury and dissipa- tion of Naples ; nor could he be persuaded to pay any attention to business, except to divide the booty. He alienated the hearts even of those Neapolitan- nobles who had favoured his cause by depriv- ing them of their offices, which he bestowed on his own courtiers and favourites; and he offended Louis Sforza by refusing him the promised Principality of Taranto. Louis now began to repent of having called the French into Italy ; he knew that thej^ de- tested him for his conduct towards his nephew ; he had neither foreseen nor desired their rapid success ; and the neighbourhood of the Duke of Orleans, the sole legitimate descendant of the Visconti, who had been detained at Asti by illness, and who openl}' proclaimed Sforza a usurper, filled him with apprehension and alarm. With these feelinors he turned himself towards those states that were also averse to see the French domination established in Italy, especially Venice, which became the centre of agitation against the French. Envoys of various powers assembled there, as if by common consent, whose conferences were conducted by night, and Chap. Y.] VEXETIAX LEAGUE AGAINST FRAXCE. 213 with such secrecy, that Comines", the French ambassador, was as- tounded when he at length heard of them. The Italians naturally turned their eyes towards the Emperor and the Spanish Kin*?. Maximilian was still smarting under the insults and injm-ies he had received at the hands of Charles YIIL, while Ferdinand of Spain was averse to see the bastard branch of the house of Arao-on driven from Naples, and the French established in such near proximity to his own kingdom of Sicily. Under these circum- stances a treaty of alliance was signed at Venice, March 31st 1495, by the Emperor Maximilian, the Spanish monarch, the Pope, the Venetian Republic, and the Duke of Milan. Although Bajazet II. was no party to the treaty, his ambassador had taken part in the negotiations, and he offered to assist the Venetians with all his force against the French. Florence refused to join the lea^^ue. This treaty is remarkable as the first example in modern history of extensive combinations among European potentates. To all ap- pearance the alliance was a merely defensive one ; but the con- tracting parties had secretly agreed to assist Ferdinand II. ao-ainst the French, and to make a diversion on the territory of France. The fruits of it soon began to show themselves. The Pope refused Charles VIII. the investiture of Naples ; a Venetian fleet appeared on the coast of Apulia ; and a Spanish army landed in Sicily. \Mien Charles found that he could expect neither coronation nor investiture at the hands of the Pope, he resolved to dispense with both, and to supply their place by the ceremony of a solemn entry into Naples, which he accordingly performed, May 12th 1495, in the costume of Emperor of the East : — a scarlet mantle trimmed with ermine, a crown closed in front, a golden globe in his right hand, the sceptre in his left. Although Charles had perhaps determined to abandon his new conquest before he heard of the league which had been formed against him, the intelligence of it certainly quickened his move- ments/'' The French character seems scarcely to have altered since those days. The Court of Charles diverted itself with little inter- ludes, or soties, in which the parties to the coalition were turned into ridicule ; but the laughter was mingled with alarm. Nothing could be more ill-advised than the course pursued by Charles in this conjuncture. He should either have evacuated Naples en- tirely, or resolved to hold it against al^ comers; instead of which, he divided his army, starting himself from Naples, May 20th, at the head of 1000 lances (or 6000 horse), and 5000 foot, leaving " See his Memoircs, liv. vii ch. xv. P 3 214 CHARLES VIII. RETREATS. [Book I. the rest of his army under the command of Colonna and Savelli, two Roman nobles, who subsequently repaid his confidence and favour by deserting him. The arrangements made by Charles for the conduct of the government were equally imprudent. His cousin, Grilbert de Bourbon, Duke of Montpensier, who seldom quitted his bed till noon, was named viceroy ; while Etienne de Vesc, whose sole merit consisted in having advised the expedition, and who had been made Duke of Nola and Governor of Graeta, was entrusted Avith the finances. There was, however, neither money in the treasury, nor provisions or ammunition in the fortresses. The only good appointment was that of Everard Stuart, a Scot of noble birth, and in France Lord of Aubigny, who was made Con- stable of Naples and Governor of Calabria. D'Aubigny had led the French van, and proved himself a good soldier. The French returned through the Eoman States without moles- tation. The Pope had fled with his troops to Perugia, nor could Charles's protestations of friendship induce him to return. In Tuscany many changes had been effected since the French King passed through it. Savonarola, whose democratic principles re- commended him to the Florentines, and whose chief supporters w^ere Francesco Valori and Paolo Antonio Soderini, had, after the expulsion of the Medici, reorganised the republic, and converted it into a sort of theocracy, of which he himself was the high priest and minister ; na}^, he even gave out that he had spoken with the Deity, and that Christ himself had consented to become the head of the Florentine State. Such are the blasphemies on which an enthusiast may venture. But though Savonarola assumed a divine mission, his sermons, which have been printed, are so full of politics, that they resemble the harangues of the tribune, rather than the discourses of the pulpit. As he had prevented the Florentines from joining the league of Venice, he came out to meet Charles on his march, and, assuming his sacred, and as it were prophetical, character, he reproached the King both with his negli- gence in reforming the Church, and the breach of his engagements with Florence ; at the same time foretelling that Charles would escape with honour all the perils of his march, but that he would nevertheless be punished for his neglect of duty, and warning him that if he did not alter his conduct, the hand of God would lie heavy upon him. The prophet, however, was not blind to the temporal interests of his country. He insisted that Charles should restore Pisa to the Florentines, which city had formed a coalition with Siena and Lucca. Charles faltered out an ambiguous answer, postponing his decision ; but in point of fact he decided for the Chap. Y.] HIS IXTERVIEW WITH SATOXAROLA. 215 Pisans, as he left a French garrison in that city, as well as in the other maritime places. Charles resumed his march for Lombardy, June 23rd. That country had already become the theatre of war. Sforza had sum- moned Louis, Duke of Orleans, to evacuate Asti, and renounce his pretensions to Milan ; but the troops sent to enforce this summons were repulsed by the Duke of Orleans, who, following up his sue cess, surprised No vara (June 11th), which was delivered to him by a party inimical to Sforza. The latter would probably have been overthrown, had Louis marched straight to Milan ; but he had not courage enough for so bold a step, and his delay enabled Louis the Moor to procure a number of lansquenets from Germany, besides other reinforcements. With part of these he blockaded the Duke of Orleans in Novara, and the rest were despatched to the neigh- bourhood of Parma, where the Venetian army was assembling, to arrest the progress of Charles. Their force was reckoned at 35,000 combatants, among w^hom were 2600 lances, and from 2000 to 3000 Stradiots ^^ ; a sort of light cavalry levied by the Venetians in Albania and Grreece, whose irregular mode of fighting somewhat resembled that of the Arabs. The numerical superiority of the allies seems to have inspired them with a contempt for the French, whom they suffered to pass unmolested the defiles of the Apennines, between the Lunigiana and the Parmesan, through which the infantry were obliged to drag the guns during five days of assiduous and exhausting toil. At length the French army stood on the plains of Lombardy (July 5th), at the village of Fornovo on the Taro. The sight of the numberless tents which covered the hills above that stream, struck Charles and his generals with alarm, and he endeavoured to nes^otiate with the two Venetian Proveditori; functionaries who generally accompanied the Venetian armies to act as a check upon the generals. He merely requested a free passage, and repudiated any intention of attacking the Duke of Milan or his allies; the Venetians, however, decided for a battle. Charles when he entered Italy had been obliged to raise money by pawning ladies' jewels; but now on his return his army of 10,000 men was accompanied and impeded by a baggage train of 6000 beasts of burthen : a strong proof of the rich spoil they were carrying away. Besides this booty a great many works of art, as sculptures, bronze gates, architectural ornaments, &c., had been seized at Naples, and shipped for France, but were recaptured by '- From cTpaTiwTTjy, a soldier. P 4 216 BATTLE OF FORXOVO. [Book I. a Bisca3^an and Genoese fleet.'^ After the French had crossed the Taro, the enormous baggage train, which had been placed in the rear for safety, naturally attracted the attention of the allies, whose first attack was directed to that quarter ; and the King himself, flying with his household troops to the defence of the baggage, precipitated himself into a danger from which he only escaped by the fleetness of his black horse, Savoie. But the hope of plunder proved a snare to the allies. The Stradiots, instead of charging the French gens cVarmes, as they were ordered, made towards the baggage to partake the spoil, and were soon followed by other troops; meanwhile the main body of the French came up, and easily overthrew the disordered ranks of the allies (July 6th.)''* The battle of Fornovo, which lasted only an hour or two, cost the Italians between 3000 and 4000 men, whilst the loss of the French was only about 200, and the safety of their army was assured ; which arrived before Asti without further molestation, July 15th. The Italians proceeded to join the Duke of Milan who, as we have said, was blockading the Duke of Orleans in No vara. Sforza had procured a reinforcement of 10,000 or 12,000 lansquenets from Germany, for which, however, either he or the Venetians had to provide pay, for the Emperor Maximilian was too poor to furnish his contingent. Meanwhile the careless Charles was solacing himself in his camp at Asti with a new mistress, Anna de Soleri, regardless of the pressing solicitations for help which he received from the Duke of Orleans , and it was not till September 11th, that he moved forward to Vercelli on the road to No vara. Negotiations for a peace had how- ever been entered into with Sforza and the Yenetians, through the mediation of the Duchess of Savoy, and on the 10th of October a treaty was signed at Vercelli, by which it was agreed that Novara should be evacuated. Sforza engaged to acknowledge himself the vassal of the French King for Genoa, and to permit that city to fit out armaments for the service of France ; he agreed to remain in the Venetian league only so long as nothing was meditated against France ; to allow the French a passage through his territories, and even to accompany Charles to Naples, if he returned into Italy in person. Charles on his side promised not to support the pretensions of the Duke of Orleans to Milan ; and Sforza agreed to pay 50,000 ducats to that Prince, and to cancel a debt of the King's of 80,000. The Venetians would not directly accede to this treaty ; but they declared that they had no war with the King of France on " Prescott, Ferd. and Isabella, vol. ii. " For this epoch, and in g:cneral for p. 274. Cf. Muratori, Ann. d^ Italia, t. ix. the Italian wars, see Rosmini, Vie de p. 382 sq. Trividce. Chap. Y.] FERDIXAXD II. KEEXTEKS NAPLES. 217 their own account, and that they had merely seconded the Duke of Milan as their ally. Charles also cultivated the good will of the Florentines by sacrificing the Pisans to them, though an amnesty was stipulated in their favour. The French King, without waiting for the execution of these arrangements, hastened back to France, leaving a corps at Asti under the command of Trivulzio ; and reaching Lyon, November 9th, after fourteen months' absence, he again abandoned himself to pleasure, from which not even the death of his only son, Roland, could snatch him. Charles had not quitted Naples a week when his competitor, Ferdinand II., landed at Reggio with an army composed of Spanish and Sicilian troops. We have already mentioned the protest of Ferdinand of Aragon against Charles's enterprise ; and he had now sent a body of Spaniards to the aid of the Neapolitan monarch, under the command of Gronsalvo of Cordova ; but that commander was completely defeated at Seminara by Stuart d'Aubigny with a small body of French and Swiss, and compelled to re-embark for Sicily. Thus Gonsalvo was 'unsuccessful in his first great battle ; but it was the only one he ever lost. Ferdinand II., however, did not despair. His party in Naples was daily increasing, and speedily returning with a mere handful of soldiers, he ventured to land within a mile of that city. Montpensier, who went out to oppose him with nearly all his garrison, had scarcely left the town when his ears were saluted with the sound of the alarm bells from all the churches. At this signal for insurrection the viceroy hastened back; an obstinate combat ensued in the streets, in which the French were worsted and obliged to shut themselves up in tht castles of St. Elmo, Castello Nuovo, and Castello d'Uovo, whilst Ferdinand entered the city amid the acclamations of the multitude. This happened on July 7th, a day after the battle of Fornovo. Nearly the whole of the southern coast now raised the banner of Ferdinand II. ; and "the Venetians assisted in recovering several towns on the Adriatic. The French at Naples were soon starved into a surrender. Mont- pensier, in violation of a capitulation which he had entered upon, had previously quitted the castles with 2500 men, with whom he succeeded in embarking, and landed at Salerno. The French might still have supported themselves in Italy had they received any assistance from Charles YIII. ; but for this, with the exception of a small body of infantry landed at Graeta, they looked in vain. The sensual Charles, sunk in indolence and luxury which had pro- duced a bad state of health, was completely governed by Cardinal Brifonnet, who had been bribed, it is supposed, by the Pope and the 218 ACCESSIOX OF FREDERICK II. AT NAPLES. [Book I. Duke of ^Milan ; and he threw so many obstacles into the way of a second Italian expedition, that Charles gave it up in disgust. Montpensier, assisted by some Roman and Neapolitan barons, continued the war, till he was shut up by P'erdinand and his allies at Atella in the Basilicata ; when, being deserted by his Swiss and German mercenaries, he was forced to make a second capitulation (July 20th 1496), by which he surrendered most of the places held by the French, on condition of their being allowed to return to France with their personal effects. The French troops were cantoned at Baise and the neighbourhood to await transport, where an epidemic broke out which carried off great numbers of them, including Montpensier himself. It is said that Ferdinand II. had purposely selected these unhealthy quarters.^^ Soon after the fall of Atella, Gonsalvo of Cordova defeated d'Aubigny in Calabria, and compelled him also to retire to France. The kingdom of Naples was thus again reduced under obedience to Ferdinand II., who, however, did not long live to enjoy his success. Having contracted an incestuous marriaofe with his aunt Joanna, who was of much the same age as himself, he retired for the honeymoon to the castle of La Somma, at the foot of Vesuvius, where he shortly after expired,*. Sept. 7th 1496, at the age of twenty-seven. He was succeeded without opposition by his uncle Don Frederick, a popular and able prince. Frederick soon com- pelled the French garrisons in G-aeta, Yenosa, and Taranto, which had been excepted from Montpensier's capitulation, to evacuate those places, and to embark with the body of the French army. Thus before the close of 1496 all trace of Charles's rapid conquest had disappeared. Its effects, however, remained ; especially it had inspired the more warlike, or less thinking, portion of the French people with a blind ardour for distant conquests ; and the like passion had also been excited in the Germans and Spaniards who served in these wars. Italy, prostrated by its own quarrels, seemed to offer an easy prey to the foreigner ; nor did this foretaste of danger suffice to reunite its peoples. War had continued to rage in Tuscany, where Lucca, Siena, and Pisa still resisted the domination of the Florentines. The French generals had neglected to carry out the arrangement of Charles with the Florentines, and Leghorn alone had been restored to them. At Pisa, the French commandant, d'Entraigues, infatuated by love for a Pisan helle, had been persuaded by her to give up the citadel to the inhabitants instead of to the Florentines, whilst other French officers sold Sarzano and Pietra Santa to the Genoese and " Miiratori, Annali, t. ix. p. 386. Chap. Y.] SPAXISH MAERIAGES. 219 Luccese. Pisa, protected by Louis Sforza and the Venetians, retained its independence during fourteen years. The Duke of Milan persuaded the Emperor Maximilian to undertake the siege of Leghorn in person, at the head of the allied forces; but the enterprise proved a ridiculous failure. Savonarola, who was a warm adherent of the French alliance, sent some troops to Leghorn, which obliged Maximilian to raise the siege, and he quitted Italy, leaving the Italians with a very low opinion of his personal qualities, and a great contempt for his power. At the beorinnino: of 1497, Charles VIII. made some feeble attempts to revenge himself on Louis Sforza for the loss of Naples. Some 12,000 men, under Trivulzio and Cardinal Julian della Eovera, made an attack upon G-enoa, which entirely failed ; and a truce of six months was then agreed upon between France and the allies. A blow struck at Milan might probably have been successful ; but the Duke of Orleans, now by the death of the Dauphin Eoland, the heir presumptive of the French crown, had incurred the jealousy of Charles, who felt no incluiation to sup- port his claims to the Milanese. • On the expiration of the truce in October, it was renewed only between France and Spain. Fer- dinand the Catholic, who had no more regard for the bonds of relationship than for the faith of treaties, had already begun to harbour designs against the dominions of his Neapolitan cousin, which were to be carried out in conjimction with France. During Charles VIII's brief stay at Naples, the Spanish mo- narchs had negotiated some marriages for their children, which were destined to have an important influence on fhe future fortunes of Europe. The expedition of Charles had had great effect in open- ing out more extended views, and a larger policy among princes. Hitherto the nuptials of the Spanish monarchs had been mostly confined to the peninsula ; but an important marriage treaty was now negotiated with the House of Austria. It was arranged that Don John, Prince of Asturias'^ the heir apparent of Spain, should marry Margaret, daughter of the Emperor Maxmilian, and that the latter's son, the Archduke Philip, heir of the Netherlands in right of his mother, should espouse Joanna, second daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. In the following year (October 1496), a marriage, which had been arranged as early as 1489, was also contracted between Catalina, or Catherine, youngest daughter of Ferdinand i« The title of Prince of the Asturias III., on the occasion of his marriage was appropriated to the heir apparent of with the daughter of John of Gaunt, Castile, in professed imitation of that of Duke of Lancaster, in ^1388. Prescott, Prince of Wales, and was bestowed on Fcrd. and Isabella, vol. ii. p. 317 sq., and the Infant Don Henry, afterwards Henry 322, note. 220 FLOREXTIXE FACTIOXS. [Book I. and Isabella, and Arthur, Prince of Wales, son of Henry VII. Towards the autumn of 1496, a large Spanish fleet conveyed Joanna to Flanders, and she was married to Philip at Lisle. In the ensuing winter, the same fleet carried Margaret to Spain, who was united to Don John at Burgos, April 3rd 1497 ; but the youthful bridegroom did not long survive. Soon after this mar- riage was celebrated that of Isabella, the eldest daughter of the Spanish sovereigns, with Emmanuel King of Portugal, who had succeeded to the Portuguese throne on the death of his father John II., in 1495. Isabella was the widow of Emmanuel's brother Alonso. Bred up in all the bigotry of the Spanish Court, Isabella stipulated, as the price of her hand, that Emmanuel should banish the Jews from his dominions ; and that other^vise en- lightened monarch, blinded by the passion which he had conceived for Isabella during her residence in Portugal, consented to a mea- sure which, in his heart, he disapproved. On the death of Don John, the only male heir to Castile (October 4th 1497), the suc- cession devolved to Isabella, who, however, also expired, in giving birth to a son, August 1498. This child died in his second year, and thus Joanna, Isabella's next sister, became the heir of the Spanish monarchies. But to return to the affairs of Italy. Alexander YI., in whom Savonarola inspired a kind of terror, and who had long hesitated to attack the Florentine prophet, at , length prohibited him from preaching ; but Savonarola continued to thunder against the corruption of Rome, and to invoke the vengeance of heaven upon that city. His asceticism took every day a more rigid form, and at length began to produce dissensions in Florence. On Shrove Tuesday, 1497, he caused to be burnt in the public place, a pile of books, pictures, musical instruments, &c., obtained from their possessors, either voluntarily or by compulsion. No compunction was felt for the most precious manuscripts, nor for the chefs-d'oeuvre of art ; all were alike abandoned to the flames. In a city distinguished above all others for literature and science, many persons who were desirous of political reform and liberty were thrown into the opposite party by this fanaticism ; for Florence was divided into three factions, characterised by the names of Piagnoni, or Weepers ; Arrabiati, or Madmen ; and Bigi, or Greys; the first of whom were the disciples of Savo- narola; the second were the Epicureans, or Libertines; and the third were the partisans of the Medici. These dissensions inspired Alexander VI. with the hope of crushing Savonarola. It was from the midst of orgies, which might vie in filthiness with those of the worst and most shameless of the Koman Emperors, that the Pope Chap. Y.] CEDIES OF THE BORGIAS. 221 launched aofainst his Florentine censor the most awful of his spiritual weapons. The vices and crimes of the papal famil}-, were this year more than usually conspicuous. Julia Farnese, the Pope's mistress, called from her beauty Julia Bella ^^, with whom he lived in open adultery, and who was accustomed to parade herself, with unblushing effrontery, in all the festivals of the Church, brought him a son in the month of April. Nor was the stain of blood wanting. In July, Francis Borgia, Duke of G-andia, the Pope's eldest and favourite son, having supped with his brother Caesar, Cardinal of Valencia, at the house of their mother Vanozza, near the church of St. Peter ad Vincula, they rode home together on their mules, but parted company on the w^ay. The Duke was never more seen alive; but his body, bearing nine wounds, was found next evening in the Tiber, into which it had been thrown near the hospital of St. Jerome, at a place where it was usual to discharge into the river all the filth of the city. Contemporary testimony points almost unanimously to his brother the Cardinal as the assassin. ^^ It was in fact, as M. Michelet well expresses it, a change of reign — the accession of Caesar Borgia. With a few inches of steel the Cardinal of Valencia had achieved much. He had made himself the eldest son, the heir ; and had compelled his father to unfrock him, to make him a layman, in order that he might found the fortunes of the House ^^, as we shall presently have to narrate. But the stroke fell upon Alexander like a thunderbolt. He confessed his sins in open Con- sistory, and announced his intention of amending his life. His repentance however, w^as, of short duration. In a few days he resumed his old habits, transferred to the assassin all the affection he had felt for the victim, and recompensed himself for his short abstinence by a new outbreak of debauchery and cruelty. It was about this time also that Alexander pronounced a divorce between his daughter Lucretia and her husband Francesco Sforza, Lord of Pesaro, from whose protection she had withdrawn herself.^^ " She was a sister of Cardinal Farnese, to the ancient tradition, which has been con- afterwards Pope Paid III., and was firmed since the time wlieu Roscoe wrote, married to one of the Orsini ftimily. by another contemporary autliority, the Alexander VI. caused Pinturicchio to Diario of Sebastiano de Bianca d^ Telini, paint a picture of her in the character extracts of which have been published of the Virgin, with himself in the act by Ranke (see Popes of Rome, Mrs. of adoration ! See Roscoe, Leo X. vol. i. Austin's transL vol, i. p. 50). Mr. p. 355. Roscoe is perhaps more successful in his '^ Mr. Roscoe, in his Life of Leo X. vindication of Lucretia Borgia, whose life, (vol. i. p. 227, ed. 1827), has endeavoured, at all events after her marriage with but without success, to clear Cajsar Alphonso d'Este, seems to have been Borgia of all blame in this transaction ; irreproachable, the best recent historians, Sismoudi, '^ lienaissancc, p. 100. Ranke, Michelet, and others, stiU adhere -' Lucretia had been given, before she 222 SAVONAROLA BURXT AS A FALSE TROPIIET. [Book I. With all his enthusiasm, Savonarola was not yet prepared for schism, and he obeyed the papal interdict by abstaining from preaching. During the carnival of 1498, however, he remounted the pulpit with fresh vigour ; and, being now resolved to venture everything upon the struggle, he openly attacked the infallibility of the Pope, and wrote letters to the principal sovereigns of Europe, urging them to call a general council, and depose him. The letter addressed to the King of France was intercepted by Louis Sforza, and forwarded to the Pope. Alexander's rage found vent in fulminating a fresh bull against Florence, March 1498, and, as it was accompanied with threats of hostilities, the Florentine government forbade Savonarola to enter the pulpit. The supre- macy of the Dominicans had long excited the jealousy and envy of the other mendicant orders ; the declining fortunes of Savonarola seemed to offer an opportunity for revenge ; and, as he had fre- quently asserted that he would attest the truth of his mission by a miracle, Francis of Apulia, a Minor Observantine, challenged him to raise the dead ; at the same time offering to enter the flames with him, and thus submit the dispute to the judgment of Grod. From this trial Savonarola shrunk ; yet he was not unwilling that the experiment should be tried in the person of another, and pro- posed for the ordeal the lay-brother Andrea Eondinelli. This passage in Savonarola's life seems to justify Voltaire's remark ^^, that the prophet who cabals convicts himself of being a cheat. Francis having declined to enter the flames, except with Savonarola himself, one Domenico da Pescia was substituted as the antagonist of Eondinelli. An enormous pile of wood and other combustibles was collected in the great square of Florence, having in the centre a lane only two feet wide, through which, when the pile was ignited, the rival monks were to walk. On the 17th of April, the appointed day, the great square was filled with a motley and eager crowd. Weepers and Libertines, Dominicans and Franciscans jostled one another in anxious expectation, while the cooler and more indifferent spectators waited quietly, as for some scene in a play. But Savonarola had repented of tempting God. Hoiu-s were spent in disputing the conditions and method of the ordeal, till at length a heavy rain dispersed the assembled multitude — a fatal result for Savonarola I His miraculous powers had now been tested and found wanting. The people, seeing that they had been trifled with, were filled with indignation ; an order was procured was of marriageable age, to a Neapolitan divorce in order to marry her to Sforza. gentleman ; but Alexander, on his ac- ^^ Essai siD' les Moeurs. cession to the pontificate, pronounced a Chap. T.] ACCESSIOX OF LOUIS XII. IX FEAXCE. 223 for Savonarola's arrest, and he was brought before a tribunal over which two papal commissaries presided. As the torture was applied or withdrawn, he several times asserted and retracted his pretensions to a prophetic mission ; and, though he has since been claimed both by Eoman Catholics and Reformers, he failed to display the spirit of an apostle or even of a martyr. He was con- demned to the stake, and burnt with two of his disciples. May 23rd. A few days after the execution of Savonarola, a letter arrived from the King of France to request his pardon. That King, how- ever, was no longer Charles VIII., but Lduis XII. A remarkable chancre had been observed in the conduct of Charles towards the close of his life, the result probably of the decline of his health. He was no longer the trifling dissipated creature of his earlier days ; his conversation had become more serious, and he had renounced his disorderly life. His expedition to Italy had inspired him with a certain degree of taste, which he displayed at the Chateau d'Amboise, w^here he took up his residence early in 1498. Here he began to build on a large scale, and employed sculptors and painters, whom he had brought with him from Naples, in the labours of their respective professions — the first indication of the introduction of Italian art into France. He was meditating another expedition into Italy, and, being sensible of his former mistakes, he resolved to take measures for assuring a permanent conquest. On the 7th of April 1498, as he was proceeding from his chamber with Anne of Brittany, his consort, to see a game of tennis in the castle ditch, in passing through a dark gallery he struck his head against a door. Although a little stunned by the blow he passed on to view the sports, conversing cheerfully with those around him, when he was suddenly struck with apoplexy, and, being carried to an adjoining garret, expired in a few hours. He had not yet completed his twenty-eighth year. With Charles VIII. was extinguished the direct line of the House of Valois. The Crown was now transferred to the collateral branch of Orleans, and Louis, Duke of Orleans, descended from the second son of King Charles V. and his consort Yalentina Visconti, of the ducal House of Milan, succeeded Charles VIII. with the title of Louis XII. The new King, feeble both in body and mind, was one of those characters to which the absence of strong passions or opinions lends the appearance of good nature, and even of virtue. He was naturally formed to be governed, and with him ascended the throne a prelate who had long been his director, Greorge d'Am- boise, Archbishop of Eouen. D'Amboise was the second of that series of cardinal-ministers whose reign in France lasted a century 224 POLICY OF LOUIS AXD D'.OIBOISE. [Book I. and a half. A man severed by his vocation from the world, without wife or children, and having no family to found, must, it was con- cluded, be necessarily devoid of avarice and ambition ! Yet the clerical profession was precisely that which offered in those days the easiest avenue to wealth combined with the distant prospect of a diadem. The views both of Louis XII. and his minister were directed towards Italy. The King's heart was set on the recovery of the Duchy of Milan, and of the kingdom of Naples ; the Arch- bishop wanted to be Pope, and his best chance of attaining that dignity lay in the success of his master's projects. The El Dorado of both lying beyond the Alps, they could afford to be moderate in France. The disinterested d'Amboise could never be persuaded to accept a second benefice, yet left at his death an enormous fortune, wrung for the most part from the Italians. In pursuance of his schemes, it was necessary that France should be contented and quiet ; and the domestic government of Louis XII. was accordingly mild and equitable. One of his first cares was to banish all fear lest he should remember former injuries when a partisan-chief in the war of Brittany, and he hastened to announce as his maxim, " that it would ill become a King of France to avenge the quarrels of the Duke of Orleans." In accordance with it, among other instances, Louis de la Tremouille, the famous captain who had made Louis prisoner at St. Aubin, was confirmed in all his honours and pen- sions; and Madame Anne, of France, with her husband, Peter, Duke of Bom'bon, were invited to Blois and loaded with favours. While the higher ranks were thus propitiated, the middle classes were conciliated by some useful reforms in the administration of justice, and by a government founded on order and econom}^ Nothing indeed can form a more striking contrast than the foreign and domestic policy of France under Louis XII. One of the first affairs that engaged the attention of the new monarch brought him into connection with the Court of Eome, and decided the colour of his future Italian policy. By the marriage contract between Charles VIII. and Anne of Brittany, that duchy reverted to his widow upon his death, and was thus again severed from the Crown of France. It was indeed provided by that instru- ment that Anne should contract no second marriage except with Charles's successor, or the presumptive heir to the throne ; but this clause seemed to be defeated by the circumstance that Louis XII. was already married, and was without issue. He determined how- ever to remove this obstacle by procuring a divorce from his ugly and deformed wife Joanna, the daughter of Louis XI. We have before adverted to the mistake of those who hold that a mutual Chap. Y.] C^SAR BORGIA AT THE FRENCH COURT. 22 'SJ.0 passion had long existed between Louis and Anne ; the Emperor Maximilian, to whom she had been affianced, alone possessed Anne's heart. She had even lived on ill terms with Louis during the life of Charles VIII., but her choice was now restricted to him, and whatever might be her affection for Brittany, the dignity of a Queen of France was not to be despised. She had displayed a somewhat theatrical grief '-^^ on the death of Charles YIII. ; j^et in little more than four. months after that event she signed a promise of marriage with Louis XII., insisting, however, on much more favom'able conditioDS as to her Duchy of Brittany than she had obtained under her former contract, and which infinitely multiplied the chances of Brittany being again separated from France. The espousals were to be celebrated as soon as a divorce could be ob- tained. It thus happened that Louis stood in urgent need of the Pope's services, just at the time when the latter had withdrawn his son Csesar, the Cardinal of Valencia, from the ecclesiastical profession, and had determined to make him a great temporal prince. With this view Alexander had already demanded for Caesar the hand of a daughter of Frederick II. of Naples ; and being nettled by a refusal he resolved to throw himself into the arms of the French party. The disgraceful alliance between Louis and the Borgias was thus cemented by their mutual wants, and Caesar was des- patched into France. George d'Amboise and his master could not have been ignorant of the strange history of Caesar Borgia — it was only too notorious. He was, however, well received at the French Court, where his handsome person, his sumptuous dress and his magnificent suite at- tracted general attention. He came provided with the necessary Bull for the divorce, and was determined to sell it at the highest possible rate. It was a sale in open market of one of the most solemn functions of the church. The Archbishop of Eouen was gained by a cardinal's hat and the prospect of the papacy infuturo. A bar- gain was soon struck. Caesar, who had his father under his thumb, could unmake and make as many Cardinals as should be necessary to secure d'Amboise's election after Alexander YI.'s death ; in return for which he was to be assisted by the French arms in recovering the territories claimed by the Church and converting them into a principality or kingdom for himself. Louis also engaged to re- ^' She introduced the custom of wear- also the mourning of the Spaniards, and ing black for mourning. The widowed was used on the death of Don John in queens had px'eviously worn white, whence 1495; after which it was discontinued, the name of Reines hlavches. Martin, Herrera ap. Macpherson, vol. ii. p. 7. Mat. de France, t. yii. p. 302. White was VOL. I. Q 226 LOUIS XII. MARRIES AXXE OF BRITTANY. [Book I. nounce all attempts upon Xaples, except in favour of the House of Borgia ; a circumstance from which it appears that the Pope had even then formed designs upon that kingdom.'^^ It need hardly be said that the divorce was soon granted, though on pleas the most frivolous and unjust ; Joanna defended herself but feebly, and retired into a convent at Bourges. Caesar Borgia was made Duke of Valentin ois in Dauphine, received in money 30,000 gold ducats, with a pension of 20,000 livres, and the Order of St. Michael. Above all, he was appointed to a company of one hundred lances ; and the French flag being thus put into his hands, he assumed the style of Caesar Borgia " of France." The title was further confirmed by a matrimonial connection with the French royal family. On May 12th 1499, he espoused Carlotta, dauo-hter of Alan d'Albret, a near relative of Louis XII., but the young bride remained in France.^* Before these negociations were completed, CaBsar Borgia exhibited a touch of his Italian arts. In the hope of extorting further con^ cessions from Louis, he had delayed producing the Bull of dispen- sation for affinity; but the Bishop of Cette, one of the papal commissaries, having informed the King that it had been signed by the Pope and was in Caesar's hands, Louis caused the ecclesiastical judges to pronounce his divorce. A few days after, the Bishop of Cette died poisoned ! The King's marriage with Anne of Brittany was celebrated January 8th 1499. Louis's designs on Italy were supported by the Venetians, whom Sforza had offended by thwarting their views on Pisa ; and in February 1499 they contracted an alliance with France against the Duke of Milan ; the French King agi'eeing to assign to them the Cremonese and the Ghiara d'Adda, or the district between the Adda, the Po, and the Oglio. The state of Europe seemed to favour the enterprise of Louis XII. In England, Henry VII., occupied in strengthening himself upon the throne, paid little attention to the affairs of the continent, and had confirmed the treaty of Etaples with Louis, July 14th 1498. Maximilian bore more ill-will to France, but had less power to show it. As Emperor, he was without revenue or soldiers, nay almost without jurisdiction ; his hereditary states alone afforded him some resources. Towards the end of Charles VIII.'s reign he had been preparing an expedition against France, in order to force Charles to restore Burgundy, and some towns in Ai'tois, which, by an article in the treaty of Senlis, were to revert to his son Philip as soon as the latter should ^ See the Relatione of Polo Capello, p. 252 (Mrs. Austin's transl.). ap. Ranke, Popes of Rome, vol. iii. App. ^* Relatione of Polo Capello, loc. cit Chap. V.] THE FRENCH INVADE ITALY. 227 come of age and should do homage for them to the King of France. But although Philip had long since assumed the government of his provinces, and offered to perform the required homage, yet the French had on different pretexts deferred fulfilling the stipulations of the treaty. Soon after Louis XII.'s accession, Maximilian pene- trated into Burgundy with a considerable army, which, however, he was soon obliged to dismiss for want of the necessary funds to maintain it. But the desire of Louis to enter upon his Italian campaign led him soon after to restore the towns in question to Philip, and to consent that his claims on Burgundy should be referred to arbitration. The empire, whose sovereign princes and free states cared more about Switzerland than the Emperor's claims in Italy, soon afterwards engaged in a bloody war with the Swiss, whom Maximilian was striving to reduce under the authority of the Imperial Chamber, and it was in vain that the Duke of Milan sought his assistance. Of all the European states, Spain alone had the power and the will for active interference in the affairs of Italy ; and Louis had secured the neutrality of that kingdom by the treaty of Marcoussis, August 5th 1498, by which all the differences between the two countries had been arranged. Nay, Ferdinand the Catholic probably beheld with pleasure an expe- dition from which he might eventually hope for some benefit to himself. The only Italian ally of Louis Sforza was Kiug Frederick of Naples, who could spare no troops for his assistance ; the only foreign power whose aid he could invoke was the Turkish Sultan, and his application to Bajazet was supported by the Neapolitan King. The ravages, however, wdiich the Turkish hordes consequently inflicted on the Venetian province of the Friuli, and even as far as the neighbourhood of Vicenza, did not arrest the progress of the French, and only served to cast odium upon the Duke of Milan as the ally of the Moslem infidels. The preparations for the Italian expedition were completed about the end of July 1499.^^ Louis, who did not himself intend to pass the Alps, reviewed his army at Lyon, which consisted of about 23,000 men, with fifty-eight guns. The command was entrusted to three experienced captains, of whom two might be called foreigners ; namely, Stuart d'Aubigny, and John James Trivulzio, by birth a Lombard; the third was Louis, Count of Ligni, the patron and master in the art of war of the illustrious Bayard. Louis Sforza's general, Graleazzo di San Severino, did not ven- ture to oppose the French in the field, and shut himself up in ^ For this period see Jean d'Auton, Tremouille, St. Gelais, le lo3'al Serviteur, Hist, de Louis XII., the Memoires of La &c. Q 2 228 LOUIS XII. ENTERS MILAN. [Book L Alessandria ; whence, having probably been bribed, he stole away one night to Milan. As soon as his soldiers became aware of his flight, they evacuated Alessandria in confusion, and were pursued and dispersed by the French gens dCarmes. On the other side, the Venetians had taken all the towns between the Adda and the Osflio without striking a blow. But, what was worse, symptoms of dis- affection had begun to appear in Milan itself. The citizens had resolved not to endure a siege, and the Duke's purse-bearer, or treasurer, had been openly murdered in the streets while attempt- ing to levy some money. Sforza, feeling that he was no longer safe in his capital, set off for the Tyrol to seek assistance from Maximilian. Milan now'declared for the French (September 14th) ; the other towns followed the example of the capital, and thus the conquest, or rather the annexation, of Lombardy, was achieved in less than a month. Astonished and delighted at this brilliant success, Louis crossed the Alps to enjoy his triumph, and entered Milan, October 6th, amid cries of Viva Francia! His first acts were popular. The citizens were gratified by the promise of a reduction in the taxes ; but as this could not be effected to any great extent, Louis soon lost the brief popularity he had acquired. After a few weeks' sojourn, he returned to France, having appointed Trivulzio his lieutenant-general in the Milanese. Grenoa, which after the sub- mission of Milan had again placed itself under the French, was intrusted to the command of Philip of Cleves, Lord of Kavenstein, assisted by Batistino Fregoso, the head of the French party in that city. The French soon became unpopular in Milan. Trivulzio exer- cised the government entrusted to him in the most tyrannical manner, while the French soldiers made themselves hated and suspected by their extortions, their brusqueriei and their amours. The party of the exiled Duke rapidly revived, and an extensive plot was laid to effect his restoration. Sforza had been received by Maximilian at Innsbriick with magnificent promises ; but in fact the Emperor had no power to «erve him, and was so poor that he even wanted to borrow what money the Duke had succeeded in retaining. Sforza, however, was of opinion that he had better employ it himself; and in spite of the treaty between the French and Swiss, he succeeded in engaging 8000 or 9000 of the latter in his service. At the news of his approach by the Lake of Como, a general insurrection broke out at Milan (January 25th 1500); Trivulzio and the Count de Ligni, leaving a garrison in the citadel of Milan, retired to Novara, and thence to ^lortara; where Chap. Y.] SFORZA BETRAYED BY THE SWISS. 229 they shut themselves up to await reinforcements from France. The capture of Novara had been facilitated by the treachery of the Swiss garrison in the French service, who finding their country- men better paid and fed by Sforza, passed over to his ranks. The- great competition for the hiring of the Swiss, and the consequent influx of money among them, had introduced a lamentable change in their manners. They were become a nation of mercenary ad- venturers, ever ready to sell their blood for gold, which w^as spent in brutal debauchery ; and treachery of course followed, of which we shall have to narrate numerous instances. The Duke of Milan was naturally very anxious to detach the Venetians from France ; but though he begged them to dictate the conditions of a peace, and though secretly they were not displeased at the reverses of the French, they were not yet prepared to violate their treaty with Louis. Both the French and the Milanese armies, had been largely recruited when they met near No vara, April 5th 1500. The infantry on both sides was almost entirely composed of Swiss ; those in the French army, however, had been furnished by the Diet, and marched under the banners of their cantons ; while those m the ranks oi the Duke had been hired individually, without the sanction of their government. The Diet had issued an order that the Swiss should not engage one another, a breach of which would have rendered those in the service of Sforza guilty of treason ; and the latter, in consequence, when the French, after a short cannonade were about to charge, retired into Novara, and were followed by the rest of the army. In the ensuing night Sforza's Swiss began to parley with the French, and engaged to evacuate the country on receiving a safe-conduct. As a pretext for their desertion, they clamorously demanded their arrears from the Duke ; and all they would allow the victim of their perfidy was, that he should conceal himself in their ranks when they evacuated the town. On the following morning, Sforza, now old and feeble, put on the frock of a cordelier, to pass himself off for chaplain of the corps, and might have escaped in this disguise, had not a Swiss soldier betrayed him for a reward of 200 crowns. He was seized and conducted to the castle of Novara. The Swiss in their retreat occupied Bellinzona, at which Louis XII. was forced to connive; and they thus secured possession of the canton of Tessino, afterwards confirmed to them by treaty, April lOth 1503, during Louis's reverses in Apulia and Calabria. Consternation reigned at Milan. AMien Cardinal d'Amboise returned thither, accompanied by Trivulzio, a long procession of men and women, with bare heads, and clothed in white, repaired Q 3 230 SFOEZA IMPRISONED IX FRANCE. [Book I. to the townhall to deprecate his anger for their " accursed rebellion." D'Amboise, however, did not abuse his victory. Only four of the ringleaders were put to death at Milan, and the other rebellious cities were amerced in moderate sums for the costs of the war. Charles d'Amboise, a nephew of the Cardinal's, was substituted for Trivulzio, as Grovernor of Milan. But Louis XII. did not extend to his Italian rivals the same generosity which he had displayed towards his French opponents. Duke Sforza was carried into France, and Louis caused him to be confined in a dungeon under the great tower of Loches, where he is said to have been shut up in an iron cage eight feet long and six broad. It was only towards the close of his life, which, was prolonged ten years, that the hard- ship of his captivity was mitigated, and the whole castle laid open as his residence.-^ Louis the Moor had been one of the ablest of the Italian sovereigns. His administration and system of police were excellent ; Milan in his hands became the city which it is at present ; and it was he who completed the admirable network of Milanese irrigation, by making the gigantic canal which connects its rivers. Leonardo da Vinci, the loftiest and most universal genius of the age, chose Sforza for his master, and quitted Florence to live at Milan. Besides Louis, four or five other members of the Sforza family, including his brother, the Cardinal Ascanio, had fallen into the hands of the French King ; who caused Ascanio to be confined in the same tower at Bourges where he himself had been two years a prisoner, and doomed three sons of Graleazzo Sforza to langruish in an obscire duno^eon. The Duke's two sons, Maximilian and Francis, found refuge with the Emperor. The war between Florence and JPisa still continued. In conse- quence of his alliance with the Florentines, Louis XII. sent in June 1500 a body of troops to aid them in reducing Pisa. The Pisans professed their willingness to submit to the French King, but declared their determination to resist the Florentines to the last gasp. It is said that they received an attack of the French with shouts of Viva Francia ! which rendered it impossible to bring the French troops a second time to the assault; and it became necessary to raise the siege. The assistance of Louis was of more service to the Borgia family. Alexander VI. and his children hastened to avail themselves of the presence of the French in Italy, in order to push their schemes of ambition and aggrandisement. Lucretia Borgia, who, after her divorce from Sforza, had been mar- ried to Alphonso, Duke of Biseglia, a natural son of Alphonso II. 2^ According to another account he rated from his cage. Sec Dai'u, Hist. de died of joy on the day that he was libc- Venisc, liv. xxi. § 9 ; Martin, t. yii. p. 326. Chap. Y.] AMBITION AND CKIMES OF BORGIA. 231 of Naples, and had been declared perpetual governess of the Duchy of Spoleto, was now further invested with Sermoneta, wrested from the House of the Gaetani. At the urgent entreat}"- of Pope Alexander, Louis also lent a small force to Caesar Borgia, Duke of Valentinois, to assist the papal troops in reducing the Lords of Komagna and the Marca ; as Sforza of Pesaro, Mala- testa of Eimini, the Eiarii of Imola and Forli, and others. Forli was obstinately defended by Catharine Sforza, widow of Jerome Riario, but was at length taken by assault, and Catharine sent prisoner to the castle of St. Angelo, at Rome. By the spring of 1501, all the small principalities of that district had been reduced; Borgia entered Rome in triumph, under the mingled banners of France and the Pope, and twelve new cardinals were created in order that he miofht be declared Duke of Romao^na and ofonfalonier of the Church. Thus was the French flag prostituted in order to promote the designs of the Pope and his insatiable son. Louis even notified to all the Italian powers that he should regard any opposition to the conquests of Borgia as an injury done to himself; a policy disapproved by all the French council except d'Amboise, to whom Borgia held out the hope of the tiara. During these proceedings, the Pope's family displayed all their characteristic crimes and vices. After the capture of Faenza, Astorre Manfredi, its youthful, handsome, and amiable lord, was murdered, after having been first subjected to the most brutal and disgusting treatment at the hands of Borgia. The Duke of Bise- glia, Lucretia's third husband, was stabbed on the steps of St. Peter's church (June 1500) by a band of assassins hired by her brother, who were safely escorted out of the city, and all pursuit after them forbidden. The Duke, whose wound was not mortal, was conveyed to a chamber in the Pope's palace, where he was tended by his sister and by his wife Lucretia. The Pope placed a guard to defend his son-in-law against his son, a precaution which Borgia derided. " What is not done at noon," he said, " may be done at night." He was as good as his word. Before Biseglia had re- covered from his wounds, Csesar burst into his chamber, drove out his wife and sister, and caused him to be strangled. ^^ Borgia's motives for this assassination have been variously ascribed to his criminal passion for his sister, and to his hatred of the House of Aragon. Some modern writers ^® have supposed that the crime was perpetrated in order to make room for Lucretia's fourth mar- 2» Ranke's Popes, vol. i. p. 50; Cf. Mi- Works, vol. iii. p. 450 (ed. 1814). Cf. ohi^Qi, Re7iaissa7ice, ^. \0\. Schlosser, Weltffcschichte, B. :&i. S. 161; 2^ Gribbon, Ant. of Brunswick, Misc. Michelet, Renaissance, p. 123. Q4 232 FRANCE AND SPAIN DIVIDE NAPLES. [Book I. riage with Alphonso d'Este, of Ferrara ; a supposition little probable, and founded apparently on a mistake of dates, as this union did not take place till towards the end of 1501, instead of a few weeks after the murder.'^^ It was accomplished by bringing the influence of France to bear on the House of Este; Alphonso was persuaded that it would secure him from the ambition and the arms of the Duke of Valentinois. Lucretia became the idol of the poets and literary men who swarmed in the court of Ferrara, and especially of Cardinal Bembo. Caesar Borgia, strong in the support of France, was now aiming to establish a kingdom in central Italy. His projects were aided by the Florentines, who, however, soon became themselves the objects of his attacks, and were compelled to purchase his good will by giving him the command of a division of their army, with a pension of 3600 ducats. In the spring of 1501, the French army was ready to pursue its march to Naples. King Frederick, alarmed at the storm which was gathering round his head, had some months before renewed the propositions formerly made by his father Ferdinand to Charles VIII. ; namely, to acknowledge himself a feudatory of France, to pay an annual tribute, and to pledge several maritime towns as security for the fulfilment of these conditions. Louis, however, would not hear of these liberal offers, although Ferdinand the Catholic undertook to guarantee the payment of the tribute prof- fered by Frederick, and strongly remonstrated against the con- templated expedition of the French King. Ferdinand finding that he could not divert Louis from his project, proposed to him to divide Naples between them, and a partition was arranged by a treaty concluded between the two monarchs at Grranada, November 11th 1500.2^ Naples, the Terra di Lavoro, and the Abruzzi were assigned to Louis, with the title of King of Naples and Jerusalem ; while Ferdinand was to have Calabria and Apulia with the title of Duke. The duplicity of Ferdinand towards his relative Frederick in this transaction is very remarkable. For months after the signing of the treaty he left the King of Naples in the expectation of receiving succours from him ; and it was not till the eleventh hour (April 1501), that he announced to Frederick his inability to assist him in case of a French invasion.^ ^ The contemplated con- fiscation of his dominions was of course still kept in the back- ground, and meanwhile the forces of Ferdinand, under Gonsalvo of ^ See Miiratori, Ann. vol. ix. anno ^" Dumont, t. iii. pt. ii. p. 444. 1500; vol. X. anno 1502. Cf. Roscoe, " Prescott, Ferd. and Isabel, vol. iii. Leo X. vol. i. p. 20, note. Chap. Y.] FEEXCH EXPEDITION TO XAPLES. 233 Cordova, were admitted as friends 'into the Neapolitan fortresses, which they afterwards held as enemies. Frederick opened to them without suspicion his ports and towns, and thus became the instrument of his own ruin. The unhappy Frederick had in vain looked around for assistance. He had paid the Emperor Maximilian 40,000 ducats to make a diversion in his favour by attacking Milan, but ]Maximilian was detached from the Neapolitan alliance by a counter bribe, and consented to prolong the truce with France. Frederick had then had recourse to Sultan Bajazet II., with as little effect ; and this application only served to throw an odium on his cause. The recent capture of Modon by the Turks (August 1500), and the massacre of the bishop and Christian population, had excited a feeling of great indignation in Europe. Frederick's application to Bajazet was alleged against him in the treaty of Grranada ; and Ferdinand and Louis took credit to themselves for the desire of rescuing Europe from that peril by partitioning his dominions. Thus religion was as usual the pretext for spoliation and robbery. Nor did Ferdinand's hypocrisy stop there. He made the atrocities at Modon a pretence for getting up a crusade, which served to conceal his preparations for a very different purpose. The arma- ment under the command of Gronsalvo of Cordova, the " Great Captain," as he was called after his Italian campaign ^^, did indeed assist the Venetians to reduce St. G-eorge in Cephalonia ; but it returned to the ports of Sicily early in 1501, where it was in readiness to execute the secret designs of the Spanish monarch. Gonsalvo, the faithful servant of a perfidious master, the ready tool of all his schemes, acted his part well in this surprise of friend- ship. Alexander VI. had been induced to proclaim the crusade with a view to fill his own coffers. He made a great commerce of his indulgences, which he now extended to the dead ; for he was the first Pope who claimed the power of extricating souls from purgatory. To carry out the farce, Louis XII. signed a treaty of alliance against the Turks with Wladislaus King of Hungary and Bohemia, and with Albert King of Poland, brother of that monarch. The French army, which did not exceed 13,000 men, began its march towards Naples about the end of May 1501, under the command of Stuart d'Aubigny, with Caesar Borgia for his lieu- tenant. When it arrived before Eome, June 25th, the French '2 The title of Great Captain was but it became a permanent surname of among the Spaniards nothing more than Gonsalro's on account of his exploits, the usual appellation of the generalissimo j 234 FREDERICK II. RETIRES INTO FR.AJN'CE. [Book I. and Spanisli ambassadors acquainted the Pope with the treaty of Grranada, and the contemplated partition of Naples, in which the suzerainty of this kingdom was guaranteed to the Holy See ; a communication which Alexander received with more surprise than displeasure, and he proceeded at once to invest the Kings of France and Aragon with the provinces which they respectively claimed.^^ Attacked in front by the French, in the rear by Gon- salvo, Frederick did not venture to take the field. He cantoned his troops in Naples, Averso, and Capua, of which the last alone made any attempt at defence. It was surprised by the French while in the act of treating for a capitulation (July 24th), and was subjected to the most revolting cruelty ; 7000 of the male inhabi- tants were massacred in the streets ; the women were outraged ; and forty of the handsomest reserved for Borgia's harem at Eome : where they were in readiness to amuse the Court at the extra- ordinary and disgusting fete given at the fourth marriage of Lucretia. Eather than expose his subjects to the horrors of a useless war, Frederick entered into negociations with d'Aubigny, with the view of surrendering himself to Louis XII., whom he naturally preferred to his traitorous relative, Ferdinand ; and in October 1501, he sailed for France with a small squadron, which remained to him. In return for his abandonment of the pro- vinces assigned to the French Kinof, he was invested with the O CD-' county of Maine, and a life pension of 30,000 ducats, on condition that he should not attempt to quit France ; a guard was set over him to enforce the latter proviso, and this excellent prince died in captivity in 1504. Meanwhile Gronsalvo of Cordova was proceeding with the reduc- tion of Calabria and Apulia. At the commencement, of the war Frederick had sent his son Don Ferrante to Taranto, of which place Don Giovanni di Ghevara, Count of Potenza, the young Prince's governor, was commandant. After a long siege, Taranto was reduced to capitulate by a stratagem of Gonsalvo's. A lake which lay at the back of the town, seeming to render it in- accessible, it had been left unfortified in that quarter, and Gonsalvo, by transporting twenty of his smaller ships over a tongue of land into the lake, had the place at his mercy. The conduct of Gonsalvo towards the young prince illustrates both the political morality of those times, and the convenient religion by which it was supported. The Great Captain had taken an oath upon the Holy Sacrament that the young Prince should be permitted to " The bull of June 25 1501, dividing Ferdinand and Isabella is in the Supplt. the kingdom of Naples between Louis and to Dumont, Corps Dipl. t. ii. pt. i. p. 1. Chap. V.] LOUIS AXD FEEDIXAXD DISPUTE THE SPOILS. 235 retire whithersoever he pleased; but Don Ferrante had scarcely left Taranto when he was arrested and sent to Spain. Gonsalvo was released from his oath by a casuistical confessor, on the o-round that, as he had sworn for Ferdinand, who was absent and io-norant of the matter, that monarch was not bound by it I ^^ Thus the devout superstition of the Spaniards could be rendered as flexible in cases of conscience as the atheism of the Italians. The Spaniards entered Taranto March 1st 1502 ; the other towns of southern Italy were soon reduced, and the Neapolitan branch of the House of Aragon fell for ever, after reigning sixty-five years. In the autumn of 1501, Louis had entered into negociations with the Emperor, in order to obtain formal investiture of the Duchy of Milan. With this view, Louis's daughter Claude, then only two years of age, was affianced to Charles, grandson of Maximilian, the infant child of the Archduke Philip and Joanna of Arao-on. A treaty was subsequently signed at Trent, October 13th 1501, by Maximilian and the Cardinal d'Amboise, to which the Spanish sovereigns and the Archduke Philip were also parties. By this instrument Louis engaged, in return for the investiture of Milan, to recognise the pretensions of the House of Austria to Hungary and Bohemia, and to second Maximilian in an expedition which he contemplated against the Turks. It was at this conference that those schemes against Venice began to be agitated, which ultimately produced the League of Cambray. The treaty between Louis and Ferdinand for the partition of Naples was so loosely drawn, that it seemed purposely intended to produce the quarrels which occurred. The ancient division of Naples into four provinces, though superseded by a more modern one, had been followed in the treaty; disputes arose as to the possession of the Principato and Capitanata ; Gronsalvo occupied the former with his troops ; and some negociations which ensued on the subject having failed, Louis instructed the Duke of Nemours to drive them out. In the course of 1502 the Spaniards were deprived of everything, except Barletta and a few towns on the coast of Bari. It was in the combats round this place that Bayard, by his deeds of courage and generosity, won his reputation as the model of chivalry, and became the idol of the French soldiery. While France was thus winning Naples with her arms, she was preparing to lose it by her negociations. Towards the end of 1501, the Austrian Archduke Philip and his consort Joanna passing '* Vita di Gonsalvo, p. 90 (ed. Firenze, 1552). 236 THE ARCHDUKE PHILIP TREATS WITH LOUIS. [Book I. through France on their way to Spain, in order to receive the homage of the Spanish States as their future sovereigns, were magnificently entertained by Louis XII., and experienced such a reception from that monarch, as quite won Pliilip's heart, and made him forget all the former injuries inflicted by the French Court upon his father. Philip and Joanna reached Toledo in the spring of 1502, where they received (May 22nd) the homage of the Cortes of Castile ; and a few months afterwards Ferdinand also persuaded the punctilious states of Aragon to take the oath of fealty to Joanna, which they had previously refused to his eldest daughter Isabella. But the ceremonious formality of the Spanish Court was irksome to Philip ; and as he felt little or no affection for his consort, who was both plain in person and weak in mind, he set off in December for the Netherlands, leaving Joanna behind, who was too far advanced in pregnancy to accompany him. On March 10th 1503, she gave birth to her second son, Ferdinand. Joanna, who repaid Philip's coolness with a doting and jealous affection, was inconsolable at his departure, and fell into a deep dejection, from which nothing could rouse her. As Philip was to return through France, Ferdinand commissioned him to open a negociation with Louis ; by which it was agreed that both that monarch and Ferdinand should renounce their shares of the Neapolitan dominions in favour of the recently affianced infants Charles of Austria and Claude of France. Till the marriage should be accomplished, Louis XII. was to hold in pledge the Terra di Lavoro and the Abruzzi ; Ferdinand, Apulia, and the Calabrias ; and the contested provinces were to be jointly administered by the Archduke Philip, as procurator for his son, and by a French commissary (April 1503.) This treaty was evidently in favour of Ferdinand, or rather perhaps of the Archduke Philip, who seems to have exceeded his instructions. Cardinal d'Amboise was entrapped into it by an artifice too gross for any eyes except those blinded by ambition. Ferdinand and Maximilian engaged to assist D'Amboise in attaining the tiara, and they agreed with Louis that a general council should be summoned for the purpose of deposing Pope Alexander VI. But the King of Aragon, at least, so far from having any intentions to assist the French minister to the papal throne, did not even mean to observe the treaty of Lyon. He had warned Gronsalvo not to attend to any instructions from the Archduke Philip, unless they were confirmed by himself, and he continued to send that general reinforcement after reinforcement ; while, Louis XII., relying on the treaty, had ordered the Duke of Nemours to cease Chap. Y.] GOIS^SALVO DRIVES THE FREXCH FROM NAPLES. 237 hostilities.^^ Gronsalvo suddenly resumed the offensive with ex- traordinary vigour and rapidity, and within a week, two decisive battles were fought. On the 21st April 1503, the Spanish general Andrades defeated Stuart d'Aubigny at Seminara in Calabria, and compelled him to retire into the fortress of Angitola, where he soon afterwards surrendered. On the 28th of April, the Great Captain himself defeated the Duke of Nemours at Cerignola, near Barletta, when the French army was dispersed and almost de- stroyed, and the viceroy was killed in the engagement. The rem- nant of the French retired ,on the Grarigliano and to Gaeta ; most of the Neapolitan towns, including the capital, opened their gates to the conqueror ; Gonsalvo entered Naples May 14th 1503 ; and the French garrisons in the castles of that city were soon after- wards reduced, chiefly by the famous engineer, Pedro Navarro. By the end of July the French had completely evacuated the Nea- politan territory, which thus fell into the possession of Ferdinand. Nothing could exceed the grief and anger of Louis at this intel- ligence. Philip partook his resentment, and intimated to Fer- dinand that he would not quit the French Court till the treaty of Lyon had been ratified ; but the Catholic King, regardless of the reproaches addressed to him, pretended that Philip had exceeded his powers and refused to sign. Louis immediately dismissed the Spanish envoys, and resolved not only to attempt the recovery of Naples but also to attack the Spanish frontier. The Sire d'Albret and the Marshal de Gie, were directed to cross the Bidassoa and advance towards Fuentarabia with 400 lances and 5000 Swiss and Gascon foot ; while the Marshal de Kieux attacked Eousillon with 800 lances and 8000 infantry. Another army under Louis de la Tremouille, the best general of France, was despatched across the Alps, and was to be reinforced in Italy by large bodies of Swiss and Lombards, and by troops contributed by the Tuscan republics and the little princes of central Italy. Among these princes Caesar Borgia could no longer be counted upon, who had repaid the benefits of Louis by conspiring against him with the Spaniards. Borgia had usurped the Duchy of Urbino, the Lordship of Perugia, and several other places, the possession of most of which he obtained by means of the basest treachery, or by those arts of address and persuasion, in which this consummate villain is said to have been a master. He obtained Urbino by requesting '* These transactions are very dif- of Ferdinand, whioh is proved by his ferently related by the French and by conduct, and is admitted by Prescott in the Spanish historians, whose statements the later stages of the business (vol. iii. are irreconcileable. But, on the wliole, p. 87). there can be little doubt of the ill faith 238 DEATH OF TOrE ALEX.\NDER YI. [Book I. the Duke, as a friend, to lend him his artillery, with which he entered the town as a conqueror. Macchiavelli regards the amal- gamation of so many small states as a political benefit, which should not only induce us to overlook the crimes of Borgia in effecting it, but even to accord him our admiration ; yet Pope Alexander in vain endeavoured to persuade the College of Cardinals to unite these conquests into a kingdom of Eomagna in favour of his son. Borgia, however, as will appear in the sequel, was unwittingly labouring not for himself but for the Holy See. Louis XII. had resolved to break with Borgia ; yet it was necessary to prevent Alexander VI. from throwing himself into the arms of Spain, and the French Court was negociating with that Pontiff when news was unexpectedly brought of his death. Alex- ander seems to have fallen a victim to his own infernal machina- tions. He regarded the College of Cardinals as a means for raising the enormous sums required to maintain the luxury of the pontifical court, the armies of the Duke of Valentin ois, the profligate extravagance of Lucretia Borgia, and the establishments of his other children and nephews. With this view he pursued the following plan : he first of all sold the dignity of cardinal at prices varying from 10,000 to 30,000 florins : he entrusted these venal princes of the church with employments that enriched them, and then caused them to be poisoned in order to seize their estates and resell their benefices and dignities. Altogether he created forty- three cardinals, scarce one of which appointments was gratuitous. But he was at length caught in his own trap. He had invited Cardinal Adrian of Corneto to a little banquet at his vineyard, the Belvidere, near the Vatican, and an attendant was instructed to serve the guest with poisoned wine. The man, however, mistook the bottles; the fatal draught was administered to Alexander himself and his son, as well as to their intended victim, and all three were seized with a violent illness which in a week put an end to the Pope's life at the age of seventy-two ^^ (August 18th 1503). Borgia and Adrian ultimately recovered. Thus perished by his own ^^ According to other accounts Alex- veyed in some confectionery. See Snccesso ander VI. was carried otf by a fever. The ddla morte di Papa Alexandro F/., in authoritiesandopinionsforand against the Kanke's Popes, vol. iii, App. p. 254 (Mrs. poisoning are collected and discussed by Austin's transl.). The notorious cha- Daru {Hist, de Vem'se, liv. xxi. § 18), and, racter of Alexander and his son, and the on thewhole, appear to preponderate for it. frequency of the crime of poisoning at See in particular a letter of Peter Martyr, tliat time in Italy, while they render the dated, 4 id. Nov. 1503. [Epist. 264.) The charge probable, may, however, also have story is rather differently related in one suggested it. At all events, it is pretty of the documents in Sanuto, where the generally agreed that Csesar Borgia's iU- poison is represented to have been con- ness was caused in the way related. Chap. T.] ELECTION A]S'D DEATH OF PIUS III. 239 arts one of the greatest monsters who ever sullied the pontifical throne. Alexander VI. first established the ecclesiastical censorship of books, which has contributed to support the abuses of the papacy against the attacks of reason and true religion. It was in his pontificate that the mole of Hadrian, or Castle of St. Angelo, was fortified by the architects Giuliano and Antonio da S. Gallo in the manner in which it still exists. The moment was now arrived when Cardinal d'Amboise hoped to realise all those dreams of ambition which had led him to con- nive at and encourage the crimes of Caesar Borgia. He hastened to Eome, and the march of the French army was arrested at Nepi, in order to support his election by its presence. But D'Amboise had a formidable though unknown competitor in Cardinal Julian della Rovere, who had hitherto appeared the warm ally of France. He was also deceived by Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, whom he had de- livered from prison and loaded with benefits, and who had sworn to use his influence in favour of his benefactor. But Ascanio re- tained at heart a deep hatred for the overthrowers of his family, and he used the confidence of D'Amboise only to betray him. He bor- rowed of D'Amboise 100,000 ducats, under pretence of buyincr '^the voice of the Holy Ghost," while he was secretly arranging his defeat with Cardinal Julian. The latter, after saluting D'Amboise as future Pontiff, represented, that in order to the validity of his election, and to prevent future schism, the French troops ought to be withdrawn from the neighbourhood of Rome, and that such a proof of moderation would only secure him more votes. D'Amboise assented, against the advice of Borgia; the conclave, which had been delayed on various pretexts, was then assembled, and w^as easily convinced by Cardinals Julian and Ascanio, that the election of a French or Spanish Pope would involve Rome in a war. D'Amboise, perceiving that he should not be able to carry his election, transferred his votes to Francesco Piccolomini, Cardinal of Siena, a nephew of Pius II., who was elected September 21st, and took the title of Pius III. The virtues of that Pontiff rendered him worthy of the tiara, which, however, he owed to his infirmities. At the time of his election he was labouring under a mortaj disease, which carried him off in less than a month. During his short pontificate, he had meditated assembling a general council for the reform of eccle- siastical discipline ; and some Roman Catholic writers are sanguine enough to suppose that such a step might have averted the Re- formation.^^ " Miiratori, Annali, t. x. p. 16. 240 ELECTION OF POPE JULIUS II. [Book I. D'Amboise soon perceived unequivocal symptoms of another defeat. The Eomans to a man were against him, and he found it prudent to retire in favour of Cardinal Julian della Eovere, who had long pretended an attachment to the cause of France. It is said that Julian gained Caesar Borgia, who still commanded the votes of the Spanish cardinals, by assuring him that he was the son not of Alexander but of himself. Borgia had no filial weakness, and the known character of his mother Vanozza, might lend an air of probability to a story which it was not his interest to reject. It was a grand thing to be the son of two successive Popes ! How- ever this may be, the Conclave speedily decided. Cardinal Julian was elected on the first scrutiny, October 31st, and D'Amboise had the mortification of kissing the toe of his former protege and rival, now Pope Julius II. Like his predecessor, Julius had sworn to restore the ancient lustre of ecclesiastical discipline, to call a general council, and not to make war without the consent of two thirds of the Sacred College. We shall see in the sequel how he kept his word. Chap. VI.] PKOJECTS OF POPE JULIUS -H. -—— -^**"\ 'col.coivlN LIBRARY, V N.YORK. CHAPTER VI. •v^__ ^ After the election of Pius III., Caesar Borgia had returned to Rome to consrratulate that Pontiff on his accession : but no sooner did he appear there, than he was set upon by the Orsini and their adherents, as well as by other enemies ; and Pope Pius offered him the castle of St. Angfelo as a refuo^e from their violence. After the death of his father, Caesar's power waned fast ; and the effects of the poison, from which he was still suffering, prevented him from taking any active steps to retain it. One thing alone, as he told Macchiavelli, had escaped his care and foresight ; he had provided for every possible contingency in the event of his father's death, except his own sickness at that critical juncture. A great part of his mercenaries now dispersed themselves ; the Venetians attacked some of his towns, others they bought from the ancient masters of them, whose retm-n they had assisted. Some of Borgia's captains, however, remained faithful to him, and he still held Bertinoro, Forli, Imola, and a few other places. This profligate and cruel man seems, like Louis Sforza, not to have been a bad ruler. It is said that the cities reduced under his sway did not regret their ancient lords ; at all events he had con- ferred on them a benefit by slaying their former tyrants.^ Julius II. on his accession to the papacy immediately resolved to avail himself of Borgia's helpless condition to extend the temporal dominion of the Holy See. The classical name of that Pontiff seemed to announce the warlike tenour of his reign ; which, however, if hardly more Christian, was at all events less scandalous than that of his predecessor. Had Julius, indeed, been a secular prince, his ideas and projects would have done him honour. They embraced two grand objects ; the extension of the Koman territory by the recovery of Komagna, and the expulsion of all foreigners * Macchiavelli tells us that Romagna from himself, one morning caused his had been so badly governed by its former minister to be out in two and exposed on masters, that it was full of robberies, the public square of Cesena, with a piece feuds, and all kinds of disorders. Borgia of wood and a bloody knife by his side, first placed over it a certain Messer which tamed and stupefied the people. Eamiro d'Orco, a man of savage temper ("La feroeita del quale spettacolo, feee and prompt action, who soon reduced it quelli popoli rimanere sodisfatti e stu- to tranquillity. But his severity gene- pidi." — II Princijje, caj). yii.) Such were rated such odium, that Borgia, to avert it the governments of Italy in those times. VOL. I. R 242 FATE OF CJDSAR BOEGIA. [Dook I. from the soil of Italy. Both were pursued in a truly patriotic spirit. It was not nepotism that urged Julius to undertake his conquests. Although he did not altogether neglect his family, his leading wish was to render the Roman States powerful and re- spected ; that is, in a temporal view ; for on the interests of Christianity, or the dangers that threatened the Church, he bestowed not a thought. Borgia had helped Julius to the tiara ; but no sooner had the latter got possession of it than he proceeded, partly by threats, partly by caresses, to strip Caesar of all the possessions he retained. He was thrown into that very tower at Rome, which from the numerous victims he had himself confined in it, had obtained the name of the " Torre Borgia." As some of his captains, however, refused to give up the fortresses demanded of them so long as their master was in confinement, Julius at length released him, and he succeeded in escaping to Naples. The sequel of his fate may here be briefly told. He was well received at Naples by Gonsalvo of Cordova, who had given him a safe conduct, and pre- tended to forward his plans ; but shortly after, by order of the Spanish Court, he was shipped off to Spain, and kept prisoner nearly three years in the citadel of Medina del Campo. This is the second of those perfidies, committed for the service of a per- fidious master, which Gronsalvo is said to have repented on his death-bed ; the other being the betraying of the young Duke of Calabria, before related. Borgia, having contrived to effect his escape, proceeded to the Court of his brother-in-law the King of Navarre, and in the civil wars of that country found a tragical and somewhat romantic death. He was met in a defile near Viana by a band of insurgents, and his gilt armour indicating a person of distinction, he was surrounded by a band of assailants, and fell fighting valiantly for his life. Csesar Borgia was endowed with great strength of body as well as personal beauty. At a bull-fight he killed six wild bulls, severing the head of one at the first blow. He was not altogether destitute of good qualities. He possessed liberality, courage, and a certain magnanimity of disposition, but he was abandoned to the most de- praved lusts, and of a ferocity so sanguinary that his own father as well as all Rome stood in fear of him. He slew Peroto, one of his father's favourites, while taking refuge under the papal mantle, so that the blood spirted into Alexander's face. Yet his father's fear was mingled with love.^ Borgia owed his advancement to being the » " II papa ama et ha gran paiira del fiol ducha." — Belazione of Polo Capelio, ap. Eanke, Popes, vol. iii. App. p. 253. Chap VI.] KOUT OF THE GARIGLIA2s'0. 243 son of a Pope who placed the Roman treasury at his disposal, and to his having found so great a dupe as Cardinal d'Amboise and so stupid a King as Louis XII. Although Julius II. overloaded Cardinal d'Amboise with atten- tions, that ecclesiastic returned to France dejected and discouraged. The delay of six weeks which his ambitious projects had caused to the French army proved fatal to the campaign. Malaria made great havoc in their ranks, and La Tremouille himself was com- pelled by illness to resign the command to the Marquis of Mantua, whose talents as a general did not inspire the army with much confidence. Julius II. remained a quiet spectator of the war of Naples. The French still held some places in that kingdom, which their army had entered about the beginning of October 1503. They succeeded in relieving the garrison of Graeta, which was besieged by Gronsalvo, and they afterwards forced the passage of the Garigliano, Xovember 9th : but here their progress was arrested. Every opportunity w^as lost through the indecision of the Marquis of Mantua, who, weary with the reproaches of his officers, at length resigned the command in favour of the Marquis of Saluzzo : a general, however, of no better repute than himself. The seasons themselves were hostile to the French ; heavy rains set in with a constancy quite unusual in that climate ; and the French soldiers perished by hundreds in the mud and swamps of the Garigliano. The Spanish army encamped near Sessa, was better supplied and better disciplined ; and at length, after two months of inaction, Gronsalvo, having received some reinforcements, assumed the offensive, and in his turn crossed the river. The French, whose (juptrters were ^^^dely dispersed, were not prepared for this attack, and attempted to fall back upon Gaeta ; but their retreat soon became a disorderly flight ; many threw down their arms without striking a blow ; and hence the affair has sometimes been called the rout of the Garigliano (December 29th). Peter de' Medici, who was following the French army, perished in this retreat, having embarked on a vessel in the river which sank from being overloaded. Very few of the French army found their way back to France. Graeta surrendered at the first summons, January 1st 1504. This was the most important of all Gronsalvo's victories, as it completed the conquest of Naples. The two attacks on Spain had also miscarried. Nothing was accomplished on the side of Fontarabia. In Rousillon, the French penetrated to Salsas and undertook the siege of that place, but on the approach of Ferdinand with a large army were compelled to retire into Narbonne. A truce of five months was concluded, R 2 244 FERDIXAXD THE CATHOLIC OBTAIXS NAPLES. [Book I. November I5th, which was subsequently converted into a peace of three years. Singularly enough, Frederick, the abdicated King of Naples, was employed to mediate this peace between two monarchs who had combined to strip him of his dominions. The conquest of Ferdinand was, on the whole, a fortunate event for the Neapolitans, who had been sadly misgoverned, both under the House of Anjou, and their first Aragonese sovereigns ; though his reforms did not come up to the expectations entertained. The Catholic King, during his visit to Naples in 1507, conceded many privileges to the people, and the Neapolitans testified their sense of the benefits conferred on them by observing, during more than two centuries, the anniversary of his death as 'a day of mourning. His viceroys subsequently introduced some useful reforms into the law, and resuscitated the venerable university of the capital, which was fast falling into decay.^ The power and the policy of Venice had, at this period, ex- cited great jealousy in the breasts of several European sovereigns. The continental dominions of the republic had been formed at the expense of her neighbours, and she alone seemed to thrive amidst the decline of the rest of Italy. Pope Julius II. was the principal assent in effecting^ an alliance acfainst the Venetians, in revenofe for their constant opposition to all his plans of territorial aggran- disement. It was ratified by the triple treaty of Blois, September 22nd 1504, by which a perpetual alliance wa^ formed between Louis XII., Maximilian I., and his son the Archduke Philip ; and at the same time, the Emperor and the French King joined Pope Julius in an alliance which laid the foundation of, the League of Cambray. The Eepublic, that was the object of so much jealousy, had just brought to a close a ruinous war with the Turks. Sultan Eajazet II., the son and successor of Mahomet II., was addicted to literature and the study of the sacred books of his religion, and had little energy of character, though he sometimes strove to conceal that defect by exaggerated bursts of passion. After his accession, the Turkish scimitar was everywhere sheathed, except on the side of Hungary and Croatia. We shall not, however, detail the numerous expeditions of the Turks in that quarter, which present a imiform and disgusting scene of devastation, and shall content ourselves with stating that, in 1497, in revenge for an aggression made on them by the King of Poland, they for the first time succeeded in penetrating into that kingdom. During the first seventeen years ' On this subject see Giannone, Istoria di Na^oli, lib. xxx. c. 1, 2, 5 ; Signorelli, Coltura nolle Sicilie, t. iv. p. 84. Chap. VL] VENETIAN AND TUEKISH WAK. 245 of Bajazet's reign, the peace between the Venetians and the Porte, though occasiouall}^ menaced, remained on the whole, undisturbed. The Venetians complained of the Turkish incursions, and the defi- nitive occupation of Montenegro, while the Porte, on its side, was jesdous because the Eepublic had reduced the Duke of Naxos to dependence, and obtained possession of Cyprus (1489). At last, in 1498, the Turks, after making great naval preparations, suddenly arrested all the Venetian residents at Constantinople, and in the following year seized Lepanto, which surrendered without striking a blow (August 1499^. Soon after, a body of 10,000 Turks crossed the Isonzo, carrying fire and desolation almost to the lagoons of Venice. In August 1500, Modon was taken by assault, and those cruelties committed to which we have before alluded. Nava- rino and Koron surrendered soon after, but towards the close of the year the Venetians were more successful. They captured /Egina, devastated and partly occupied Mytilene, Tenedos, and Samothrace, and with the help of a Spanish squadron, and 7000 troops, under Gonsalvo de Cordova, reduced the island of Cepha- lonia. For this service the grateful Venetians rewarded Gonsalvo with a present of 500 tuns of Cretan wine, 60,000 pounds of cheese, 266 pounds of wrought silver, and the honorary freedom of their Republic. In 1501 the Venetian fleet was joined by a French, a Papal, and a Spanish squadron, but, through a want of cordiality among the commanders, little was effected. The Turks, however, had not made a better figure ; and the Porte, whose attention was at that time distracted by the affairs of Persia, was evidently inclined for peace. The disordered state of the Venetian finances, and the decay of their commerce through the maritime discoveries of the Portuguese, also disposed them to negociation ; although the sale of indulgences, granted to them by the Pope for this war, is said to have brought more than seven himdred pounds of gold into their exchequer.'* The war nevertheless continued through 1502, and the Venetians were tolerably successful, having captured many Turkish ships, and, with the assistance of the French, taken the island of St^ INIaura. But at length a treaty was signed, Dec. 14th, by which Venice was allowed to hold Cephalonia, but restored St*. Maura, and permitted the Porte to retain its conquests, in- cluding the three important fortresses of Modon, Koron, and Navarino. The election of Julius II. had placed upon the Papal throne a Pontiff very inimical to the interests of Venice. One of his first * Bembo ap. Zinkeisen, B. ii. S. 540. B 3 246 DEATH OF ISABELLA OF CASTILE. [Boor I. steps was, as we have seen, the triple alliance of Blois. These treaties, which were prejudicial to the true interests of France, are supposed to have been the work of Louis XII.'s consort, Anne of Brittany, who is said to have retained a secret affection for the Emperor Maximilian, of whose hand she had been deprived. Maximilian and the Pope were the chief gainers by the alliance. It enabled Maximilian to put an end to the w^ar of the Bavarian succession, as well as to obtain for his son, the Archduke Philip, Guelderland and Zutphen, by the withdrawal of French assistance from his opponents. He defended Albert of Lower Bavaria, the rightful heir of Charles of Baiern-Landshut, against the attempts of Eobert, son of the Elector Palatine, who had married a daughter of Charles ; and with the help of the Suabian League, Maximilian defeated Eobert's forces in a battle in which he displayed great personal valour. In like manner, in 1505, the French King, in consideration of being invested by the Emperor with the Duch}^ of Milan, withdrew his protection from Charles, Duke of Gruelder- land, and the Archduke Philip took possession of Gruelderland and Zutphen. The Pope also acquired indirectly some advantages from the treaties of Blois. Maximilian, who had not entered earnestly into the league against the Venetians, having given them secret information of it, they immediately entered into negociations with Julius II., and that Pontiff took what they offered, awaiting his opportunity to get more. By an arrangement effected in 1505, the Holy See obtained the restoration of Porto Cesenatico, Savig- nano, Tossignano, Santo Arcangelo, and six other places, while Venice was allowed to retain Rimini and Faenza. Soon after the execution of the treaties of Blois, Queen Isabella of Castile expired (Nov. 26th 1504), at the age of fifty-three and in the thirtieth year of her reign. She had long been in a declining state of health, and her death is said to have been hastened by the concern which she felt for the lamentable condi- tion of her daughter Joanna, whose dejection, after the departure of her husband Philip from Spain in 1503, began to assume all the appearance of insanity. Early in 1504, Joanna had rejoined Philip in the Netherlands, where her jealousy, for which, indeed, she had but too much cause, gave rise to the most scandalous and disgraceful scenes. These and other symptoms of her daughter's malady led Isabella to provide against its effects by a testament executed a month or two before her death, by which she settled the succession of Castile on Joanna as " Queen Proprietor," and on her husband Philip ; and in the event of the absence or inca- pacity of Joanna, she appointed her own husband. King Ferdinand, Chap. VI.] XIMEXES BE CISX'EKOS. 247 to be Eegent of Castile, until her grandson Charles should attain his majority. She also made a large provision for Ferdinand from the revenues of the Indies and other sources.^ The remains of Isabella were carried to the Alhambra, which had been converted into a Franciscan monastery; but after the death of Ferdinand, she was laid by his side in a mausoleum in the cathedral of Grranada. This excellent and amiable Queen seems to have had at heart only the good of her people and the welfare of her family. The sole blemish in her character was that her deep religious feeling, which bordered on superstition, led her to submit her conscience too implicitly to the guidance of her priests and confessors, and thus sometimes betrayed her into'acts of bigotry and intolerance. She was otherwise a woman of the best sense and most acute discernment, and is still regarded by the Spaniards as the greatest of their monarchs. The Castilians had in general lived contented under her government, which had been conducted many years by two successive Archbishops of Toledo ; Don Pedro Gronzales de Mendoza, who, by a then not uncommon imion of offices, was also High Admiral of Castile, and after Men- doza's death in 1495, by the celebrated Ximenes. Mendoza, from his influence and reputation, had been called the third King of Spain ; yet his fame has been surpassed by that of his successor. Ximenes de Cisneros, born in 1436, was a Franciscan monk of the sect called ObservantineSf who adhered to the strictest rules of their founder, while the larger portion of the Order, styled Conventuals, allowed themselves considerable licence. Ximenes from his youth had accustomed himself to the most rigorous mortifications, and at one period became a sort of anchorite, subsisting only on herbs and water. He had long been known for his ascetic life, the severity of his principles, and the energy of his character, when in 1492, at the recommendation of Mendoza, he was appointed Queen Isabella's confessor. He soon acquired an extraordinary influence over his royal mistress, who readily listened to the advice of the dying Mendoza, that Ximenes should be appointed his successor ; and the humble monk was immediately raised to the dignities of Archbishop of Toledo and High Chancellor of Castile. Under his administration persecution and the terrors of the Inquisi- tion became part and parcel of the government. His severity produced an insurrection of the Moors in the Alpuxarras, which * The genuineness of this testament, second marriage on the part of Ferdinand, which has been questioned by Robertson nor does such a contingency appear to and other historians, is established by have been obviated, by exacting from Prescott, Ferd. and Isab. vol. iii, p. 168 him an oath, as some writers have as- and 199. It does not provide against a serted, or in any other manner. R 4 248 THE EEGEXCY OF CASTILE DISPUTED. [Book I. lasted from 1500 to 1502, and ended in their violent conversion to Christianity. They now obtained the name of Moriscoes. At the same time Ximenes repressed the insolence of the Spanish grandees ; and this part of his administration was grateful alike to the Crown and to the people. Ximenes was appointed one of the executors of Isabella's will, together with King Ferdinand and four other persons. On the day that his consort expired, Ferdinand, laying down the Crown of Castile, assumed the title of Administrator or Governor, and caused the accession of Philip and Joanna to be proclaimed in the great square of Toledo. The Cortes of Castile, which assembled at Toro, January 11th 1505, regarding the incapacity of Joanna as esta- blished, tendered their homage to King Ferdinand, as Grovernor in her name ; and an account of these proceedings was sent to Philip and Joanna in Flanders. There was, however, a strong party led by the Marquis of Villena and the Duke of Najara, who wished to see the Archduke Philip Eegent of Castile. They promised them- selves more licence under the sway of that easy-tempered Prince than under the strict and jealous rule of Ferdinand ; and through the channel of Don Juan Manuel, Ferdinand's ambassador at the Court of Maximilian, and one of Philip's warmest partisans, they opened a correspondence with the Archduke. Encouraged by this support, Philip wrote to his father-in-law, desiring him to lay down the government and retire into Aragon. To this uncourteous demand Ferdinand replied with moderation, urging Philip to come to Spain with his wife, but at the same time admonishing him of his incompetence to govern a people like the Spaniards. Ferdinand felt his weakness, and his situation was indeed em- barrassing. It was thought probable that Louis XII. would support Philip, whose party had acquired great strength ; and it was even suspected that Gronsalvo, the Viceroy of Naples, had been tampered with, and was prepared to place that kingdom in the hands of the Archduke. Under these circumstances Ferdinand resolved to court the friendship of Louis, and Juan de Enguera, a Catalan monk, was despatched into France to negociate an alliance with that monarch. Louis XII. was then in a disposition highly favourable to the views of Ferdinand. Towards the end of April 1505, he had been seized with so dangerous an illness, that, in expectation of his death, extreme unction was administered to him. In what he imagined to be his last hours, he was struck with remorse at having aban- doned the interests of France at the instigation of his consort ; by a secret will he revoked all his enofaorements with the House of Chap. VI.] rERDI]^AXD MARRIES GERMAIXE DE FOIX. 249 Austria, and directed that his daughter Claude, when of marriage- able age, should be given to his cousin and heir, Francis of Angou- leme. Although Louis soon afterwards recovered, he still continued in his altered sentiments, and Anne of Brittany was obliged to confirm the new arrangement which he had made. Louis, therefore, when Ferdinand's ambassador arrived, was dis- posed to listen to any proposals that were unfavourable to the House of Austria. After apologising for the injuries which he had done to France, Ferdinand requested the hand of Germain e de Foix, niece of Louis, and daughter of John de Foix, Viscount of Narbonne ; and he accompanied this ■ proposal with the offer of a new arrangement respecting Naples. This kingdom was to be the dowry of Grermaine, and to descend to her children by Ferdinand ; but in default of issue, the moiety was to return to Louis and his successors. Ferdinand undertook to grant an amnesty to all the partisans of France in Naples, and to restore their possessions ; and he also engaged to pay a million gold ducats, within ten years, for Louis' expenses and losses in the war. These were the principal conditions of a treaty signed at Blois, October 12th 1505 ; by which the two monarchs also promised each other mutual aid and succour, or according to the words of the instrument, they were to be " as two souls in one body." The King of England^, Henry VII., became security for the due execution of the treaty ; the first advantageous one that Louis XII. had ever made. At the time of the marriage Ferdinand was fifty-three years of age, while Germaine was only eighteen, and of remarkable beauty. She was nearly related to him, being the grand-daughter of the guilty Leonora, Queen of Navarre, the half-sister of Ferdinand.'^ This marriage excited the indignation of the Castilians, who regarded it as an insult to the memory of Isabella. Philijo could hardly believe the news of this unexpected alliance till he was refused permission to pass through France on his way to Spain, unless he previously reconciled himself with his father-in-law. He now resolved to combat Ferdinand with his own weapons. In order to put that wily monarch off *his ' According to Bernard Andre, the his hand to Joanna, siirnamed La Bel- annalist of his reign, Henry had brought traneja, daughter of Henry IV. of Castile, about this peace and alliance ("in who was then residing in a convent in viam pacis et concordice non sine magna Portugal, by whom the oiFer was refused, difficultate, illos reduxit"). See Hist. Sismondi {Hist, des Fran^ais, t. xv. eh. Iie(/is Henrici VU. p. 88., edited by Mr. 30) makes Ferdinand afterwards propose Gairdner for the Rolls Commission. for a daughter of King Emanuel of ^ According to Robertson {Charhs V. Portugal, that is, for his own grand- \o\. \\.'p.\2)-dn(\. Qoyie {House of Austria, daughter! Prescott has shown {Fcrd. ch. xxiii.), Ferdinand, with a view to o??*:^ /6«/».Tol.iii. p. 204, note) that there is deprive the House of Austria of the no ground for either of these stories. Spanish succession, had previously offered 250 PHILIP AND JOANNA IN ENGLAND. [Book I. guard, Philip entered into a treaty with him, which he only meant to observe till he should be able to land in Spain ; and by the arranofement called the Concord of Salamanca, effected November 24th 1505, it was agreed that Ferdinand should be associated with Philip in the government of Castile, and should enjoy one half of the public revenue. Philip and his wife Joanna set sail for Spain, Jan. 8th 1506, with a considerable Dutch and Flemish fleet. They had not been long at sea when their ships were dispersed by a violent tempest, and that in which Philip and Joanna had embarked was driven into the port of Weymouth' in Dorsetshire. Henry VII. profited by the opportunity thus thrown in his way in a manner worthy of his ungenerous temper. Philip was invited to Windsor, where, though treated with great apparent honour and distinction, he was in reality detained a prisoner, till he had complied with certain demands of the English monarch. He was compelled to deliver up the Earl of Suffolk^, who had taken refuge in the Netherlands ; and though Philip, as a salvo for his honour, stipulated for the life of the unfortunate nobleman, yet Henry, as is well known, though he literally observed this condition, violated it in effect by recom- mending his successor, on his death-bed, to bring Suffolk to the block. Henry also obliged Philip to execute a treaty of commerce between England and the Netherlands, so much to the disadvantage of the latter country, that the Flemings gave it the name of the malus intercursus, to distinguish it from the liberal treaty, called magnus inter cursus, which they had obtained from the same monarch in 1496.^ He likewise extorted a promise from Philip that he would give the Archduke Charles in marriage to his daughter Mary; and that Philip would, moreover, procure the hand of his sister Margaret, with a large dowry, for the King's second son Prince Henry. Yet Henry, who by the death of his brother Arthur, had now become heir-apparent of the English Crown, was already contracted to Philip's sister-in-law, Catherine, daughter of Ferdinand. The marriage before-mentioned, as agreed upon between Prince Arthur and Catherine, had been celebrated in Nov. 1501; but the young Prince died in the following April; • It shoiild he observed, however, that Philip, King of Castile, in England in a contemporaiy account of Philips re- 1506, p. 302, edited by Mr. Gairdner, ception, drawn up probably by a herald, under the Eolls Commission. The com- says that the Archduke offered to give up monly received account rests on the Ed. de la Pole unsolicited. " And that authority of Polydore Vergil, morning, unaxed, the King of Castile ^ The substance of both these treaties preferred the King to yield Ed. Rebell, will be found in Macpherson's Annals of &c." See a Narrative of the reception of Commerce, vol. ii. p. 8 and 28. Chap. VI.] IXTERTIEW BETWEEN FERDIXAXD AXD PHILIP. 251 and Henry, unwilling to relinquish the bride's dowiy, of which only half had been paid, detained Catherine in England, and caused her to be contracted to his second son Henry. A papal dispensation, afterwards of such momentous consequence to the Roman See, was obtained, for this Prince's marriage with his brother's widow, which was to have taken place in 1505, when Prince Henry would have completed his fifteenth year ; but in order to obtain a hold upon Ferdinand, the English monarch put off the marriage, and caused his son to make a public declaration, that he did not and would not consider himself bound by any engagement made during his minority. At the same time, Henry privately assured Ferdinand that this declaration only regarded other engage- ments ; and that it was still his wish that his son should marry Catherine, though he was at liberty meanwhile to espouse any other Princess. After a detention of three months, Philip and his wife set sail from England, and arrived at Corunna, April 28th 1506. The marriage of Ferdinand and Grermaine had been celebrated a little while before at Duenas. On Philip's landing, Ferdinand advanced as far as Leon to meet him, but Philip cautiously avoided an interview till his adherents should have assembled, who included most of the Castilian grandees and their followers. Philip had brought with him 3000 Grerman infantry; and finding, when joined by his party in Castile, that his army amounted to 9000 men, he flung off the mask, repudiated the Concord of Salamanca, and de- clared that he would never consent to any infringement of his own and his wife's claim to the throne of Castile. Ferdinand, whose cause was very unpopular, was at this time wandering about from place to place, and some of his own cities shut their gates against him. At length Don Juan Manuel, who directed all Philip's counsels, consented that an interview should take place between this Prince and his father-in-law on a plain at Puebla de Sene- bria, on the confines of Leon and Gralicia, at which, however, Joanna was not permitted to be present, though her father earnestly desired to see her. Philip appeared on the field sur- rounded by his army in battle array, while Ferdinand could muster only some 200 followers. Nothing, however, could be arranged, either at this meeting or a subsequent one which took place at a hermitage in the neighbourhood ; and Ferdinand having conceived strong suspicions of the fidelity of his Viceroy Gonsalvo, determined to proceed to Naples. With this view he consented to all Philip's demands, and by an agreement made June 27th, resigned the sovereignty of Castile to him and Joanna, reserving the revenue 252 DEATH OF THE ARCHDUKE PHILIP. [Boor I. granted to him by the will of Isabella, and the Grand-masterships of the militar}^ orders of St. James of Compostello, Alcantara, and Calatrava. Whilst, however, he publicly announced his resigna- tion, he with his usual duplicity privately protested against it, on the ground of compulsion, and announced his intention of rescuing his daughter as soon as possible from what he called her captivity, and asserting his own claims to the regency. Philip and Joanna, together with their youthful son Charles, received the oaths of allegiance from the Castilian States at Valladolid, July 12th 1506. The Archduke assumed the title of Philip I., seized the entire administration, and attempted wholly to set aside Joanna, and to confine her on the plea of her insanity; but the States would not consent to this proceeding. Philip enjoyed only for a very brief period his newly-acquired power. He was carried off suddenly at Burgos (September 25th), at the early age of twenty-eight, by a fever, occasioned by drinking cold water after heatings himself in a same of tennis. Besides his two sons, Charles, now in his seventh year, and Ferdinand, w^ho was scarcely four, Philip left three infant daughters ; and Joanna was again pregnant at the time of his death. He deserved his sur- name of Philip the Handsome. His complexion was fair, his features regular, his person well formed and of the middle height. His careless easy temper, combined, however, with a certain magnanimity and ambition, and his frank and open bearing, seemed calculated to win popularity ; but being unskilled in business, and trusting too much to his favourites, and particularly to his Flemish courtiers, he contrived in the few months during which he held the supreme power in Castile, completely to alienate the hearts of his new subjects. Disregarding the counsels of Ximenes, he adopted the most extravagant scale of expenditure, and by the whole tenor of his conduct excited such disgust, that symptoms of insurrection began to appear before his death. That event created great confusion. Both the Flemish and Spanish followers of Philip were struck with alarm, and began to consider of offering the regency to the Emperor Maximilian, or to the King of Portugal ; while Ximenes and the adherents of Ferdinand looked forward to the re-establishment of the regency. At the instance of Ximenes a provisional council of seven, of which he himself was the head, was appointed to conduct the government. After her husband's death, Joanna had sunk into a state of apathetic insensibility. She shed no tears, but she sat in a dark room, motionless as a statue, refusing to attend to any business or sign any papers, and finding only in music some alleviation of her Chap. VI.] FERDIXAND THE CATHOLIC AT JS'APLES. 253 grief. Few words could be extracted from her, yet what she did say betrayed no symptoms of insanity, and formed a striking con- trast to her extraordinary behaviour. She spent hours in contem- plating the dead body of her husband, which she accompanied with a long train of ecclesiastics, when removed to Granada for inter- ment. The funeral procession moved forward only by night ; during the day the body was deposited in some church or monas- tery, were funeral services were performed, to which no female was admitted; for the Queen appeared still to retain that jealousy of her husband which she had felt during his life. Immediately on Philip's death messengers were despatched to Ferdinand, who had sailed for Italy wdth his consort only three weeks before. He had previously weakened Gronsalvo by with- drawing half his army, and had also recalled the Viceroy himself ; alluring him with the promise of the Grrand-mastership of St. lago. GrOD salvo, however, procrastinated his return, although there seem to have been no just grounds for Ferdinand's suspicions; and with the consciousness of innocence he proceeded to Genoa to meet his . sovereign. ^° Hence he accompanied Ferdinand to Naples. Al- though they were met at Porto Fino by the messengers announcing Philip's death, Ferdinand persisted in his intention of proceeding to Naples, but promised to return to Spain as soon as he had ar- ranged the affairs of the former kingdom ; for, assured of his ascen- dency over the mind of Joanna, he felt that the evils of anarchy would soon make his absence from Castile regretted even by his opponents. He met with a cordial reception from the Neapolitans. In the parliament which he assembled, he said nothing of the claims of his consort, as settled by the treaty of Lyon, but caused the oath of allegiance to be taken only to Joanna and her posterity. In June 1507, Ferdinand set sail on his return to Spain, and was followed in a day or two by Gonsalvo. Ferdinand, during his stay at Naples, manifested an entire confidence in the Great Captain, who, besides being left in possession of all his other estates and dignities, was created Duke of Sessa, and seemed completely to direct the counsels of his master. It was not till after the Great Captain's arrival in Spain that Ferdinand showed any symptoms of discontent with him ; and in the patent for his Sicilian dukedom and other honours, the King had expressed the feeling that he should never be able adequately to reward his eminent services. The equitable administration of Gonsalvo, as ^° Jovius, however, in his Life of took place on the north-west coast of Gonsalvo, says, that the first interview Naples. 254 IXTEKVIEW OF FERDINAND AND LOUIS XII. [Boqk I. well as his winning and popular manners, had made him a universal favourite with the Neapolitans, notwithstanding the reckless ex- travagance with which he had squandered their revenues. Ferdi- nand's nephew, the Count of Ribagorza, was appointed to succeed him as Viceroy of Naples, but with powers very much curtailed. The Spanish fleet on its return touched at Savona, where an interview had been arranged between Ferdinand and Louis XII. Some events in France had confirmed the latter monarch in his anti-Austrian policy, and consequently disposed him to draw still closer the bonds of his alliance with Ferdinand. His most pru- dent counsellors, in order to prevent him from retracing his steps and yielding to the entreaties of his consort Anne with regard to the Austrian marriage, had advised him to summon the States- Greneral of France, and to sound the inclinations of the nation, which they well knew were in favour of the match with Francis of Angouleme. The States were accordingly assembled. May 1506, at Plessis-lez-Tours ; and at a solemn audience in the grand apart- ment of the castle, Thomas Bricot, Canon of Notre Dame and deputy for Paris, speaking in the name of the States, after enumerating all that Louis had done for France, bestowed on him the title of " Father of his People ; " and concluded his harangue, himself and all the assembly kneeling, by requesting the King to give his daughter to Francis. During this touching scene, Louis himself and all the audience were moved to tears ; yet in the very midst of it, he was contemplating an act of the grossest dissimula- tion. With the view apparently of making his compliance appear to be a spontaneous concession to the wishes of the assembly, Louis said that he would consult his family and council, respecting the marriage, which he declared that he had never heard suggested, although he had himself determined on it more than a twelvemonth before ! A few days after (May 23rd) Francis and Claude were actually affianced. The death of Philip of Austria delivered Louis XII. from some embarrassments, though many yet remained behind. The attitude of Maximilian became every day more hostile ; and the German Diet assembled at Constance, alarmed by the large preparations making in France for an expedition into Italy, seemed at first disposed to second the Emperor's warlike inclinations. The French armament was directed against Grenoa. That city having risen in insurrection and driven oat Eavenstein, the French governor (October 2oth 1506), Louis determined to quash this rebellion by a vigorous stroke; and, crossing the Alps in April 1507, with a numerous army, he soon reduced the Genoese to obedience, and Chap. VI.] FERDINAND AXD GONSALVO OF CORDOVA. 255 constructed a new fort, called La Briglia, or The Bridle, to over- awe the city. Louis then made a sort of triumphal progress through Lombardy, and afterwards repaired to Savona, for the interview with Ferdinand, already mentioned. At this meeting, which was celebrated with superb fetes, the two monarchs displayed the most entire confidence in each other. The greatest generals of the age, who had recently been opposed to one another in the field, as the Marquis of Mantua, D'Aubigny, Gonsalvo, a.nd others, were here assembled together in harmony ; but none of them attracted so much attention as the Grreat Captain, who, at the request of Louis, was admitted to sup at the table of the sovereigns, an honour which served only to increase the jealousy of Ferdinand. Ferdinand landed in Valencia, July 20th 1507. At Tortoles he was met by Ximenes and Joanna, with whose altered and haggard figure he was much struck. kShe submitted herself implicitly to her father's will, and soon afterwards took up her residence at Tordesillas, which she never quitted during the remaining forty- seven years of her life : and though her name appeared in instru- ments of government, along with that of her son, Charles V., she could never be induced to attend to business or sign any papers. From the time of his return, Ferdinand exercised all the royal authority. By the clemency and affability which he assumed, he won back the hearts of many of the malcontents ; but he at the same time took care to assure his authority by keeping on foot a considerable military force, and surrounding his person with a body- guard. Ximenes retained the supreme direction of affairs, who soon after the King's return received a cardinal's hat from Pope Julius XL, arid the post of Inquisitor-general of Castile. Gronsalvo of Cordova, who landed in Spain soon after the King, was received by the people with such unbounded applause, that his journey resembled a triumphal procession. The ro3^al heart, how- ever, was ungrateful as well as subtle, and the Great Captain, who had achieved for Ferdinand the conquest of a kingdom, was left to languish unrewarded. It soon became apparent that the King had forgotten his promises ; and when reminded of the Grand-master- ship of St. lago, the subject was evaded, and at length dismissed. Ferdinand, who had united in his own person the masterships of the three orders, was unwilling to relinquish a post, which, by the distribution of commanderies, enabled him to work on the fears and hopes of the nobles. Gonsalvo was indeed presented with the royal town of Loja, near Granada ; which, however, was no more than a sort of honourable banishment. Ferdinand ofi*ered to per- petuate the grant of Loja to his heirs if he would relinquish his 256 MARGARET GOVERXS THE NETHERLANDS. [Book T. claim to the Grand-mastership, of which the King, when at Xaples, had given him a written promise ; but Gonsalvo replied that he would not forego the right of complaining of the injustice done him for the finest city in the King's dominions. He consequently passed the remainder of his life in seclusion. After the death of Philip, ]Maximilian set up pretensions to the regency both of Castile and the Netherlands, as natural guardian of his youthful grandson Charles. In the former of these claims he had little or no chance of success, and after some vain attempts to raise a party in Castile, and some empty menaces of invasion, he quietly abandoned all his designs in that quarter. * Charles was at this time residing in the Netherlands ; for Maximilian had rejected Ferdinand's demand to send that young prince into Spain in order that he might become habituated to the language and manners of his future subjects. The states of the Seventeen Provinces also, at first refused Maximilian's claims to be the guardian of his grandson, and to conduct the government of the country ; and they appointed a council of regency under the auspices of Louis XII. as Lord Paramount of Flanders. After a short period, however, being disturbed by internal commotions, and by the incursions of the Duke of Guelderland, w^ho had broken loose during Philip's absence, the Netherlanders, at the instance of the Lords of Croi and Chimay, to whom Philip had intrusted his son Charles, voluntarily submitted to the regency of Maximilian. The Emperor being at that time engaged in the affairs of Italy, appointed his daughter ^Margaret to be governor of the Netherlands, w^ho, after having been married to Don John Prince of the Asturias, and afterwards to Duke Philibert of Savoy, was now again a widow. One of the first acts of ]\Iargaret was to bring about the celebrated League of Cambray ; and as her father played a leading part in that unjust and impolitic transaction, it will be necessary here to take a brief review of the circumstances which occasioned that policy, and of the causes which prevented Maximilian from carrying it out successfully. Although Maximilian was a much more active and enterprising sovereign than his father Frederick, yet he had if possible still less real power. By his marriage with the daughter of Charles the Bold, he had indeed added much to the future grandeur of the House of Austria; but the same circumstance served rather to diminish than increase his authority as Emperor. The Netherlands, as well as the Austrian dominions of the House of Habsburg, were subject to frequent commotions and revolts ; and as the German princes were called upon to assist the reigning house in quarrels which did not concern them, they considered themselves all the more entitled to assert their own views with regard to Germany. Chap. VI.] REFORMS IN THE GERMAN EMPIRE. 257 One of the most important concessions obtained from Maxi- milian was a reform of the supreme tribunal of the empire, ac- cording to a promise extorted from him by the States assembled at Nuremberg in 1489, when he was in want of their assistance against Hungary. This promise Maximilian had faithfully per- formed at the Diet of Worms in 1495, the first held after his accession. Under Frederick, the members of the tribunal in question were named by the Emperor, and followed him wherever he went. But in 1495 its composition was entirely altered. The Emperor now nominated only the president, or Kanmier-richter, and the assessors were appointed by the States. Thus the tribunal, from a mere KaiserlicJies-Gericld, or court of the Emperor, became a Reichs-Kammer-Gericht, or court of the German Empire. It no longer followed the Emperor, but 'sat on appointed days at a fixed place, and was at last settled at Spires. Another most im- portant alteration was that the president was allowed to pronounce the ban of the empire in the Emperor's name. The same Diet of Worms also established a perpetual public peace, or Landfriede. The previous ones had only been for terms of years. But though Faustrecht, or the right of private war, was forbidden under heavy penalties, the prohibition did not prove effectual, and at an advanced period of the sixteenth century we still find the Sickingens, the Huttens, and the Grotz von Berlichingens retaining their Bedouin habits. The Diet of Augsburg in 1500 made perhaps a still more important alteration in the constitution of the empfire by insisting on the establishment of a permanent council for the administration of political affairs. This council was in fact nothing more than a permanent committee of the States, in which the three colleges of electors, princes and towns were represented; and the only pri- vilege reserved to the Emperor was that of presiding in person, or naming the president. In order to regulate the representation of the princes, Grermany was now divided into six circles, which were at first called provinces of the German nation ; viz., Franconia, Bavaria, Suabia, Upper Ehine, Westphalia, and Lower Saxony.^' Each of these circles sent a count and a bishop to the council ; to which were added two deputies from Austria and the Netherlands. Two deputies were also named alternately by the chief cities. ^' The empire was finally dmdod into eighth (the Lower Rliine) ; Austria as a ten circles at the diet of Cologne in 1512, ninth ; and Burgundy as a tenth. Eut when Saxony and Brandenburg were this division did not obtain any actual added as a seventh circle ; the four importance till the Diet of Worms in Rhenish electorates, Mentz, Treves, 1521. Cologne, and the Palatinate, as an VOL. I. S 258 DIET OF CONSTANCE, 1507. [Book I. Each of the Electors was represented, and one of them was always present in person. The state of Maximilian's foreign relations had compelled him to make these concessions, which were virtually an abdication of the imperial power in favour of the States, or rather of the College of Electors, whose power would be predominant in the council ; and the matter was regarded in this light by Contarini, the Venetian ambassador to the King of the Romans at that period. ^^ The whole administration of affairs, foreign and domestic, was in fact vested in the council, who assumed the title of the JReichs-regiment (or Council of Regency). They negociated of their own mere authority with Louis XII. ; and as they seemed willing to invest him with Milan, Maximilian anticipated them by himself bestowing it upon Louis as already related. As it was soon found, however, that neither the members of this council, nor the assessors of the Kammer-Gericht or Imperial Tribunal, could obtain payment of their salaries, nor carry through any of their measures, they consequently dissolved themselves, and returned to their homes ; and Maximilian recovered for a while all his former power, and was again regarded as the fountain of justice. In consequence of this state of things, the Electors held a solemn meeting at Gelnhausen in June 1502, and pledged themselves to stand by one another for the maintenance of the rights of the empire. Maximilian, however, was supported by a party among the princes and bishops ; and he had also wonderfully recovered his authority by his conduct in the war of the Bavarian succession, to which we have already adverted. At length, at the Diet of Constance in 1507, a sort of compromise was made between the imperial and electoral authority, and the chief institutions of the empire were settled on a permanent basis. The Kammer-Gericht, or Imperial Chamber, was again established according to the model laid down by the Diet of Worms, though with a few modi- fications. The Reichs-regiraent, or Council of Regency, appears however to have remained in abeyance during the reign of Maxi- milian, but was re-established by the first diet held by Charles V. at Worms in 1521, though with some few alterations in favour of the Emperor's authority ; but its power was again broken in the diet of 1524, by a combination between the Emperor and the towns. Another important point established by the Diet of Constance was the system of taxation. There were two methods of assess- " Canute, Arch, zu Wien, B. iv., ap. Eanke, Deutsche Gesch. B. i. S. 44. Chap. VI.] SYSTEMS OF TAXATION, 259 ment in Grerman}^, the Eoll, or Register {Matrikel), and the Common Penny {der gemeine Pfennig.) The first of these was levied on the separate states or territories of G-ermany, according to a certain roil or list ; the second, which was a mixture of a poll-tax and a property tax, was collected by parishes, without any regard to the division of principaHties. The Diet of Constance, by finally establishing the Matrikel, recognised a very important principle ; since that system contemplated the contributors as the subjects of the different states or principalities into which Grermany was divided, while the Common Penny considered them as the subjects of a common empire. By this decision, therefore, the independence of the different states was recognised ; while, on the other hand, the Imperial Chamber established the principle of the imity of the empire. These two institutions, the Matrikel and the Imperial Chamber, lasted three centuries. The fame of having founded them has been attributed to Maximilian : but in fact he did all in his power to oppose them — they were forced upon him by the Electors and States, and chiefly by the exertions of Berthold, Count Henneberg, Elector of Mentz. They were warmly opposed by certain parties in the empire, and especially by the equestrian and ecclesiastical orders. The knights, attached to the old feudal system, objected to paying a money tax ; they protested that as free Franks they were ready to shed their blood for the Emperor, but that a tax was an innovation, and an encroachment on their liberty : while the abbots demurred to acknowledge the authority of a tribunal so completely temporal as the Imperial Chamber. Maximilian at this Diet virtually recognised the independence of the Swiss, by declaring them free from the jurisdiction of all the Imperial tribu- nals, as well as from the Matrikel, or territorial tax. He had then need of Swiss troops, but those which he raised among them received a stipend.'^ We have before adverted to the hostile demonstrations of this Diet of Constance against Louis XII., when that monarch was preparing his expedition against Genoa. Pope Julius II., who was also alarmed by the same preparations, and who was exceed- ingly jealous of the influence which the French were acquiring in Italy, importuned Maximilian to cross the Alps with an army ; and his appeals were seconded by the Venetians, who offered a free passage for the Grerman troops through their territories. Maximilian had been already meditating an expedition into Italy. He wished to establish the rights of the Empire in the Italian " Ranke, Deutsche Gesch. B. i. S. 176. s 2 260 MAXIMILL\X OUTLAWS THE VENETIANS. [Book I. provinces, to assist Pisa ^^ against the Florentines, and also to march to Eome, in order to receive the Imperial crown from the hands of the Pope. He therefore listened to these applications; and in an animated address to the Diet, he exhorted them to resist the ambitious and encroaching spirit of the French monarch, who, he said, had already alienated some of the German fiefs in Italy, and whose design he represented it to be even to avert from him the Imperial crown itself. These topics, enforced with that eloquence and those powers of persuasion which Maximilian possessed in a high degree, made a great impression on the assembly. With an extra- ordinary burst of patriotism the Diet voted an army of 90,000 men, to be further increased by 12,000 Swiss; and measures were taken for raising this large force with an alacrity quite unusual. Alarmed by these mighty preparations, Louis, after terminating his (fenoese expedition, quietly disbanded his army, and applied himself through his agents to tranquillise the minds of the G-ermans. This policy was quite successful, and had a result very mortifying to Maxi- milian. The Diet demanded that the Italian expedition should be conducted in their name, that they should appoint the generals, and that the conquests should belong to the whole Germanic body: which conditions being rejected by Maximilian, they reduced the forces voted to 12,000 men. Maximilian in vain endeavoured to persuade the Venetians to throw off their fidelity to the French King and join with him in a partition of the Milanese. They united with Chaumont, the French governor of the Milanese, to oppose the passage of Maximilian, notified to him that he should be received with all honour in their territories if he came with an unarmed retinue on his way to Eome, but that they could not permit the passage of an army ; while Pope Julius II. also an- nounced through his legate that he had reconciled himself with Louis, and dissuaded Maximilian from his contemplated journey. But he was not to be diverted from his project. He now resolved to turn his arms against the Venetians, at whose conduct he was highly in- censed ; and in January 1508 he commenced an expedition into Italy with what troops he could collect. One division of his army was directed ac^ainst Roveredo ; another acrainst the Friuli : he himself advanced with a third to Trent, where he assumed the title of " Emperor Elect." Having erected an imperial tribunal, he despatched a herald to Venice with an absurd message, summon- ing before him the Doge Leonard Loredano and the whole senate ; and on their refusal to appear, he published against them the ban " The succour of Pisa had been so Soccorso di Pisa had passed into a often promised and delayed, that the proverb (Murat. Ann. t. x. p. 33). CuAP. VI.] EXTITLED " EMPEROR ELECT." 261 « of the Empire. At first Maximilian's arms were attended with success, and several places were taken ; but he soon began to feel that want of means which commonly rendered all his enterprises abortive and ridiculous ; and he was obliged to return into German}^, in order if possible to obtain fresh troops and more money. Mean- while the Venetians, aided hy the French, not only recovered the lost places, but even captured several Austrian towns ; and Trent itself would have fallen into their hands had not Trivulzio, the French general, from a feeling of jealousy withdrawn from them his support. Maximilian, finding no hopes of succour, was com- pelled in May to abandon his ill-judged enterprise ; and the Venetians, disgusted by the desertion of the French, entered into a separate armistice with him for a term of three years. As a kind of salve for his honour, Maximilian published a bull of Pope Julius II., by which the title of " Emperor Elect " was confirmed to him and his successors. This miscarriage, after such magnificent pretensions, and espe- cially the insolent and even childish manner in which the Venetians celebrated their success, inflicted a deep wound on the Emperor's vanity. Alviano, the Venetian general, was gratified with a sort of Eoman triumph for his victories over the Austrian general, Sixt von Trautson, in the Friuii : and he made a solemn entry into Venice, with a long train of G-erman prisoners. At the same time, what was perhaps still more provoking, Maximilian and the German empire were abused and ridiculed throughout the Venetian do- minions in caricatures, farces, and satirical songs. We have before seen that Venice had been for some years the object of the ill-will and jealousy of several European powers, and Maximilian now resolved to call all these latent passions into action, and to make them the instruments of his revenge. Both Louis XII. and the Pope had recently received from the Venetians what they considered fresh causes of offence, Louis was aggrieved by their concluding the armistice with the Emperor without his consent ; while the Pope was angry with them because they had refused to install one of his nephews in the vacant bishopric of Vicenza, and had named to it a noble countryman of their own, in conformity with their maxim, that no benefice in their territories should be bestowed on a foreigner, or indeed on anybody without their consent. Julius was also offended by the shelter which they afforded to John Bentivoglio, whom he had recently driven out of Bologna. In the first few years of his pontificate, Julius had acted with a moderation which surprised those who knew his restless mind and his former conduct, which more resembled that ij 3 262 CONQUESTS OF POPE JULIUS II. ' [Book I. • of a condottiere than a priest. During these years he had occupied himself in amassing money, and had shown a parsimony not before observed in his character; but towards the end of August 1506, after declaring several times in the Consistory that it was necessary to purge the Church of tyrants, he sallied forth from Kome at the head of twenty-four cardinals and 400 geiis-crarrfies. John Paul Baglione, of Perugia, and John Bentivoglio, of Bologna, who like the Medici at Florence, had become the chief men, or lords, of those cities, were the objects of his attacks ; and with the assistance or connivance of the French, the Florentines, and other states, he soon expelled them from Perugia and Bologna, and annexed these cities to the dominion of the Church. Julius remained in Bologna till February 1507, when he returned to Kome, and employed himself in his favourite project of fomenting a league against Venice. Self-interest was the chief motive which swayed both Louis and the Pope in their hostility to Venice, as it was the sole one which influenced Ferdinand the Catholic. All these powers, on the ground of inalienable and imprescriptible right, laid claim to som.e of the Venetian possessions, which the republic held under the faith of treaties. Thus Louis XXL, as Duke of Milan, claimed Brescia and Bergamo, which had been made over to the Venetians by the Sforzas, as well as Cremona and the Grhiara d'Adda, which he had himself given them as the price of their assistance. The Pope claimed Rimini, Faenza, and other places, as ancient posses- sions of the Holy See, under the grants of the exarchate by Pepin and Charlemagne. Ferdinand, who in a great measiu-e owed his Neapolitan throne to the assistance of the Venetians, wished to re- cover the maritime towns of Trani, Brindisi, G^allipoli, Pulignano, and Otranto, which his predecessor, Don Frederick, had pledged to the republic, as security for its expenses. The machinations against Venice were secretly conducted, under pretence of an arrangement between Maximilian and Louis XII. on the subject of the Duke of G^uelderlandi Margaret, Groverness of the Netherlands, had persuaded her father that it would be for the interest of his grandson Charles to conciliate the French, who were supporting the Duke of Gruelderland in his hostilities ; and Maximilian, who had now another reason for desiring the friend- ship of Louis, consented to enter into negociations. An interview was accordingly arranged, at Cambray, between INIargaret, who combined with female dexterity the judgment and decision of a man, and the Cardinal d'Amboise. Margaret, though without any formal powers, acted for Ferdinand the Catholic as well as for her Chap. VI.] LEAGUE OF CAMBRAY. 263 father Maximilian ; while D'Amboise in like manner represented the Pope as well as his own sovereign Louis ; and though a papal nuncio and an ambassador of the Catholic King were present at Cambray, neither of them took any part in the conferences. The affair of the Duke of Gruelderland gave rise to some warm discussion ; but it was at length arranged that Duke Charles should pro- visionally hold Guelderland and the county of Zutphen, surrender- ing only a few places. The question of the future homage of the Archduke Charles to the King of France was also settled; and Maximilian, in consideration of 100,000 gold crowns, ratified the rupture of the marriage treaty between his grandson and the Princess Claude, and renewed the investiture of Milan to Louis and his heirs. The negotiators were sooner agreed on the subject of Venice, and the treaty which formed the celebrated League of Cambkat was signed. in the cathedral of that city, December 10th 1508. The principal stipulations were that of the places to be wrested from the Venetians, Eavenna, Cervia, Faenza, Eimini, and Forli should be assigned to the Pope ; Padua, Vicenza, and Verona, to the German Empire ; Eoveredo, Trevigi, and the Friuli, to the House of Austria ; the five maritime towns of Naples to Ferdinand the CathoHc ; and to Louis XII. all the places that had at any time belonged to the Duchy of Milan. The Pope was to excommunicate the Venetians, and to absolve their subjects from their oath of allegiance : a proceeding which would enable him to invoke, in support of the papal sentence, the arms of Maximilian, as advocate or protector of the Church, and on that ground to release him from the armistice to which he had so recently sworn. The King of France was to commence the war by the 1st of April following, and the other allies were to appear in the field at the expiration of forty days. Other powers who had any claims, real or imaginary, upon Venice, were to be invited to join the League within a given period: as the King of Hungary, for the Venetian possessions in Dalmatia and Slavonia ; the Duke of Savoy, as heir of the family of Lusignan, for Cyprus, which the Venetians had occupied by virtue of the will of their fellow-citizen, Catherine Cornaro, widow of James II., the last King of Cyprus ; the Duke of Ferrara, for the Polesine of Eovigo ; and other princes for various claims. The League of Cambray is remarkable as being the first great combination, since the time of the crusades, of several leading European powers for a common object. A modern historian has observed '■'', that it laid the foundation of public law in Europe, by raising either in itself or its consequences three questions, on " Sismondi, Rep. Ital. ch, cv, 6 4 264 HYPOCRISY OF THE ALLIED SOVEREIGNS. [Book I. one of which that law must be founded ; namely, the question of imprescriptible right, alleged by Louis XII. and the Emperor Maximilian ; the right of treaties, as pleaded by the Venetians ; and, finally, when Pope Julius turned round upon his allies, and attempted to drive them out of Italy as " barbarians," the question of the public good, the only sure ground on which any system can be erected. The League was long kept secret from the Venetians, who were naturally slow to believe an alliance among sovereigns who. were jealous of one another, and had so many grounds of mutual distrust and enmity. Louis XII. even protested to their ambas- sadors that nothing had been done at Cambray disadvantageous to the republic, and that he would never commit any act that might be injurious to such ancient allies ! But the bond which embraced such discordant interests was knit together by a common cupidity and envy ; motives that are betrayed in the preamble of the treaty itself, which also contains an example of the gross hypocrisy so often seen in the diplomacy of those times. This preamble states that the Emperor and the King of France, having, at the solicitation of Pope Julius II., allied themselves, in order to make war on the Turks, had first resolved to put an end to the rapine, losses, and injuries caused by the Venetians, not only to the Holy Apostolic Chair, but also to the Holy Eoman Empire, the House of Austria, the Duke of Milan, the King of Naples, and many other princes ; and to extinguish, as a common devouring fire, the insatiable cupidity and thirst of domination of the Venetians. ^^ Thus the allied sovereigns, who had of course no serious intention of entering into a crusade against the Turks, pretended to begin a war against them, by destroying a state which had proved the securest barrier against Moslem encroachments, and which by its maritime power was still best able to arrest their fm-ther progress. The sovereigns of France and Spain secured the adhesion of the Florentines to the League of Cambray, by a transaction, which, as a modern historian observes ^^, cannot be paralleled for mercenary baseness in the whole history of the merchant princes of Venice. At the time of the conference at Savona, Ferdinand and Louis, in consideration of a large payment, agreed to betray Pisa, which had long been making a noble struggle for its independence, to the " Raynaldus, Ann. Eccl. an. 1509, t. minister at the diet of Augsbiirg in 1510, xi. p. 527. That envy of the wealth and in Du Bos, Ligice de Cambray, t. i. 141 sq. power of Venice is the true key to this (ed. 1710.) conspiracy against her, plainly appears " Prescott, Ferd. and Isabella, vol. iii. from the speeches of Helian, the French p. 314. Chap. VI.] PISA SOLD TO THE FLOREXTIXES. 265 Florentines, by putting in a garrison which the Pisans would receive without suspicion, but which, after a given time, should open the gates to the enemy. Meanwhile, the French King assisted Pisa, in order to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Florentines before the expected sum had been received ; and the Florentines were at length induced to sign a convention (March 13th 1509), by which they agreed to pay Louis 100,000 ducats, and Ferdinand 50,000, in consideration of those monarchs withdrawing their pro- tection from Pisa. Ferdinand, who was to be kept in ignorance that his brother monarch had received more than himself, subsequently transferred his share to Maximilian ; in consideration of which, and of the further aid of 300 lances, Maximilian, ever mean and necessitous, agreed to relinquish his pretensions to the regency of Castile.^® Pisa was at this time reduced to the extremity of famine. The Florentines entered it June 8th 1509, and behaved with great liberality in relieving the distress of the inhabitants. ?* Prescott, Ferd, and Isabella, vol. iii, 349. 266 BATTLE OF AGNADELLO. [Book I. CHAPTER VII. When the Venetians were at length tardily coDvinced of the reality of the League of Cambray, they endeavoured to detach some of the members from it ; but in this they were unsuccessful, as well as in their attempts to obtain assistance from England and the Ottoman Porte. Their own resources, however, enabled them to assemble a considerable army on the banks of the Oglio, consisting of about 30,000 foot and 12,000 horse, under two Orsini ; the veteran Comit Pitigliano, with Alviano, a bastard of the same house, as second in command; with whom were joined Andrew Gritti and Greorge Cornaro, SiS pi^oveditori. In the spring Louis had despatched a herald to declare war against the Venetians, and about the same time, Julius launched against them a bull of excommunication, filled with the bitterest reproaches ; to which the Venetians replied by a manifesto equally abusive, and, as usual, they appealed from the Pope to the expected Greneral Council. In April Louis passed the Alps at the head of an army somewhat inferior in force to that of the Venetians. He had crossed the Adda, and was marching along its banks, when, at a bend of the river, the hostile armies suddenly found themselves in presence. A battle ensued. May 14th 1509, which has been called by the French the Battle of Agnadello, and by the Italians, the Battle of Vaila, or of the Ghiara d'Adda. On this day the French van was led by Chaumont d'Amboise and Marshal Jacob Trivulzio ; Louis himself commanded the main body, while La Palisse and the Duke of Longueville brought up the rear-guard. The Venetian army was also on the march, and Pitigliano, whom the senate had ordered to avoid a battle, had passed with the van to the spot where the encounter took place. Alviano, with his division, had therefore to sustain the whole shock of battle; and though he made a brave resistance, his troops were cut down or dispersed, and he himself made prisoner. This victory enabled Louis to take possession of the whole of the Ghiara d'Adda. Crema was sold to him by the treacherous Venetian governor, Concino Benzone ; Cremona, Bergamo, and Brescia also opened their gates. Peschiara, one of the few places that resisted, was taken by assault; when Louis, with an inhumanity which does not seem to belong to his Chap. VH.] PROGRESS OF THE ALLIES. 267 character, caused its brave defender, Andrew de Eiva, and his son, to be hanged from the battlements, and the garrison to be put to the sword. Louis had now achieved the conquest of all the territory assigned to him by the Treaty of Cambray — namely, as far as the Mincio ^ ; he therefore halted his victorious army, and left the emperor to achieve his part by reducing the places east of that boundary. He delivered to Maximilian's ambassador the keys of Verona, Vicenza, and Padua, which the inhabitants had sent to him in token of their submission ; and after making a triumphant entry into Milan, he dismissed a great part of his army, and returned into France. Meanwhile, the papal army, under the command of Francis Maria della Eovere, a nephew of the Pope's, had entered Eomagna, all the towns of which, except Eavenna, were soon reduced. Alfonso d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, and the Marquis of Mantua, who had also joined the League, had succeeded in capturing several places. Although Ferdinand of Spain had ratified the Treaty of Cambray, he had no intention of carrying it out, beyond the recovery of his Neapolitan towns. Before the commencement of hostilities he had assured the Venetians that he had only entered into that part of the Treaty which related to the Turks ; that he was ignorant of Louis's motives in attacking them, and that he would use for them his good offices with that monarch. He took, at first, no part in the war in Upper Italy, but he sent a body of Spaniards to lay siege to Trani. It was late before the Emperor Maximilian appeared in the field. While the King of France was gathering his forces, he had assembled a diet at Worms, to whom he submitted the plan of the League, and demanded their support. This, however, was not only refused by the diet, but they even accompanied their refusal with reproaches and complaints. Maximilian retorted with truth and vigour, though without efiect, in a celebrated apology ; and he found himself compelled to resort to his hereditary dominions in order to levy an army. It w^as not till three weeks after the battle of Agnadello that he appeared at Trent, mth one thousand horse, and eight companies of infantry, for he had been delayed in raising even this small force, till he had received some money which he had borrowed from the King of England ^, and from his other allies ; ^ Daru, Hist, de Venise, liv. xxii. § 12, p. 41 ; Sismondi, Bep. Ital. t. xiii. p. 467; and Coxo, House of Austria, ch. xxiv., re- Martin, Hist, de France, t. vii. p. 376. present Louis as advancing to the neigh- ^ Henry VII. was a wami supporter of bourhood of Venice, and insulting the Maximilian. In 1502 he had lent him queen of the Adriatic with a distant 10,000/. for the war against the Turks — cannonade ; but there does not appear a large sum for those times. Rymer, torn, to be any adequate authority for this xiii. p. 9. statement. See Muratori, Annali, t. x. 268 , HUMILIATION OF VEXICE. [Book I. and he was further detained in Trent till he should receive some auxiliaries raised by his daughter IMargaret. After the defeat of Agnadello, the situation of Venice seemed desperate. A great part of the remnant of her army under Pitigliano had dispersed ; the rest, almost in a state of revolt, had retired to Mestre, on the Lagoon. It was under these circumstances that the Venetians issued the celebrated decree, by which they released all their Italian subjects from their allegiance ; and thus, by an act by some attributed to fear and despair, by others to a refined and subtle policy, stripped themselves of what their enemies were seeking, and reduced their empire to the islands which had been its cradle. They also abandoned to Ferdinand the seaport towns which they held in Apulia, and sent ambassadors to make the most humble submissions to the Pope and to the Emperor. Julius at first received the ambassadors with haughtiness, and prescribed some very insulting conditions; though, at the same time, he held out the hope that he would not be inexorable. Antonio Griustiniani, the ambassador despatched by the proud aristocracy of Venice to Maximilian, is represented by some authors as making on his knees a most humiliating address to the Emperor ^ ; and he is said to have carried with him a carte blanche, on which Maximilian might write his own conditions. It is, at all events, certain that Venice made very humble submissions, and even offered to pay the Emperor and his successors a yearly tribute of 500 pounds of gold ; but Maximilian, whose ' chivalrous and romantic temper had been charmed by the magnanimity of Louis, in abstaining from all encroachment on his possessions, had resolved to adhere to the French alliance ; and he had even burnt his Red Book, in which were recorded all the injuries that he had ever received from France. He was not yet, however, in a position even to occupy the toTvms that had voluntarily surrendered, except with very inadequate forces ; for Padua itself, though, from its vicinity to Venice, the most exposed to danger, he could spare only about 800 German troops. The lower classes in that city were favourably disposed towards the Venetians, who, encouraged by the absence of the French army, and by the apparent weakness of the Emperor, per- mitted Andrew Gritti to retake Padua, which he captured by surprise, July 17th, 1509 ; upon which, all the surrounding territory declared in favour of the Venetians. This was the first symptom ' His speech is given by Guicciardini, been published by Goldasti, in the Polit. lib. viii. (torn. iv. p. 193 sqq., ed. Milan, Imperial. But by Venetian authors it 1803), and the Latin original, from which has been pronounced a literary impos- he professed to translate it, has since ture. Chap. YII.] MAXIMILIAN BESIEGES PADUA. 269 that Venice was beginning to revive, and it was followed by a few more successes. The peasants of North Italy, ruined and incensed by the ravages of the French and G-ermans, supplied numerous willing recruits to her army, whose ranks were also swelled by the garrisons recalled from the towns in Komagna and Apulia, which had been abandoned to the Pope and the King of Aragon, as well as by the enlistment of fresh Albanians and Dalmatians ; and Pitigliano thus again found himself at the head of a very considerable force. On the other hand, Maximilian's troops were also at last beginning to assemble on the frontier. The loss of Padua made him reflect with shame on his inactivity, and he resolved to wipe out the dis- grace by recovering that city. His generals, Podolph of Anhalt, the Duke of Brunswick, and Christopher Frangipani, a Hungarian, marched into the Friuli and Istria, where they took several places. In the war in these districts the Germans are said to have committed the most horrible cruelties, and to have hunted out with doors the women and children who had hidden themselves in the cornfields. Maximilian, after ravaging the country round Padua, established his head-quarters before the gate of Portello, September loth 1509. The Venetians, sensible of the importance of Padua, had thrown their whole army into that place. At the instance of the Doge, Leonard Loredano, two of his sons, followed by 100 foot soldiers, raised at their own expense, joined the garrison and this animating example was followed by 166 nobles, each ^ith a train proportioned to his means; though, by the customs of Venice, those of gentle blood served only in the fleet. Thither, also, resorted all the peasants of the surrounding district, with their herds and flocks ; and that vast but deserted city received, without inconvenience, within its walls, a multitude amounting to five times its usual population. Maximilian's army consisted of some 40,000 men, with 200 guns — a larger force than had for centuries been employed in any siege. All the parties to the League of Cambray were represented there by at least a small body of troops, which consisted of Germans, Italians, Spaniards, and French ; but of the last there were only 500 lances, under La Palisse, and 200 gentlemen volunteers. During this siege, Maximilian gave signal proofs of bravery, activity, and intelligence ; he was constantly present at the post of danger, and displayed all those military qualities which made him beloved by his soldiery. Practicable breaches were soon made in the walls, and two assaults were delivered, but repulsed. In the last, the Imperialists had succeeded in establishing themselves on the bastion: but at this moment the Venetians blew up the works, which they 270 THE POPE PARDOXS THE VENETIANS. [Book I. had undermined ; a great part of the victors were hurled into the air, and the remainder, in this moment of consternation, were charged by the Venetians, and driven from every post. Staggered by this obstinate defence, and foreseeing that he should soon be without the means to pay or feed his army, Maximilian now proposed to La Palisse that before the breach could be repaired by the garrison, the French gendarmerie should dismount, and, with the Grerman lansquenets, try the fortune of another assault. But the Chevalier Bayard declared that, however poor he might be, he was still a gentleman, and would not degrade himself by fighting on foot with lansquenets ; and this feeling was shared by La Palisse and the rest of the French knights. They offered, however, if the Grerman nobles would dismount, to show them the way to the breach ; but this was declined, on the ground of its being derogatory to gentlemen to fight except on horseback. Maximilian, whose patience was soon exhausted, now hastily quitted the camp, and instructed his lieutenants to raise the siege (Oct. 3rd); and a few days after he dismissed the greater part of his army. The Venetians now speedily recovered Vicenza, Bassano, Feltre, Cividale, Mon- selice, the Polesine of Eovigo, and other places ; and they attempted to punish the Duke of Ferrara for the part he had taken against them ; but the fleet which they fitted out on the Po for that purpose, was almost destroyed by Alphonso's artillery. Early in 1510, the Venetians effected a reconciliation with Pope Julius IL, whose jealousy of Louis had been recently increased by a quarrel respecting the investiture of a new bishop of Avignon. Julius had also conceived a supreme contempt for the Emperor, from his poverty and ill-concerted enterprises ; and he was alarmed by Maximilian's offer to place Verona in the hands of Louis, for a loan of 50,000 ducats. The Pope had never desired the success of the League of Cambray, except so far as his own interests were concerned ; and as the Venetians had ordered the governor of Eavenna to admit the papal troops, and had instructed their Doge to address a humble letter to Julius, he began to listen to their protestations of repentance. He admitted their envoys to an audience (Feb. 24th), and in spite of the remonstrances of the French and imperial ambassadors, removed the interdict which he had fulminated against Venice. The ecclesiastical punishments imposed by the worldly pontiff were but light. The only penitence enjoined was that the Venetian deputies should pay a visit to the seven magnificent Basilicce of Rome ; and the strokes of the rod, usually inflicted by the Pope and cardinals on the excommuni- cated, during the reading of the Miserere, were in this instance Chap. VII.] ACCESSION OF HEXEY VIII. 271 omitted from the ceremony of absolution. On the other hand, the Venetians were required no longer to dispose of ecclesiastical benefices, except such as were subject to lay patronage; to refer all cases relating to ecclesiastical jurisdiction to Eome ; to forbear from exacting any contributions from the property of the Chm'ch ; and to renounce all pretension to the territory of the Holy See. But the two articles most reluctantly conceded by that haughty republic were, the renunciation of their right to have a vidome at Ferrara, and the allowing to the Pope's subjects the free navigation of the Adriatic. All the objects of the Pope in organising the League of Cambray were now accomplished : the Venetians had been humbled, the towns claimed by the Holy See wrested from them, and Julius was at liberty to apply himself to the second and more arduous project, formed by his enterprising mind — that of driving all foreigners from Italy. Of these foreigners the King of France was the most powerful and the most dreaded, and it was against him that the Pope's machinations were first directed. Without reflecting on the dangers which might arise from the Spanish dominion in Naples, and that it was for the interest of Central Italy to balance one foreign domination against the other, he formed the plan of making one the instrument for the other's expulsion. He therefore endeavoured to bring about a peace between the Emperor and the Venetians'^, and to detach the Duke of Ferrara from the League ; and in order to embarrass Louis in his foreign relations, he attempted to incite England, as well as the Swiss, against him. But of these four projects only the last succeeded. Neither Maximilian nor Alphonso d'Este was prepared to renounce the alliance of Louis ; and even the youthful Henry VIIL, who had succeeded to the throne of England, on the death of his father, April 21st 1509, at first resisted all the blandishments of Julius. The vanity of Henry, who pretended to be at once a theologian and a warrior, was, indeed, flattered when Pope Julius seemed to constitute him the arbiter of the disputes arising out of the League of Cambray. The Pope and his clergy succeeded in making him believe that peace had been granted to the Venetians chiefly through his inter- cession; and at Easter, 1510, Julius sent him the golden rose, which the Holy See annually presents to the sovereign on whose assistance she most relies. But Henry adhered to the counsels of his dying father. In March 1510 he had confirmed the treaty of Naples with Louis XIL; he had previously renewed the alliance with the * Muratori, Ann. t. x. p. 50. 272 JULIUS II. GAINS THE SWISS. [Book I. Emperor ; and in May he concluded a defensive treaty with Ferdi- nand of Aragon. Julius was successful only in his negociations with the Swiss, with whom Louis had imprudently quarrelled. The Swiss had sent the French king an insolent message, ascribing all his late victories to their assistance, and demanding an increase of the yearly payment; and he had returned a haughty answer to these, as he termed them, " wretched mountaineers." This disposed the Swiss to listen to the Pope's agent, Matthew Schinner, Bishop of Sion, or Sitten, in the Valais, a man of low origin, but considerable learning, who was a determined enemy of the French, and had lono- directed his sermons with considerable success aojainst the practice of foreign enlistment. Julius, when he heard of the French king's quarrel with the Swiss, summoned Schinner to Eome, who, dazzled with the prospect of a cardinal's hat, which was actually conferred upon him in the following year, seemed to forget all his former scruples on the subject of mercenary service. Provided with a considerable sum of money, as well as large bundles of indulgences, the Bishop of Sion, after his return, easily persuaded his countrymen to enter into an alliance with the Pope for a term of five years. They engaged not to form any connection that might be prejudicial to Rome, to oppose all the Pope's enemies, and to supply him with 6000 or more chosen troops whenever they might be wanted ; and Julius promised in return an equi- valent payment and his spiritual protection. This was a great victory. The Swiss, formerly the instruments of transmontane violence, were now converted into soldiers of the Holy See, and champions of Italian independence. The death of the Cardinal d'Amboise, who expired May 25th 1510, was another event favourable to the Pope. D'Amboise was the first of those cardinals who, uniting with that dignity the office of prime minister, have played so great a part in the history of the French monarchy; for though Cardinals Balue and Bri- ponnet had been members of the council, they did not enjoy the high post and influence of D'Amboise ; and as he united mth that post the power of papal legate, which the court of Rome was afraid to withdraw from him, he exercised an almost absolute authority over the church in France and Northern Italy. " God be praised," exclaimed Julius, w^hen he heard of his former rival's death, "at length I am the only Pope !" Though D'Amboise had been the principal agent in the ill-considered policy of France with regard to Italy, his death did not appease the Pope's jealousy of the French court, while it deprived Louis of a minister whose Chap. VII.] JULIUS BKEAKS WITH LOUIS XII. 273 zeal and energy could not be replaced. Julius now redoubled his intrigues against Louis, and in particular he sought to form a closer connection with Ferdinand of Aragon. In order to bind that monarch to his interests, the Pope at length granted him the long- withheld investiture of Naples (July 3rd 1510), besides releasing him from that part of his marriage contract with Grer- maine de Foix, by which half Naples was to revert to the French crown, in case his consort should die without issue. The Pontiff soon after remitted the feudal services due for Naples for the annual tribute of a white palfrey, and the aid of 300 lances, in case the States of the Church should be invaded. By these means he assured the neutrality of Ferdinand, if not his imme- diate co-operation. The intractability of the Duke of Ferrara, before adverted to, was the immediate cause, or at all events the pretext, for an open breach between the Pope and the King of France. Alphonso was the only feudatory of the Church whom Julius had spared ; he had interfered for him with the Venetians, had prevented them from attacking him during the winter, and had procured for him the restoration of the town of Comacchio. On all these grounds, Julius considered himself entitled to the gratitude of the Duke ; and his anger therefore was extreme when he found that Alphonso was implicitly guided by the counsels of Louis. As this conduct, however, could not be made any just cause of quarrel, Julius sought to create one. He forbade the Duke to manufacture salt at Comacchio, to the detriment of the pontifical salt works at Cervia ; he demanded the surrender of those castles in Romagna which Lucretia Borgia had brought to Alphonso as part of her dowry, and which he contended were the property of the Holy See ; and he also required that the impost paid by Ferrara should be increased from 100 florins to 4000 annually. These unjust demands were resisted by Alphonso. Louis XII., who wished to preserve his influence in Ferrara, without breaking altogether with the haughty and violent pontiff, had some months been attempting to effect a reconciliation between Julius and Alphonso, when suddenly the Pope dismissed the ambassadors of Louis, as well as those of the Duke, and called upon Alphonso to renounce his adherence to France (July 1510). At this time the allied French and Imperial army had penetrated as far as Monselice ; for while the Pope was hatching these intrigues, Louis and the Emperor were carrying on the war in Northern Italy, though without much vigour. Yet the diet summoned by Maximilian to meet at Augsburg in the spring had proved more VOL. I. T 274 CA^IFAIGX IX NORTH ITALY. [Book I, than iisimlly compliant. The Pope's nuncios who appeared at that assembly made great efforts to reconcile Maximilian with the Venetians, and endeavoured to inspire the States with a mistrust of the unnatural alliance between the Emperor and France ; but their representations were so successfully combated by Helian, Louis' envoy, that the nuncios were even dismissed from Augsburg, and a considerable supply voted to Maximilian. At this diet were renewed the Gravamina^, or complaints of the German nation against the Papal See, which since the Council of Constance had been so often brought forward. The Emperor's inimical relation to the Pope at this period inclined him to listen to these representations ; and he appears even to have sent to France for a copy of the Pragmatic Sanction, with a view to draw up some similar regulations for the protection of Germany against papal oppression — a step, however, which led to no practical result. Maximilian's temper, at once hasty and procrastinating, and his love of show and magnificence, led him to fritter away the funds at his disposal for the conduct of the war. His want of means to maintain Verona in an efficient state of defence had led him to pledge that city to the French for 60,000 ducats ; yet the chro- nicles represent him as spending at this very time enormous sums at Augsburg in hunting parties, balls, banquets, and masquerades ; and he is said to have appeared at a tourney with the Elector Frederic of Saxony, in a suit of armour worth 200,000 florins. In the month of April, however, he despatched 1000 horse and 8000 foot% under the command of the Prince of Anhalt, to Verona, where they were soon joined by Chaumont d'Amboise, Viceroy of Milan, and John James Trivulzio, with 1500 lances, 3000 light cavalry, 10,000 infantry, and a large train of artillery. The Duke of Ferrara also came to the aid of the allies with a considerable force. Offensive operations were now resumed against Venice, under the Prince of Anhalt, as Commander-in-chief. The death of the Count of Pitigliano, in the preceding February, had deprived the Republic of an experienced and skilful commander, and his place had been supplied by John Paul Baglione of Perugia. The Venetian army, which consisted of only 800 men-at-arms, 4000 light horse and Stradiots, and 8000 foot, not being strong enough to oppose the advance of the allied French and imperial army, retired to a strong position between the rivers Brenta, Brentella, and Bacchiglione. Vicenza was thus exposed to the fury of the ^ These Gravamina Nationis Gcryna- SS. t. ii. No. 40. niccB will be found in Freher, Gcn/i. Bcr. « Mnratori, Ann. t. x. p. 51. Chap. VII.] THE DUKE OF FEERARA EXCOMMUNICATED. 275 allies, the Grerman portion of whom were enraged by its revolt in the preceding autumn ; and when the citizens sent to deprecate the wrath of the Prince of Anhalt, he at once told them that he meant to make them a memorable example of the punishment due to rebellion. The citizens balked the fury and cupidity of the G-ermans by transporting their women and children, as well as the most valuable part of their property, to Padua, whither also they retired themselves on the approach of the enemy ; but a portion of them, together with the peasantry of the surrounding country, were not so fortunate. These unhappy people, to the number of 6000, had taken refuge in a vast cavern in the mountains of Vicenza, called the Grotto of Masano, or Longara ; and L'Herisson, a captain of French adventurers, finding it impos- sible to force a passage through the narrow, dark, and tortuous entrance of the cave, filled the opening with faggots, which he set on fire, and thus smothered all who were within ! One young man alone escaped, who, by being placed near a crevice in the rock, had obtained a scanty supply of air ! From Vicenza the allies proceeded to ta,ke Porto Legnano, a place deemed almost impregnable, whence, after almost cutting to pieces the Turco-Venetian cavalry, they laid siege, as before said, to Monselice. That place yielded to the Imperial arms, after an obstinate resistance ; but this was the term of the success of the allies, for the plots of Julius were now ready to explode. While they were engaged in this siege, the Pope declared war against the Duke of Ferrara, a papal army under Julius's nephew, the Duke of Urbino, invaded Alphonso's territories, and took Massa de' Lom- bard!, Bagnacavallo, Lugo, and other places, including Modena, which the Duke of Ferrara held as a fief of the empire. The Pope excommunicated Alphonso, August 9th, denouncing him in the most dreadful terms as a son of perdition, releasing his subjects from their allegiance, and his soldiers from their oath of fidelity ; at the same time a papal fleet and army attacked Genoa, while a large body of Swiss in the Pope's pay threatened Milan, and compelled Chaumont to hasten to its defence. Deprived of the support of Chaumont and Alphonso, the German army was no longer able to make head against the Venetians. Maximilian had neither appeared in person, nor had he remitted the necessary funds for the pay of the troops, whose ranks were consequently thinned by desertion, while they compensated them- selves for their arrear^ and short commons by plundering. Verona was pillaged thrice in one week. The Germans now began to retreat, followed closely by the Venetians, who recovered, one after T 2 276 COUNCIL OF TOURS. [Book I. another, Vicenza, Asolo, Marostica, the Polesine of Rovigo, and other places ; but failed in an attempt upon Verona. The designs of Julius against the French, though well conceived, were not attended with success. The attempt to excite a rebellion against them in Genoa, and to assist it with the papal and Venetian arms, proved a failure. A papal army, under Mark Antony Colonna, crossed the Magra, occupied Spezia, and advanced towards Genoa, and at the same time a Venetian squadron, after taking Sestri and Chiavaro, appeared off the port. But the call to liberty met with no response from the Genoese, and both fleet and army were obliged to retire. The invasion of the Milanese by the Swiss was equally unsuccessful. A large body of them, indeed, entered that duchy early in September, by Bellinzona; but unprovided with cavalry, artillery, or pontoons for passing the numerous rivers, and being harassed by thegens-cVarmes and light infantry of Chaumont, they suddenly returned into their own country, without having taken one place, or fought a single battle. Louis XII. was much embarrassed by the attitude assumed by the Pope towards the Duke of Ferrara, whom Louis was bound by treaty to protect ; yet being naturally scrupulous in matters of religion, he hesitated to levy open war on Christ's vicar upon earth. These scruples were increased by his consort, Anne of Brittany, whose superstitious terror deprecated, with tears and entreaties, all hos- tilities against the holy father ; and D'Amboise was no longer there to fortify the King with his energy and decision.'^ Louis recollected, however, his late minister's project of an ecclesiastical council, and he resolved to relieve himself of his perplexity by assembling the French clergy, and submitting the case to their decision. A national council was accordingly assembled at Tours early in September (1510), the majority of whom declared the King justified in making war upon the Pope in defence of himself and his allies, and pronounced, beforehand, all papal censures that might be fulminated in consequence to be null and void. The council further decided that the Pope should be required to put an end to the hostilities which he had commenced, and to call a general council in conformity with the decrees of the Council of Basle ; and in case he should refuse to summon such a council, the Emperor and other Christian princes were to be requested to take the work in hand. Thus the Gallicanism which D'Amboise had fostered in the French church was still alive. Matthew Lang, bishop of Gurk, Maximilian's ' The Letters of Macchia vein, now Flo- French history. See Terza Legazione, rentine ambassador at the court of France, &c. throw considerable light on this period of Chap. YII.] TREATY OF BLOIS. 277 secretary, who arrived at Tours towards the close of the council, approved of all their resolutions, and promised to send a deputation of German bishops to Lyon, in which city the council was to reassemble by adjournment, March 1st 1511. Lang, however, was not in earnest about a reformation of the Church ; all he wanted was the assistance of the French to recover certain portions of Northern Italy ; and with this view, a fresh treaty was concluded at Blois, between Maximilian and Louis, November 17th 1510, by which the Emperor engaged to enter Italy in the ensuing spring, with an army of 3000 horse and 10,000 foot, while Louis was to assist him with a subsidy of 100,000 ducats, and a force of 1200 lances and 8000 infantry. The failure of the attempts upon Genoa, and of the Swiss invasion, had only served to inflame the ardour of Julius II. ; and being still further irritated by the Council of Tours, he haughtily rejected all the propositions of France for a separate peace, although Louis, still moved apparently by a superstitious compunction, plainly intimated that he would be willing to abandon the Duke of Ferrara. Julius was resolved, with the assistance of the Venetians to reduce the Duke of Ferrara under direct obedience to the Church ; and, with this view, having despatched his army to the banks of the Po, he himself entered Bologna with his court, towards the end of September. Here he fell dangerously ill, and while he lay upon a sick bed, he very narrowly escaped being carried off by the French. Chaumont, at the instigation of the Bentivoglios, who represented to him the weakness of the papal force at Bologna, advanced by a rapid march to within a few miles of that city (Oct. 12), and there was nothing apparently to prevent him from entering .it on the morrow. In this desperate conjuncture, Julius alone preserved his presence of mind. His cardinals and court were in an agony of terror, the people of Bologna declined to take up arms in the Pope's defence, and even the Imperial, Spanish, and English ambassadors pressed him to enter into negociations with Chaumont. Julius outwardly complied, and selected as his negociator Gian Francesco Pico, Count of Mirandola. But the Pope only intended to amuse Chaumont. He knew that the Venetian army was advancing towards Bologna, and that he might hourly expect 300 men-at-arms, whom Ferdinand was bound to fm-nish as feudatory of Naples. To quicken the Venetians, he despatched a message to their camp at Stellata, that if he did not receive reinforcements before the following evening, he should make peace with the French. This had the desired effect. By the evening of October 13th, 600 light horse, and a corps of Turkish T 3 278 THE POPE BESIEGES MIRAXDOLA. [Book I. cavalr}^, in the service of Venice, had entered Bologna, while a body of Stradiots and the expected Spanish contingents were just at hand. Thus was presented the singular spectacle of a Pope defended by a body of Infidels from the arms of the most Christian King ! Julius now changed his tone ; Chaumont, finding himself the weaker party, slowly withdrew his army ; while the vexation of Julius, that his generals had not pursued and destroyed it, occasioned such a paroxysm of his disorder that his life was despaired of. Julius had not yet recovered, when, amidst the snows and ice of a rigorous winter, he resolved on besieging Mirandola in person. This fortress and Concordia formed the principality of the family of the Pichi. Count Luigi Pico of Mirandola had married a daughter of Marshal Trivulzio, who being left a widow, had placed her resi- dence in the hands of the French ; whilst the Count Gian Francesco, who also claimed the inheritance, was entirely devoted to the Pope. The progress of his army was too slow for the impatient Julius. Concordia was not taken till the middle of December ; his troops were four days before Mirandola without firing a shot. The fiery Pope accused his generals, including his own nephew, the Duke of Urbino, either of incapacity or perfidy, and, accompanied by three cardinals, he caused himself to be carried in a litter to the camp of the besieging army ; where he took up his residence in the cottage of a peasant, within range of the enemy's artillery, and employed himself in directing the works, placing his gims in battery, and hastening their fire. Armed with cuirass and helmet, he constantly showed himself on horseback to his troops, animating them with the hopes of plunder, and sharing all the counsels, fatigues, and dangers of the siege.® In one of the excursions which he was ac- customed to make in the neighbourhood, he was near falling into the hands of Bayard, who had laid an ambuscade for him ; and he with difficulty escaped into the castle of San Felice by jumping out of his litter, and helping to raise the drawbridge with his own hand. At length, a practicable breach having been made in the walls of Mirandola, which a hard frost enabled the besiegers to approach by crossing the moat on the ice, the garrison were forced to capitulate, Jan. 20th 1511. There had been some difficulty to dissuade the Pope from sacking the place, which, too impatient to wait till the gates were opened, he entered by a ladder at the breach. After the capture of Mirandola, Julius and the Venetians again directed their w^hole attention towards Ferrara, and they attempted to take » Gruicciardini, lib. ix. (t. v. p. 108 sq., ed. Milan, 1803). Chap. Vn.] CONGRESS AT BOLOGXA. 279 the castle of La Bastia, on the Lower Po, in order to deprive the city of its supply of provisions ; but their army was surprised by Duke Alphonso, according to a plan suggested to him by Ba^^ard, and they suffered such severe loss that they were compelled to abandon the siege of Ferrara. The death of Chaumont d'Amboise, the French commander (Feb. 11th 1511), who was succeeded by Marshal Trivulzio, allowed a short interval of repose, which was employed in negociations. Ee- sentment against the Venetians had induced Maximilian to adhere to the French alliance with a constancy quite foreign to his cha- racter, and he warmly adopted all Louis's projects against the Pope, and for a reform of the Church in head and members. In a circular addressed to the German States he had denounced, in language which might almost have become a future disciple of Luther, the troubles and disorders occasioned by the papal government ; he complained of the enormous sums continually extorted by the See of Rome from Germany, which, instead of being employed in the service of God, were perverted to the purposes of luxury and ambi- tion ; and he concluded by declaring his intention to call a general council, as the only permanent and effectual remedy for these abuses ^ : but a synod of German bishops, w^hom he assembled at Augsburg, proved less compliant than the French prelates, and they firmly resisted the proposal for a general council, as calculated to produce a schism in the Church. This opposition induced the Emperor to listen to the King of Aragon, who persuaded him to secure the conquests he had already made in Italy, and perhaps also his further claims, by a treaty of peace. Maximilian accord- ingly commissioned his secretary, the Bishop of Gurk, to open a congress at Mantua, to which the Pope, the Kings of France and Aragon, and the Venetians w^ere invited to send ambassadors. The Emperor could not have entrusted his affairs to worse hands than those of his secretary, whose pride and arrogance totally disqualified him for a diplomatist. It was with difficulty that the Spanish ambassador could persuade him to pay a visit to Julius, who was now at Ravenna ; a mark of deference and respect which the Pontiff might naturally expect from a bishop sent to negociate with him. Julius himself, however, bent on gaining the imperial plenipoten- tiary, stood not on etiquette, but met the bishop half-way, at Bologna. It was plain from the first that Julius entered into these negociations with no sincere desire of a peace with France, but merely with a view to detach Maximilian from his alliance with that country. Before he left Ferrara he created eight cardinals, ' See Schmidt, Gesch. dcr Deutschen, B. vii. C. 34. T 4 280 THE PAPAL FORCES EVACUATE BOLOGXA. [Book I. including Matthew Sch inner, telling the Sacred College that he reserved a ninth in 'pectore; a bait plainly held out for the Bishop of Gurk. But the haughtiness of that prelate stood in his own way as well as his master's. Having assumed the title of lieutenant of the Emperor, Lang entered Bologna with an almost imperial magnificence : at the Pope's reception he insolently required that the Venetian ambassador, as the enemy of his master, should retire from the audience chamber ; and he afterwards declared in full Consistory that he would treat on no other conditions than the relinquishment by the Venetians of all they had ever usurped from the Austrian domains or the territories of the empire. He refused to transact business with anybody but the Pope himself; and when Julius once deputed three cardinals to confer with him, he appointed three of his gentlemen to meet them. Nothing but hatred of the French could have induced the haughty Pontiff to submit to the insolence of the imperial envoy. With regard to the objects of the congress, nothing could be effected. Louis XIL, though he sent the Bishop of Paris to Bologna as his ambassador, had from the first regarded the assembly as a mere snare ; and the only feeling with which it inspired him was alarm at this symptom of defection in Maximilian. It was soon evident that neither the differences be- tween the Emperor and Venice, nor those between the Pope, the King of France, and the Duke of Ferrara were yet capable of peace- able adjustment ; and after a stormy interview with Julius, the Bishop of Grurk suddenly quitted Bologna, April 25th 151 L Upon the failure of the congress hostilities were resumed. Tri- vulzio, now Viceroy of Milan, had in his army two young captains, who afterwards acquired great renown : Gaston de Foix, Duke of Nemours, nephew to Louis XI 1. by his sister Mary of Orleans ; and George von Frunsberg, a German knight, who had joined the French with 2500 lansquenets. At the first movements of Trivulzio, Julius II. was seized with an unaccountable panic ; a,nd after a formal rhetorical address to the Bolognese senate, in which he recommended them to provide for their own safety, he hastily set off for Ravenna, leaving Francesco Alidosio, Cardinal of Pavia, in command at Bologna, with the title of Legate. But the Car- dinal himself, alarmed at the insubordination displayed by the Bolognese, fled a few days afterwards in alj haste to Imola ; and when his flight was known, the citizens admitted the Bentivo- glios, whom Trivulzio had sent forwards with 100 French lances (May 22nd). The Duke of Urbino, who was encamped with his army under the walls of Bologna, no sooner heard of the Legate's flight, and the insurrection of the citizens, than he also was panic- Chap. VII.] COUXCIL OF PISA. 281 stricken, and though the night was far advanced, gave the signal for retreat, which soon became a disorderly flight. The papal army was set upon both by the citizens and the peasants from the mountains ; while the French gens cV amies joined in the pursuit, and captured without a blow so large a number of beasts of burthen, that they gave this rout the name of the Jonrnee cles dniers, or battle of the ass-drivers. The papal army lost its standard, besides a great many other colours, and twenty-six pieces of cannon. Julius II. was inconsolable for the loss of Bologna, an acqui- sition which he had regarded as the chief glory of his pontificate ; and his regret was still more embittered by the conduct of the inconstant and ungrateful Bolognese, who, though they had flat- tered him during his residence among them, now pulled down and broke in pieces with every mark of contempt his bronze colossal statue, one of the noblest works of Michael Angelo Buonarotti. Both the Duke of Urbino and the Cardinal of Pavia repaired to Eavenna to justify themselves before the. Pope; mutual recrimi- nations ensued between them ; and the Duke, stung with jealousy and anger at the hold which Alidosio still retained on the con- fidence and affection of Julius, openly assassinated him with his own hand in the midst of his guards, as he was on his way to dine at the papal palace. This outrageous act on the part of his nephew wounded the Pope so deeply, that he quitted Ravenna the same day, and returned to Rome overwhelmed with grief. The Duke of Urbino was sentenced to be deprived of all his offices ; but the sentence was never carried into execution ; and in two or three months he received a pardon, and recovered his former influence. Julius' misfortunes at this period were aggravated by the news that in many of the Italian cities proclamations were posted up for the assembly of a general council at Pisa, on September 1st, before which he himself was cited to appear. It had been estab- lished by the Council of Constance, that a general council should be held every ten years, and Julius himself had sworn at his consecration to call one ; but he neglected all the representations which the Emperor and the King of France addressed to him for that purpose, and those sovereigns had therefore resolved to call a council by their own power and authority. In this course they were supported by the adjourned synod of French prelates at Lyon, as well as by five refractory cardinals, who, suspecting that one of their colleagues had been poisoned at Ancona by the Pope's orders, had retired from Rome to Milan, where they put them- selves at the head of the French or opposition party. In truth. 282 COUNCIL OF ST. JOIIX LATERAL. [Book I. however, Julius II. had little to apprehend from this blow, which he parried by a counter one. In July he issued a Bull for the holding of a council at St. John Lateran, April 19th 1512, which assembly, having the sanction of papal authority, would of course be regarded by the orthodox as the only genuine one. Although the victory at Bologna seemed to leave the Pope at the mercy of France, yet Louis XII., instead of following up his advantages, no sooner heard of that affair, than he directed Tri- vulzio to withdraw into the Milanese. He, as well as his consort Anne, who governed him, was seized with remorse at making war upon the Church ; he forbade all public rejoicings for his victory ; he declared his readiness to humiliate himself for the sake of peace, and to ask pardon of the Pope ; and he resolved to limit his attacks upon the Holy Father to the peaceful and legitimate opera,tions of the council. But the demands of Julius rose in proportion to the submission of Louis ; it was soon plain that nothing would satisfy him but the ruin of the Duke of Ferrara, and the expulsion of the French from Italy; with the view of effecting which projects he had entered into negociations with Ferdinand of Aragon, Henry VIII. of England, and the Swiss. But before we relate their result, we must take a brief retrospect of Spanish history. After Ferdinand's resumption of the regency of Castile^^, the do- mestic history of Spain presents but little of importance. Gruided by the counsels of his great minister. Cardinal Ximenes, his civil rule on the whole was moderate and equitable, though chequered with a few severities necessary to subdue the spirit of the haughty grandees of Castile. But the fiery enthusiasm of Ximenes could not submit to complete inactivity. His zeal for the Catholic faith incited him to lay plans for a crusade in Palestine, w^hich however were diverted into a safer channel. Since the conquest of Granada, the Moslems of Africa had infested the coasts of Spain, and in 1509 Ximenes persuaded Ferdinand to nt out an expedition for the con- quest of Oran, the command of which, Gonsalvo of Cordova lying imder the King's displeasure, was given to the celebrated engineer, Count Pedro Navarro. Ximenes himself accompanied the expedi- tion, and his conduct, which literally displayed the church militant, might emulate the deeds of his spiritual father. Pope Julius II. Clad in his ecclesiastical robes, but with sword in hand, he appeared at the head of the army ; before him rode a Franciscan monk, bearing as a standard the massy silver cross of Toledo ; and he was sur- rounded by a troop of other Franciscans girt with scimitars over the frock of their order. Oran A^as taken on the first assault. It >" See above, p. 225. Chap. YII.] KETROSPECT OF SPAXISH HISTORY. 283 was firml}^ believed by the Spaniards, and was attested by four e3'e- witnesses of character and learning, as well as by a host of others, that Joshua's miracle was repeated on this occasion, and the sun arrested four hours in his course for the convenience of the Chris- tians! ^* Yet Navarro, a plain soldier, seems not to have highly valued these supernatural powers, and after the fall of Orcn gave the cardinal a plain intimation that he would do better to confine himself to his own profession and return home. Ximenes was urged in the same direction by a letter of the King's, which accidentally fell into his hands, and which plainly showed that his selfish and ungrateful master was contriving his ruin during his absence. The cardinal found good reason to suspect that Ferdinand meant to deprive him of the archbishopric of Toledo in favour of his own natural son, Alphonso of Aragon *, and therefore, after providing for the wants of the army for several months, he returned in a quiet and unostentatious manner to Spain. Here his energy took another direction. He employed himself in promoting the welfare of the university which he had recently founded at Alcalade Henares, and in superintending the preparation of his famous polyglot Com- plutensian Bible. ^^ The cardinal's literary tastes, however, were quite subordinate to his catholic enthusiasm, and in 1499 he had shown himself a complete Vandal by burning many valuable Ara- bian books. After the departure of Ximenes, Navan-o extended his conquests in Africa. Bugia, Algiers, and several other cities submitted to his arms, the crowning glory of which was the capture of Tripoli, July 26th 1510, after a bloody and obstinate defence. In the following month a terrible defeat in the island of Grelves put a stop to Navarro's progress, who soon after returned to Spain ; but the conquests made on the coast of Africa were held during a long period by the Spanish Crown. Jealousy of the French had now determined the Catholic monarch to take an active part against them, and after the capture of Bologna, Ferdinand despatched Navarro, with a chosen body of Spanish infantry, into North Italy. Yet, had not Ferdinand's character been well known, the nature of his intercourse with the French Court was calculated to disarm all suspicion. The remon- strances which he addressed to Louis XII. respecting his aggressions on the Church were couched in the mildest and most fraternal lan- guage; while, true to his policy of covering every political design with the mantle of religion, he pretended that the preparations which he was making both by sea and land were only designed to " Prescoft, Ferd. and Isabella, vol. iii. " AlcalA is supposed to be the ancient p. 290, note. ' Complutum. 284 . THE HOLY LEAGUE. [Book I. spread the banner of the cross in Africa. But Louis had reason to know his royal brother better. " I," he exclaimed, " am the Saracen against whom these armaments are directed." The suspicions of the French King were well founded. On October 4th 1511, the alliance called the Holy League, was con- cluded by the Pope, King Ferdinand, and the Venetian Eepublic. Its professed object was the protection of the Church, menaced by the council, or rather conciliabulum of Pisa; and Ferdinand talked much of the necessity of saving Eome from the hands of the French, in order to preserve the liberty of Italy, and even of Europe.'-* There were two other parties to this league, who, for the present, remained in the background : the Emperor Maximilian and Henry VIII. of England. Margaret, in her cabinet at Brussels, had long been scheming a reconciliation between her father and Ferdinand, and the union of both with England, in order to over- whelm France; but before the French successes at Bologna, the Catholic King appears to have hung back, owing to the little love he bore to his Flemish grandson and heir, the Archduke Charles. ''^ Bambridge, Cardinal-Archbishop of York, the English ambassador at Rome, had assisted in negociating the league. The vanity of Henry VIII. seems to have been tickled with the idea of becoming the head of that holy confederation, as well as with the promised title of " Most Christian King," of which, in his favour, Louis XII. was to be deprived. Ferdinand soon afterwards dazzled his vain- glorious son-in-law — for Henry had consummated his marriage with Catherine of Spain in the June following his accession — with the prospect of reconquering Gruienne. This enterprise would serve the purposes of the Holy League by creating a diversion of the French arms ; and by a treaty between Ferdinand and Henr}'-, November 17th 1511, it was agreed that the former shovild furnish 9,000 men, the latter 6,500, to carry out the enterprise. The Catholic King's real object in this treaty we shall presently see ; meanwhile, it was kept secret till Henry should have received another instalment of the pension payable by France, under the treaty of Etaples. Maximilian's accession to the league was, as we have said, also kept secret, till his defection from France was declared at an unexpected and fatal moment, on the eve of the battle of Ravenna, in the following year. The army of the Holy " See P Martyr, Opus Epistt. Ep. 466. Geschicht-schrciber. In spite of the careless manner in which ^* See Margaret's letter to Henry VIII. Martyr's -work has been published, its (April 14th 1511), ap. Michelet, Rennis- value as contemporary e\ddence has been sance, p. 164. vindicated by Kanke, Zur Kritik netierer Chap. ^^I.] MAXIMILIA^^ PONTIFEX MAXIMUS. 285 League was to be commanded by Don Raymond de Cardona, Viceroy of Naples, a man of polished and agreeable manners, but of no military experience, whom the rough old Pope nicknamed " Lady Cardona." The Council of Pisa, although summoned for September 1st, did not meet till November 1st. After the publication of the Holy League, the Pope had deprived the refractory cardinals of their dignity, and excommunicated them as schismatics (Oct. 24th) ; and he also laid an interdict on the Florentines, for having permitted the obnoxious council to meet in their town of Pisa. The assembly consisted only of four cardinals, and a few French and Milanese prelates, who were protected by a guard of 150 French archers. The clergy and populace of Pisa received them with marks of the greatest aversion, and after a short residence, the assembled fathers eagerly seized the occasion of a quarrel which arose between some of their domestics and the townspeople, to quit Pisti and adjourn to Milan. But it is hardly necessary to detail the subsequent pro- ceedings of an assembly which was never seriously regarded, even by those who summoned it, and which Louis himself characterised as a comedy. Meanwhile the Emperor Maximilian still adhered, in appearance, to the alliance with France. After the failure of the congress at Bologna, he had leagued himself more closely than ever with Louis, and they had secretly agreed to divide Italy between them, France was to content herself with the Milanese, Mantua, Ferrara, and Florence, whilst the Emperor was to have Venice, with its depend- encies, together with Rome and the Papal States. Maximilian's projects were always on a scale of magnificence which formed an absurd contrast with his means to execute them. He dreamt of nothing less than m.arching to Rome, and restoring to the Grerman empire all the prerogatives formerly exercised by Charlemagne or Otho the Grreat. With restless activity, he showed himself by turns at Innsbriick, at Trent, at Bruneck ; he negotiated alternately with France, the Pope, and the Venetians ; sometimes he seemed to threaten an immediate descent upon Italy, and as suddenly with- drew to attend a hunting-party. The illness of the Pope at the time fixed for the opening of the Council of Pisa had inspired him with a singular idea. He resolved to become a candidate for the tiara; sent 300,000 ducats, which he had raised by pawning to the Fuggers the imperial jewels and mantle, to the Bishop of Gurk, at Rome, to buy the votes of the cardinals ; and, in antici- pation of uniting the empire and pontificate, assumed, like the Roman Emperors, the title of Pontifex Maximus ! Thus, as a modern 286 CAMPAIGN IX ITALY. [Book I. historian has observed, the princes of that period seemed to have exchanged parts. Maximilian wished to be a pope and saint, and Louis XII. was holding a council ; while the Pope himself, aping the name and deeds of the greatest of the Csesars, and covering his white hairs with a helmet, led a body of old priests under the cannon's mouth. '^ In November many thousand Swiss, in the pay of Venice and the Pope, descended from the St. Grothard with the standard under which they had defeated the Duke of Burgundy, and another bearing in large golden letters the boastful inscription, Domatores principum, Amatores justltlce, Befensores sandce Romance Ec- clesku '^ ; and they advanced to the very gates of Milan ; Gaston de Foix, now viceroy of the Milanese, retreating before them by the advice of Trivulzio. The garrison of ^lilan consisted only of about 300 gens cV amies and 2000 foot ; but the Swiss were totally destitute both of the skill and means for attacking towns, and they shortly after withdrew by way of Como, not without suspicion of .having been bribed by the French. The armies of the Pope and of the King of Aragon united at Imola in December. The Papal army ^vas commanded by the Car- dinal John de' Medici, the Duke of Urbino having refused to serve under the Spanish viceroy Cardona, who was generalissimo. Navarro, captain-general of the Spanish infantry, which was at that period chiefly composed of Mussulmans, had been despatched, as we have said, against the possessions of the Duke of Ferrara, and suc- ceeded in reducing all the fortresses south of the Po. The fact that the poet Ariosto was an eyewitness of these obscure combats, which he has illustrated by his verses, lends them an interest they would not otherwise possess.^'^ The most ardent desire of the Pope was to recover Bologna, before which the allied army sat dovm January 26th 1512. The French on their side attached the highest importance to the preservation of that city, both as a military position and a point of honour ; and Louis had declared that he would defend it as if it were Paris itself. He had provided the Duke of Nemours with all the mono}", and reinforced him with all the troops, he could collect, including his own Maison, or house- '* Daru, Hist, de Venise, liv. xxiii. § 7. daughter Margaret, Sept. 18th 1512, in That this scheme was not, as some his- the Lettres du Hoy Louis XII. t. iv, p. 1 ; torians have supposed, a mere joke or and another to his minister Lichtenstein, passing whim on the part of Maximilian, ibid. t. iii. p. 324. appears from the circumstance that we '" " Vanquisliers of princes. Lovers of find Ferdinand of Aragon writing se- justice. Defenders of the Holy Roman riously to him on tlie subject two years Church." afterwards. See Roscoe, Leo X. vol. ii. " See Vita di Ariosto, p. xxii. (Class. p. 234. See also Maximilian's letter to his Hal. t. xl. Milan, 1812). Chap. VII.] EXPLOITS OF GASTOX DE FOIX. 287 hold troops. They could not have been intrusted to more competent hands. In a short career of two months, Graston revealed to France the true secret of its military power, — the capacity of its infantry to perform marches of extraordinary rapidity. ^^ The maxim of Marshal Saxe, that battles are g?ined not with the hands, but with the feet, was never more strikingly illustrated thaa by the operations of this youthful commander. The allies had already made a practicable breach in the walls of Bologna, when the Duke of Nemours hastened to Finale, whence, during a tempestuous night of wind and snow, he succeeded in thro\\ang himself into Bologna, with 1300 lances, and 14,000 infantry, without meeting a single vidette or sentry (February 5th). Don Eaymond de Cardona immediately raised the siege, and retired to Imola. Gaston was deterred from pursuing the enemy by news which arrived from Lombardy. Brescia and Bergamo, revolted at the cruelty and brutality of the French garrisons, had admitted the Venetians with cries of Viva San Marco ! and it was to be feared that this success mis^ht invite a new invasion of the S^^dss. Gaston now made even a more extraordinary march than his former one. Leaving 300 lances and 4000 foot in Bologna, he quitted that city with the rest of his army, February 8th, and appeared before Brescia on the 16th, after attacking with his cavalry and defeating on the way, near I sola della Scala, the Venetian division under Baglione. This immxcnse distance, therefore, was accomplished in eight days, in spite of broken roads and overflowed rivers. On the day of the affair with Baglione, who had no notion that the enemy was near, Gaston's cavalry is said by an eyemtness^^ to have marched fifty miles without drawing bridle. The battle was fought at four o'clock in the morning, by the light of the stars and the snow. Brescia was taken by assault, to which Gaston mounted with bare feet, on account of the slippery nature of the soil. It was here that Baj^ard received a wound, which was at first thought mortal.^^ The inhabitants made an obstinate defence, for which they suffered by a general massacre, and a sack accom- panied with the most horrible outrages, which lasted a i week. Brescia was the richest city of Lombardy after Milan. The '8 See Michelet, Renaissance, p. 167. the good knight, "-without fear and with- *^ The Anonimo Padovano, ap. Mura- out reproach," in the house of a Broscian tori, Anna!, t. x. p. 69. The first four lady, is one of the most interesting and days' marches were Cento — Bondeno — • cliaracteristie episodes in his life. See Ostia — Nogara, whence the cavalry were Hist, du Chcv. Bayard, c. 50, 51. Tar- despatched to attack the Spaniards, near taglia, the restorer of the mathematics, Isola della Scala. ' was nearly killed at this siege. Daru, 2" The story of the conyalescence of Hist, dc Vcnise, liv. xxiii. § 15. 2b8 DECISIVE RESOLUTIOX OF LOUIS XII. [Book I. plunder was estimated at three million crowns ; but this sack con- tributed much to ruin the French army, as a great part of the soldiers returned home to enjoy their booty. Bergamo submitted, and escaped with a fine of 20,000 ducats. This campaign of a fortnight, in which Bologna had been rescued, the Venetians defeated, and Brescia and Bergamo re- covered, is perhaps one of the most extraordinary on record, and spread the fame of the Duke of Nemours over all Europe. But, in spite of this brilliant success, the French cause in Italy seemed anything but promising. The Spanish army was untouched ; the Swiss turned a deaf ear to the tardy and repentant overtures of Louis : the Kingf of Enofland had thro^vn off the mask and declared war; while Maximilian was evidently preparing to join the enemy. Louis began to perceive the machinations of Margaret, and felt the necessity for striking a speedy and decisive blow. He seemed suddenly to have emancipated himself from his own bigotry and the influence of his consort ; the Pope was attacked by pamphleteers and openly ridiculed on the Pa,ris stage by the Enfans sans souci ; nay, a medal was even struck with the legend Perdam Babylonis Nomen, a name for the holy see which has hardly been surpassed in the vocabulary of subsequent reformers. Gaston was instructed to deliver a decisive battle, after which he was to march to Eome, dictate a peace, and depose the Pope. These proceedings were to be authorized by a Legate despached from the Council of Pisa at Milan, who was to accompany the army. Instructions of this nature exactly suited the taste of the young hero to whom they were addressed. Towards the end of March Gaston set out with his army for Finale, in the Modenese, having been joined by the Duke of Ferrara with his troops, and especially with that celebrated artillery, the best in Europe, to which Alphonso devoted so much attention.^^ Gaston directed his march on Ea- venna, and Don Kaymond de Cardona, whose army was inferior in force, retired before him, manoeuvring in order to avoid a battle. At length Gaston found himself shut in between Eavenna and the camp of the allies, which was on the banks of the Eonco, about three miles from the city ; provisions and forage began to fail, and to add to his embarrassment, a message arrived at this decisive moment that Maximilian had concluded a ten months' truce with the Venetians, and had recalled, on pain of death to their leaders, the German lansquenets serving in Gaston's army, in number about 5000 men. Jacob Empser, one of their commanders, to 2' Ariosto did not partake his patron's tion of fire-arms, so destructive to his be- taste in this matter, and curses the inven- loved chivalry. See Orl. Fur. e. xi. st. 26. Chap. YIL] BATTLE OF EAYEXXA.. 289 whom the letter was delivered, being a great friend of Bayard's and a devoted servant of Louis, engaged indeed to keep the order secret ; but, as fresh commands of the same tenour might speedily arrive, it became necessary to act with promptness and decision. On April 9th a terrible assault was delivered on Ravenna, which failed from the breach not being sufficiently practicable. Graston now deter- mined to storm the enemy's position on the Eonco, and on the 1 1th orders were given to cross that river. Graston had put on a rich and heavy armour, with embroideries bearing the arms of Navarre, to which kingdom he pretended ; he regarded the Spaniards as personal enemies who kept bim out of that inheritance, and he had left his right arm bare to the elbow in the hope of bathing it in their blood. The battle began by a dreadful cannonade of three hours. The French army was drawn up in the form of a crescenj:, and Alphonso's artillery being stationed at the extremity of the left wdng, kept up a tremendous cross-fire, which carried off whole ranks of the enemy. At length, however, both armies became tired of this distant butchery ; the signal was given to charge ; Gaston himself led the French men-at-arms, and ran his lance through an Italian ca- valier; and after a short but terrible encounter the Spanish and Papal cavalry were overthrown. Cardona and Carvajal, who commanded the rear guard, retired too early for their honour, and were escorted from the field by Antonio de Leyva, then a young sulDaltern, who afterwards acquired so much renown in the wars of Italy. Fabrizio Colonna, already a distinguished Italian general, the young Marquis of Pescara, a Neapolitan, whose fame was yet to be achieved, and the Cardinal John de' Medici, were taken prisoners ; and the latter, who had retained his sacerdotal habit in the midst of the fray, was con- ducted before the Cardinal of San Severino, the legate of the conci- liabulum of Pisa. The struggle, which was not so soon decided between the infantry, served to display the relative merits of the Spanish foot and the Grerman lansquenets. The latter, like the Grecian phalanx, were armed with spears of an enormous length, and foucrht in close column ; the former, furnished like the Roman legionaries with a short sword and buckler, again established the superiority of that weapon. The Spaniards, protected by their defensive armour, insinuated themselves between the ranks of the Germans, whose un\vieldy lances became useless at close quarters, and they would have been cut to pieces had they not been rescued by the French cavalry.^^ The Spanish infantry was broken, and ^ The comparative value of these Principe, cap. ult. The great defect of troops has been estimated by Macchia- the Spanisii infantry was, that it could velli, Arte ddla Gucrra, lib. ii. Cf II not resist cavalry. Besides the ordinary VOL. I. U 290 DEATH OF GASTON DE FOIX. [Eook. I. Pedro Navarro made prisoner ; but a considerable body of them was retiring in good order, when Gaston, irritated at the carnage which they had made, and forgetting his duty as general, charged them at the head of a few gens cVaiifiies, and he was struck from his horse by a Spanish soldier. In vain his cousin Lautrec exclaimed, " Spare his life ! it is our viceroy, the brother of your queen ; " Gaston fell, pierced with twenty wounds, and Lautrec shared the same fate. Thus died Gaston de Foix, Duke of Nemours, at the early age of twenty-three, who in the course of a few months had achieved the most brilliant military reputation, and acquired the surname of the " Thunderbolt of Italy." His victory was indeed complete, but it was counterbalanced by his death. " Would to God," ex- claimed the weeping Louis, "that I had lost all Italy, and that Gaston and those who fell with him were safe ! " The consterna- tion of the allies amounted almost to a panic. Eavenna was taken the next day while treating for a capitulation, and was sacked with the greatest brutality^^ ; Imola, Forli, Eimini, all Eomagna, has- tened to submit to La Palisse, who now assumed the command, and to the Cardinal of San Severino, who received the keys of the sur- rendered towns in the name of the Council of Pisa ; terror reigned at Eome, and even the stout heart of Julius himself was so shaken that he at first agreed to receive the conditions of peace proposed by Louis XII. before the battle. Ferdinand displayed the extent of his consternation by ordering Gonsalvo de Cordova to prepare for a campaign in Italy. But, in fact, the victory of Eavenna proved fatal to the French themselves. The soldiers were dis- heartened by the loss of Gaston ; the officers were divided ; San Severino disputed the command with La Palisse ; the Duke of Ferrara, who had refused it, returned home, released his prisoner, Fabrizzio Colonna, and endeavoured to make his peace with the Pope ; Maximilian mthdrew his lansquenets, and the Swiss were preparing for a fresh descent into Lombardy. Under these cir- cumstances. La Palisse was obliged to retire into the Milanese, and Julius II. regained his wonted courage. On May 3rd, three weeks after the battle, he opened the Council of the Lateran, which, at the first session, was attended by eighty-foirr prelates from Italy, historians, the battle of Ravenna has been Citta di Castello, having recoyered Ra- described by Zwinglius, the celebrated venna by capitulation after the retreat of Swiss reformer, in a letter to Vadeus of La Palisse, broke his word, and aban- St. Gallon (Freher, Germ. Rer. SS. t. iii. doned the four chief officers of the gar- No, 8). rison to the populace, who buried them 2^ It should be remembered, however, alive before his eyes ! Sismondi, Elp. It. that at this period all sides were nearly t. xiv. p. 239. equally brutal. Julio Yitelli, bishop of Oh.ai-. VII.] rapacity OF JULIUS II. 291 Spain, England, and Hungary. The Cardinal of York, as well as an Aragonese cardinal, dissuaded him from accepting the proposals of France, and Julius readily yielded to counsels which he had himself suggested. The towns evacuated by the French were immediately occupied by Papal troops, and Bologna itself, the object of so much anxiety, was again wrested from the Bentivogli. Meanwhile Cardinal Schinner had agreed with the Em^peror and the Pope to restore Maximilian Sforza, eldest son of Louis the Moor, to the ducal throne of Milan.^^ Instructed by their previous miscarriages, the Swiss now resolved to supply themselves with cavalry and artillery from the Venetians, and with this view they pressed to the eastward through Coire and Chiavenna, as well as through Trent, into the territory of Verona. La Palisse was com- pelled to retire before them as far as Pavia, and jNIaximilian Sforza was everywhere proclaimed with enthusiasm. ^^ The Cardinal John de' Medici profited by the confusion of this retreat to make his escape ; the fathers composing the Council of Pisa fled from Milan at the approach of the Swiss ; and the Italians signalised their hatred of the French by massacring all they could lay hands on. The Swiss and Venetians soon appeared before Pavia, and, after a bloody engagement. La Palisse was forced to evacuate that place and retreat into France. At the end of June, less than three months after the victory of Ravenna, Louis XII. possessed in Lombardy little more than Brescia, Peschiera, and Crema, and the citadels of Milan, Cremona, and Novara. But the success of the Holy League produced in it those dissensions which invariably attend such confederations. The grasping Julius, on pretence that Parma and Piacenza had at one period formed part of the Exarchate of Ravenna, proceeded to occupy those cities, in violation of the claims of the new Duke of Milan, as well as those of the Emperor, to the whole of Lombardy. The Pope, at the intercession of Fabricius Colonna and his powerful family, and of the Catholic King, consented to pardon the Duke of Ferrara, after he had submitted to a suitable humiliation; and six cardinals were appointed to arrange with him the terms of his pacification. But what was the surprise of Alphonso a few days after, to hear that the Pope was resolved to claim the whole Ferrarese for the Holy See ; that he must content himself with the County of Asti in exchange; and that the Duke of Urbino had actually occupied some of his towns ! Julius was prepared to extort his demands by keeping Alphonso a prisoner at Rome ; and Fabricius and M. A. Colonna ^* Muratori, Ann. t. x. p. 76. " He was actually restored Dec. 15, u 2 292 AFFAIRS OF FLOREXCE. [Book L were obliged to secure his return to his dominions by forcing the Papal guard at the gate of S. Giovanni. Maximilian, as grasping, and still more capricious than Julius, although now confederated with the Venetians, would not relinquish his pretensions to their continental territories. Raymond de Cardona was immediately to lead his army into Lombardy, in order that he might have more influence on the distribution of the territories occupied by the Holy League, as well as to feed his army at the expense of that country, which Ferdinand assigned to them in place of pay. The Swiss, after restoring the Duke of Milan, continued to levy contributions on his subjects, and, on their return, permanently occupied the Valteline, Locarno, and Chiavenna; while the Venetians were making some fruitless attempts on Brescia and Crema, without the participa- tion of their allies. All parties complained of one another ; on one point only were they agreed — the necessity of punishing Florence, although the only crime that could be alleged against that state was a too timid and vacillating policy. A republic had continued to exist at Florence, since the death of Savonarola; and Soderini, who had been one of the chief sup- porters of that reformer, enjoyed the supreme direction of its affixirs, having been elected Gonfalonier for life. Although during the Holy League Soderini observed a strict neutrality-, Julius could not pardon his partiality for France, and still less his having given a safe conduct to the five refractory cardinals who had lent their names and authority to the Council of Pisa. The Pope had even incited a Florentine citizen, Prinzivalle della Stufa, to assassinate Soderini, but the conspiracy was discovered and frustrated.'^ After the triumph of the Holy League, the ruin of Florence was resolved on by the resentment of Juliu^ the intrigues of the Medici, and the cupidity of the generals of the allies. A congress had been opened at Mantua, for the purpose of arranging a general pacification, to which John Victor Soderini, a jurisconsult, and brother of the gonfalonier, was despatched to watch over the interests of Florence-, and procure her admission into the treaty. There was nothing that the Holy League was more in want of than money. The Bishop of Gurk offered the Florentines the imperial protection in consideration of a sum of 40,000 florins. Soderini hesitated, and the republic was lost. Julian de' Medici, third son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, who had also appeared at the congress, hinted that, if the armies of the League were in want of money, they could more readily procure it from the Medici than from the popular party at Florence. The argument was ^ Sismondi, Bep. ltd. t. xiv. p. 128 sq. Chap. VII.] EESTORATIOX OF THE MEDICI. 293 irresistible. The congress ordered Don Eaymond de Cardona, with the Spanish army, accompanied by the Cardinal .Tohn de' Medici, to march upon Florence and change the government. The Spaniards, crossing the Apennines, approached Florence by Barberino and Prato. The latter place was taken by assault, August 30th, when a general massacre and pillage ensued, accom- panied with atrocities which surpassed even those committed at Brescia and Ravenna. Meanwhile the Florentines were deliberating on the proposition of Cardona, who had demanded the banishment of the Gronfalonier Soderini, and the restoration of the Medici, not, however, as princes, but simply as private citizens. The Grrand Council consented to the latter demand, on condition that the Gronfalonier should remain at the head of the republic, and that no changes should be made in their laws and government. But after the caDture of Prato Cardona raised his terms, and demanded in addition a large sum of money. The barbarities perpetrated at Prato had filled the Florentines with consternation : the Gonfalonier himself could not conceal his terror, and offered to abdicate. In this conjuncture, the revolution which restored the Medici was accomplished by a literary society of some thirty young men, who were accustomed to assemble in the gardens of Bernardo Euccellai, and who had previously been in secret corre- spondence with Julian de' Medici. On the morning of the 3 1st of August the conspirators proceeded to the Public Palace, seized the Gronfalonier Soderini, carried him off to the house of Paul Vettori, on the Quay of the Arno, and having assembled the go- vernment, compelled them to depose Soderini. Ambassadors were then despatched to Cardona, to accept the terms already named ; the money payment being fixed at 80,000 florins for the Spanish army, 40,000 for the Emperor, and 20,000 for Cardona himself. Cardinal John de' Medici, although the eldest surviving son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, did not desire for himself the headship of the Florentine state ; his views were directed to the Papacy, which he obtained in the following year. But in spite of the terms of the capitulation, he wished to procure for his brother Julian the supreme power at Florence. Julian entered the city before his condemnation had been reversed (September 2nd) ; and the measures which he first concerted with the Albizzi, now his own partizans, were of a sufficiently mild and liberal character. But on the I4th the Cardinal, who had hitherto remained at Prato, entered Florence with a large military escort, and took possession of the palace of the Medici. On the next day he proceeded to the Public Palace; and, having intimidated the u 3 294 FERDIXAND'S DESIGNS OX XAVAREE. [Book I. government, and summoned what was called a parliament, or assembly of the people, which was composed in reality of his own creatures and soldiers, he established, in place of the former con- stitutional government, a narrow oligarchy, which subsisted till the expulsion of the Medici in 1527. It was soon discovered that Julian had not energy enough to curb the turbulent democracy of Florence ; and after the elevation of Cardinal John de' Medici to the papal throne, he resigned his authority to his nephew Lorenzo, took up his residence at Rome, and was appointed Captain- Greneral of the Church. Under Lorenzo the Florentine government became a perfect despotism.^^ On the other hand, Genoa recovered her liberty, if the various phases of sedition and anarchy which characterized that republic deserve the sacred name. The exile Giano Fregoso, being sent thither by the allies, raised an insurrection, drove out the French, and was elected doge (June 29th). Laden with the booty of Tuscany, Cardona directed his march into Lombardy, where he took possession of several towns and fortresses. A secret jealousy reigned among all the members of the League. The Pope, to strengthen himself with the Emperor, gave a cardinal's hat to his secretary, the Bishop of Gurk ; and he offered the Venetians to mediate a peace for them with Maximilian ; but as they were informed of his secret league with the Emperor, they began to think of an alliance with Louis XII. Both Ferdinand of Aragon and his son-in-law Henry VIII. were very dissatisfied with the Pope's alliance with Maximilian. Fer- dinand's attention, however, was at this moment engrossed with his domestic policy, and he was endeavouring to add the kingdom of Navarre to his dominions. After Eleanor's brief reign, to which we have already adverted, the blood-stained sceptre of Navarre passed to her grandson Phoebus, 1479, who, however, lived only four years, and was succeeded by his sister Catherine. Ferdinand and Isabella endeavoured to effect a marriaG:e between Catherine and their own heir ; but this scheme was frustrated by Magdalen, the queen- mother, a sister of Louis XI. of France, who brought about a match between her daughter and John d'Albret, a French noble- man who had large possessions on the borders of Navarre (1485). Nevertheless the Kings of Spain supported Catherine and her husband against her uncle John de Foix, viscount of Narbonne, who pretended to the Navarese crown on the gi'ound that it was limited to male heirs ; and after the death of John, the alliance with Spain was drawn still closer by the avowed purpose of *' "Horanon si serva piii ordine ; quel di S. Marin Zorzi, ap. Eanke, Popes, rol. ch' el Tol (Lorenzin) ^ fatto." — Relazione iii. App. p. 259. (Mrs. Austin's transL) Chap. VH.] HE PROCURES A:^ EXGLISH ARMY. 295 Louis XII. to support his nephew, Graston de Foix, in the claims of his father. After the fall of that young hero at Ravenna, his pretensions to the throne of Navarre devolved to his sister, Grermaine de Foix, the second wife of King Ferdinand, an event which entirely altered the relations between the courts of Spain and Navarre.^^ Ferdinand had now an interest in supporting the claims of the house of Foix-Narbonne ; and Catherine, who dis- trusted him, despatched in May 1512, plenipotentiaries to the French court to negotiate a treaty of alliance. John d' Albret, Catherine's husband, was a careless, easy prince, who hated show and ceremony ; he heard every day two or three masses, dined with any body who would invite him, attended every village festival, and danced in public with the wives and daughters of his peasantr}^ and citizens. In vain Louis XII. advised him to be on his guard against Ferdinand ; John continued his easy course of life, while the storm preparing for him was ready to burst over his head. We have already adverted to the alliance between Ferdinand of Aragon and his son-in-law, Henry VIII., for the avowed purpose of invading Gruienne.^^ Henry communicated that project to his parliament in February, 1512 ; and he represented that his views in creating this diversion were also to oblige Louis to dissolve the council of Pisa, and to restore Bologna to the Holy See ; and the English parliament is said to have been seduced by a timely present from the Pope. A vessel laden with Greek wines and southern fruits displayed, for the first time, the pontifical standard in the Thames, and the English senators, corrupted by the distribution of these delicacies, are represented as voting, in consequence, liberal supplies for an object so foreign to their interests ! We may with more probability ascribe these grants to the favour which a war mth France still found in the minds of the English people. But from this purpose the English forces were diverted by the duplicity of the wily Ferdinand. Having sent his own vessels to convey the English army, near 10,000 strong, for a pretended expedition against Bayonne, Ferdinand caused it to be landed at Passages, in Gruipuscoa, June 8th; and he then represented to the Marquis of Dorset, the English commander, that it would first of all be necessary to occupy the kingdom of Navarre, as the inclinations of its sovereigns could not be trusted. King John, indeed, soon afterwards concluded, at Blois (July 17th), a treaty with Louis XII., one stipulation of which was that neither nation should allow the enemies of the other to pass through its dominions; 28 See Martin, Hist, de France, t. vii. OTcrlooked by Prescott. p. 411. This cii'cumstauce is totally ^ Above p. 284. U 4 296 FEEDIXAND ANNEXES NAVAREE. [Book I. and the King of Navarre further pledged himself to declare war against the English assembled at Guipuscoa. Dorset was not slow to perceive the real drift of Ferdinand's policy, the nature of his relations with Navarre, and the reasons why he had carried the English to Spain, and dissuaded them from making a direct attack upon France ; and he consequently declined to exceed his instruc- tions by entering upon a war with the Navarrese. The mere presence of the English army, however, assisted the designs of the Catholic King, by overawing his opponents. Ferdinand, who was aided by the Navarrese faction of the Beaumonts, to which his general, the Duke of Alva ^^ belonged, ordered his army to invade Navarre. The pretexts which he alleged for this act were that the Navarrese sovereigns had refused his demands that they should accede to the Holy League, grant him a free passage through their dominions, and guarantee their neutrality by deliveriug to him six of their principal fortresses. Another ground adduced breathed all the hypocrisy of Ferdinand. In joining Louis the Navarrese sovereigns had recognised the council of Pisa, and were therefore comprised in the excommunication fulminated against its adherents, which involved the deprivation of their dominions ! In fact, Fer- dinand, in letters written during this period, attributes his unjust and ambitious aggression to a desire of extirpating "the accursed schism," and saw in the rapid success which attended his arms, the miraculous interposition of Providence.^^ King John retired before the Spauiards to Lumbier, and, after in vain invoking the assistance of the French, took refuge with his family in France ; while Alva, who found but small resistance, subdued nearly the whole of Upper Navarre in less than a fortnight. He even penetrated into Lower Navarre, but, not meeting with the support which he expected from the English, was obliged to retire before the Duke of Longueville and the French troops, the veterans of Italy, under La Palisse. Alva threw himself into Pampeluna, which he succeeded in defending. The Marquis of Dorset, who loudly complained, and not without reason, that his master had been duped, re-embarked his forces in October, and returned to England without having had an opportunity to strike a single blow against the French. Ferdinand affected to assume that he was the injured party in this transaction, " which," he observes in one of his letters, " touches me most deeply, for the stain it leaves upon the honour of the most serene King, my son- in-law, and the glory of the English nation, so distinguished in times past for high and chivalrous enterprise." ^^ The policy of the ^ Grandfather of the Duke of Alva no- "2 Prescott, ibid. p. 337, who, from his torious for his cruelties in the Netherlands. way of relating the story, seems to paj- »• Prescott, vol. iii. p. 334. take the opinion of his hero Ferdinand. Chap. YII.] DEATH OF JULIUS 11. 297 Catholic King was, however, crowned with substantial success, as we shall here relate by anticipation. In the following year, he effected at Orthes a year's truce with Louis XII. (April 1st 1513), by which Louis sacrificed his ally, the King of Navarre, and afterwards, by renewing the truce, allowed Ferdinand permanently to settle himself in his new conquest. The States of Xavarre had previously taken the oath of allegiance to Ferdinand as their King, and on the 15th of June 1515, Navarre was incorporated into the kingdom of Castile by the solemn act of the Cortes. The domi- nions of John d'Albret and Catherine were now reduced to the little territory of Beam, but they still retained the title of sovereigns of Navarre. Pope Julius II. had expired before Ferdinand consummated his treacherytowards the Holy League by the truce of Orthes. Julius was still occupied with his favourite scheme of expelling the " bar- barians" from Italy, as well as with his plans for extending the domains of the Church, when he was attacked by a slow fever and dysentery, which after a few days proved fatal (Feb. 21st, 1513). He was a Pontiff, observes Guicciardini, worthy of imperishable glory had he worn any other crown than the tiara : and certainly the idea of making the papacy the instrument of Italian liberation was a grand one, however incompatible with the proper vocation of the Holy See. We now' see the same instrument employed by a feebler Pontiff to obstruct the consummation of Italian freedom. Julius must be regarded as the founder of the States of the Church, which for the most part had been acquired by Caesar Borgia to gratify his own selfish ambition. Macchiavelli has observed that, before the time of Julius, the most insignificant baron despised the Papal power, of which subsequently even the King of France stood in awe. Julius II. was economical, and even miserly, in his way of life, confining the expenses of his household to 1500 ducats a month^^, so that, in spite of his constant wars, he left a considerable sum in his treasury. Yet, as a ruler, all his ideas were on a gigantic scale. It was he that resumed the building of St. Peters, in which, and other architectural designs, he found in Michael Angelo Buonarotti a genius of kindred vastness to assist him. One of the last acts of Julius II. was to deprive Louis XII. of the title of " Very Christian," and to transfer it to Henry VIII. by a decree of the Lateran Council; and at the same time he issued a Bull laying the kingdom of France, with the exception of Bretagne, under an Interdict.^'* ^3 i?e^a^zowe di Domenego Tm-ixian, ap. ^^ Eaynaldiis, Ami. EccL 1512, t. xi. Kanke, Popes, toI. iii. App. p. 257. p. 638. Cf. Guicciardini, lib. xi. TABLE OF CONTEMPOEAEY SOVEREIGNS. FROM 1513 TO 1545. {The Years show the end of their Reigns.) GERMANY. SPAIN. FRANCE. ENGLAND. POPES. Maximilian I. . 1519 Charles V. . . — Aragon. Ferdinand . . 1516 Charles I.* . . — Castile. Joanna > Charles 1.3 * ~ *( The Emperor Charles V.) Louis XII. . , 1515 Francis I. . • — Henry VIII. . — Leo X. . . . 1522 Adrian VL . . 1523 Clement VI!. . 1534 Paul 111. . . . — TURKEY. PORTUGAL. POLAND. SCOTLAND. DENMARK. Selim I. . . . 1520 Soliman I. . . — Emmanuel the Great . . . 1521 John III. . . — Sigismund I. . — James V, . . 1542 Mary .... — Christian II. . 1522 Frederick I. . 1534 Christian III. . — 299 BOOK 11. FROM THE ELECTION OF LEO X. IN 1513, TO THE COUNCIL OF TRENT IN 1545. CHAPTEE I. Although it is impossible to define with precision the limits oi" those revolutions which depend on a gradual change in the opinions and habits of mankind, yet the period comprised in the preceding book may be characterised with sufficient accuracy as an era of transition, in which were prepared or perfected those three great changes which have distinguished the social and political life of Modern Europe from that of the Middle Ages : the extinction, namely, of feudalism ; the alteration in the commercial system of Europe, consequent on the maritime discoveries of the Spaniards and Portuguese ; and the reformation of the Church. I. We will first consider the destruction of the feudal system, and the changes in war and politics which it occasioned. At the period at which the present book opens, the power of the great European vassals had been shaken but not annihilated. In France, feudalism had received a severe blow at the hands of Louis XI. ; yet it still in some degree survived ; it threatened to rise again during the civil wars of France, and was not completely extinguished till the time of Kichelieu; So also in Spain, though much abated, it remained to be put down by the policy of the Emperor Charles Y. and his successor Philip II. In England, the great vassals of the Crown had never been so powerful as on the continent ; and hence, in the time of John, they had been obliged to league themselves with the people in defence of their common rights. The great Earl of Warwick, in the reign of Edward IV., and perhaps we may add the Duke of Buckingham in that of Eichard III., are among the last remarkable instances of formid- 300 POWER OF THE ROYAL HOUSES. [Book II. able power in the nobles. The greater part of them perished in the wars of the Roses, and Henry VII.'s act against retainers (1509) severely shook their little remaining influence. The great vassals of France and Spain had however been sufficieDtly reduced to allow either monarch to wield the centralised force of his king- dom in those foreign wars which arose from liis policy or ambition. The destruction of feudalism was a monarchical, not a popular, revolution, and hence European politics became in a great degree centered in the interests of families and dynasties. Even in England, Avhere the people had a larger share of power than in any continental state, the Tudor dynasty was the strongest and most absolute that ever sat upon the throne. Thus the destinies of Europe depended on court intrigues, and were settled in royal palaces and the cabinets of princes. All the foreign wars which we have described in the preceding book, and all that we shall have to narrate in the present one, were waged for no national cause, but merely for the interest of a dynasty : " Quicquid delirant reges plectuntur Acliivi." Rabelais, the great humourist of the sixteenth century, was struck by this all-absorbing power of the royal houses, which he has amusingly depicted in the descriptions of his giant kings, Pantagruel, Grand Gousier, and Gargantua.^ In Germany, however, little or no progress had been made in the centralisation of the governing power. The federal government of that country was indeed rather better calculated to produce national strength than that of a king surrounded with great and almost independent vassals, as was the case in France in the earlier ages ; yet, in that respect, it cannot be compared with France when united under one almost absolute head. In the times, however, of which we shall have to treat in the following pages, this defect was in some degree compensated by the enormous power of the House of Austria, now virtually become the hereditary Emperors of Germany. But, besides its government, Germany presents the most striking image of feudalism in the domestic lives of its nobility. We have already adverted to this subject, and shall here only briefly recur to it.^ If the spirit of chivalry, and what has been called knight- errantry, on which Mr. Hallam has passed so glowing a panegyric ^, be not mere chimeras and creations of the brain, in no country might we expect to find them so favourably developed as in * Michelet, Renaissance^ p. 211. « introd. p. 24. ^ Middle Ages, ch. ix. pt. ii. Chap. I.] LAWLESSXESS OF THE GEEMAX KXIGHTS. 301 Grermany. For an individual to become a redresser of wrongs and champion of the oppressed, it is necessary that he should have a power above the law, — in short, that he should take the law into his own hands ; and the Grerman knights possessed this power in a far higher degree and for a longer period than any of their European brethren. Their impregnable castles, the nature of their arms and equipments, the number of their retainers, made them so many little sovereigns with no law but that in their own breasts. And how did they use this power ? As the perpetrators, instead of the redressers, of wrongs and grievances. They were nothing but public robbers — highwaymen on a grand scale, ready for any deed of violence. To illustrate this subject by a few instances. In May 1512, Gotz von Berlichingen and Hans Selbig von Frau en- stein, two of the most renowned of Grerman knights^ at the head of 130 horse, attacked, between Forcheim and Neusess, the caravan which was returning to Nuremberg from the Leipsic fair, and carried off thirty-one persons and a booty valued at 8800 gulden. About the same time another troop assembled in the castle of Hohenkrahn for the abduction of the daughter of a citizen of Kaufbeuern, whom a nobleman had wooed in vain. Such deeds were common. Franz von Sickingen, another renowned knight, whose power procured him great influence in Grermany, and even commanded the respect of the Emperor, was no better than the rest. A feud with Worms, — for he was strong enough to defy whole cities, — afforded him a pretext for robbery ; all traders were with him men of Worms, and he plundered them without mere}'. One of his methods was to buy suits from lawyerSj which afforded him an opportunity for violence under pretence of justice. Yet Sickingen, though independent and almost savage, was not illi- terate or barbarous ; on the contrary, his castle of Ebernburg near Kreutznachj, was the refuge of the men of letters and bold and original thinkers of the age. The deeds just related were daring and on a large scale, and have something of a wild magnificence about them ; but no booty, however small, was disdained by these noble robbers, and even poor scholars became sometimes the objects of their plunder."* Mr. Hallam allows that the feudal knight was dissolute; we have seen that he had little respect for the rights of property and the precepts of morality and justice : whether these defects were compensated by his fantastic and bloody code of honour may well admit of question ; or whether the three virtues which that * On the German Knights and tlioir doings see Miinch's Sickingen ; Pistorius, Gbtze7is V. Berlichingen ritterliche Thaten. 302 CHANGES IX THE AKT OF WAR. [Book IT. writer peculiarly assigns to him, of loyalty, courtesy and munifi- cence^, are not shared by every high-bred man of whatever age or nation. In fact, in discussing this subject, as appears from Mr. Hallam's dissertation, we have commonly before us rather an ideal standard of romance than the sober facts qf history. Perhaps the man who nearest approached that standard was the Frenchman Bayard, the good knight sans peur et sans reproche. But in Bayard's days the power and privileges of the knight were sadly curtailed in France. With all his valour and generosity Bayard is civilised and regular in his conduct, subject to military discipline, and enlisted in the regular forces. t Among the chief agents in the destruction of feudalism was the invention of gunpowder and consequent change in the art of war. Neither the armour of the knights nor the thick walls of their castles were proof against bullets and cannon balls. The Nurem- bergers, in order to punish the attack before related of Grotz and Selbig on their commerce, contributed 600 infantry and some cannon to the forces of the Suabian League, while the Emperor sent from Austria two of his best guns, the Weckavf and the Burlehaus. Frauenstein, the castle of Selbig, was attacked and taken, and the stolen goods recovered, and soon afterwards the castle of Hohenkrahn was invested. The effects of these terrible guns are celebrated in an old song, which describes the hill as trembling at their fire : the cliffs were rent asunder, the walls split in twain ; the knights fled, their followers surrendered, and the castle was rased to its foundations.^ The invention, or rather the practical use, of gunpowder, the extinction of feudalism, and consequent centralisation of monarchi- cal power, produced the modern system of warfare, which has enabled nations to carry on more distant and more lengthened wars. The principal features in this change are, the development of infantry forces and the institution of standing armies. Although it is universally allowed that gunpowder was invented by our great countryman Eoger Bacon in the thirteenth century, it was long before the invention was applied to the art of war. This application has been claimed for Barthold Schwartz, a German apothecary, about 1330; but gunpowder appears to have been used in war by the Moors before that period, who are said to have employed it to discharge balls and stones in their battles with the Spaniards about the year 1312.7 The Moorish King of ^ Middle Ages, toI. iii. p. 400 (ed. Fugger ap. Ranke, Deutsche Gesch. B. i. 18oo). S. 208. ^ Anonymi Carmen de Obsidione et '' Caf^iri, Bihliotheca Arabico-Hispanica, Expugriatione Arcis Hohenkraycn, 1512; ap. Koch, Bivol de U Europe, t. i. p. 243. Chap. I.] INTRODUCTIOX OF ARTILLEEY. 303 Granada had cannon that discharged iron balls in 1331.^ About the same period cannon seem to have been in nse in Ital}", as Petrarch in his dialogue De remedio lUrmsque fortunce, written before 1344, execrates the employment of them, and speaks of it as common. The use of guns by the English is mentioned before this period. The Scotch poet. Barber, in his Life of King Robert^, speaks of the English guns, which he calls cracks of war, in a skirmish on. the banks of the Were in 1327. In 1339, the Scots battered the walls of Stirling Castle with cannon. ^° At the battle of Crecy, the use of artillery by the English is attested b}^ Giovanni Villani ^^ who mentions that their bombarde discharged little balls of iron and were chiefly intended to frighten the horses of the enemy, though they seem to have caused considerable dectruction ; and as Villani died within two years after that battle, he cannot have committed an anachronism in the matter. Without pursuing the subject further, it may suffice to state that in the course of the fourteenth century artillery had come into pretty general use. It was long before the art of sieges was understood and cannon were first employed against the enemy's line of battle. At first however they were deemed of little account. As it required much time to load them, they could be fired only a few times ; the art of pointing them was not understood; the carriages were not easily moved ; and thus the guns, when once planted, fired straight for- ward. These defects continued till a late period. Macchiavelli, who wrote at the beginning of the sixteenth century, reckons that cannon can scarce be discharged twice in an engagement, and from the want of skill in pointing them, he proposes to avoid their effect by leaving a gap in the line of battle opposite to the enemy's batteries.^- From these considerations, that author even doubts altogether the expediency of using artillery. The objections urged by Macchiavelli would not, however, apply with so much force to the employment of cannon in sieges. Walls and ramparts could not evade their fire ; and that they had begun to be effective against towns by the middle of the fifteenth century appears from the fact that in the latter half of that period ramparts were constructed with oblique lines instead of the former straight ones.^^ The Turks certainly used artillery with effect at the siege of Constantinople ** * Zurita, Anales dk Aragon, t. ii. p. 99, sfondamento di cavalli." — Istor. Fiorent. ^■^.'MdQ])\\(iTsoii, Annals of Com7nercc,\o\. lib. xii. c. 67- Cf. c. 66. i. p. 499. '^ Arte delta Giicrra, lib, iii. ^ Ap. Macpherson, ibid. '^ Martin, Hist, de France, t. yiii. 5o. '» Froissart. liv. i. c. 74. '^ Chalcocondylas, lib. v. (p. 231, ed. " "Cliefacieno (le bombarde) sigrande Bonn) represents the Turks as employing tremuoto e romore, clie parea, che Iddio cannon in the first siege of Constantinople tonasse con grande uccisione di gente e iu 1422; while Ducas, c. 30 (p. 211, id.}, 304 USE OF IIAND-GUNS AND MUSKETS. [Book II. in 1453. The heavy ordnance used by the Spaniards in their wars with the Moors towards the close of the fifteenth century were about twelve feet lono^, and composed of iron bars two inches broad fastened together with rings and bolts. These guns were firmly fixed on the carriages, and incapable either of vertical or horizontal move- ment.'^ The Emperor Maximilian brought a good train of artillery against Padua in 1509 ; but the carriages were imperfect, the guns could be fired only about four times a day, and were loaded with stone instead of ball. It was the French in their Italian wars who first brought artillery to some perfection. The art of mining, a Spanish invention, also marked a progress in sieges. The first authenticated account of the use of gunpowder in mining is at the siege of Malaga in 1487, by an engineer named Francisco Eamirez '^ ; but mines were first employed on a more extended and scientific scale by Pedro T^avarro in the Italian wars of the sixteenth century, as already related. One of the earliest accounts we have of the use of hand-guns, or arquebuses, belongs to the year 1432, when the Emperor Sigismund, during his journey into Italy, had a guard of five hundred men so armed.^'^ These ancient arquebuses were so heavy as to require an iron rest, and were used with a matchlock ; inconveniences which long caused them to be considered by many as inferior to the cross-bow. The hand-guns used at the siege of Sarno in 1459 were without locks, as appears from the description of ^neas Sylvius.^® Muskets or pistols with locks were first made at Nuremberg in 1517.'^ Muskets were introduced in England in 1521 ; but more than a century elapsed before the use of the bow was quite laid aside in this country. ^° Even at the beginning of the sixteenth century the gens d^armes, or heavy cavalry, were still pretty generally regarded, at least in Western Europe, as forming the pith of armies ; though in the Spanish forces, the heavy cavalry were not so numerous as the light, who fought in the Moorish fashion. The Burgundian gens cCamies had a great reputation.^^ Infantry, however, were now beginning to be more employed. During the preceding century, and especially the first half of it, little or no care had been assigns their first use of it to the siege of mentarii, lib. iv. p. 105 (ed. 1614). Eelgrade, in 1436. ^^ "Wagenseil, Dc Civltate Norihergensi, '^ Proscott, Ferd. and Isabella, vol. i. De Murr, Bischnibiing von JSTircnbcrg, p. 442 sq. ap. Koch, Revol. de PEur. t. i. p. 244. " Rid. vol. ii. p. 29. '^° Macpherson, Annals of Commerce, " Bandini, in Muratori, Scripp. Bcr. vol. ii. p. 58. Ital. t. XX. p. 41. 21 Yon Raumer, Gcsch. Europas, B. i. '^ "Ignis per foramen parviim in pos- S. 272 flf. teriori parte adhibetur." — Pii 11'^'. Com- Chap. I.] SWISS A^J) GERM.IX IXFAXTRT. 305 bestowed on the raising or discipline of the infantry, who were considered incompetent to resist cavahy. Yet those horsemen all cased in iron, who fought with long lances and heavy swords, could not engage except upon an open plain ; a small fortification, a little stream, even a ditch, arrested them ; and it was rarely that they ventured to attack an intrenched camp. Thus an engagement could not take place imless the generals on both sides were desirous of it; and in Italy, especially, there was frequently no pitched battle, scarcely even a skirmish, in the course of a war. The expeditions were confined to what were called cavalcades, or forays into the enemy's country ; when the horsemen swept over the plains, destroying the crops, carrying off the cattle, and burn- ing the houses. In short, war was thus made upon the people and not against the enemy's army.^^ The Swiss, whose mountainous country is ill adapted to horse- men, were the first European people who organised a formidable infantry; and its effect on the Burgundian horsemen has been already related. The Swiss foot soldiers were armed with pikes of enormous length, or halberds ; they had gigantic sabres, wielded with both hands, and a club armed with points of iron, called the Morgen-stern, or morning star. Such arms were necessary against ihe helms and cuirasses of mounted knights. Among the German peasantry, oppressed and discontented for a long series of years, it was also easy to raise soldiers, and it was in their villages that were recruited the troops called lansquenets, who played so great a part in the wars of Europe during the period we a,re contemplating. In this respect the example of their Swiss neighbours had a great influence upon them. The Grerman lansquenets {Lanz-hneclite, or lance-men) were also, as their name implies, armed with long spears. But however effective against cavalry, these troops could not contend in close combat with the short swords of the Spanish infantry. The question had before been decided between the Eoman legion and the Macedonian phalanx. The missile weapons used before the introduction of muskets were arrows, discharged either from bows or cross-bows. The bow and arrow was the national weapon of the English, and gained for them many of their victories. Giovanni Villani, in a passage already cited, bears testimony to the skill and readiness of the English archers, whom he represents as shooting three arrows in the same time that the Genoese cross-bowmen, in the service of France, took to discharge one. It was natural that the English should be loath to relinquish a weapon in which they so much " Sismondi, Bep. Ital. t. viii. p. 56 sq. TOL. I. X 30G HUXGAEIAX AXD TOLISII CAVALRY. [Book II. excelled ; and the consequence was that their infantry was for a Ions: time behind that of the continent in skill and effectiveness. In the war with Scotland in 1523, we find Surrey requesting to be supplied with a body of 4000 Grermans, in order that he might be able to oppose pikemen to pikemen, and that the English might learn from them how to observe the order of battle.^^ This was a sign that the English archer was no longer all in all. For the same reason judicious persons were opposed to Henry YIII.'s schemes of conquest in France. The reason assigned by Lord Herbert ^^ is the change of weapons: instead of the bow, proper for men of our strength, the caleever, or hand-gun, begins to be generally used ; which is costly, requires long practice, and may be handled by the weak. He would rather direct the efforts of the nation towards the Indies. A prejudice in favour of the bow lingered in England throughout the sixteenth century ; and Sir John Smythe, whose Discourses on the Forms and Effects of Divers Sorts of Weapons were suppressed by Queen Elizabeth in 1590, was still a great stickler for its use.^^"* In a military point of view, the nations of Eastern Europe pre- sented some peculiar features. They possessed few fortresses in comparison with the nations of Eoman or Teutonic origin, and their chief military force, even down to the seventeenth century, consisted of enormous bodies of cavalry. Louis, King of Hungar}^., often assembled about the middle of the fourteenth century an army of 40,000 or 50,000 horsemei^, to the astonishment of the Italians, who in their most important wars could hardly raise 3000. They served like the Poles on the condition of their tenures. Although well mounted they were badly armed, having onl}^ a long sword, a bow and arrows, and no coat of mail ; for which, however a thick jacket formed a kind of substitute.-^ A French traveller, who passed through Hungary in 1433, mentions the extraordinary number of wild horses that he saw, which the Hungarians were very skilful in taming. They were sold by the stalls, a stall of ten horses fetching 200 florins. Yet with all this plenty of horses, it was the custom of the country to travel in carriages drawn only by one, though holding six or eight persons.^" It was computed in the sixteenth century that the Polish cavalry w^as equal in ^ Lingard, Hist, of England, vol. iv. Brocquiere, premier ecuyer tranchant du p. 208, note. Due de Bourgogne, Philippe le Bon, in ** Life of Henry VUI. (in Kennet, yoL the Mem. de V Acad, dcs Scic7ic(S, t. t. ii. p. 8.) ap. Engel, Gcsch. des nngar. Heichrs. B. ii. "^^ See Original Letters, edited by Sir S. 374. The same traveller does not speak H. Ellis for the Camden Society, p. 54. with much reverence of the manners of 2« Sismondi, Bcp. Ital. t. vi. p. 267. the people, and says that he would rather ^ See the account of Bertrandon de la trust a Turk than a Hungarian. Chap. I.] RISE OF THE EUROPEAN SYSTEM. 307 number to that of Spain, France and Germany combined. The Grrand-Prince of Moscow could bring into the field 150,000 mounted combatants. The force of the Voyvodes of Transylvania, Moldavia and Wailachia was reckoned at 50,000 horsemen each, g.nd the Szekler in Hungary at 60,000.^^ Beyond, were the bordering Tartar hordes, which may be said to have lived on horseback. We have already adverted to the institution of standing armies by Charles VII. of France ; but it was long before they were kept up in any force, except among the Turks, and only some garrisons and a few gens cTarmes were retained in time of peace. The insti- tution of standing armies, like every other division of labour, must be regarded as having promoted civilisation, by enabling those not in military service to direct their whole attention to other pursuits. It has been well remarked that Europe did not exist before the crusades ; its various states were previously mere disjecta inemhra — communities isolated from one another and without any bond of interest or union. A common religion united them together, a common enemy, the Asiatic Mahometans, made all Europeans brethren. The heroic times and the early periods of Grrecian history seemed to be revived, w^hen mutual injuries and wide spreading wars precipitated Europe and Asia upon each other, and gave to either continent a distinct individuality. Henceforth Europe seemed to form as it were one great state held together by a religious system, of which Rome was the centre. A chord in that system struck in one nation vibrated through the rest. The impulse given by Eome lasted down to the time of the Eefor- niation, as appears from the general councils, attended by deputies from all the great European nations, which occupied the first portion of the fifteenth century. When by the subsequent divisions in the Church the unity of Europe seemed threatened with dissolu- tion, it was preserved m what may appear a paradoxical manner — not by the agreement of the various states, but by their dissensions. The destruction of the feudal system, the centralisation of monar- chical power, the wars and consequent negociations which ensued among the European nations, gave rise to a new bond of union in what has been called the European system, in which the political theory of the balance of power supplied the place previously held by the religious influence of Rome. The European system cannot be said to have commenced before the Italian wars of the French ; and thus, for instance, the conquests of the English in France during the first half of the fifteenth century had been utterly dis- regarded by the other nations of Europe. The wars and nego- "^ Ranke, Furstcn unci Volker, Vorrede. X 2 308 TREATIES AND EMBASSIES. [Book II. ciations of the European system produced treaties, resident embassies, and the creation of the Jils Gentium^ or codes of inter- national law. In the middle ages, treaties were promulgated by the voice of the herald, nor was its customary to print and publish them till long after the invention of printing. The Grolden Bull, however, the fundamental law of the G-erman constitution, forms an ex- ception, which appeared at Nuremberg in Latin in 1474, and at Ulm and Strasburg in German in 1484 and 1485. The Annates Ecclesiastlci of Baronius, the first volume of which appeared at Eome in 1588, is one of the earliest historical works in which treaties are inserted. ^- Ambassadors ^^5 who in early times, and even in the reign of Henry VIII., were called orators, were, of course, at all periods oc- casionally necessary in the intercourse of nations ; yet except among the Venetians, embassy, as a diplomatic office, was unknown in the middle ages, and the functions of an ambassador were from time to time discharged by eminent men, when the interests of their country might require their services. The custom of employing resident ambassadors belongs to the period of modern history ; for though the Kings of Poland and Sweden, the Knights of St. John and of the Teutonic order, had residents at Rome in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, who bore the title of procurators, these seem different from what we properly understand by the term ambassa^ dor. Mr. Prescott ascribes the introduction of resident ambassa- dors to Ferdinand the Catholic of Spain. The practice, however, does not appear to have become common till towards the middle of the sixteenth century ; nor indeed during the whole of that century can the diplomatic career be said to have been thoroughly esta- blished, as the office of ambassador was often filled not by regularly bred diplomatists, but by distinguished ecclesiastics, magistrates and influential citizens. The Florentines distinguished themselves from an early period as diplomatists and ambassadors ; and often undertook the office not only for their own city but also for foreign states ; thus fal- ^ Hist, abregee des Traites de Paix, par ble, the words ambascia, legatio, amha- Koch et SchoeU, Introd. p. 15. The most sciare, k^gationem obire, \v-ith other allied complete collection of treaties is that of forms, occur in the Latin of the middle Dumont, Corps Universel Diplomatique. ages ; and Ducange gives the etjTnology ^° The etymology of the word ambaS' from the Gallic ambactus, a hired ser- sador is uncertain. Prescott {Ferd. atid rant, German, Ajnhacht. The following Isab. vol. i. p. 412) derives it from the Spa- account of embassies is principally taken nish evibiar, to send ; an ambassador being, from Keumont, in Kaumer's Hist. Taschen- in other terms, an envoy, or person sent. buck, 1841. But though this derivation seems plausi- Chap. I.] LEGATES AND NUNCIOS. 309 sifying one part at least of Sir Henry Wotton's definition, that, " an ambassador is a clever man sent abroad to lie for his country." Each of Florence's great literary triumvirate, Dante, Petrarca, and Boccaccio, had been employed as an ambassador, and at a later period Macchiavelli distinguished himself in the same capacity. His despatches, under the title of Legazioni, are published in all his works, and although not correctly arranged, contain a treasure of authentic information respecting the persons as well as the political relations of the period. The Venetians, however, were the first to bestow any systematic attention upon embassies. The Venetian governmentj by an order of September 9th 1268, directed their ambassadors to deliver up on their return all the presents they had received ^^ ; and in December of the same year the great council ordered them to make a report of what might be useful to the government (Oratores in reditu dent in nota ea quae sunt utilia dominio).^'-^ It was necessary that the Venetian ambas- sadors should be nobles ^nd past the age of thirty-eight. In the sixteenth century after the custom of resident ambassadors had been introduced, the term of Venetian embassies was restricted to three years, lest the patriotism of the ambassadors should be weakened by too long a residence abroad. The disadvantages attending the appointment of a new and inexperienced minister were thought to be counterbalanced by the number of men con- versant with foreign affairs which by this arrangement would be always congregated at Venice : nor did their recall preclude them from being again appointed. We have already alluded to their reports, or Relazioni, which in process of time became elaborate descriptions of the countries and courts to which they were accredited. The substance of some of the oldest of them is pre- served in the Chronicle of Marino Sanuto. The ambassadors of Eome were divided into two classes ; if cardinals, they bore the title of legates, while other papal ambas- sadors of high rank were called nuncios. In the middle ages, legates were frequent enough, while in modern times cardinals are seldom sent in a diplomatic character. The ambassadors of Home hold the highest place in the diplomatic circle: they are now always archbishops, mostly in partibus ; a condition not indis- pensable in the middle of the sixteenth century, when persons who ^* It was customary for princes to make the doctor 40A, the cliancellor's brother large presents to ambassadors on their 20/., and the herald 10/. Eynior, t. xii. departure. Thus we find Henry VII., p. 516. on dismissing the Danish ambassadors, ^- See above, p. 43. giving the chancellor of Denmark 100/., X 3 310 MARITIME DISCOVERIES. [Book II. were not even clerical had the office and title of nuncios, as Castiglione and Acciajuoli under Clement VII. The reports of some of the Roman ambassadors, like those of the Venetian, are become important historical papers.^^ Ambassadors had the title of Excellence at the beginning of the sixteenth century, though perhaps only by courtesy. The official address was Magnifico Sifjnore or Magnifico Oratore. Charles V. ordered that the title of ambassador should be given only to the envoys of crowned heads and of the Eepublic of Venice, and not to the agents of any feudal state.^'* After the Papal ambassadors, the Venetian had the precedence. In Italy, the Imperial ambas- sadors naturally took the first place ; next, those of France, and then of Spain. It was usual in former times for ambassadors to follow the movements of the court to which they were accredited, whithersoever it went ; and as journeys were then generally made on horseback, they had thus a good opportunity of becoming ac- quainted with the countries which they visited. Of international law, another and very important result of the European system, we shall speak in a subsequent chapter, as its foundations can hardly be said to have been laid in the period we are contemplating. II. The second revolution, which we noticed as accompanying the transition from the middle ages to modern times, is that which was produced by maritime discovery and the consequent changes in trade and commerce. As the invention of gunpowder was a principal agent in the destruction of feudalism, so a knowledge of the properties of the magnet was a necessary antecedent of distant ocean voyages and the discovery of unknown lands. Like gunpowder, however, the cpm- pass was long known before it was applied to its proper use. The invention of it has been attributed to Flavio Gioja, a citizen of Amalfi, who flourished about the becjinnino: of the fourteenth century ; but though Dr. Robertson laments that Grioja has been deprived of his just fame^^, it is certain that the instrument was known nearly two centuries before his time. It is minutely described in a Provencal poem by Gruiot de Provins, supposed to have been wi'itten towards the end of the twelfth or beo'innins: of the thirteenth century.^^ The age of Gruiot may indeed be dis- " The present Nnnzintri.re are Vienna, mont. Hist. Taschcnh. 1841, S, 452. Paris, Madrid, Lisbon, Munich, Lucerne, ^* Hist, of America, book i. Turin, and Naples. sg See Koch, Rcvol. de F Europe, t. i. 2* Vine. Ferdeli, Belazione on the court p. 246. of Cosmo I. of Florence, 1561, ap. Eeu- Chap. I.] INTEXTION OF THE COMPASS. 311 puted ; yet that the compass was known at least in the first half of the thirteenth century, appears from the writings of Cardinal Vitry (Jacobus de Vitriaco), Bishop of Aeon in Palestine, who died in 1244. Vitry, indeed, in his " History of the East and West " (lib. 1, 3. 91), confounds the magnet with the adamant or diamond, as some of our own writers have also done; yet he describes the polarity of the magnetic needle, and intimates its indispensable necessity to navigation.^^ In 1263 the compass, fitted in a box, was in common use among the Norwegians. A letter written by Peter Peregrini in 1269, and preserved among the manuscripts in the University of Leyden, contains a scientific account of the properties of the magnetic needle, and even of the construction of the azimuth compass.^^ The description of Gruiot de Provins, who was probably older than the authors cited, shows the compass in a very rudimentary state ; merely a needle rubbed on a load- stone, and floating on a cork or other light substance in a vessel filled with w^ater ; a method, however, used early in the twelfth century by the Chinese, who were acquainted with the compass long before it was known in Europe.^^ The English, with that talent for practical adaptation which characterises them, seem to have made great improvements in the compass, and the French name for it, compas de mer, appears to have been derived from them.''^ But although the compass w^as so early known, it was not till the fifteenth century that voyages of discovery were prosecuted on any systematic plan. The Spaniards had indeed discovered the Canary Islands about the middle of the fourteenth century, but rather by accident than from design ; which might easily have happened, as they are situated considerably less than 200 miles from the con- tinent of Africa. Cape Xon on that continent, which lies opposite to the Canaries, w^as long considered an impassable boundary, till an expedition fitted out by the Portuguese King John I., or the Bastard, in 1412, succeeded in doubling it and reaching Cape Bojador, 160 miles further.'*^ The only effect of this vo3^ige was to awaken a desire for further discoveries, King John's fourth son, " The passage of Vitry is in Tira- further, Gilbertus, De Mapncte, lib. i. c. boschi, Storia della Letteratura Italiana, 4 and 5 ; Pluche, Spectacle de la Nature, t. iv. lib. ii. c. 30. t. iv. p. 424. ="8 Torpteus, Hist. Now. Pars IV. lib. \i. ■" It appears, hoAvever, tliat Don Jaynie c. 4, p. 345. Peregrini's name has been Ferrer, a Catalan, had, in 1346, sailed erroneously converted into Adsujcr. See six degrees to the south of Cape Non, Humboldt, Exam. Crit. t. iii. p. 31, note. and that some navigators of Dieppe had 39 Klaproth, ap. Humboldt, Exam. penetrated as far as Sierra Leone and Crit. t. iii. p. 34. Rio Sestos in 1364. ' Humboldt, Ex. ^" On the subject of the compass see Crit. t. i p. 284. X 4 312 VOYAGES OF THE rORTUGUESE. [Book U. Henry ^2, who was distinguished both by an enterprising temper, and a love of art and science, especially geography, establishing his residence at Sagres (Terca Nabal, afterwards called Villa do Infante) f near Cape St. Vincent in the Algarves, gathered around him from all quarters men practically acquainted with navigation, as well as others versed in mathematics and astronomy, and discussed with them bold projects of maritime enterprise. Prince Henry's cares were rewarded by the discovery of the Madeiras'*^ (1419), and subsequently of the Azores, Cape Verd, and Gruinea. His death in 1463 checked the progress of these voyages, which had extended to within five degrees of the equinoctial line. The importance of these discoveries had excited the apprehension of the Portuguese that their title to the possession of them might be contested ; and in order to settle this questionj they applied to Pope Eugenius IV., who issued a Bull liberally granting to Portugal all the lands from Cape Non to India! The Popes claimed a peculiar property in all islands and undiscovered lands, rather, it would seem, as the successors of the Roman emperors, than, as some authors have asserted, as the vicars of Christ upon earth. The Guelf doctors and canonists held that the Pope was master of all the world, while the Grhibeline doctors assigned it to the Emperor. In accordance with the former of these theories, Pope Adrian IV. had bestowed Ireland on Henry II.; and in 1295 Boniface VIII. granted Grerba and some other islands on the African coast to Admiral Ruorcriero di Loria, on condition of homac^e and tribute.^'* Alphonso v., the eldest brother of Prince Henry, and successor of their father John, did not pay much attention to navigation ; but the spirit of maritime discovery was revived by his son John II., who ascended the throne in 1481. In 1484, a Portuguese fleet sailed 1500 miles south of the line, and observed the stars and con- stellations of another hemisphere; settlements were made on the coast of Gruinea, which were fortified, and a regular commerce *^ See above, p. 62. be recognised as King of the Eomans, *' Madeira is said fo hare been pre- that Pope appeared in pul)lie with sword viously discovered by an Englishman and cuirass, and said — " It is I who named Macham, or JVIachin, who, fly- am the Caesar. There is no other King ing to France with a lady of whom he of the Romans but the sovereign pontiff." was enamoured, was driven by stress of And after opening the Jubilee in his weather to that island. See Sir Geo. pontifical habit, he showed himself, the Staxintoi'iH Ace. of an Embassjy to Chu7a, following day, to the multitude of pilgrims vol. i. p. 65, ed. 1797; and Washington that swarmed in Rome, with the imperial Irving's Life of Columbus, App. No. ensigns, the sword, the sceptre, and the xxvii. globe. Baillet, Hi.st. des DemeUs de ** Giannone, Storia di ^npoli, lib. xix. J^oniface VIII. ct Philippe le Bel, p. 69 c. 5. Wlien Albert of Austria sent de- sq., ap. Martin, t. iv. p. 423. puties to Boniface VIII., requesting to Chap. I.] YASCO DE GMIA. 313 established. From their own experience of the line of coast, as well as from information obtained from the natives, the Portuguese now began to conceive the possibility of reaching India by a southern navigation, agreeably to the ancient accounts of the Phoenician voyages. To acquire information and aid in effecting this design, John II. despatched two ambassadors to the Emperor of Abyssinia, a Christian Prince in the eastern parts of Africa near the Eed Sea, whom he supposed to be the Prester John, famed in the relations of eastern travellers, and from their inquiries it was evident that a passage round Africa to India was feasible. Mean- while, however, Bartholomew Diaz had already set off to attempt it. In spite of great dangers from tempests and mutinous crews, this enterprising navigator sailed far enough south not only to descry but to douhle^^ the Gaho Tormentoso, or Cape of Storms the southern boundary of Africa (1487); and as the coast beyond was ascertained to trend to the north-east, the prospect of success seemed now so clear that King John re-named this cape Cabo de Boa Esjperanga, or Cape of G-ood Hope. The discoveries and conquests of the Portuguese in the East Indies were, however, reserved to be effected in the reign of John II.'s cousin, Emmanuel the Great, who ascended the throne on John's death in 1495.^^ Vasco de G-ama, having doubled the Cape of G-ood Hope, arrived at Calicut in Malabar in May 1498, and returned to Portugal in the following year ; without indeed having founded any settlement, but bringing home with him a rich cargo consisting of the various products of the country. In 1500 Pedro Alvarez Cabral, with a Portuguese fleet, having stood to the west- ward in order to avoid the calms and variable breezes on the African coast, arrived off the coast of Brazil and took possession of that country for the crown of Portugal, of which Cabral considered himself the discoverer. But though his pretensions in this respect have till lately been sanctioned by the highest authorities ''^j it appears from more recent researches that two Castilian navigators, one of whom was Vicente Pinzon, the companion of Columbus, had previously landed there and claimed the country for Spain.''^ These conflicting pretensions were settled by the treaty of Torde- sillas, to which we shall advert further on. « Humboldt, Exayn Crit. t. i. p. 232. India, sect. iii. ; De la ClMe, Hist. generale " These conquests are related by the de Portugal, Portuguese historian Osorio, whose work *" Eobertson, Hist, of America, book has been translated by Gibbs. See also ii. ; Kuynal, Hist, o/ Settlements, ^r., the Abbe Raynal, Hist, des J^tahlissemcns book ix. sub init.; Macpherson, Annals des Europeens dans les deux hides (trans- of Comnwrcc, vol. ii. p. 19, &c. lated by Justamond) ; Eobertson, His- *^ Navarrete, Viages, t. iii. p. 18 sq., torical Disquisition concerning Ancient ap. Prescott, i^trcZ. and Isah. vol. ii. p. 468. 314 . THEORIES ABOUT THE GLOBE. [Book IT. While tlie Portuguese were making this progress in eastern navigation, the Spaniards had made still more brilliant and striking discoveries in a new hemisphere, though probably not more im- portant in a commercial point of view. The existence of a fourth continent and of a race of antipodes had been at least suspected by the ancients centuries before the commencement of our aera. The sphericity of the earth was known to the Pythagoreans. Plato in his TimcBUS ^^ alludes to an Atlantis greater than Asia and Africa put together. Aristotle asserted the possibility of sailing from the extremity of Europe or Africa to the eastern parts of Asia ^^, and the same idea was adopted by Strabo.^^ Aristotle likewise thought it probable that there were other lands in the opposite hemisphere ^^ ; and ^Elian also main- tained the existence of a fourth continent of enormous extent.'^^ Seneca the philosopher affirms that with a fair wind the voyage from Spain to the Indies might be accomplished in a few days ^"^ ; and the same writer in one of his tragedies has uttered on the subject the following most precise and striking prophecy : " Venient annis ssecula seris Quibus Oceanus vinciila rerum Laxet, et ingeus pateat telliis, Tethysque novos detegat orbes Nee sit terris ultima Thiile." " This remarkably consentient opinion of all civilised antiquity continued to prevail during the earlier ages of Christianity till the doctors of the Church, with that narrowness of view which led them to stifle all liberal knowledge, did their best to suppress it, and thus contributed to defer its realisation.^^ The work called Christian Topography (ToTroypacpia UpcarLavifO]), attributed to Cosmas Indicopleustes, exhibits the strange geographical notions of the Fathers of the Church. It is a return to barbarism. The earth is described as a vast oblong plain, more than twice as long from east to west as it is broad, and surrounded by the ocean. The ancient idea nevertheless partially survived, and was recorded by Roger Bacon in the thirteenth century, and by other waiters in the middle ages." *' P. 25, torn. vii. p, 12 sq., ed. Tauchn. may relax the bonds of things, and the *" Dc Coelo, lib. ii. c. 14, immense earth maybe laid open: Tethys *' Lib. i. p. 103, and lib. ii. p. 162, may then unveil new worlds, and Thiile Aim. ed. be no longer the remotest spot of land," " Be Mundo, e. 3. ^" 8ee the arguments against the theory " Var. Hist. lib. iii. c. 18. of Antipodes in Lactantius, Div. Inst it. " Nat. Q. Pr?ef. 11. lib. iif. c, 24, and in St, Augustine, l)e " Mcdca, act ii. v. 375. " The time Civ. Dei, lib. xvi. c. 9. will come in distant years when Ocean *' All the ancient and mediaeval learn- Chap. I.] EARLIEST VOYAGES TO AMERICA. 315 Even the circumnavigation of Africa by the Portuguese had been anticipated six centuries before the Christian a^ra. \Yith some minds antiquity is a fatal objection to any narrative that appears a little extraordinary, or that runs counter to their own narrow pre- judices: yet a capricious incredulity is a more dangerous critical fault than too ready a belief ; and there are two circumstances in Herodotus's narration ^^ of the voyage round the African continent, undertaken by some Phoenicians at the command of Pharaoh Neco, which give it an indelible stamp of truth. By this voyage it was discovered that Africa w^as detached from any other continent except at the Isthmus of Suez, and could consequent^ be circum- navigated. Again, the Phoenicians asserted that on their voyage, which, as they started from the Red Sea and returned by the Columns of Hercules, or Straits of Gribraltar, was performed from east to west, they had the sun on the right hand. Both these cir- cumstances are true, yet neither could be guessed a jprwri ; the latter indeed was so contrary to all experience and probability, that Herodotus himself refused to believe it. These two facts are sufficient to dispose of the futile objections which have been raised against the story on account of some of its minor details. It is probable that America had been visited by Europeans centuries before the time of Columbus. Historians who longr preceded him have related that, towards the close of the tenth century, Eric Eauda, Biorn, and other Icelandic navigators, visited Grreenland and a country lying to the south-west of it, which they called Winland, from its grapes. In this country the sun is described as being eight hours above the horizon in the shortest day ; and as this would happen in about latitude 49°, Winland was prob^^bly Newfoundland. A colony was settled there, but after a time all intercourse with it was dropped. As the distance between Iceland and Grreenland is not great, there is no a priori improbability in this account, which is attested by most respectable authorities.^^ Other voyages and discoveries, as that of the Welsh Prince Madoc ap Owen in 1170^°, and the navigation towards India by the west, of the two Genoese, Gruido ing on this curious and interesting sub^ 1098 ; and Snorro Stiirleson, who was jeet, will be found collected in Humboldt's repeatedly chief magistrate of Iceland, Exam. Crit. de V Hist, de la Gcogr. dii 121o — 1282, in his Hist. Olafi Trj/gvcs., nouveau Continent, § 1. ap. Macpherson, vol. i. p. 280. Cf Mallet, ^^ Lib. iv. c. 42. Introd. a PHist. dc Danncraarc, ch. xi., and ^ As Adam Bremensis, who died in Forster, Hist, of Voyages in the North. 1076, in his De Situ Danice ; Ordericus ^ Dr. Powel, Hist, of Wales, ap. Mac- Vitalis, who flourished about the middle pherson, vol. ii. p. 340. Cf. Humboldt, .ia-. of the 12th century, in his Hist. Eccl. ann. Crit. t. i. p. 29. 316 CimiSTOrHER COLUMBUS [Book n. de' Vivaldi and Theodosio Doria, in 1281 and 1292, are perhaps not so well authenticated. Little is known about the early life of Columbus.^^ He was a native of Grenoa, but the year of his birth is so utterly unknown as to have been variously placed between 1430 and 1455. It was probably 1436. Columbus was bred to the sea, and served not only in the merchant service, but also in some warlike maritime expeditions, as that of John of Anjou for the conquest of Naples, in 1459, and in some cruises against the Turks and Venetians, in which he distinguished himself by his bravery. According to his own account, Columbus visited Tille, or Thule, by which he pro- bably meant either the Feroe Isles or Iceland.^^ In 1470 he proceeded to Portugal, and remained in that country till 1484. His love of enterprise was no doubt stimulated by the maritime discoveries of the Portuguese ; and it has been recently proved that he conceived the first idea of his great discovery shortly after his arrival in that country, and consequently three years before he was in communication on the subject with Paolo Toscanelli.^^ There can be no doubt, however, that his correspondence with Paolo, a Florentine physician and distinguished cosmographer, fortified Columbus in his project. Everything proves that his original idea and principal purpose was, by reversing the Portu- guese method, to seek a passage to India, the land of gold and spices, by sailing westward ; and that the discovery of lands between Europe and the eastern shores of India was only a secondary considei^tion both with him and Toscanelli. The idea was necessarily founded on the sphericity of the earth, and on the opinions of the ancients respecting the nature of the globe, which, as we have said, were not altogether Extinguished during the middle ages, and which Columbus appears to have more imme- diately derived from the treatise De Imagine Muncll of Pierre *' His biograpliy has been written by frequently erroneous; Another leading his son, Fernando Colon (the Spanish authority is Herrera, Historia General de name of the family), entitled Historia las Indias Occidintahs ; which is a good delAlniirante. One of the most authentic deal founded on the contemporary but works on Columbus and his discoveries unpublished Cronica de las Indias Occi- is the first two vols, of the Viages y dental is of Las Casas. Descubrimientos of Don Martin Fer- ^- MS. on the Cinco Zonas Hahitahles, nandez de Navarrete (1825), who was ap. Humboldt, Exam. Crit. t. i, p. 102. commissioned by the Spanish Govern- The MS. says the visit was made in ment to examine the public archives for 1477, but Humboldt thinks this must be materials. These volumes were used by a mistake. Washington Ir\-ing for his Life of Co- " Navarrete, Viages, t. i. p. Ixxix. ap. hiiuhus. The contemporary author, Peter Humboldt, ibid. p. 12. Paolo Toscanelli Martyr, wrote a valuable account, De erected in 1468 the great gnomon in the Ecbi/.s Oceanicis et Novo Orbe, hut some- cathedral of Florence, what hastily compiled, and therefore Chap. I.] IX SEAECH OF A PATROX. 317 d'x\illy, Bishop of Cambray. The theory that an unknown land, which he supposed to be India, lay at no great distance in the western ocean, was confirmed by the circumstance of trees, pieces of carved timber, and other things having been cast by the waves on the coast of Madeira and the Azores ; nay, even the bodies of two men of an unknown race. Columbus was also encouraged by his own errors and those of the authors on whom he relied. He imagined that the globe was not so large as it really is, and that India extended much further to the east, leaving consequently a smaller space of ocean to be traversed. It does not detract from the merit of Columbus that his project was founded on the previous opinions of others, and on such slight evidence in favour of it as could be collected ; on the contrary, allowing it to be possible that the idea could have even entered his mind without these aids, still he would rather deserve to be called a madman than the greatest of all discoverers, if he had set out on his voyage without a rational probability of success. His merit consists in having realised, by his courage and perseverance, what others had only speculated on in their closets. Like Luther, and all the other great benefactors of mankind, he was the man of action. Thought is a noble thing, and must necessarily precede all great and noble undertakings ; but so long as^ it remains merely thought, it is of no practical benefit to mankind. It is well known what difficulty Columbus found to persuade the princes and powers of the world to assist him in realising the magnificent theory which had taken such complete possession of his own mind. For many years he applied in vain, first to the Grenoese government, — for he wished to bestow on his own country the honour and profit of that great discovery and precious birth of time — as well as to those of Portugal, England, and Spain. He was not, however, a man to be easily discouraged and thrust aside. Like most great geniuses, he had a vein of enthusiasm in his temper ; and it appears from the frequency of his citing it, that the prophecy of Seneca, before adduced, had made a deep impression on his mind; deeper, perhaps, than the more scientific opinions of the ancient writers. This disposition degenerated, indeed, in his old age into a kind of superstition, when his soul, like that of Newton, became engrossed by a mystic theology. In a letter addressed to Ferdinand and Isabella from Jamaica, in July 1503, and still more strongly in the sketch of his extravagant work entitled Prophecies {Pro- fecias), written a year or two later, he professes that neither human reason, nor mathematical science, nor maps of the world had been of any service in his enterprise, which was simply an accom- 318 COLUMBUS'S BARGAIX. [Book II. plishment of the predictions of Isaiah. This result, and the gold which his discoveries might afford for effecting the conquest of the Holy Sepulchre, are, he asserts, alone of importance. All the let- ters of Columbus, indeed, express the greatest anxiety to amass gold ; but this sordid desire is covered v/ith the veil of religion. Thus in one of his letters he says: — "Gold is a most excellent thing ; whoever possesses it is master of everything in the world ; it even brings souls into Paradise : "^^ an allusion apparently to the practice of purchasing indulgences. We have entered rather fully into the circumstances which led to the discovery of America, both because that event is one of the most striking and important of the loth century, and because it is, perhaps, more entertaining and instructive to trace the rise and de- velopment of a great idea than to detail the steps by which it is carried into practical execution. The latter, indeed, our space does not allow, nor is it necessary to our purpose. The narratives of the discoveries, conquests, and settlements of the Portuguese and Spaniards in the East and West Indies are mere episodes in the history of Europe, to which they are important only in relation to the effects which they produced on its commerce, and through that on its politics and manners ; and we shall therefore content our- selves with briefly indicating the main results. After the conquest of Grranada in 1492, Columbus^^, after many tedious years of suspense, at length succeeded in gaining for his scheme the sanction and assistance of Queen Isabella. An agree- ment was signed with him constituting him High Admiral and Viceroy in all the countries which he might discover, securing him one tenth of the nett profits of their products, and another one eighth on condition of his furnishing one eighth of the expenses of the expedition. Ferdinand, though he signed this agreement, re- fused to take any part in the enterprise, the expenses and profits of which were therefore confined to Castile. Columbus appears to have been assisted in advancing his stipulated share of the outfit by Martin Alonzo Pinzon, a wealthy shipowner and experienced navigator of Palos de Moguer, a little seaport town in Andalusia, who had been one of the chief patrons of his scheme, and who, with his brothers Vicente and Francisco, not only furnished one of the vessels required for the expedition, but also engaged per- sonally to accompany it. On the 3rd of August 1492, Columbus left the mouth of the ^* See Humboldt, Exam. Crit. t. i. p. nessed the surrender of Granada by 110. Cf. p. 15 sq. Boabdil. Wash. Irring, Life of Cohun- *^ He appears to have personally wit- bus, ch. vi. Chap. I.] HE DISCO VEES THE XEW WOELD. 319 Odiel with his little squadron, consisting of three ships ; the laro-est of which, the Santa Maria, in which he hoisted his Bag, was under 100 tons' burthen, and the only one decked. The two other vessels, called caravels, were little better thanboats^ being open in the centre, mth cabins in the stern and forecastle. ^^ Our limits will not permit us to pursue the details of this extraordinary voyage ^^, which forms perhaps the most interesting chapter in all the records of human adventure. Suffice it to say that, after touching at the Canaries to refit, and again sailing thence on September 6th, the sagacity and perseverance of Columbus, and the courage and forti- tude with which he braved not only the perils of that long and un- known navig^ation, but also the still more formidable dano-er of alarmed and mutinous crews, were at length rewarded by the dis- covery of land (Friday, October 12th). This proved to be one of the Bahama islands. Columbus called it St. Salvador, but it is better known by the native name of Guanahani. In his further searches he discovered the large and important islands of Cuba and Haiti, the latter of which he called Hispaniola, The loss, however, of his largest ship, and other circumstances, compelled Columbus to return to Europe. After constructing a little fort which he called La Navidad, or Nativity, where he left a garrison of thirty-nine men, he set sail from Hispaniola, January 4th 1493 ; and after many adventures, being driven by a storm into the Tagus, he landed at Lisbon, February 24th. Here he had an interview with King- John II., who received him with much apparent honour, but with secret jealousy and mortification at his success. Columbus arrived at Palos March loth, seven months and eleven days after the date of his sailing thence. In proof of his success he had brought home mth him some of the native Indians, as well as birds, stuffed specimens of animals, and bracelets and other ornainents of gold. We have already adverted to the splendid reception w^hich he ex- perienced from Ferdinand and Isabella at Barcelona. The Spanish sovereigns were readily induced by the success of Columbus's first voyage to fit out another expedition on a larger scale. A fleet of seventeen ships was prepared, calculated to carry 1500 persons, with all the means and appliances necessary for colonising ; and so great was now the ardour to partake in the en- terprise that many persons of distinction volunteered to join it. "8 Columbus seems purposely to have Wash. Irving, Z//co/Co/?«;;/;?^i^y 4th 1493.) The jealousy of the King of Portugal, however, was not so easily appeased. By the advice of some of his courtiers he had prepared, under pretence of an expedition to Africa, a naval armament, destined to seize the countries discovered bv Columbus ; and as King Ferdinand had heard of these preparations, a keen diplomatic game ensued between the two Sovereigns, in which the *^ The EuU is in Leibnitz, Codex Biplom. pars i. p. 472. Chap. I.] FURTHER DISCOVERIES OF COLUMBUS. 521 superior cunning and duplicity of Ferdinand secured him the advantao-e. After lengthened negociations, the points in dispute between the two courts were arranged by the treaty of Tordesillas, June 7th 1494, by which it was agreed that the line of demarca- tion should be placed 370 leagues to the w^est of the Cape de Verd Islands. Under this treaty the Portuguese subsequently claimed Brazil. Meanwhile Columbus had set sail from Cadiz on his second voyage, September 25th 1493, carrying with him Father Boyl and a troop of friars destined to convert the natives. He now held a more southerly course, which brought him to the Caribee Islands, November 2nd. Dominica, Marigalante, Guadaloupe, Antigua, San Juan de Puerto Eico, and other islands, were suc- cessively discovered, and found to be inhabited by a race of ferocious caonibals, the very reverse of the gentle natives whom he had met with in his former voyage. On arriving at his colony of Navidad, in Hispaniola, he found that all his men had been destroyed by the natives, whom they had ill treated. Having now greater means at his disposal, he founded a town w^hich he named Isabella in honour of the Queen of Castile, and soon after erected fort St. Thomas. But he had great difficulties to contend with. His followers were discontented and mutinous, and not the least turbulent among them was Father Boyl. Columbus now deemed it prudent to send home twelve ships for reinforcements. Mean- while he set out on a further voyage (April 24th 1494), which, however, after a five months' cruise, ended only in discovering Jamaica. On his return to Hispaniola, he found his colony there in the greatest distress. In 1496, he returned to Europe, where a new plan was formed of a settlement on a more extended scale ; and as gold dust had been discovered in Hispaniola, the attention of the settlers was to be directed, not to cultivation, but to the working of that precious metal. Two years were spent in pre- paration, and in 1498 Columbus again set sail with only six ships. On this occasion he steered due south till near the equinoctial line, and then to the west. Trinidad was discovered August 1st, and soon after the American continent (Paria and Cumana) with the small adjacent islands. On the 30th of August, he again reached Hispaniola. The success of Columbus stimulated other navigators to emulate his voyages. One of the most eminent of those who followed in his track,'th'e Florentine Amerigo Vespucci, had either the address or the good fortune to make it appear that he had first discovered the VOL. I. Y 322 COLUMBUS'S LAST VOYAGE AND DEATH. [Book IL American continent in 1497, which, to the disparagement of Cohimbus, has from him derived its name.^^ The profits of Cohunlnis's discoveries did not answer the ex- pectations of the Spanish sovereigns; jealousy and envy were at work ao-ainst him, the minds of Ferdinand and Isabella were poisoned by the machinations of his enemies, and in 1500 Francis de Bovadilla, a knight of Calatrava, was despatched to Hispaniola to inquire into the charges of maladministration which had been brought against the Indian viceroy. Bovadilla was a man of small and malignant mind ; he encouraged the colonists to bring accusations against Columbus, whom he caused to be arrested, and sent home in irons. On Columbus's arrival in Spain, December 17th 1500, the Spanish sovereigns ordered him, indeed, to be set at liberty ; but although he cleared himself from the charges brought against him, he was superseded in the government of Hispaniola. The active mind of Columbus was still brooding over new schemes of discovery. The expeHence of his former voyages had taught him that he must look still further for the shores of India; he anticipated the existence of the great Pacific Ocean, which he thought might perhaps be entered by a narrow strait, and India reached. He set out from Cadiz on his fourth and last voyage, May 9th 1502, \vith only four small barks, and discovered on this occasion the coast of the American main from Cape Grracios a Dios to Porto BelJo ; but he was not destined to behold the Pacific. Compelled to quit the coast of Honduras by violent hurricanes, he bore away for Hispaniola, and in the passage was wrecked at Jamaica. Here he was forced to linger more than a year ; for though two of his officers, Mendez a Spaniard, and Fieschi a Grenoese, had with incredible difficulty and danger contrived to reach Hispaniola in a canoe, Ovando, the governor, from a mean jealousy of Columbus, could not for a long period be per- suaded to send a vessel to bring him away. It was impossible for the Admiral to remain in Hispaniola mth a man of the temper *^ Humboldt, in his Exaracn Critique, seems to have first proposed the name of explains as follows the way in which the America for the newly discorered con- name of Amerigo Vespucci came to be tinent ■prvjirio motu, and without any given to the new continent. suggestion on tlie part of Vespucci ; and Vespucci wrote a letter to Ken6, Duke as his works had an extensive circulation, of Lorraine, giving an account of his the appellation became irrevocably esta- voyage, which letter was placed by the blished. duke in the hands of Martin Waldsee- After all, it can scarcely be doubted raiiller, an eminent cosmographer of Fri- that, of the navigators of the 15th cen- bourg, who published some popular geo- tury, Cabot first saw the American con- graphical works, under the Grecianised tinent in 1497. name of Hylaeomylus. Waldseemiiller Chap. I.] POUTUGUESE CONQUESTS IN THE EAST. 323 of Ovando ; he quitted that island as soon as he could, and arrived at St. Lucar, in Andalusia, December 1504. Queen Isabella was now dead. The mean and ungrateful Ferdinand evaded the recognition of the claims of Columbus under the agreement of 1492, amusing him with fair words and deceitful promises ; till the great navigator, worn out by blasted hopes and the fatigues and troubles which he had undergone, expired, unrewarded, at Yalladolid, May 20th 1506. Ferdinand may surely claim the first rank in the list of pseudo and ungrateful patrons. Of (xonsalvo, indeed, w^ho had acquired for him the Kingdom of Naples, and who was allowed to end his days in banishment and disgrace, it may be said that he had only discharged his duty as his sovereign's officer ; but Columbus, who had added a new world to the dominions of Spain, w^as actually cheated out of the reward stipulated by a solemn agreement under the royal hand.'^^ We shall only briefly pursue the principal remaining discoveries of the Spaniards and Portuguese during the period comprised in the preceding book. In 1508 Puerto • Eico was settled by the Spaniards. In 1509, Juan Diaz de Soils and Pinzon discovered extensive tracts of the coasts of South America, landed in several places, and took possession for the crown of Spain. In 1511 Cuba was reduced ; and in the following year Florida was discovered by Ponce de Leon. In 1513 Balboa penetrated into the Isthmus of Darien, and from the top of the Sierra de Quarequa first beheld the vast expanse of the South Sea''^ ; a discovery which excited almost as great a sensation as that of America. Meanwhile the Portuguese had been extending their conquests and settlements in the East. Cabral, to whose expedition we have before adverted, established friendly relations with the Zainorin, or Emperor of Calicut, whose dominion extended over Malabar, and thence pursued his voyage to Cochin and Cananor. The renowned Alphonso Albuquerque was, however, the chief founder of the Portuguese power in India. He established a settlement at Groa, in the middle of the Malabar coast, one of the most advan- tageous posts in India (1508) : and subsequently, by his conquest of the island of Ormus, at the entrance of the Persian Gulf, obtained a station which commanded the trade between Persia and the Indies. The Portuguese went on extending their settle- ments at Malacca, the Molucca islands, Ceylon, and other places; '° Ferdinand, however, supplied the Castille and Leon). He asked for Dread first tomb of Columhus in the cathedral and received a stone! Vida, c. 108,. ap. of Seville, with a noble inscription : A Humboldt, Ex. Crit. t. iii. p. 368. Castella y a Leon Nuevo Muxdo dio " P. Martyr, Opus Epistt. Ep. 540. Colon (Columbus gave a new world to Y 2 324 VOYAGE OF SEBASTIAN CABOT. [Book II. and thougli the .route to India through Egypt and the Red Sea still lay open to European commerce, yet it had been rendered almost useless by the command which the Portuguese had ob- tained of the Indian markets, as well as by the superior advantages of the maritime route. England was not altogether without participation in these great maritime discoveries. In 1497, under the auspices of Henry VII., Sebastian Cabot, a native of Bristol, and one of three sons of John Cabot, a Venetian merchant settled in that city, sailed round the northern coast of Labrador, and penetrated into Hudson's Bay, in the attempt to find a north-west passage to India.'^^ He reached as far as 67^° north, but, being unable to proceed any further, sailed to the south along the coast of America as far as 38°. His enterprise, however, led to no immediate advantage, for though some subsequent voyages were made, no trade or settlements were established. Thus the navigation of the Atlantic was inaugurated by men springing from the two great maritime republics of Genoa and Venice, on whose Mediterranean commerce these discoveries were to inflict a fatal blow. The voyages of the French to Canada fall after this period. The commercial effects of the discoveries in the East and West Indies were not immediately felt, and we shall therefore postpone the consideration of them to a future chapter. III. Not the least surprising and important of the revolutions in progress at the commencement of the 16th century, was the reformation of the Church. The rise and progress of the Papal power have been traced by Mr. Hallam ^^, and we need here only recall a few facts. In 607 Boniface III. obtained from the Emperor Phocas the rank of universal bishop, and assumed the title of Pope ; but it was not till the 9th century, in the pontificate of Gregory IV. (827 — 847), that the Church began to exercise political power beyond the Alps. This was the age of the False Decretals, published by Isidore of Seville, the object of which was to establish the appellant jurisdic- tion of Rome, and its sole and exclusive right to call national councils. In 832 Gregory passed a sentence of deposition on Louis the Pious, of France ; but between the pontificate of Gregory IV. '^ The patent to John Cabot and his 1498, which distinctly alludes to the dis- three sons, Lewis, Sebastian, and Sancius, coveries made in the former one, is printed authorising^ the expedition of discovery, by Mr. Biddle from tlie original in the and resei-ying one fifth of the profits of Rolls' Chapel, in his Memoir of Sebastian the enterprise to the king, dated March Cabot (p. 76) ; a work which contains an oth, in the 11th year of Henry VII. accm-ate examination of all the facts re- (1496). is in Rymer, t. xii. p. 595. The lating to the Cabots. patent for another voyage, dated Feb. 3, " Middle Ages, ch. vii. Chap. I.] THE CHURCH. PROGRESS OF THE PAPACY. 325 and that of Grregory YII. (1073—1085) the power of the Church seems rather to have declined. The latter pontiff, still more famous under his previous name of Hildebrand, was a Benedictine monk, an order noted for supplying the most resolute Popes. Hildebrand's influence was felt long before he occupied the chair of St. Peter. He sought to restore the authority of the Church by a strict reform, and thus to establish an absolute theocracy. It was in his time that the celibacy of the clergy was enforced ; an institution which, by giving the Church a host of servants whose cares and allegiance are undivided, has perhaps contributed more than any other to uphold her power. G-regory's main objects were two : to restrict the election of the Pope to the cardinals, and to extend the Papal dominion over all Europe. Hildebrand procured the consecration of Nicholas's successor, Alexander II., without the Imperial autho- rity, and from that time no Pope ever thought of waiting for it. Grregory even reversed the previous relations between Rome and the empire. He made the Emperor dependent on the Pope, deposed Henry lY., and obliged him to do penance at Canossa (1077). Christ recognised Caesar's penny as the property of the State and not of the Church ; G-regory claimed not only Caesar's penny, but even Caesar himself and all his dominions. From this period the Papacy made vast strides. The seven sacraments, which bring the whole of a man's life into immediate connection with the Church, were introduced in the 12th centur}^ In the time of the crusades the Popes were almost omnipotent. King John yielded England to the See of Rome as a fief; a king of Aragon transferred his dominions to St. Peter : Naples was given to a foreign house. The period from Innocent III. (1198 — 1216) to Boniface VIII. (1294—1303), or the whole of the 13th century, may, however, be regarded as the era of the greatest prosperity of the Church. It was in this age that were established the mendi- cant orders, the Jesuits of the ancient Church, the principal of which were the Dominicans and Franciscans, originated by St. Dominic and St. Francis of Assisi, in the pontificate of Honorius III. The Franciscans were, for the most part, harmless fanatics ; the Dominicans, on the contrary, ferocious bigots, and the founders of the Inquisition. This was also the great age of the scholastic philosophy, and of the establishment of the more recondite doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. The grand mystery of transub- stantiation, by which the priest worked a constant miracle, was first formally established by theLateran confession of fiiith (1215). The practice of auricular confession carried the power of the clergy into the innermost household. The doctrine of purgatory was Y 3 326 EEACTIOX AGAINST ROME. [Book II. established, and the priest assumed the privilege of absolution — the power of the keys. The Pojje now asserted the monstrous doctrine that he was the representative and vicar of Christ upon earth ! ^'* Gregory IX. (1227 — 1241 ) caused the Decretals, including the Mse ones, to be compiled anew^' and published in a codex, which formed the most essential part of the canon law, and established tlie unlimited power of the Roman Pontiff. The influence of the Pope was also wonderfully augmented by the dis- pensing power, which enabled him to release even the greatest monarchs from an inconvenient oath, or a disagreeable or impolitic marriafre. The abuse, by Boniface VIII., of the enormous power which the Church had acquired, produced the first symptoms of resistance and reaction. Not content with deposing sovereigns, he also arrogated the privilege of bestowing their crowns on whom he pleased. ^'^ In consequence of a dispute v/ith Philip the Fair, of France, Boniface, in a council held at Rome, promulgated the famous constitution known as Unam Sanctani, which lays down, as a necessary article of faith, that every human being w^hatsoever is subject to the Roman Pontiff; and in another Bull he declared his power of citing whomsoever he pleased to Rome. As Philip would not sub- mit, the Pope prepared to excommunicate and depose him, and to transfer his kingdom to the Emperor Albert; but before the Bull of excommunication could be launched, Philip induced some Italian conspirators, with Sciarra Colonna at their head, to seize Boniface in his native town of Anagni ; and though he escaped from their, hands, the alarm, or rather the fury, at what he had suffered, was too much for the strength of an old man of eighty- six, and he shortly after expired of a raging fever. The example of resistance was followed both in Grermany and England. In 1338 the Grerman princes declared that whoever was chosen by the majority of the electors was entitled to the empire ^^, and the Pope . was successfully opposed in the case of Louis of Bavaria. The authority of the Church w^as much impaired by the impru- dent step taken by Clement V., in 1305, in removing the Papal court to Avignon, where it remained more than seventy years. During this period the Popes and the greater part of the cardinals were " Boniface VIII., in a Bull launched " The first instance of this kind, against Albert of Austria, calls himself however, is perhaps the transference by "the vicar of Jesus Christ, sitting on Pope Martin IV. (1281—1285) of the an elevated throne, to whom all power crown of Aragon from Peter III. to has been given, loth in Heaven and on Charles of Valois. Hallam, Mid. Ages, earth." Raynaldus, Ann. Eccl. ann. 1301, vol. ii. p. 231. t. iv. p. 302. « Ranke, Deutsche Gesch. B. i. S. 45. Chap. I.] THE PAPAL SCHISM. 327 French, and the Eoman See naturally lost in consequence much of its influence, as well in Italy as in the rest of Europe. This was the period of the attacks on the Church by the Italian writers, as well as by many in England, in the reign of Edward III., and of the rise in that country of the sect of the AVicliflfites or Lollards. By the statutes of provisors. King John's vassalage and annual tribute to Eome were abolished, appeals to the Papal court forbid- den, and the procuring of any presentations from it was made penal. A somewhat similar statute, though not so stringent, had been l^assed towards the close of Edward I.'s reign ; and these precautions against the abuses of Papal power were confirmed by the statute of Prceviunire, in the reign of Richard 11. The decline of the Papal revenue, through the opposition of temporal sovereigns, caused the Popes to invent new taxes on superstition. The Jubilee instituted by Boniface VIII., in 1300, which attracted numberless pilgrims to Eome, was at first, like the ludi sceculares of Augustus, intended to be celebrated at the close of every century, but was found so profitable that it was repeated by Clement YI. in 1350, and the term was ultimatel}^ reduced to thirty-five years. Other sources of revenue were the sale of indulgences, the proclamation of crusades that were never executed, the sale of offices, &c. These abuses were accompanied with the greatest depravation of morals at the Papal court, insomuch that Avignon obtained the name of the modern Babylon. In 1376, Grregory XL restored the Papal residence to Rome; but that event was soon followed by the schism. On Gregory's death (1378), the Eoman populace, wearied of a succession of French pontiffs, overawed the conclave with their clamour, and compelled them to choose an Italian, Urban VI., a native of Naples. As Urban, however, proved disagreeable to the cardinals, they pronounced his election void, as having been procured by intimidation, and chose Clement in his place. There was now, therefore, a Pope and an Antipope. Urban remained at Eome, Clement returned to Avignon, and Europe divided its allegiance between them — France, Spain, Sicily, and Scotland, adhering to Clement; while Italy and the rest of Europe acknowledged Urban. The schism was prolonged till 1429 — more than fifty years. None of the rival Popes would yield his pretensions, and it was at length determined to remove the scandal by calling a general council. The council of Pisa, the first of the three great councils of the fifteenth century, assembled to decide this question in 1409. There was no point of doctrine in dispute ; it was simply a question of Y 4 328 COUNCILS OF PISA AND CONSTANCE. [Book II. contested right. The decision of the assembled fathers, however, only more embroiled the fray. They deposed both the rival Popes, Gregory and Benedict, and elected Alexander V. in their place; but as the deposed Popes found many adherents, the only result was three infallible heads of the Church instead of two, all at variance with one another. It became necessary, therefore, to appeal to another council; and as that of Pisa had been objected to, on the ground of its having been summoned only by cardinals, John XXIII., who had succeeded Alexander V., was prevailed upon to call the Council of Constance (1414). This assembly had something more to decide than the legitimacy of these wrangling pontiffs, whose quarrels, whose schisms, whose avarice, and whose profligacy, had excited the aversion of all thinking men, clerical as well as lay, and had given birth to two separate projects of reform ; one within the Church, the other w^ithout. A very considerable portion of the transmontane clergy who assembled at Constance were desirous of effecting a moderate reform; and as they agreed to vote by nations, and not jjer capita, or individually, which would have given a preponderance to the Italian clergy, they were enabled to carry some of their resolutions.^^ They appointed a Committee of Eeformation, whose resolutions might have eventually counteracted the more glaring abuses of the Papacy; and they made the famous declaration, that the authority of a general council is superior to that of the Pope. It may well be doubted, however, whether the power of the Roman See could have been ever effectually broken without a reform of doctrine ; and of this some of the ecclesiastics who were strenuous against the Papal abuses were the most violent opponents. The more thorough movement from without, begun by Wiclif, though arrested, was not suppressed. Many causes had hindered the success of that reformation. The times were not yet ripe for it : Wiclif himself was scarcely, of the true temper for a great re- former ; and his attempt was damaged, first by the weakness of Richard II., and then by the revolution which overthrew that monarch. Although Richard prohibited Papal Bulls in England, and passed the prcemunire^ he at the same time made statutes against the Lollards, forbade the teaching of their doctrines at Oxford, and suppressed their conventicles in London. Thus he alienated at once the reformers and Romanists, and fell an easy " In this assembly, England obtained Denmark and Sweden. See L'Enfant, an independent national vote, much to Hist, die Cone, cle Constance, ap. Hallam, the annoyance of the French, who main- Mid. Ages, vol. ii. p. 244. tained that it belonged to Germany, like Chap. L] REFORMATION IX BOHEMIA. 329 prey to Henry of Lancaster, whose invasion was invited by the Archbishop of Canterbury in person.^^ The reign of the Chnrch was now re-established, and under Henry IV. heresy was made a capital offence. But through the connection of the two countries by the marriage of Eichard with Anne of Bohemia, the doctrines of Wiclif had spread to that country, and had taken root there long before the time of Huss. Conrad Waldhauser and JMilic had been popular preachers of them towards the end of the 14th cen- tury ; though Matthias von Janow, a canon of Prague cathedral, who died in 1394, must be more especially regarded as the pre- cursor of Huss. The new doctrines received a further impulse in Bohemia through Jerome of Prague, who had studied at Oxford. Some of the English Wicliffites also took refuge in that country ; and we find among them one Peter Payne, who had been obliged tofly from Oxford on account of his principles, and who was subsequently one of the Taborite deputies who attended the Council of Basle in 1433. Huss carried his tenets almost as far as Luther did after- wards. He appealed to the Scriptures alone as the standard of faith ; denounced the indulgences published by Pope John XXIIL, and held in 1412 a public disputation against them."^ His friend Jerome of Prague and others burnt, like Luther, the Papal Bulls under the gallows, a description of which scene is still extant in the lAanuscript of a contemporary student.^° In fact, Luther's Re- formation w^as only a reproduction, under more favourable circum- stances, of those of Wiclif and Huss. But the Hussite doctrines never penetrated over the frontiers of Bohemia; they were, in fact, a sort of national reaction against Grerman domination. The Germans regarded the Hussites with aversion, and a devastating war was for some time carried on between them. At that time Bohemia was superior to Germ any in literary culture. The uni- versity of Prague, the earliest in the empire, was founded in 1350, and in 140S is said to have contained 30,000 students and 200 professors. Of the students about 4000 were Germans, wljo sided with the Pope ; and when Huss was appointed rector, they quitted Prague and established the University of Leipsic (1409). The reforming party in the Council of Constance was principally led by the French ecclesiastics, among whom three names are con- spicuous above the rest ; those of Gerson, Nicholas de Clemangis, Rector of the University of Paris, and Peter d'Ailly, Cardinal- Archbishop of Cambray. Clemangis had written before 1413 his little work De corrujoto Ecclesice Statu, which Michelet likens to ™ Turner, Hist of England, vol. ii. " Palacky, GcscJi. von Bbhmcn, B. iii p. 125. S. 275. ^"Und.^. 278. 330 HUSS AND JEROME BURNT. [Book II. Luther's Captivity of Bahylon.^^ The object of these reformers, however, was merely to establish an ecclesiastical oligarchy in place of the absolute power of the Pope. The}^ could never pardon Huss his attacks upon the hierarchy. They were his bitterest enemies ; and it was for these attacks, not foi- their imputed heresies, that Huss and Jerome of Prague died. A deep blush mantled on the cheeks of Sigismund when Huss, with a steadfast look, reminded him of the imperial safe-conduct^-; but the feeling was transient, and the reformer was left to his fate. This judicial murder pro- duced a reproachful letter to the Council signed by no fewer than 452 Bohemian nobles ; to which the Fathers answered by summon- ing the subscribers before them, and on their non-appearance de- nouncing them as heretics. It is a proof to what an extent the Hussite doctrines had spread in Bohemia that the name of Bo- hemian became synon3'mous with heretic. The internal dissen- sions of the Hussites themselves alone prevented the establishment of the Eeformation in that country. The tenets of the moderate party, called Calixtines or Utraquists, and subsequently the Prar/ue Party , had been publicly adopted by the University of Prague ; but, as commonly happens in all great revolutions, whether political or religious, their cause was injured by various extreme sects of desperate and dreaming fanatics, who produced the disorders which proved fatal to the cause. The heaviest complaints made against Eome at the Council of Constance were those of the English and the Germans. The latter, however, suffered most from Papal extortions ; and they handed in a long list of grievances, which is important as displaying the state of the Grerman Church at that time, and shows that Germany w^as ripe for a reformation.®^ The council, as the organ of the Holv Ghost, deposed John XXIII. (May 29th, 1415), and elected in his stead Cardinal Otho di Colonna, who assumed the name of ^Martin V. England took a great part in this affair. There was at this time a close connexion between the English Crown and the Church. John was in the custody of the Cardinal of Winchester, uncle of Henry v., and the new Pope was under the King of England's thumb.^'* The Emperor Sigismund and the Germans had made a stipulation before Martin's election that he should reform the Church ; but he " Hist, de France, t. vi. p. 204. plied, " No. I will not blush like my ^ ^Iladenowic, in Op. Hi'ssi, ap. Pa- predecessor Sigismund." — Fn'd. lacky, B. iii. S. 364. The tradition seems **^ The paper is published in Von der to hare reached the ears of Charles Y., Hardt's Aefs of the Council of Constancy who, when requested to order the arrest *• See Rymer, t. ix. p. 540. an, 1418 ; of Luther at Worms, is said to have re- Michelet, Hist, de France, t. vi. p. 348. Chap. I.] COUNCIL OF BASLE. 331 afterwards put off this engagement with the approbation of the council. In conformity with the resolution of that assembly he convoked a Council at Pavia^ which was transferred to Siena on account of the plague, but nothing important was transacted in it. The Council which he summoned to Basle, and which met in 1433, after his death, had more results. Eugenius IV., who now occu- pied the Papal chair, had attempted, but without success, to divert it to some Italian city. The opposition to the Pope at the coun'cil of Basle was con- ducted by two remarkable men, both of whom, however, sub- sequently changed their opinions : Nicholas of Cusa, or Cusanus, well known for his services to Grreek classical learning and to Grerman literature, and by ^neas Sylvius, whom we have already had occasion to mention. This synod reasserted the decree of Constance, that the authority of a general council is superior to that of the Pope. When Eugenius, on pretence of negotiating with the Greeks, summoned another Council at Ferrara, thus virtually abrogating that of Basle, the latter declared the Pope's Bull for that purpose null and void, suspended the Pope himself in its thirty-firsf sitting (January 24, 1438), declared* the Council of Ferrara a mere conventicuium, and cited the members to appear at Basle.^^ In June 1439, the latter Council condemned and de- posed the Pope, and afterwards elected as his successor Ama- deus VIII., Duke of Savoy (November 17). Amadeus, though no ecclesiastic, had the odour of sanctity. He w^as Dean of the Knights of St. Maurice of Eipaille, a convent which he had founded near Thonon, on the southern shore of Lake Leman, and to which he had retired after the death of his wife in 1434. In this retreat, he repeated the canonical prayers seven times a day : but it is said that, instead of roots and spring water, the hermits of Eipaille enjoyed the best wine and the best viands that could be procured ; whence the popular proverb faire rijpaille, to denote a life of ease and dissipation.^^ Amadeus accepted the tiara, and under the title of Felix V. lived some years in Papal splendour at Basle, Lausanne, and Geneva, and nominated during his pontificate twenty-three cardinals. He was as good as the average of Popes ; indeed, a great deal better than many of his successors. He was not, however, recognised by the more im- portant Christian kingdoms ; and when the Council was dissolved 85 The council of Ferrara, however, Cardinal Bessarion was a prominent transferred to Florence on account of the figure in this transaction. See Gibbon, plague, actually effected a sort of union vol. viii. p. 99. with the Emperor Palseologus (1439). "^ See Moustrelet, liv. ii. c. 168. 332 LIBERTIES OF THE GALLICAN CHURCH. [Book n. in 1449, Felix renounced the tiara with more resignation than had been displayed by his priestly rivals. The Council was overthrown through the treachery of ^neas Sylvius, who made peace be- tween Eugenius and the Emperor. Its object, like that of Con- stance, had been to establish in the Church a sort of republican hierarchy. These disputes w^ere not without advantage to the churches of France and Germany, and especially to the former. The Prag- matic Sanction of St. Louis, which protected his subjects from the oppression of Eome, was renewed and confirmed by the Etats Gemraux, or states of the kingdom, which met at Bourges in 1438. The chief objects of this ecclesiastical charter w^ere, to subject the Popes to periodical general councils ; to suppress annates, reserves, and other payments which drew so much French money to Eome, and to secure to chapters and religious communities the free election of bishops, abbots, and priors. The right of the prince to address his recommendations to the electors w^as recognised, a veto only being reserved to the Pope, in case of unworthiness or abuse. In the early ages, these recommendations were in fact equivalent to commands; but after the establishment of the Pragmatic Sanction, the election became tolerably free. Appeals to Eome were forbidden, except in certain special cases. Priests living in open concubinage, Avho were very numerous, were subjected to the loss of a quarter of their incomes. Without, however, any regard to the substance of the Pragmatic Sanction, the mere promulgation by a ro3^al ordinance of the decrees of the Council was an im- portant fact, as establishing the right of the civil power to controul the decisions of the 'Church. The Pragmatic Sanction secured the rio-hts and liberties of the Gallican church. Louis XI. when Dauphin assured Pius II. that he would abolish it, and when reminded of his promise after he had ascended the throne, issued a decree to that effect, but sent secret instructions to his attorney general to prevent its registration. The sanction, however, was modified in the reign of Francis I., as there will be occasion to relate in the sequel. The Germans presented to the Council of Basle, as they had to that of Constance, a long list of grievances. The Papal power and its consequent abuses had made greater progress in that country than in any other, having been supported by the electors and princes as a counter-balance to that of the Emperor. In spite of the councils, the authority of the Pope stood very high in Germany down to the time of the Eeformation ; it had gained great strength after ^neas Sylvius, the crafty and able minister of that weak Chap. I.] GERMAN CON-CORDATS 333 Prince Frederick III., became Pope Pius 11. The diets were now called Royal and Papal, or Papal and Imperial days ; the Papal legates appeared in them as in Sigismimd's days, and sometimes opened them.^^ The attempt to make a stand, during the Council of Basle, against the encroachments of Rome, had proved of little avail. In 1439, a German diet assembled at Mentz, and, like the French etats at Bourges in the preceding year, adopted the reformatory resolutions of the council, twenty-six in number ; making only those alterations which the peculiar situation of Grermany required. They did not, however, like the French, make any practical application of the resolutions, and thus derived no benefit from them. The only result was the theo- retical recognition of the superiority of a council over the Pope. About eight years afterwards, indeed, a sort of agreement, called the Roman Concordat, was established between Germany and Pope Eugenius (1447); but yEneas Sylvius, at that time Frederick III.'s minister, and a secret tool of the Pope, took care that the Germans should derive little or no benefit from it. Under Pope Nicholas V. a new concordat, called the Concordat of Vienna, was agreed upon, February l7th 1448, in which even the advantages of the Roman Concordat were altogether withdrawn. This instrument was kept very secret, and till the middle of the eighteenth centiu-y was called the Aschafenburg Concordat, on the supposition that it had been concluded there. This agreement continued to govern the German Church. Towards the close of the century, however, opposition to the Papacy reappeared,, occasioned principally by the great sums remitted to Rome. The Mentz Pallium, for example, cost 20,000 gulden, and might perhaps be renewed every four or five years. The annual sum drawn by Rome was estimated at 300,000 gidden, without reckoning costs of suits at Rome, rents of prebends, Sco,.^^ During the Council of Basle, England and Burgundy sided with the Pope. The former country, as we have seen^^, had already emancipated herself from the more flagrant abuses of the Roman tyranny. Castile, in the earlier ages of the monarchy, was nearly independent of the Papal See, till Alphonso X. (1252-1284), by publishing a code of law which incorporated gi'eat part of the Decretals, established the jurisdiction of Rome.*^^ The benefices of Castile soon became filled with Italians, whilst Aragon and Navarre offered in this respect a favourable contrast. The " Ranke, Deutsche Gesch. B. i. S. 252. ^^ Marina, ap. Hal] am, Mid. Ages, vol. ^ Ranke, loc. cit. ii. p. 254. 8» Above, p. 327. 334 TRIUMPH OF THE RO^rA^- SEE. [Book IL Castilian Cortes, however, made a stand against Rome in the reign of Henry lY. (1473), and Isabella subsequently maintained a more independent attitude. By a concordat of 1482, Sixtus IV. con- ceded to the Spanish sovereigns the right of nominating to the higher ecclesiastical dignities, though the Holy See still collated to the inferior ones, which were frequently bestowed on improper persons. Isabella sometimes obtained indulgences conferring the right of presentation for a limited period.^ ^ In Italy, Venice asserted her independence of the Papal power, and frequently opposed to it either the authority of the Patriarch of Aquileia or that of a general council ; while in Florence, the Medici com- monly obeyed the Pope only so far as they chose.^^ The attempt to reform the Church luithin the Church had proved a failure ; nothing could be effectual but a reformation fwin without, accompanied with a purification of her doctrines. The Councils of Constance and Basle were little more than a struggle for wealth and power between the Pope and clergy. With regard to their spiritual prerogatives the Popes came out victorious from the contest. In January 1460, Pius II. published a Bull condemning all appeals to a council ^^ ; and half a century later (1512), the noted Dominican monk, Thomas of Gaeta, declared the Church a born slave that, could do nothing even against the worst Pope but pray for him.^"^ He little dreamt that a great part of the Church was then on the eve of emancipation. The members partook of the corruption of the head.. The vices and profligacy of the clergy had long been notorious, and were de- nounced even by those who regarded with indulgence the abuses of the Papacy. Constance, at the time of the council, was filled with hundreds of players and jugglers ; the handsomest courtesans of Italy there vied with one another in jDride and extravagance. Nor were these amusements intended only for the knights, bai'ons, and tradespeople who flocked thither in great numbers, but also for the assembled fathers.^'^ In a sermon delivered before the coun- cil at Siena — an adjournment of those of Constance and Pavia — the preacher, after a severe denunciation of clerical vices, added : "The bishops are more voluptuous' than Epicureans, and settle over the bottle the authority of the Pope and of the council." ^^ Yet this preacher was no reformer. He denounces the heathen philosophy ^' Prescott, Ferd.^Isah. toI. iii. p. 414. Raynaldus, 1512, t. xi. p. 612. Cf. pt. i. ch. vi. ^* Ullmann, Rfformatoren vor dcr Re- 8^ See Ant. Gallus m Muratori, SS. formatio?}, S. 206. t. xxiii. p. 282. oe L'Enfant, Hist, de la Guerre des " Raynaldus, t. x. p. 222. Hussites, cf-c, ap. Martin, t. vi. p. 327. ®^ Dc Auctoritatc Fajjce et ConciUi, in Chap. I.] VICES OF THE CLERGY. 335 as the source of all heresies, imputes the Bohemian revolt to Plato and Aristotle, and traces to the same source the fatalists who then abounded in Italy. The ignorance and profligacy of ecclesiastics were the constant theme of the writers of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries ; but on this head we shall content ourselves with a few^ documentary proofs. In England, the priests petitioned parliament in 1449 to be pardoned for all rapes committed before June next, as well as to be excused from all forfeitures for taking excessive salaries, provided they paid the king a noble {6s. 8d.) for every priest in the kingdom. The petition was granted, and the statute made accordingly.^^ In 1455, the Archbishop of Canterbury issued an order denouncing the vices of his clergy, their gluttony, drunk- enness, fornication, ignorance, pursuit of worldly lucre, &c. It appears from a decree of the 11th session of the Council of La- teran, that some ecclesiastics derived an income from the stews ^^ ; and Innocent VIII. found it necessary to renew by a Bull, pub- lished in April 1488, the constitution of Pius II., forbidding priests to keep butcheries, taverns, gaming-houses and brothels, and to be the go-betweens of courtesans.^^ It would be easy, were it ne- cessary, to multiply this sort of evidence. In Italy the vices of the Church had produced a wide-spread atheism. The higher classes were almost universally sceptics, fata- lists, and Epicureans, and the most consummate infidels were to be found among the clergy themselves. Scepticism was so general that the Council of Lateran thought it necessary to decree, in its eighth session, that the soul of man is not only immortal, but also distinct in each individual, and not a portion of one and the same soul.^°^ Erasmus knew of his own knowledge that at Rome the most horrible blasphemies were uttered by the priests, and sometimes in the very act of saying mass ; and he relates, among other things, an attempt made to prove to him, out of Pliny, that there is no difference between the souls of beasts and men.^^^ Such of the Italian ecclesiastics as were scholars prided themselves on the purity of their Latin style, which they were fearful of corrupting by a study of the Bible. They altered the language of Scripture to that of Livy or Cicero ; Jehovah became Jupiter Optimus Maximus ; Christ, Apollo or ^sculapius ; the Virgin Mary, Diana. ^^^ Cardinal .John de' Medici, afterwards Leo X., w^as not only a Platonist, but " Bolls of Pari. vol. v. p. 123, and Sta- '"" LaLbe, Concilia, t. xiv. p. 187. tutes, vol. i. p. 352 ; ap. Turner, Hist, of '<•* See Burigny, Vie d'Erasme, t. i, p. England, vol. v. 148. ^^ Labbe, Concilia, t. xiv. p. 302. "-' See a specimen given by Erasmus S5 Eaynald. An. 1488, § 21. t. xi. p. in his Ciccroniamis, Op. t. i. p. 995, ed. 159 s(i. Leyden, 1703. 336 LIBERALITY OF ROME. [Book IL if he had any religion at all, rather a pagan than a Christian, and he seems to have inoculated the Romans with his own opinions ; for on the breaking out of a pestilence at Rome during the pon- tificate of his successor Adrian, a bullock was sacrificed on the ancient forum, with heathen rites, conducted by a Greek named Demetrius, to the great satisfaction of the people. '^^ This very laxit}^ of belief had, however, produced a sort of liberality. The Jews, who had been driven from other countries, were tolerated at Rome ^^^ ; and while Ferdinand the Catholic was burning heretics by thousands, no auto da fe was beheld in Italy. The College of Cardinals could assist at and enjoy the representation of Macchia- velli's comedy of Mandragola, a bitter satire upon the clergy. With all its vices and corruption, the Roman Court, at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century, was the meeting-place of all the distinguished men of Europe, and must be regarded as the centre of European civilisation, as well as in a great degree of European politics. The Popes viewed without apprehension opinions which they shared themselves ; for in Italy, learning and philosophy had produced only atheism and indifference, and it was not indifference and atheism that the Church had reason to fear. She w^as ignorant that, beyond the Alps, the same causes had produced a race of men whose acquirements were directed to trace to the fountain-head the origin and progress of their faith, and to examine the foundations on which was erected the vast superstructure of Papal power and usurpation. To the eftbrts of these men we must now advert. From the fifth century to the fifteenth education, as well as learning, was in the hands of the clergy, and the development of European intellect was essentially theological. In most monasteries heathen authors were forbidden ; it was only the Benedictines, w^hich order was fortunately the most numerous, that read and copied secular books, and to them we principally owe what we possess of Roman literature. It must be remembered, however, that if the monks copied, they also destroyed ; and before the use of paper was known, would often rub out a Livy or a Tacitus, in order to fill the parchment with their own absurdities. From this theological character of learning arose the scholastic philosophy, the aim of which was to uphold the dogmas of the Church by a subtle and elaborate logic, and to command, by per- plexing, the reason of mankind. Tlie foundation of all this logic — the postulates from which it started — were the dogmas of the 103 Paul. Jovius, Histor. lib. xxi. "* Osorio, Hist, of Emanuel the Great, vol. i. p. 27 (Gibbs' transl.). ^ Chap. I.] THE EFFECTS OF SCHOLASTICISM. 337 Fathers, collected by Peter Lombard in his Liber Sententiarum, which formed the great arsenal of theological weapons. It was founded, therefore, on authority. Nobody would have thought of questioning these postulates ; and hence the scholastic philosophy was calculated to enslave the intellect, to bind it down to forms, and to prevent all original research. The result of the scholastic system was an intellectual condition approaching to fatuity. "It cannot be denied," observes Eanke, "that however ingenious, varied, and profound are the productions of the middle ages, they are founded on a fantastic view of the world little answering to the realities of things. Had the Church subsisted in full and conscious power, she would have perpetuated this state of the human intel- lect." ^°^ Fooldom stands out the prominent object of observation and ridicule in the literature which preceded the Eeformation. The number of attacks on folly and fools is surprising. The Ship of Fools of Sebastian Brandt was imitated in England by Walter Mapes and Nigel Wireker. The SjDeculum Stultorum of the latter was printed more than half a dozen times before the end of the 15th century. ^°^ Among writers of the same kind were Ham- merlein, Michel Menot, Greiler von Kaisenberg, Hans Eosenbliit, and others, especially Erasmus, whose Mcopias ^FAjfCMpicov, or Praise of Folly, was adorned with wood-cuts by Hans Holbein ; among which was one representing the Pope with his triple crown. Thus ridicule became one of the instruments of the Eeformation. Ancient paganism had fallen before it through the attacks of Lucian, the Voltaire of antiquity, and it helped to destroy the paganism of modern Eome. The revival of classical learning promoted, no doubt, the advent of the Eeformation, though one of its first effects was to produce a race of pedants who caught the form rather than the spirit of antiquity. The results of the art of printing were also slow. At first it helped both parties, the friends and the enemies of light ; the mystic and scholastic writers were multiplied ad infinitum, and for one Tacitus the libraries were inundated with copies of Duns Scotus and St. Thomas Aquinas. But towards the end of the 15th cen- tury the press began to tell on the other side, for common sense, though tardily, will at last prevail. Among the earliest who attacked the abuses of Eome was Nicholas Krebs, called also Cusanus (born 1401), who first demonstrated the spuriousness of the Decretals of Isidore of Seville. In his Conjectura de novis- ^'^^ Popes, vol. i. p. 61 (Mrs. Austin's Bacon, Albertus Magnus, and a few others, transl.). Some grand exceptions stand out "'*' Henke ap. Koseoe, Leo A', vol. iii. amidst the general darlmess, as Koger p. 147. VOL. I. Z 338 ERASMUS. — JOHN OF WESEL. [Book IT. simis Temporibus Cusanus foretold the Reformation, and by his tero-iversation at the Council of Basle did what in him lav to falsify his own prediction. Laurentiiis Valla, who flourished about the same time, in his declamation against the donation of Constantine, attacked in a tone as violent as Luther's the corruption of the clergy and the temporal power of the Pope. But by far the greatest of all the classical philologists who took up their pens against the abuses of the Church was Erasmus. His edition of the Greek Testament, the first that appeared from the press (1516), served to harbinger the Reformation. In the Paradesis, or Exhortation, prefixed to it, he expresses a hope that the Gospels and St. Paul's Epistles may be read in their native tongues by Scotch and Irish, Turks and Saracens ; but, though he could express this noble wish in his study and rail at monkish abuses, he was not disposed to attempt a reformation of them at the expense of his life or even of his personal comfort. He was the man of speculation, not of action ; and his selfish and somewhat sensual nature excludes him from that class of men whose intrepidity has rendered them the benefactors of their kind. Such men at best only prepared the ground for the Reformation ; the seed was so^vn by other labourers. Such especially were the restorers of Hebrew learning and of the study of the Old Testa- ment. The Old Covenant was destined again to produce the New, or at all events to restore its purity and banish the idolatry of Rome. For many ages God the Father had not even had an altar. He was regarded as Jewish ; and one of the characteristics of the middle ages was hatred of the unbaptized, whether Mahometan or Jew. The importance, however, attached by the early Reformers to the Hebrew Scriptures contributed to give the Reformation an occasional air of gloomy fanaticism. John of Wesel was one of the earliest restorers of Hebrew learn- ing, whose treatise against Indulgences, published in 1450, handles the subject in a more exhaustive and uncompromising manner than even the Theses of Luther. '^^ That prodigy of learning, Pico di Mirandola, was deep in Hebrew lore. Of all books he preferred the Cabbala, on which he published a treatise in 1488. His tract, entitled Adversus eos qui aliquot ejus Propositiones theologicas carpebant, addressed to his friend Lorenzo de' Medici, contains many principles of the subsequent reformers. Reuchlin, the pupil of Wesel and friend of Pico, was another distinguished Hebraist. It was in 1484, after the banishment of the Jews from *"' See UUmann, Bcformatoren vor der Eeform. S. 283 £. Chap. I.] EESTORATION OF HEBREW LEAEXIXG. 339 Spain, and when they began to appear in the cities of the north, that Reuchlin published his book De Verbo mirijico, to show that the Jews alone had know^n the word of God. His literary quarrel with the monks of Cologne, in which he succeeded in rescuing piles of Hebrew literature from the flames to which they had been condemned by the Dominicans, is one of the most striking events that harbingered the Eeformation (1509). Ulrich von Hutten lent the aid of his humour. His bantering Epistolce ohsciLroruni Virormn, which, in spite, or rather perhaps in consequence, of their bad Latin and palpable absurdities, were at first supposed by the monks themselves to proceed from their friends, served to cover them with ineffaceable ridicule. ^°^ Reuchlin was supported more or less openly by the Dukes of Saxony, Bavaria, and Wiirtemberg, as well as by the turbulent knights of the Rhine, who had been accustomed to pillage the Jews; and thirty-five imperial cities wrote to the Pope in his favour. Such is a faint sketch of the three great social revolutions which were in progress at the beginning of the 16th century. Science, literature, and art partook the movement. The revival of ancient learning would have been worthless had it produced merely a host of imitators ; but original writers now sprang up who may be placed beside the classics rather as their rivals than their pupils. Italy, the cradle of modern European civilisation, had felt and transmitted the influence of ancient genius a century or two before : and to her former great triumvirate of Dante^ Petrarca, and Boccaccio, she might now add the names of Pulci, Boiardo, and Ariosto. In the same period Italian art attained its highest perfection. The hand of Raffaelle gave to painting consummate grace and majesty, while Michael Angelo Buonaroti reached the sublime in all the sister arts of sculpture, painting, and architecture. It must not be supposed, however, that this intellectual advance- ment was universal. It was confined to a few favoured countries, and even in those was underlaid with a thick substratum of popular ignorance and barbarism. In some parts of Europe heathenism still lingered, and in Lithuania the ancient serpent worship pre- vailed till late in the fifteenth century. ^°^ It was thought that the powers of nature might be overcome by enchantment, or propitiated by sacrifice. Hence a firm belief prevailed in witches and sorcerers, '*^ For an account of Ronchlin's con- by Aldus in 1515, with the usual papal trorersy, see Von der Hardt, Hist. Lit. privilege and exemption from piracy for Ref. pars ii. ; and Meiner's Lcbcnsbe- ten years. See Michelet, Beforme, p. 38^ schreionngen beriihrntcr Miinncr. The "* -iEneas Sylvius, De Europa, c. 26. Efi^tolcB obsc. Virorum were published z 2 340 LIXGEKIXG IGNORANCE AND SUrERSTlTlON. [Book U. and those who had attained any unusual proficiency in literature or science ran the risk of being inchided in the latter category. Nor was this ignorance and superstition confined to the lower classes. Grilles de Retz, a Marshal of France, assisted by an Italian and an English sorcej-er, was in the habit of sacrificing infants to the infernal daemons, for the purpose of obtaining gold, science, and power. He was burnt for sorcery, in 1440, when the bones of 140 children were found in his castles.^ ^° In 1460, a penitentiary of the Pope, who had become Dean of Arras, from his hatred of literature huint a member of a literary club as a sorcerer ; which proceeding, however, together with other barbarities of the same kind, are said to have had the effect, by the disgust they produced, of banishing the inquisition from France.^^ ^ The belief in astrology and alchemy was universal. In 1456, King Henry VI., wdth the sanction of his parliament, gave a commission to three ''philoso- phers " to transmute baser metals into gold and silver ; and in the following year he announced to the people, that by means of the stone he should soon be enabled to pay all his debts. Nor was his successor, Edward IV., exempt from the same credulit}^'^- As late as 1512 Juan Ponce de Leon imdertook a vo3^age to the West Indies, for the purpose of discovering a miraculous fountain, whose waters were said to restore all the vigour and beauty of youth. "0 Michelet, Hist, de France, t. v. p. 208 Hist, de Franc, t. vi. p. 519. sqq. *'^ Tovey, Anglia Jndaica, p. 252 sqq. ; '" Idem. Benaissancc, ciii, ; Martin, Rymer, t. si, p. 68, 128, 240, &e. Chap. II.] ELECTION OF POPE LEO X. 341 CHAPTER 11. The choice of the conclave which assembled after the obsequies of Pope Julius II. had been performed fell on Cardinal John de' Medici, the second son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, who assumed the name of Leo X. By creed a deist, Lorenzo had regarded the Church merely as a source for his son of lucrative emoluments, and dignities which might one day be crowned with the tiara. Leo, who was in his thirty-eighth year at the time of his election, was still only a deacon, and had to be ordained a priest before his coronation could be performed ; yet, besides some minor prefer- ments, he enjoyed six rectories, fifteen abbacies, one priory, and one archbishopric ; all of which had been procured for him, before he had completed his seventeenth year, through his father's influence with Louis XL of France and Popes Sixtus IV. and Innocent VIII. Innocent, although he had solemnly promised at his election not to bestow the purple on any body under thirty years of age, had made John a cardinal in his thirteenth year. In the house of his father, who w^as ^surrounded by men of kindred tastes and senti- ments, the youthful cardinal had imbibed a fine taste in ancienL and profane literature, but very little respect for the doctrines of the church. Amidst an extensive collection of the rarest specimens of art and virtu, he had become a first-rate connoisseur in such subjects ; while the splendour of the Medicean palace and of the fetes and exhibitions in which Florence was unrivalled, had imbued him with that love of show and magnificence which characterised his pontificate. During his exile from Florence, he had relieved the tedium of banishment, and improved his acquaintance with mankind, by visiting most of the principal cities in Germany, Belgium, and France. Besides his accomplishments, Leo possessed the gentlest temper, the most winning manners. It was probablv to these qualities, or the reputation of them, that he owed his election ; though some have ascribed it to a fistula with which he was at that time afflicted, and which seemed to promise another speedy vacancy of the Papal throne. The cardinals had had enough of two ferocious Popes, one of whom had endangered their fives by z 3 342 POLICY OF LEO X. [Book H. the dagger or the bowl, the other by leading them up to the cannon's mouth. ^ Leo, even before he left the conclave, signalised his literary tastes by naming as his secretaries two celebrated writers, Pietro Bembo and Jacopo Sadoleto. The approach of the holy week had compelled him to celebrate his coronation in a slight and hasty manner, and it was therefore repeated a few weeks later when he took possession of St. John Lateran, the peculiar bishopric of the Popes. The day selected for the ceremony was the anniversary of the battle of Eavenna (April 13tli), and Leo figured in the pro- cession on the same white charger which he had ridden on that occasion. The standard of the Church was borne by Alphonso of Ferrara, while Julius de' Medici carried that of the Kniirhts of Rhodes. This splendid spectacle, with the accomj^anying fetes, cost 100,000 florins. Leo soon betrayed an indecent haste to enrich and advance his family and friends. His cousin Julius was immediately created Archbishop of Florence, and received soon after a cardinal's hat and the legation of Bologna. InnoceDt Cibo and three other nepheAvs of Leo, together with Bernard di Bibbiena, his secretary, and Lorenzo Pucci, an adherent of the Medici family, were also speedily invested v/ith the purple. The policy of Leo at first seemed undecided. He appeared willing to put an end to the hostilities ^\ith. France, and he earnestly dissuaded Louis XII. from a fresh enterprise which he was con- templating for the recovery of the Milanese. But though Louis would willingly have abandoned his Council of Pisa, now transferred to Lyon, his heart was set on the Italian expedition ; and it w^as wdth the view of releasing for it his troops on the Spanish frontier that he had concluded with Ferdinand the truce already mentioned, which, however, did not regard Italy. A little previously (]March 24th, 1513) he had entered into an offensive and defensive alliance "with the Venetians, who had been alienated from the Holy League by the arrogant pretensions of Maximilian ; ceding to the republic Mantua, whose marquis he sacrificed, in return for the Cremonese and the Ghiara d'Adda. On the other hand, Maximilian's daughter, Margaret, concluded at Mechlin, April 5th, a counter-treaty in the * The chief authorities for tlie Life of tiffs. Among; modern Lives of Leo may- Leo X. are, the biop;rapliy of P. Jovius, he mentioned Fahroni's, in Latin, puh- and the Diary of Peter de Grassis, master lished at Pisa in 1797, and Roscoe's of the ceremonies to the Roman court. weU-known work ; tlian which last, how- Jovius, though patronised by Leo X., as ever, Niccolini's Vita di Leon A'. ■ is well as by his successors, Adrian VII. reckoned more trustworthy. See Lord and Clement VII., tells, nevertheless, Broughton's Itali/, vol. i. p. 253. some home truths respecting those pon- Chap. II.] LOUIS XII. SEIZES MILAN. 343 names of the Emperor, the Catholic King, the King of England, and the Pope, the parties to which not only agreed to pursue the war against the French in Italy, but also to make each a separate attack on France. Henry VII [. was to invade Normandy, Picardy and Gruienne ; Ferdinand, Beam and Languedoc ; the Pope, Provence and Dauphine ; while Maximilian was to penetrate through Burgundy into the interior of France. But Henry YIII., who wished to wipe out the disgrace of the preceding year, was the only party who entered with sincerity into this treaty. Ferdinand, as we have seen, had already made a truce with France, which, with his usual duplicity, he carefully concealed ; and when called on to ratify the treaty of Mechlin, he declined to do so on the ground that his minister had exceeded his instructions. Leo X., besides his vacillating policy at this time, had not the slightest intention to undertake so distant an expedition ; and Maximilian was induced to join the league only for the sake of 100,000 gold ducats which the English King engaged to pay to him. Louis XII. resolved to hasten his attempt for the recovery of Milan before Henry should be ready for his projected invasion of France. The campaign that followed is one of the most extra- ordinary on record. In the course of a few weeks the Milanese was won and lost. Early in May a large French army, under La Tremouille and Marshal Trivulzio, crossed the Alps and entered Piedmont by way of Susa. Cardona, the Spanish general, retired on their approach, and took up a position near Piacenza; the Swiss, not being strong enough to oppose the advance of the French, also retreated upon Novara ; while the Italians, disgusted with the brutality and avidity of that people, as well as by Maxi- milian Sforza's want of spirit and capacity, rose on every side and welcomed the French, whom they had murdered by thousands only the year before. Sforza found it necessary to take refuge in the Swiss camp, and immediately on his departure the French flag was hoisted at Milan. Meanwhile Grenoa was attacked by a French squadron — the partisans of the Adorni and Fieschi rose, drove out the Doge Giano Fregoso, and restored the city to the sovereignty of France. The Venetians, on their side, had advanced to the Adda ; and thus the whole of Lombardy, except Novara and Come, was reduced in the short space of three weeks. The French, however, were destined to be deprived of their conquest as speedily as they had made it. The Swiss considered it a point of honour to maintain Sforza in the duchy to which they had restored him ; and Leo X., alarmed at the reappearance of the French in Italy, assisted the Swiss with money, but secretly, Z 4 344 ROUT AXD FLIGHT OF THE FEEXCII. [Book H. in order not to break with Louis.^ La Tremouille and Trivulzio had laid siege to Novara, when the approach of a fresh army from Switzerland compelled them to raise it, and to retire towards Trecase, a village three miles off. But after the junction of these reinforcements the Swiss resolved on assuming the offensive. Before day-break on the 6th of June, and covered by a wood which lay between them and the enemy, they advanced in silence upon his camp, and seizing, after a murderous struggle, the French artillery, an arm with which they themselves were unprovided, they turned it upon the French ranks. The victory was complete. In less than two hours a large and well-organised army, commanded by generals of renown, was completely beaten by a body of infantry unsupported by cavalry or guns. The only part of the rjendarmerie in the French ranks which did its duty was the Walloons under Eobert de la Marck, Duke of Bouillon. His two sons, Jametz and Fleuranges, had fallen covered with wounds, when Bouillon, by a des- perate charge, recovered their bodies, and bore them off on the necks of his men's horses. Fleuranges, so well known by his name of Le jeune Aventureux, and by his Memoirs, one of the most original productions of that period, almost miraculously survived ; though he had received no fewer than forty-six wounds ! This battle decided the fate of Italy. The French army was completely de- moralised ; after the passage of the Sesia, it is said that not a single cavalier retained his lance. They hastened to recross the Alps ; and the inconstant Lombards were now obliged to intreat the mercy of the victorious Swiss, by whom they were amerced in heavy fines. After the defeat of the French, Cardona began to gather the fruits of a victory whose dangers he had not shared. Pescara was despatched with 3000 foot to levy a fine upon the Genoese ; and, although there was no declared war between Spain and Venice, Cardona proceeded to occupy Bergamo, Brescia, Cremona, and other places which the Venetians had abandoned, and Avhich now felt the effects of Spanish avarice and ferocity. At the instance of Cardinal Gurk, the Emperor's lieutenant in Italy, who gave Cardona a reinforcement of Germans, that general, after an abortive attempt on Padua, crossed the Brenta, burnt Mestre, Marghera, and Fusine, and advancing to the shore of the Lagoon, insulted Venice by a distant cannonade. He then retired to Verona, after defeating with great loss the Venetian general Alviano, who had issued from Padua to intercept his march (October 7th 1513). ^ Muratori, Ann. t. x. p. 85. Chap. II.] THE EIS'GLISH INVADE FRAXCE. ' 345 Meanwhile Louis XXL had need of all his forces to defend his own dominions. Louis had endeavoured to avert the Eno-Hsh invasion by means of his ally, the Scottish King, James lY. ; to whose gallantry also the French Queen Anne had appealed, as her knight and champion, according to the romantic ideas of that age. James sent some ships to the aid of France, and threatened to invade England with a large army ; but he was only preparing his own destruction. The Scots were overthrown by the Earl of Surrey in the decisive battle of Flodden, in which their King was slain (September 9th) ; nor did his unfortunate attempt arrest for a moment the English preparations against France. The war, however, had gone at first in favour of the French. The English admiral, the gallant Sir Edward Howard, w^as repulsed and killed in an attempt to cut some French galleys out of the port of Conquet (April 25th 1513): and Prejean de Bidoulx, the French commander, venturing out of harbour, made a descent upon the coast of Sussex. He was, however, repulsed, and could not prevent the passage of an English army to Calais. With a portion of this force the Earl of Shrewsbury and Lord Herbert laid siege to Terouenne, in Artois (June 17th). King Henry himself with the main body of his army landed at Calais, June 30th ; but it was not till August 1st that he began his march to Terouenne. Whilst he lay encamped before that place, he was joined by the Emperor Maximilian with a small body of cavalry. That needy sovereign, unable to discharge the obligations he had incurred by the treaty of Mechlin, was willing to make some amends by personal service ; and he scrupled not to degrade the majesty of the empire by de- claring himself the soldier of the English King, and receiving as such a stipend of 100 crov/ns a day. The youthful Henry, how- ever, bowed to the superior experience of his "soldier," and ^Maximilian in reality directed the operations of the campaign. Terouenne made an obstinate defence. It was relieved by some Albanese Stradiots in the service of France, who penetrated to the town, bearing provisions and ammunition on their horses' necks.^ But the campaign was decided in a singular manner. The French gendarmerie, while retiring from a skirmish with the English and German cavalry, perceiving on the hill of Guinegate two large bodies of infantry and some batteries of guns, were seized with a panic, clapped spurs to their horses, and never turned their heads till they gained their camp at Blangi (August 16th). Hence the ' Some captiTred Stradiots were brought small spears, and swords like Tiu-k- in for the inspection of Henry VIII. ish scimitars. Hall, p. 543,, ap. TiU'ncr, They had short stirrups, beaver hats, Henry VIIL toL i. p. 119. 3-16 BATTLE OF THE SPURS. [Book II. French themselves gave to this affair the name of the Battle of the Spurs. Few French were killed, but many of their most dis- tinguished captains were made prisoners; and among them the Duke of Longueville, grandson of the famous Dunois. Terouenne now surrendered and was rased to the ground. The alarm was great at Paris. Louis XII., who was laid up with the gout, caused himself to be carried in a litter to Amiens, to concert measures for the defence of the Somme. But instead of pushing on to Paris, Henry, at the instigation of the Emperor, invested Tournay, a town very conveniently situated for ]\Iaximilian, but the possession of which could neither be of any service to the English, nor contribute much to the success of the war. Tournay sur- rendered after a short siege (September 24th), and was retained by Henry ; to the mortification of the Emperor, who departed before the end of the month. But Margaret^ with her nephew Charles, repaired to Tournay, and dissipated in some degree by her arts and flattery the clouds which had begun to rise in Henry's mind. The match between Charles and Henry's sister Mary was confirmed ; and the English King agreed to advance 200,000 gold crowns for the preservation of their common conquests till the following summer, when, as Ferdinand's truce with Louis would have ex- pired, a combined attack was to be made on France by that monarch, Maximilian, and Henry. After making this arrangement, Plenry returned home (October 21st). Vriiile these things were passing in the north of France, Maxi- milian, relying on the strength of the English exchequer, had hired a large body of Swiss, as well as Duke Ulrich of Wiirtemberg with a few thousand cavalry, to invade Burgundy. This force marched straight upon Dijon, into which town La Tremouille, then governor of Burgundy, had thrown himself. Unable to meet the Swiss in the field, La Tremouille attacked them by their weak point, their love of money ; and by a treaty which he concluded with their commander, Jacob von Wattenwyl, avoyer of Bern, he agreed that Louis XII. should abandon the Council of Pisa, with- draw his pretensions to the ]\Iilanese, restore to the Roman See and to the German Empire all that had been wrested from them, and engage to enlist no troops in Switzerland without the consent of all the cantons. Such extravagant concessions were evidently made only to be disavowed*; yet the Swiss did not stop to enquire what powers La Tremouille and Wattenwyl had to conclude a Michelet characterises this treaty as allaient prendre Dijon." — Renaissance, p. ''le mensonge par lequel La Tremouille, 184. sans pudexir, attrape les Suisses qui nous Chap. II.] LOUIS XII. SUBMITS TO THE POPE. 347 treaty which regulated the fate not merely of Dijon and Burgundy, but of all Christendom. Of the stipulated sum, La Tremouille could pay down only 20,000 crowns ; and he gave as hostages for the remainder the mayor and four of the richest citizens of Dijon, together with his own nephew, De Mezieres. Yet he advised Louis not to ratify the treaty, and to leave these hostages to their fate ! The astonishment and indignation were universal. Maxi- milian and Henry VIII. denounced the Swiss as villains and traitors, and they were not better received at home ; while Louis XII. was at first inclined to put La Tremouille on his trial. At length, however, he accepted the excuses of his general, and paid the Swiss 50,000 crowns as an instalment. Thus were terminated the eventful campaigns of 1513. Before the end of the year Louis XII. reconciled himself with the Pope, and by a treaty signed at the abbey of Corbey^, October 26th, he ao^reed to renounce the Council of Pisa and acknowledo;e that of the Lateran; before which assembly his envoys formally made their submission, December 31st, when Leo remitted all the eccle- siastical censures fulminated by his predecessor against France. The coalition, no longer animated by the impetuous spirit of Julius IL, was now evidently falling to pieces ; and Louis, to further his views upon Milan, sought the friendship of the Emperor and of the King of Spain. Maximilian was conciliated by the offer of Louis's second daughter, Eenee, for one of his grandsons, either the Archduke Charles or Ferdinand, to w^hom Eenee was to bring as her portion the French claims on Lombardy. The death of Louis's consort, Anne of Brittany (January 1514), who had em- ployed herself in affecting this arrangement, opened up new bases for negociation. Ferdinand now offered Louis, in his own name and that of Maximilian, the hand either of Margaret, governess of the Netherlands, or of Eleonora of Austria, sister of Charles and Ferdinand. Louisj who was very desirous of an heir, selected Eleonora, and a general truce for a year was provisionally signed, March 13th, with the view of preparing a regular treaty. The death of the French queen removed the only obstacle which had delayed the marriage of the Princess Claude and Francis of Angouleme, whose nuptials were solemnised a few months after (May 18th 1514). Louis now invested them with the duchy of Brittany without opposition from the States, altliough, by the marriage contract of Louis and Anne, Brittany should have fallen to their second child Eenee ; and thus, after a temporary separation ' Dumont, t, ir. pt. i. p. 175. 348 RISE OF WOLSEY. [Book U. till the death of Louis, that province was finally united to the crown of France. The war continued in Italy in 1514, but its operations are not worthy to be detailed. Cardona and the Imperial generals resumed hostilities against the Venetians, and the ferocious Frangipani de- vastated the Friuli and the INlarch of Treviso, inflicting great loss and misery on the inhabitants, but contributing nothing to the issue of the war. The French were driven from the few re- maining places which they held in Italy. The citadels of Milan and Cremona capitulated in June ; and on the 26th of August, the fortress of La Lanterna at Genoa, though deemed impregna- ble, was compelled to surrender. During this period the policy of Leo X. was vacillating |and difficult of explanation, except that he followed wherever self-interest led. Leo had as much ambition as Julius IL, but without the same elevation of view or frankness of character. If he aimed like his predecessor at extending the dominion of the Church, it was only that he might enrich his family with the spoils ; if he entertained the project of freeing Italy from the barbarians, it was only in order that its various states might be united under the sovereignty of the House of Medici. He pursued these schemes with the greatest duplicity, courting and betraying all parties in turn. Leo was much alarmed at the projected marriage between the Archduke Charles and Kenee of France, which at no distant period would have cemented France, Spain, Austria, and the Netherlands into one colossal power ; and he used every exertion to prevent its accomplishment. The dissatisfaction of Henry VIII. with the same project, which involved a breach of the contract between Charles and Henry's sister Mary, afforded Leo the means of frustrating it. The scheme of an alliance between France and England appears to have originated at Eome between the Pope and the English ambassador Bambridge, Cardinal-Arch- bishop of York^ ; and it was forwarded in England by Wolsey, now rapidly rising in his master's favour, and already Bishop of Lincoln and Tournay. Communications were opened between the French and English courts through the Duke of Longueville, who had remained a prisoner in England since the Battle of the Spurs. Wolsey, who facilitated the negociations by persuading Henry to relax his pretensions, except in the case of his own See of Tournay, was rewarded with the Archbishopric of York on the death of Bambridge, who had been poisoned by a servant, July 14th. The Duke of Longueville proposed a marriage between Louis XII. and « See Roscoe, Leo X. toI. ji. p. 312 (ed. 1827). Chap. n.J LOUIS XII. MARRIES PRIXCESS M.iRY. 349 the Princess Mary; and Henry YIII., burning to revenge himself on his father-in-law, by whom he had been so often duped, listened eagerly to the proposal. Louis XII. on his side readily entered into a scheme which, while it relieved him from a formidable attack, secured him a youthful and charming bride. He consented to abandon Tournay; and on the 7th August, 1514, three treaties^ were sio-ned at London. The first of these was an alliance, offensive and defensive, between England and France ; the second stipulated a marriage between Louis XII. and the Princess Mary, who was to bring a dowry of 400,000 crowns ; and by the third Louis engaged to pay Henry 100,000 gold crowns annually for a term of ten years, in satisfaction of the arrears of the debt of Charles VIII. to Henry VII. The previous negociations between Louis, Ferdinand, and Maximilian were thus upset, and Eenee subsequently married Ercole II., Duke of Ferrara. Longueville espoused Mary at Green- wich by procuration for his master, August 13th; and on the ninth of October, Louis solemnised his nuptials in person at Abbeville, whence the new Queen of France was conducted with great pomp to the palace of the Tournelles at Paris. Louis being thus freed from a dangerous enemy, his scheme for the recovery of the Milanese began to revive, and he talked of another expedition into Italy in the following spring. But this he was not destined to accomplish. Although only fifty-three years of age, his feeble health had long compelled him to observe a strict regimen, which was completely disturbed by the round of pleasure and dissipation into which his marriage with a youthful, lively, and handsome princess had plunged him. The King's dinner, usually served at eight in the morning, was deferred till noon, and instead of retiring to rest at six in the evening, he was frequently kept up till past midnight. The levity of Mary's conduct found a severe censor in the Princess Claude. All her suite were sent back to England^, except a few confidential attendants, among whom was Anne Boleyn, the future wife of Henry VIII. ; nor does the English monarch appear to have resented the proceeding. Louis's altered way of life soon undermined his constitution, and he was seized with a dysentery, which carried him off January 1st 1515. He died regretted by the French people ; and on the whole he deserved their love, for his rule had been mild and paternal, and no King since St. Louis had manifested so much sympathy for his poorer subjects. Yet his foreign policy was not only injudicious but also frequently culpable. He betrayed most of his allies, and ' Eymer, t. xiii. p. 413, 423, 430. ^ Ellib's Orig. Letters, vol. i. p. 115 (1st series). 350 ACCESSION OF FRA^TIS I. [Book II. he gave many proofs of cruelty in his Italian wars, and especially in his treatment of the Duke of ]Milan. Louis XII. was the first King of France who caused his bust to be engraved upon the coin, w^hence these pieces obtained the name of testons^ (testers). The death of Louis thw^arted some ambitious projects of Pope Leo X., who had hoped, with the assistance of that monarch, to establish his brother Julian in the kingdom of Naples, as well as to add to the Florentine dominion of his nephew Lorenzo, Parma, Piacenza, Modena, Eeggio, and perhaps all the Ferrarese ; thus uniting nearly all Italy under the sway of the House of Medici.'^ When the sinking health of Louis frustrated all expectations of assistance from that quarter, Leo turned his thoughts towards the realising of some part of his schemes by the aid of Ferdinand of Aragon and the Emperor. With this view he sent Bembo to Venice in December 1514, to detach if possible that republic from the French alliance and reconcile her with the Emperor ; but the Venetians rejected the proposed conditions, and remained faithful to France. At the same time Leo concluded a separate treaty with the Swiss, whose confederacy had this year been completed by the accession of Appenzell. Such was the state of Italian affairs w^hen the Duke of Angouleme succeeded to the French throne with the title of Francis I. Bora at Cognac, September 12th 1494, Francis was now in his twenty- first year, but in appearance and manner seemed four or five years older. Handsome, of a tall and graceful figure, he excelled in all martial exercises, while a natural elegance of manner recommended him to the fair sex. From his tutor, Arthur Grouffier of Boisy, a nobleman w^ho had imbibed in Italy a love then rare for literature and art, Francis had derived a certain respect for learning, which he manifested by patronising its professors, although his own reading was mostly confined to romances of chivalry. Indeed all his qualities were showy and superficial : his ruling characteristics were sensuality and a levity amounting to caprice ; yet being brave, talkative, libertine, the French nation saw and loved in him her own image, and fancied that she was about to have a sovereign of distinguished greatness. After the death of Louis XII., Mary declared that there was no prospect of her giving birth to an heir of the French monarchy, and Francis entered upon an inheritance which, according to the scandalous chronicles of the time, he had himself put to hazard by his attempts on the Queen's virtue. Mary shortly after married ' From tcte, a head. i» See Panita, Storia Veneta, lib. ii. p. 135 (ed. 1718). Chap. II.] CHARACTER OF HIS MOTHER LOUISA. 351 the handsome and accomplished Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, her professed admirer, who had accompanied her to France, though not named among the embassy. Francis affected great indignation at this match, though in his heart perhaps not displeased at it, since it prevented the English princess from contracting a marriage which might have been disadvantageous to France : he even interceded with Henry in favour of the indiscreet lovers, and the English King forgave without much difficulty the temerity of his favourite Brandon. With the accession of Francis I. began in fact the reign of his mother, Louisa of Savoy, to whom, in his pursuit of pleasure, he readily abandoned the cares of government. One of his first acts was to create Louisa Duchess of Angouleme and Anjou, and to invest her with some of the prerogatives of royalty. Althougli but forty years of age, she was already in the twentieth year of her widowhood ; and as during the reign of Anne of Brittany she had been kept at a distance from the court, she now resolved to com- pensate herself for the privations which she had endured. Her warm temper and propensity to gallantry are acknowledged by the gravest writers of the times ^^ and she saw without displeasure the same disposition in her son, whose dissipations might serve to give her a firmer hold of power. Anne of Brittany was the first Queen of France who surrounded herself with the daughters of the nobility; but under her auspices the court had been a school even of an austere and repulsive virtue. Louisa, in whose eyes the manners of the previous reign were an odious restraint, retained, but perverted, the cuvstom ; the court became a scene of licence and debauchery ; and it is from this time that we must date the influence of women in the political affairs of France, a charac- teristic almost peculiar to that nation. Antony Diiprat, first president of the Parliament of Paris, fore- seeing probably the future greatness of Louisa, had attached him- self to her in her retirement, and after the accession of Francis his fidelity was rewarded with the Chancellorship. Talented but arbitrary, the grand idea of Duprat's life was to render the royal authority absolute. About the same time, the office of Constable, vacant since the death of John de Bourbon in 1488, was bestowed on Charles de Bourbon, who was reputed to enjoy a place in the affections of Louisa. The middle and lower classes of the French people looked back with regret to the economical government of Louis XII. ; but the " Pasquier, Becherchrs de la France, liv. vi. ch. 11 (t. i. p. 559 sq. ed, 1723); Belcarius, liv. xvii. p, 509. 352 TKEATY BETWEEX FK.VXCIS I. ASD CHARLES. [Book IT. accession of Fancis I. was hailed with joy by the higher orders, who hoped to profit by his very faults and vices. The reign of a prince, young, gay, fond of pleasure, ambitious of military glory, promised amusement and dissipation at home, enterprise and promotion abroad. The Italian claims formed part of the dowry which Claude had brouo-ht to Francis, who, after the death of his father-in-law, assumed the title of Duke of JMilan, and determined to carry out Louis's projected enterprise upon that state. The army was put on a new footing ; every laiice garnie was increased from six to eight horsemen, and a large number of lansquenets were engaged under the command of Charles d'Egmont, Duke of Grelderland, and the La Marcks. The engagement in the service of France of Pedro Navarro, the celebrated Spanish commander and engineer, was an acquisition almost equal to an army. After the battle of Eavenna, the Viceroy Cardona had ruined Navarro's reputation with Ferdinand by imputing to him the loss of a field from which he had himself disgracefully fled ; Ferdinand refused to pay Navarro's ransom, who had remained a prisoner in France, and who, by birth a Basque, was easily induced to throw up his allegiance to the King of Aragon. In the Cevennes and the Pyrenees he now raised a large body of men, whom he organised after the model of the redoubtable Spanish infantry. With a view to his Italian expedition, and the safety of his own dominions dui'ing his absence, Francis concluded treaties with various powers. The Archduke Charles of Austria, now fifteen years of age, had just assumed the government of the Netherlands in place of his aunt Margaret. Charles, aware of the hostile feel- ings which his maternal grandfather Ferdinand entertained towards him, readily entered into an offensive and defensive alliance with Francis (March 1515), which was to be strengthened by a pro- jected marriage between him and Renee, sister of the French King's consort. Charles, although he enumerated in this treaty his grandfather Ferdinand among his allies, engaged not to lend him any aid against France, unless he terminated within six months his differences with the French court respecting Navarre, by re- storing John d'Albret to the throne of that country.^^ Francis also renewed, April 5th, the treaty of Louis XII. with Henry YIIL, stipulating, however, that Milan and Grenoa should not be reckoned among the allies of England ; and he was careful to assume in the instrument the titles of Duke of Milan and Lord of Grenoa.^^ He " Dumont, t. iv. pt. i. p. 199. It is two princes quote Aristotle in support of characteristic of the pedantry of the age, their views, that in the preamble to the treaty the " Ibid. p. 204. , Chap. II.] Is'EGOCIATIOXS AND PREPARATIONS. . 353 also endeavoured to effect with the Spanish King a renewal of the treaty of Orthes ; but Ferdinand refused his consent unless Italy were now included in it, and Francis of course rejected a condition which would have defeated his darling project. Ferdinand now despatched ambassadors into Switzerland, who, in conjunction with those of the Emperor and the Duke of Milan, and aided by the Cardinal of Sion and the anti-Q-allican party among the Swiss, effected a renewal of the coalition between the Cantons and those powers. In vain Francis endeavoured to propitiate the Swiss, who insisted on the fulfilment of the whole treaty of Dijon; and in order to divert the French attack on Milan, they even promised to invade Burgundy and Dauphine, whilst Ferdinand entered G-uienne. The Venetians remained faithful to the French alliance ; but the negotiations with the Pope did not lead to any satisfactory result, although Leo was now connected with the royal family of France. In February 1515 a marriage between Julian de' Medici and Philiberta of Savoy, sister of Francis's mother, had been cele- brated at Eome with great pomp and splendid fetes, which were repeated at Turin. Yet all that could be obtained from Leo was a promise of neutrality ; in spite of which he joined in July the Swiss coalition, which guaranteed Milan to Maximilian Sforza. The French King was more fortunate in his negociations with Octavian Fregoso, Doge of Grenoa, who engaged to abdicate as soon as the French army should have passed the Alps ; stipulating, however, for the Grenoese the restoration of their privileges, and for himself the Government of Genoa, the order of St. Michael, a company of gens-d'^aiines, and a large pension. The French army had assembled at Lyon by the middle of July, whence Francis issued an ordinance constituting his mother Eegent of the kingdom during his absence. The French cavalry consisted of 2500 lances, and 1500 Albanian light horse, besides the King's household and numerous volunteers; the infantry amounted to 40,000 men, of which more than half were lans- quenets ; the artillery numbered seventy-two large guns, and 300 smaller ones, and there was a body of 2500 pioneers. The S\\ass had occupied the passes of Mont Cenis and Mont Genevre, then deemed the only practicable routes across the Alps ; a bod}^ of 10,000 more was at Susa, and the rest of their army was cantoned at Coni, Saluzzo, and Pignerol. At Saluzzo they had been joined by Prosper Colonna with a chosen body of Papal cavalry. The main body of the Eoman and Florentine army, under Julian de' Medici, were by order of the Pope advancing very slowly by Modena and Parma, watching the turn of events. VOL. I. A A 354 THE FREXCII CROSS THE ALPS. [Book II. The immense amphitheatre of gigantic mountains which separates Italy from the rest of Europe, and which was so long regarded by the Italians as marking the boundary between barbarism and civilisation, has never proved an effectual barrier against the lust of conquest. The passage of the Alps by immense hosts has, from the earliest periods down to modern times, presented some of the most remarkable episodes in the history of war ; and of all that are recorded, perhaps none is more extraordinary than that now effected by the generals of Francis. As it was impossible to force a passage over Monts Cenis and Grenevre, and as the Cornice Eoad between the Maritime Alps and the sea, besides a great loss of time, would have ultimately presented the same difficulties, Trivulzio, Lautrec, and Navarro, guided by chamois hunters and the shepherds of the Alps, explored a new route from Embrun by the valley of Barcelonette to Argentiere and the sources of the Stura. A path hardly to be traversed by a pedestrian was, by the daring ingenuity of Navarro, made practicable for artillery. Enormous masses of rock were blown up with gunpowder; bridges were thrown across unfathomable abysses; heavy guns were hoisted immense heights, and swung with ropes from peak to peak. On the fifth day, the army with its artillery stood on the plains of Saluzzo, before the enemy were aware that it had begun to scale the mountains. The French had carried with them only a few days' provisions, so that if the Swiss had known their route, and blockaded the passage, which was easy enough to do, the whole French army must have been inevitably starved among the moun- tains.^* Meanwhile a small division, composed chiefly of cavalry, under the renowned generals La Palisse, Bayard, Humbercourt, and d'Aubigny, had penetrated more to the north by Brianpon, Sestrieres, and Rocca Sparviera, in the direction of Villa Franca, over paths never before trodden by horses. So unexpected was their appearance that Prosper Colonna, who was dining in full security at Villa Franca, was captured, together with 700 of his men, without striking a blow. The Swiss retired in consternation on Novara and Milan ; the main French army advanced by Turin and Vercelli, while a corps of 8000 detached to the south, re- covered without bloodshed Grenoa and all the district south of the Po. The Swiss now found the whole burthen of the war thrown upon " The commissariat department was in not victiial their army sufficiently to pass those days ill understood. Thus it was the Pyrenees. Macchiavelli, liitratti di reckoned the chief safeguard of France Francia, Op. t. iv. p. 139. against the Spaniards, that they could Ghap. II.] TREACHERY OF THE SWISS. 355 them ; for the Spanish general Cardona was kept in check near Verona by Alviano and the Venetians, while the * Papal and Florentine army did not stir. Having retired to Grallerate, they began to listen to the counsels of three of their leaders, who were in the interest "of France ; and in spite of all the attempts of the Cardinal of Sion to prevent it, they entered into a treaty with Francis. The French King engaged to pay the 400,000 crowns stipulated by the treaty of Dijon, and 300,000 more for the places which the Swiss had seized in Ital}^ ; to bestow on Maximilian Sforza the Duchy of Nemours in place of that of Milan, together with a pension, a company of gens-cVmines, and the hand of a French princess; while the Smss were to take service under the French crown, on the terms which had been rejected by Louis XIL The cantons of Solothurn, Freiburg and Bern, and the Upper Valais, assented to this arrangement, but the rest determined to fiorht for Sforza. Francis borrowed from his nobles and generals all the ready money and plate they could spare, in order to seal the treaty by paying a first instalment. Meanwhile, however, another Swiss army of more than 20,000 men, under Eosch, burgomaster of Zurich, arrived from Bellinzona, and gave a de- cided superiority to the Smss arms. The new comers were indignant at a treaty which deprived them of their hopes of plunder, and they easily persuaded the greater part of their countrymen to enter into their views. In all haste they marched upon Buffaloro to seize the French money which had been for- warded to Lautrec at that place, and he had the greatest diffi- culty in saving it from their grasp. After this disappointment, the Swiss occupied Milan. Francis with his army was at the village of Marignano, or Malegnano, only about ten miles off; Alviano and the Venetians had advanced by forced marches to Lodi, and thus held Cardona and Lorenzo de' Medici in check, who had effected a junction at Piacenza. Every thing promised a campaign on a grand scale ; but the impetuous ardour of the Swiss, who had now been rejoined by Cardinal Sion, brought matters to a speedy issue. On the 13th of September, after a violent and almost frantic address from the cardinal, the re- doubtable horns of L'ri and L^nterwald resounded through the streets of Milan; and though the day was far spent, the Swiss marched out by the Porta Romana to give battle. As their columns advanced along the high road, flanked on each side by a ditch, the French artillery made large gaps in their ranks, which were instantly filled up. When the alarm was given, Francis was about to sit down to table, and he immediately rushed out to place A A 2 356 BATTLE OF MARIGXx\NO. [Book U. himself at the head of his guard. The Swiss penetrated to the French artillery and captured several batteries. The battle raged till near midnight, when the moon having gone down and left all in darkness, the French and Swiss battalions bivouacked inter- mingled. Francis slept on a gun-carriage. At daybreak, he rallied his scattered divisions by trumpet signals, when about 20,000 lansquenets and all his gendarmerie gathered round him. The Swiss renewed the attack with vigour, and the fortune of the day still hung trembling in the balance, when about nine o'clock Alviano appeared on the field with a small body of Venetians. At the cry of " St. Mark ! " the Swiss, fancying that the whole Venetian army was upon them, began to retire, but in such ad- mirable order that the French were fain to leave them unmolested. The slaughter had been great on both sides. The veteran Tri- vulzio, who had been present at eighteen general engagements, observed that what he had hitherto seen had been mere child's play, but that this was a battle of giants. Bayard had displayed his accustomed valour. After the victory, Francis insisted on receiving the order of knighthood from his hand, than which no worthier could have bestowed it. The battle of Marignano subsequently formed the main stock of Francis I.'s military renown ; yet, with the exception of personal valour, we should look in vain for the foundation of it. So far from directing any of the movements, it is plain, from his boastful letter to his mother, that he had no conception of what was going on around him. He had not advanced beyond the tactics of Agin- court ; he thought that the knights had done it all, not the infantry and artillery. ^^ The Cardinal of Sion in vain attempted to persuade the Swiss to defend Milan ; the day after the battle they commenced their homeward march, leaving only 1500 of their number to hold the citadel for Sforza. The cardinal fled into Austria. The citadel was taken October 4th, through the effects of a mine directed by Navarro. Sforza now abdicated the duchy in favour of Francis I., and retired into France, where a pension of 30,000 crowns was assigned to him; and he is said to have rejoiced at being de- livered from the insolence of the Swiss, the exactions of the Emperor, and the impositions of the Spaniards. He died forgotten at Paris in 1530. '* Francis's letter, which is very in- avoir tout fait." — 'Benaissance, p. 283. correct, is in Graillard, Hist, cle Fran^vis I. For this campaign see Guicciardini, lib. t. iv. p. 390. Miehelet characterises it as xii. ; Belcarius, lib. xv. p. 439 sqq. ; the the letter of a "gar9on de 20 ans, qui Memoires of Martin du Bellai, and those ne se contient pas dans sa joie et croit of Fleurange and the Loyal Serviteur. Chap. II.] ALLIANCE BETWEEN THE POPE AND FRANCIS. 357 Francis seemed now in a position to prosecute with success his other claims in Italy; but he had as little idea of making use of his victory as he had of the manner in which it had been gained. The Italian republicans were the natural allies of France, and with the aid of Venice and Florence, Naples might easily have been con- quered. But Francis's chivalrous notions led him to despise the Florentines and Venetians as a mob of roturiers enriched by com- merce ; Louisa had a poor amBition of allying herself with the Medici, the oppressors of Florentine liberty ; and Duprat, who, it is said, entertained the notion of receiving the tonsure and ob- taining a cardinal's hat, was also disposed to court Leo X. Francis blindly followed the guidance of his mother and her counsellor ; and thus the policy of Louis XII. and d'Amboise was revived, and Italy was sacrificed to the ]\Iedici, as it had been before to the Borgias. The victory of Marignano had struck Leo with consternation ; the safety of the Papal army was compromised, and he immediately sought to rescue it by opening negociations. By flattery, dissimu- lation, and the arts of intrigue, backed by the favour of the queen- mother, Leo contrived to impose upon Francis, in the midst of his glory, conditions which might have appeared hard even after a de- feat. In October, only a month after the battle of Marignano, a defensive alliance was concluded at Viterbo between the Pope and the French King. Francis guaranteed all the dominions which Leo now held or might hereafter recover, made over to him Bologna, and engaged to support Julian and Lorenzo de' Medici at Florence, and to grant them titles and pensions in France. Leo, in return, merely undertook to support Francis in the Duchy of Milan, which he already held by conquest, to recall the Papal troops serving aorainst Venice, to restore Parma and Piacenza to Milan, and Mo- dena and Eeggio to the Duke of Ferrara. Cardona, who would have had to sustain the first attack of the victorious French, ob- tained permission to be included in the treaty, and to retire to Naples with his army through the States of the Church. The alliance was ratified in December, at a personal interview between Leo and Francis at Bologna. The negociations were preceded by fetes and rejoicings and by the splendid ceremonials of the Eomish Church, in which Francis demeaned himself as the servant and vassal of the Pontiff, supporting his train, and presenting him the water and napkin when he communicated; while Leo forbore to show the least token of respect, lest the vicar of Christ should seem to do homage to a temporal sovereign. But if Leo thus insisted in public on his spiritual A A 3 ?>58 FPtEXCTI COXCORDAT. [Book II. privileges, he won the King in tlieir more familiar intercourse by his m-banity and seductive manners. He persuaded Francis to connive at his seizing the Duchy of Urbino for his nephew Lorenzo ; and after the death of Julian de' Medici, in March 1516, who, out of gratitude for former services during his exile, endeavoured to protect the reigning Duke, Urbino was made over to Lorenzo. The arbitrary proceedings of Leo about this time engendered a conspiracy in the College of Cardinals itself. Cardinal Alphonso Petrucci, in revenge for the expulsion of his brother Borghese from Siena, incited three or four of his brother cardinals to join him in a plot to assassinate the Pope. The conspiracy was for- tunately discovered, and Leo at first seemed inclined to pardon the guilty parties ; but suddenly changing his mind, to the con- sternation of the sacred college, deprived Cardinals Petrucci, Bandinello, De' Sauli, and Eaphael Riario, of their dignities and preferments, and handed them over to the secular arm. Petrucci was beheaded in prison the following night; the rest pur- chased their lives and the restoration of their dignities with a large sum of money. Leo incurred such odium by these proceedings, that he found it necessary to surround himself- with guards even during the performance of mass ; and in order to neutralise the adverse party in the consistor}^, he created in a single da}^ no fewer than thirty-one cardinals. By this measure he also replenished the Roman treasur}^, as many of the hats were sold.^*" Besides the affair of the Duchy of Urbino, Leo while at Bologna also persuaded Francis to postpone his expedition to Naples till the death of Ferdinand of Aragon; an event which, from the state of that monarch's health, could not be far distant. Nor did he forget the interests of the Romish Church. Duprat was induced to enter into a Concordat, by which some of the most important articles of the Pragmatic Sanction were revoked and the rights of the Gallican Church bartered away. The demand for periodical councils was abandoned, and annates were tacitly restored to the Pope ; who, on the other hand, invested the French King with the right, before belonging to. chapters and commu- nities, of nominating to bishoprics, abbacies, and priories ; as well as, with a few exceptions, the power of deciding, without appeal to Rome, all ecclesiastical suits. Thus, as Mezerai observes, a whimsical change was made between the Papal and Royal func- tions ; the Pope abandoning his spiritual privileges to a temporal *® Guicciardiui, lib. xiii. Chap. II.] LEAGUE AGAIXST FRAXCIS. 359 prince in return for certain worldly advantages. The negociations were long protracted, and the Concordat ^^, which was highly un- popular in France, was not signed till August 18th 1516. The abolition of the Pragmatic Sanction was proclaimed in the Council of Lateran ; which servile assembly, consisting almost entirely of Italian prelates, who did no more than register the Pope's decisions, was soon afterwards dissolved (March 16th 1517). Francis showed a better policy in conciliating the S\\iss than in his negociations with the Pope. He offered them the same terms as he had proposed before his victory ; engaged to ratify the treaty of Dijon, and promised pensions to the heads of the Cantons; while all he asked in return was permission to lev}^ troops in Switzerland. A treaty of peace and alliance was signed at Greneva with eight of the Cantons, November 7th 1515, which in the following year was acceded to by the rest. The alliance, however, was not to extend to any attack on the Pope, the Emperor, the Austrian dominions. Savoy, Wiirtemberg, the House of Medici, Florence, or M. de Yergier, Marshal of Burgundy. The Swiss retained Bellinzona and the county of Arena. Having thus placed his affairs in Italy on what he deemed a favourable footing, Francis, after disbanding the greater part of his army, and appointing Bourbon governor of the Milanese, returned to France early in February 1516. His success had filled the Catholic King, who trembled for the safety of his Neapolitan dominions, with rage, jealousy, and alarm ; and under the influence of these feelings he had immediately endeavoured to form a league with his son-in-law, Henry VIII., and with the Emperor Maximilian against Francis. IMaximilian was enticed with a large sum of money, with which he was to prepare an ex- pedition against the Milanese ; and Henry, though he had had such signal proofs of Ferdinand's duplicity, was persuaded by Wolsey to join the alliance. Henry, who was probably jealous of the brilliant success of the French monarch, had some grounds of complaint against Francis for supporting Albany as Eegent of Scotland, in opposition to Henry's sister jNIargaret, the Queen Dowager ; and Wolsey, with an eye to his own interest, fomented the passions which rankled in his sovereign's breast. Wolsey owed, indeed, to the French monarch the cardinal's hat which had been recently •bestowed upon him (September 10th 1515), with the title of St*. Cecilia trans Tiberim ; but the grateful return expected for it, in the surrender of the See of Tournay, might be evaded by a breach " In Labbffius. Concilia, t. xiv. p. 358; and in Dumont, t. iv. pt. i. p. 229. A A 4 360 DEATH OF FERDINA^^D THE CATHOLIC. [Book II. with France ; and there was also another prospect of advantage which determined Wolsey in the same policy. Leo X. had taken a secret part in the negociations just mentioned, with the view of instating Francesco Sforza, younger brother of the abdicated Duke Maximilian, in the Duchy of JMilan, instead of the French King ; on the accomplishment of which, Francesco had engaged to bestow on Wolsey a pension of 10,000 ducats.^® The cardinal seems to have had no difficult game with his master ; for so great was Henry's credulity that the Emperor is said to have extracted considerable sums from him on pretence of investing him with the Duchy of Milan, and even resigning to him the Imperial crown.'^ But in the midst of P^erdinand's schemes, an event occurred which had been foreseen by everybody but himself. On the 23rd of January, 1516, he expired in a small house belonging to the friars of Guadalupe, at the village of Madrigalejo, near Truxillo, through which he was passing on his way to Seville. His leading characteristics were avarice, perfidy, and ingratitude. His cold and cautious temper enabled him to become an adept in dissimu- lation ; and it is said that, by whatever feelings he was agitated, his countenance never betrayed the emotions of his mind. His treacheries were generally perpetrated under the hypocritical pre- tence of religion : and amongst them the worst is perhaps that by w^hich he deceived his relative, Frederick of Naples.^^ Ferdinand was, however, in some respects a great prince, and must at least be admitted to have been the most successful one of his age. To his policy, assisted by some fortunate events, must be ascribed the origin of the power and greatness of the Spanish monarchy ; though the measures which he took to establish them broke at the same time all spirit of enterprise in the people and prepared their eventual decline. Ferdinand's enterprises had been on so exten- sive a scale, in comparison with his scanty revenues, that in spite of all his economy, or rather niggardliness, he scarce left enough to defray his funeral expenses. By his marriage with Grermaine de Foix, he had had a son, who, however, lived only a few hours. Con- '® Eymer, t. xiii. p. 525, professions of a perfidious Men dsliip. See '^ Lord Herbert's Life of Henry VIII. Hist, of Ferdinand and Isabella, vol. iii. (in Kennet, toI. ii. p. 25 sq.\ p. 366. Mr. Prescott's view of Ferdinand's ^^ Mr. Prescott, in a parallel which he character, drawn from Spanish sources, is draws between Ferdinand and Louis XII. altogether too favourable. Voltaire, ^^-ith in this affair, endeavours to prove the his usual felicity, observes of that mo- French king as bad as the Spanish; for- narch: "Onl'appelaitfWjE'^^^fl^we, le sage, le getting that Louis was acting as an open prudent; en Italie, le pieux ; cw France et a, enemy in tlie prosecution of what he con- Londres, le perfide." — Essai sicr lesMceurs, sidered a just claim ; while Ferdinand got eh. 1 14. possession of Frederick's fortresses under Chap. II.] AUSTEIAN AND HUXGAEIAN MAEEIAGES. 361 salvo de Cordova had expired a little before his master, at the age of sixty-two (Deceraber 2nd 1515). The death of Ferdinand led Francis to resume his desisfn of conquering Naples ; in which, as Leo X. had advised him to post- pone the enterprise till after that event, he fully expected the assistance of the Pontiff. But, while he was meditating this expe- dition, an unexpected descent of the Emperor Maximilian caused him to tremble for the safety of the- Milanese itself. While the French were overrunning Lombardy, Maximilian had been intent in Grermany upon one of those matrimonial specula- tions by which the fortunes of the House of Austria were pro- verbially so much better advanced than by its arms.^^ It will be recollected that by the peace of Presburg in 1491, Maximilian obtained, besides a considerable sum of money, the eventual suc- cession to the throne of Hungary. In September 1502, King Wladislaus had married Anne of Foix, great-niece of Louis XI. ; by whom, in the following year, he had a daughter, Anne, and in 1506 a son, who received the name of Louis, in honour of Louis XIL, the near relative of the Queen. The birth of this prince made Maximilian doubt the results of his compact with the Hungarian King, although he procured it to be ratified afresh by the diet; and he began to entertain the project of securing the succession for his house by a double marriage between two of his grandchildren and Louis and Anne, the son and daughter of Wladislaus. The scheme was opposed by Sigismund L, King of Poland, the younger brother of Wladislaus ; and in order to over- come his opposition, Maximilian allied himself with the Teutonic Knights, with Vasili Ivanovitch, Grrand Duke of Muscovy, and with Christian II., King of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, to whom he crave in marrias^e his orranddauo^hter Isabella. Sigismund, alarmed at this formidable combination, withdrew his opposition; in 1514 the long-protracted negociations were brought to a happy termina- tion ; and in July of the following year, Wladislaus and Sigismund repaired to Vienna, when the youthful Louis was betrothed to Maximilian's granddaughter Mary. At the same time a marriage was agreed upon between Anne, the daughter of Wladislaus, and one of Maximilian's grandsons, which was eventually consummated in 1521 by the union of Ferdinand and Anne. Having completed these arrangements, Maximilian at length 2> According to the well-known distich " Bella gerant alii, tu felix Austria nube ; attributed, though perhaps without suffi- Nam qu?e Mars aliis dat tibi regna cient grounds, to liing Matthias Cor- Venus." vinus : — 362 MAXIMILIA^^'S EXrEDITIOX TO MI LAX. [Book II. turned his attention to the affairs of Italy ; and before the end of 1515 he raised, with the money received from Ferdinand of Ara- gon and Henry VIII., a large army of Swiss, Grerman, and Spanish troops, with which he entered Italy in March 1516. At this unex- pected apparition, Lautrec, abandoning successively the lines of the Mincio, the Oglio, and the Adda, sought safety behind the walls of jNIilan ; where the alarm was so great that Bourbon, despairing of the defence of the suburbs, ordered them to be burnt ; an act long remembered with indignation by the inhaljitants. Leo X. now again began to trim. He neglected to succour the French, as stipulated by the Treaty of Bologna ; nay, he even despatched Cardinal da Bibbiena as legate to the Emperor, and instructed his general, Mark Antony Colonna, to join tlie Imperial army. The success of Maximilian seemed certain. As he approached Milan, 13,000 Swiss in Bourbon's army refused to imbrue their hands in the blood of their countrymen ; the Constable was forced to dismiss them, and Maximilian was so elated that he assumed all the airs of a con- queror, and threatened to destroy Milan. But his good fortune vanished as suddenly as it had been achieved. His exchequer was exhausted, the pay of his Swiss in arrear, and one morning their colonel, Stafifler, entered the Emperor's chamber while he was in bed, and insolently demanded the money. In vain Maximilian resorted to threats, promises, entreaties ; Staffler told him bluntly that, if the money was not forthcoming, he and his men should pass over to the service of Bourbon. The Emperor was thuader- struck. All his danger at once stared him in the face, and rising in a hurr}^, he hastened to the quarters of his Grerman troops : but not deeming himself secure there, he started for Trent, pretending that he was to receive there 80,000 crowns, and hoping by this pretext to conceal what was in reality a flight. The Grermans, after waiting in vain for his return, made a precipitate retreat ; while the Swiss disbanded, and compensated themselves for the loss of their pay by sacking Lodi and other towns. Such was the ridi- culous end of this apparently formidable descent. Maximilian became the laughing-stock of Europe, and never again appeared at the head of an army. No sooner did the tide turn than the Pope began again to veer, and affected a zeal to fulfil the Treaty of Bologna; but Francis, then intent upon the Concordat, winked at his conduct, and did not suffer it to interrupt the negociations. The demise of King Ferdinand brought a new actor on the political scene, and altered for a while the policy of Europe. His ■grandson and successor, the Archduke Charles, son of Philip the Fair and Joanna of Spain, had just completed his sixteenth year, having Chap. II.] EDUCATIOX OF CHAELES V. SG3 been born at Grhent, February 24th 1500. Maximilian, his paternal grandfather, had intrusted the early education of Charles to Adrian, Dean of Louvain, who, though the son of a tapestiy weaver, had risen to that station by his learning and abilities. Charles, however, seems to have profited little by Adrian's teaching. Although docile and submissive, he displayed in his youth but little quickness of apprehension, and is said never to have acquired a mastery of the Latin tongue. His qualities were such as ripen slowly. Even his bodily development was tardy ; and it was observed that he did not begin to get a beard and put on the appearance of a man till his twenty-first year.^^ In ]\I. de Chievres, of the family of Croi, a practical man of the world, Charles found a more congenial tutor than in the learned and pious Adrian. Chievres, who set but small value on book learning, encouraged his pupil's love for the chase ; but, at the same time, instructed him in history and the art of government, and endeavoured to fit him for an active part in life. Charles showed more facility in acquiring the modern than the ancient languages; and besides Flemish, his native tongue, is said to have understood German, French, Italian, and Spanish. It may be suspected, however, that his acquaintance with most of these was but superficial. He commonly wrote in French, but of a very })arbarous kind. In his aunt JMargaret, the Groverness of the Netherlands, Charles found another admirable instructress for a politician, and his early accession to the government of that country formed, in fact, the completion of his education. Chievres made him read all the state papers and correspondence, and report upon them to the council ; and he thus glided, by imperceptible degrees, from the lessons of political conduct to the actual cares of government.^^ Ferdinand had regarded his grandson Charles with aversion, as a rival who would one day deprive him of Castile; and he had even made a will by which he bequeathed the government of Castile and Aragon, during Charles's absence, to Ferdinand, the younger brother of that prince ; an arrangement by which Ferdi- nand, who had been educated in Spain, and was present on the spot, might have been enabled to seize the cro\^^l, had he been so inclined. Ximenes, however, persuaded the Aragonese monarch to revoke this will, and to make another, only a few hours before his death, by which Aragon and the Two Sicilies were settled on his daughter Joanna and her heirs ; w^hile the administration of Castile was 22 Peter Martyr, Epid. 734. chot, Charles Quint, Chronique de sa Vie 2=^ The more private life and character interieure ct de sa Vic 2>olUique. of Charles have been described bv M. Pi- 364 XIMEXES KEGEXT IX SPAIN. [Book H. entrusted to Ximenes during Charles's absence, and that of Aragon to Alphonso, Archbishop of Saragossa, Ferdinand's natural son. Charles, on his side, was not unaware of his grandfather's enmity towards him. He regarded Ferdinand as an enemy who would exclude him from his lawful inheritance ; and a few months before that monarch's death, he had despatched his former tutor, Adrian, into Spain, ostensibly as an ambassador, but with powers to assume the office of Eegent immediately on Ferdinand's demise. A misunderstanding consequently arose between Ximenes and Adrian, which, however, was arranged by the former allowing Adrian to share the regency with him, though the real authority was engrossed by Ximenes. The monk, indeed, though now near eighty years of age, was the only person capable of exercising it with vigour and effect ; and the conjuncture required all his energy and ability. The Castilian grandees heard with indignation that Charles bad assumed the title of King as soon as the news of Fer- dinand's death arrived in Brussels ; for although his mother Joanna was still confined in the castle of Tordesillas, her mental incapacity, however obvious, had never been declared by any public act. But Ximenes, in spite of the murmurs and cabals of the nobles, caused Charles to be proclaimed at Madrid, which, under his administration, had become the seat of government, and the other towns, whose privileges Ximenes had favoured by way of counterpoise to the power of the grandees, followed the example. In Aragon, where the Archbishop Alphonso ruled with a weaker hand, Charles was indeed acknowledged as the lawful heir, but did not obtain the regal title till after his arrival in Spain. Ximenes also displayed his vigorous policy in the measures he adopted for re- taininoj I^avarre in obedience. The death of Ferdinand encouracjed John d'Albret to attempt the recover}'' of his kingdom; but he was defeated by the Spanish general Vilalva, and compelled to a precipitate retreat (March 25th 1516). As the Navarrese had manifested their affection for the House of Albret, Ximenes, with great harshness and cruelty, caused their castles, towns, and villages, to the number of near 2000, to be dismantled and burnt ; Pam- peluna alone, and a few places on the Ebro, were preserved as fortresses, and the rest of the country was reduced almost to a desert. John d'Albret died in the following June. Yet the power of Charles, however extensive, seemed to rest on insecure foundations. Discontent still lurked amonof the Castilian nobles ; the Spanish possessions in Africa had been endangered by a victory of the celebrated pirate Haroudji Barbarossa ; Navarre and the Netherlands were both exposed to the attacks of the French, Chap. II.] TKEATY OF XOYOI^. 365 and the hostility of that nation would render Charles's contemplated journey to Spain both difficult and hazardous. All these were mo- tives for courting the alliance of Francis I. ; nor did this monarch repulse the overtures made to him. Francis found that he could not rely on Leo, nor consequently on Tuscany, in his projected ex- pedition to Naples ; and as he had not yet succeeded in effecting a treaty with the whole of the Swiss cantons, his Milanese possessions were still exposed to danger from that quarter. Such being the situation of the two monarchs, a treaty was effected between them at Noyon, August 13th 1516, wjiich, according to the practice of those times, was strengthened by a marriage contract. Although by a preceding treaty Charles was already engaged to Eenee, second daughter of Louis XIL, he now contracted to espouse Louisa, the infant daughter of Francis, when she should attain the age of twelve years, receiving as her dowry the French claims upon Naples ; in consideration of which Charles was to pay 100,000 gold crowns annually till the marriage was consummated, and half that sum so long as there was no issue by it. Francis reserved the right of assisting the Venetians against the Emperor ; and, what was of more importance to Charles, of succouring the Queen of Navarre and her children, if Charles failed to do her justice within eight months.^* At this period the two youthful monarchs appeared to be on the best possible terms ; they vied with each other in marks of friend- ship and esteem ; they exchanged the collars of their orders : Charles, who was a few years younger than the French King, ad- dressed him as " my good father," and Francis returned the endear- ing appellation of " my good son." By the treaty of Noyon the Netherlands were also protected against the terrible incm-sions of Charles, Duke of Grelderland, and the piracies of his worthy associate, De Groote Pier, or Big Peter, which inflicted great damage on the maritime commerce of Flan- ders. Henry of Nassau, Stadtholder of Holland, had long main- tained an arduous struggle against these enemies ; but after the treaty of Noyon, Francis mediated a truce of six months, and the Duke of Grelderland restored a portion of Friesland that he had overrun, on receiving a payment of 100,000 gold crowns. Henry of Nassau had won the favour of Francis durinof the negfociations at Noyon ; and he was now allowed to espouse Claude, sister of Phili- bert of Orange and Chalons, and heiress of that sovereign House ; who, as possessing large estates in Burgundy, could not marry with- out the consent of Francis, her feudal lord. The treaty of Noyon was soon followed by the peace of Brussels, 2* Dumont, t. ir. pt. i. p. 224. 366 DECLINE OF VENICE. [Book TI. between the Emperor on one side, and the French King and tlie Venetians on the other (Dec. 4th 1516). Maximilian had now begun to perceive the hopeless nature of his contest with the repub- lic of Venice ; the offer of 200,000 ducats was an irresistible attrac- tion to his poverty, and he resigned all his conquests with the exception of a few places in the Friuli and on the borders of the Tyrol. An end was thus put to the wars which had arisen out of the League of Cambray, and for a few years Europe enjoyed an unwonted tranquillity. Venice had recovered almost all the places which had been ravished from her, and to all appearance came out of the contest without material damage. But her decline had already begun. The places restored to her, exhausted of their wealth and population, required large sums to be laid out upon them ; to meet the expenses of the war, the public revenues had been mortgaged for a long period ; the dignities of the state had been sold to the highest bidders, and a crowd of public servants had thus intruded themselves who had no other recommendation than their money. At the same time the commerce of the republic was rapidly falling off through the maritime discoveries of the Por- tuguese, Avhile another blow had been struck at it by the short-sighted and grasping policy of the Spanish ministers. A Venetian fleet had coasted every year the shores of the Mediterranean, and after touching at Syracuse and other Sicilian ports, proceeded to Tripoli, Tunis, Oi-an, and other places in Africa, where the manufactures of Europe were exchanged for the gold dust of the Moors ; with which the Venetians proceeded to the ports of Spain, and purchased cargoes of silk, wool, and corn. The ministers of Charles raised the duty on these exports, as well as on all articles brought by the Vene- tians, to twenty per cent., or double the former rate, expecting by this method to increase their revenue in proportion ; but its only effect was to annihilate the trade, and to deal a severe blow to the commerce and agriculture of Spain. More than eighteen months elapsed after the death of Ferdinand before Charles determined on taking possession of his Spanish dominions. At the instance of Adrian he had, indeed, despatched a second and a third minister into that country, to share the govern- ment of Ximenes, who, however, continued to assert his superiority, and frustrated all their attempts to overthrow him. Yet, even under his vigilant administration, abuses crept in. The most con- siderable offices in Church and State were sold by the Flemish counsellors, and large remittances of Spanish gold found their way to the Netherlands. The Flemings regarded Spain as their Indies, and plundered it, much as the Spaniards themselves plundered the Chap. II.] CHAELES AEEIVES IX SPAIN. 3G7 New World. Charles's delay in proceeding to Spain was occasioned by the selfish policy of Chievres and his other ministers, who were unwilling to see the seat of government transferred to a foreign country; and the youthful monarch naturally listened with deference tc the advice of his former tutor. Ximenes, on the other hand, was urgent in his entrea,ties that Charles should appear amons: his Spanish subjects; and at last, on the 17th of September 1517, he landed at Villaviciosa, in the Asturias, accompanied by a large train of Flemish nobles. Charles, with his sister Eleonora, hastened to pay a visit to their unfortunate mother at Tordesillas, when Joanna's joy at the unexpected sight of her children is said for a moment to have overcome her dreadful malady. A different treatment was reserved for the great cardinal and minister. Ximenes hastened to meet his master, but the exertion proved too much for his strength ; he was seized with a fever, which compelled him to stop at the Franciscan monastery of Agailera, near the town .of Aranda. His characteristic boldness did not forsake him with his health. In common with the whole Spanish nation, he viewed with regret the influence acquired over the young king by his Flemish courtiers; and he addressed a letter to that monarch from his sick bed, in which he entreated Charles to dismiss them, and to grant him an interview at Aranda. But the Spanish grandees united with the Flemings to thwart the vigorous minister, whom they all alike detested. By their advice Ximenes was treated with a studied neglect, and Charles was persuaded to send him a letter, which, though couched in cold and formal expressions of regard, was in fact a virtual dismissal. The aged prelate was thanked for all his past services, and a personal interview appointed for receiving the benefit of his counsels ; " after which he would be allowed to retire to his benefice, and seek from heaven that reward which heaven alone could adequately bestow." ^^ It may be too much to say with some historians that this letter was the immediate cause of the cardinal's death, yet it probably had an injurious effect on a constitution already enfeebled by age and sickness. He expired soon afterwards (Nov. 8th 1517), in the 81st year of his age. The despotic government of Ximenes, supported by military force and by the terrors of the inquisition, had been completely successful in upholding the royal prerogative ; he avoided assembling the Cortes, and his regency must be regarded as having initiated that repressive and hard-hearted despotism which characterised the rule of the Austrian house in Spain. During the eleven years that he had presided over the tribunal 25 Prescott, Ferd. and Isab. vol. iii. p. 393. S68 CHAELES'S UNPOPULAR MEASURES. [Book II. of the inquisition, Ximenes had condemned to the stake 2,536 persons, and 51,167 to smaller punishments.^^ Charles, the first of that name in Spain, soon afterwards made his public entry into Valladolid. Tlie Cortes of Castile discovered great unwillingness to acknowledge him as king; they refused to grant him that title except in conjunction with his mother Joanna, and on condition that her name should take precedence of his in all public acts; and they stipulated that if at any time she should recover her reason, her claim to the throne should entirely supersede that of her son. On the other hand, the}^ displa^^ed great liberality in voting Charles the hitherto unheard of sum of 600,000 ducats. The Aragonese proved still more intractable than the Castilians. After long delays, and with much difficulty, they at length, indeed, acknowledged the title of Charles on the same conditions as the Castilians, but they voted him only a third as much money. They had profited by the example of the Castilians, and by seeing their liberality abused by the rapacity of the Flemish courtiers. Such was the avarice of those foreigfners that thev are said to have remitted to the Nether- lands, in the short space often months, the enormous sum of more than a million ducats, acquired by their venality and extortion. The Spaniards were still more disgusted by seeing all the highest posts of honour assigned to Flemings. William de Croi, a nephew of Chievres, already Archbishop of Cambray, was appointed, though not of canonical age, to the Archbishopric of Toledo, the primacy of Castile, vacant by the death of Ximenes ; while the chancellorship, which had been filled by the same eminent man, was given to Sauvage, another Fleming, and other appointments of a like nature followed. The pride of the Castilians was stung by these injuries and oppressions. The leading cities, though unsupported by the nobility, formed a league to defend their rights, and laid before the King a remonstrance in which they complained of the favour shown to foreigners, the increase of taxes, and the export of the coin. Charles neglected their complaints; but through this leao-ue was laid the foundation of the Junta, or union of the cities of Castile, which well nigh succeeded in overthrowing the monarchy. Thus by an impolitic conduct forced upon him by his ministers, and which nothing but his youth and inexperience can excuse, did Charles alienate for a time the hearts of his new subjects, and deprive himself of that weight which their cordial affection and assistance would have given him in the affairs of Europe. ^ Llorente, Hist. Grit, de la Inquisicion, cap. 10, art. 5, and cap. 46. Cf. M'Crie, Ref. in Spain, p. 111. Chap. II.] KETROSPECT OP TURKISH AFFAIRS. 369 In the general tranquillity enjoyed by Europe at this period, public attention was chiefly directed to the movements of the Turks, whose history we must here briefly resume. The peace concluded between Venice and Bajazet II. in 1502 2% remained undisturbed during the life of that Sultan. The Vene- tians, occupied with the wars which ensued upon the League of Cambray, submitted, in one or two instances somewhat ignomini- ously, to the dictation of Bajazet ; and as Wladislaus, King of Hungrarv, had also been careful to maintain his truce with the Porte, the Sultan, being thus delivered from all anxiety on the side of Europe, directed his arms towards the East, and succeeded in subduing Caramania. But the reign of Bajazet was disturbed by the revolt of his youngest son Selim, the darling of the Janissaries ; and in 1512 Selim compelled his father to renounce in his favour the throne which Bajazet had destined for his favourite son Achmet. The dethroned Sultan determined to retire to Demitoca, his birth- place ; but on the third day of his journey thither he died of poison, administered to him by a Jewish physician at the instigation of Selim.2^ Achmet, who endeavoiured to assert his claim by arms, was defeated, captured, and executed ; and Selim, that he might have no rival near the throne, also put to death his younger brother Korkud, and caused five of his nephews to be slain before his eyes at Prusa. The years from 1514 to 1516 were employed by Selim in conquering northern Mesopotamia and a considerable part of Persia. He next reduced Syria, and turned his arms against Egypt, where the Mamaluke dynasty had been established since the middle of the 13th century. '^^ Tumanbeg, the Sultan of the Mamalukes, was subdued in the spring of 1517, and put to death at Cairo, April 17th, by command of Selim. The Sultan spent the summer in Egypt in regulating the affairs of his new conquest ; and after passing the winter in Damascus, he returned, in August 1518, after an absence of two years, to Adrianople, when he began to direct his attention to the affairs of Europe. The rapidity and magnitude of these conquests naturally at- tracted the attention and excited tHe alarm of the European potentates. Venice and Hungary, the states more immediately exposed to the fury of the Turkish arms, had deemed it prudent to conciliate the friendship of the Porte; and both Wladislaus, King of 2^ See above, p. 245. at length overthrew in 1250. There were 28 Zinkeisen, B. ii. S. b^o. two dynasties of Maraahike Sovereigns, 29 The word Mamaluke signifies in tliat of the Baharitcs, Turks, or Tartars Arabic slave. The Mamalukes were ori- of Kipzak, and that of the Borgites, ginally slaves trained up to war by the which overthrew the former in 1382. See Ayoubite dynasty in Egypt, which they Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. lis. VOL. I. B B 370 DEATH OF "WLADISLAUS OF HUXGAEY. [Book II. Hungary, and the Grovernment of Venice had, at Selim's accession, renewed the peace which they had entered into with his father. The Venetians, ever alive to the interests of their commerce, congratulated Selim after his conquest of Egypt, a country so important to their trade with the Indies, endeavoured to obtain from its new ruler the confirmation of their ancient privileges, and transferred to him the tribute of 8000 ducats, which they had before paid to the Sultan of Egypt, for the possession of Cyprus. On these terms the peace was confirmed, September 17th 1517, and was not disturbed during Selim's lifetime. Hungary also escaped any serious attack, though sul)ject to a constant border warfare. King Wladislaus had expired jNIarch 13th 1516. Large in person, phlegmatic and melancholy in tem- perament, in mind so simple and candid that he would believe no ill of anybody, in temper so compassionate and,, humane that he could with difficulty be persuaded to sign a death warrant, assiduous in his devotions, but incapable of any active exertion — Wladislaus was one of those characters that might adorn private life, but are totally unfitted for the throne. Under his feeble sway, the nobles acted as they pleased; the revenues of the kingdom, which under King Matthias had amounted to 800,000 ducats, gradually sunk to a quarter of that sum ; and such was the poverty in which he left the royal household, that there was not money enough to defray the expenses of the kitchen. Thus, during the long minority of Louis II., who was only ten years of age at the time of his father's death, the way was prepared for those calamities which we shall presently have to relate. The diet of Tolna observed in their resolutions, 1518, that arms and laws are necessary to a state, but that neither laws nor arms were to be found in Hungary. ^^ Indeed the country at this time seems to have been almost in a state of barbarism. In 1514, a dangerous peasant war, similar to those of Grermany, had broken out, headed by a Szekler named Dosa, which, after the spilling of much blood, was put down ; and Dosa being captured, a council of war, held by Zapolya, decreed that a strfl?:ing example should be made of him and his followers. Forty of the latter were kept a fortnight without food, when only nine remained alive ; these were let loose upon Dosa, who was seated upon a red-hot iron throne, while an iron crown and sceptre in the same state were thrust upon him, and his flesh was torn with red-hot pincers. The famished wretches were now compelled to eat his flesh, or were sabred ii ihey refused ; while Dosa exclaimed, " Eat, ye hounds that I have myself brought ** Katona, t. xix. p. 89. Chap. II.] DISTEACTED STATE OF HUXGARY. 371 up !" Nothing can absolve Zapolya from this devilish act of canni- balism."^^ At a subsequent diet, the peasantry were reduced to a state of slavery, and became adscripti rjlebce, or serfs attached to the soil, were compelled to pay heavy taxes to their masters, and were for- bidden the use of arms, under penalty of losing the right hand. The consequences of these cruel laws were not removed till the reign of Maria Theresa in 1764.^^ John Zapolya, Count of Zips, the perpe- trator of the barbarous deed just related, w^as son of the Palatine Stephen Zapolya, and had been appointed Yoyvode^^ of Transylvania in 1510, at the age of twenty-three. The House of Zapolya, which took its name from a village near Poschega in Slavonia, had risen to great eminence under King Matthias. It was chiefly through its influence that Wladislaus had been seated on the throne, and hence it not only enjoyed a great share of power, but even cherished pretensions to the succession. After the death of Wladislaus, John Zapolya attempted to obtain the office of Giiber- nator from the nobles assembled in the field of Eakos, the place where the diets were held ; but the attempt was frustrated, and. he himself was obliged to fly for his life. It was now resolved that the young King Louis should conduct the affairs of the kingdom, with the assistance of the whole Hungarian Council : an arrange- ment attended with the most disastrous results, as the oligarchs of all parties who thus stepped into power sought only to enrich themselves at the expense of the state, and kept the young King as poor and as powerless as they could. Thus Hungary, by its misgovernment and dissensions, subsequently became an easy prey to the Turks. The peasant war in Hungary just recorded had been fomented by an injudicious step on the part of Pope Leo X. That Pontiff had, like his predecessors, professed a zeal against the Infidels ; and though he could provide Wladislaus with no funds for a Turkish war, he authorised the preaching of a crusade in Hungary. A disorderly mob of 80,000 peasants was thus collected ; who being without discipline and provisions, at the instigation of the lower clergy attacked the estates of the nobles. In spite of his ill success, Leo resumed the subject with Francis I. during the conferences at Bologna : and the French King appears, from a letter which he addressed to the King of Navarre, to have entered ^' Engel, Gesch. des ungarisch. Beiches, in xmr, from voi, war ; a title equiTalcnt B. iii. S. 170 £f. to the German Herzog, or duke. Sir J. 2- Engel, ibid. S. 173 and 301. Wilkinson's Dalmatia, vol. i. p. 26. ^^ Voivoda or Voyevodo, literally, leader B B 2 372 LEO X. PROJECTS A CRUSADE. [Book II. zealously into the Pope's views. ^'^ Nothing, however, was done, and the matter seems to have remained in abeyance till the treaty at Cambray, March 11th 1517, between the Emperor and the Kings of France and Spain. During these negociations the conquest and partition of Greece, and the recovery of the Holy Land, were discussed by the three contracting powers ; which scheme was to be kept secret from the rest of Europe, and especially from the Pope. Maximilian, however, revealed the proceedings of the congress to Leo and to Henry VIII. Leo, who was alarmed at the rapid conquests of Selim, or pretended to be so in order the better to promote his mercenary designs, decreed a war against the Infidels in the last session of the Lateran Council (March 16th), and obtained the grant of a tithe on all ecclesiastical property in Europe for the purpose of defraying the expenses ^^; and he published a Bull enjoining all Christian princes to observe a five years' truce. But though the Pope put on every appearance of earnestness, nothing resulted from these measures but a profitable compact between himself and the French king. Leo granted to Francis all the proceeds of the tithe in his dominions, and all the contributions of his subjects towards the crusade, while Francis in return cancelled the Pope's written engagement to restore Modena and Eeggio to the Duke of Ferrara.-^^ Nevertheless Leo published the crusade after a solemn procession, in which he him- self walked bare-footed, and performed a high mass in the church of St*. Maria in Minerva. The scheme met with no better success in other countries. Maximilian, indeed, embraced it with his usual ardour for new enterprises, and Leo flattered his vanity by appointing him generalissimo of the Christian army, sending him a consecrated hat and sword, and declaring the kingdom of the East an Imperial fief; whereupon Maximilian, who already in imagi- nation beheld himself enthroned at Constantinople, caused a medal to be struck on which he was designated as Emperor of the East and West. He could not, however, inspire the German states with his own enthusiasm. They answered his appeal with remonstrances against Papal exactions, and applauded a treatise of Hutten, in which the Pope was denounced as a far more dangerous enemy to Christendom than the Turk.^^ When the grant by the Lateran Council of an ecclesiastical tithe was published in England, an oath was tendered to the Papal collector that he would make no "See the Negociations de la France '^ See Negfociations, ^'c. t. i. p. 21 sqq. ; dans le Levant, edited by M. Charriere, Martin, t. vii. p. 488. t. i. Introd. p. cxxviii. sqq. (in the Doc. ^* Guicciardini, Storia d' Italia, Kb. xiii. Inedits). »' Eoscoe, Leo X. vol. iii. App. clxxviii. Chap. II.] DEATH OF SULTAN SELIM I. 373 remittances to Eome^^ ; and in Spain, the clergy availing themselves of the discontent and tumults which prevailed, positively refused to obey the Pope's mandate. In this want of zeal among the Christian nations, it was fortunate that Selim's attention was en- grossed by his Eastern provinces, and the revolts of his unruly Janissaries. His last enterprise was directed against Rhodes; but he was not destined to accomplish it. Flying from Constanti- nople to avoid the plague, he was seized with that malady at Tschorli, and expired, September 21st 1520. The fame of this great conqueror is sullied by acts of the most impious cruelty. He is even said to have contemplated the murder of his son and successor Solyman, for fear of experiencing at his hands the fate which he had himself inflicted on his father. In pursuance of his pacific policy at this period, and also with the design of recovering Tournai, Francis courted the alliance of Henry VIII. With this view he withdrew the Duke of Albany from Scotland, and despatched the Admiral Bonnivet into England with letters to Wolsey, in which the French monarch seemed to pour out his whole soul, styling the Cardinal his lord, his father, and his friend. Each letter was accompanied with a present, besides which a large pension was settled on the English minister. Wolsey was not insensible to addresses which flattered at once his avarice and his vanity. He persuaded his master to restore Tour- nai, but on payment of 600,000 crowns in twelve years ; and on these terms a treaty was executed at London in October 1518.^^ It included a marriage contract between the Dauphin Francis and Mary the Princess Royal of England, both recently born infants ; which, however, was soon voided by the death of the Dauphin. It was at this period, also, that a marriage whose results were destined to be so disastrous to France, was contracted between the Pope's nephew Lorenzo, now Duke of Urbino, and head of the Florentine Republic, and Madelaine de la Tour, daughter of John Count of Boulogne and Auvergne, of the royal blood of France through her mother Joanna. In April 1518, the nuptials were celebrated with great pomp at Paris, and on the return of the wedded pair to Florence the fetes were renewed during a whole week. But their happiness was destined to be of short- duration. Lorenzo expired within a year, it is said of a malady contracted at Paris by his licentious amours on the very eve of his marriage. He was the last legitimate descendant of Cosmo the Great. His consort •" Rymer, t. xiii. p. 536. " Rymer, t. xiii. p. 642. B B 3 374 DEATH OF M.\XIMILIAN I. [Book II. had expired only a few days before in giving birth to a daughter, afterwards the celebrated Catherine de' Medici. Cardinal Giulio de' Medici now l>ecame for a while the ruler of Florence ; but the greater part of the Duchy of Urbino was annexed to the States of the Church. The Emperor Maximilian had expired a few months before. Although only fifty-nine years of age, he had long anticipated his dissolution, and duiing the last four years of his life, is said never to have travelled without his coffin and shroud. In these circum- stances he was naturally anxious to secure the Imperial Crown for his grandson Charles; and in 1518 he obtained the con- sent of the majority of the electors to the Eoman crown being bestowed on that prince. The electors of Treves and Saxony alone opposed the project, on the ground, that as Maximilian had never received the Imperial Crown, he was himself still King of the Eomans, and that consequently Charles could not assume a dignity that was not vacant. To obviate this objec- tion, jNIaximilian pressed Leo to send the golden crown to Vienna ; but this plan was defeated by the intrigues of the French court. Francis, who intended to become a candidate for the Imperial crown, intreated the Pope not to commit himself by such an act ; and while these negociations were pending, Maximi- lian died at Wels, in Upper Austria, January 12th 1519, either from having fatigued himself too much in hunting or from the effects of over-indulgence at table. In his more private capacity, Maximilian had many good and amiable qualities. Of a middle size and well-knit frame, he excelled in bodily exercises and feats of arms, and on more than one occasion he slew his adversary with his own hand. His eyes were blue, his nose aquiline, his mouth small, the expression of his countenance animated and manly, his manners frank and dignified. His chivalrous qualities endeared him to the German knighthood ; his affability to the citizens, in whose festivities he frequently par- took; while the addition of a certain tinge of romance rendered him irresistible with the fair sex. He w^as versed in several languages, a patron of literature, and himself an author ; but the memoks which he has left of himself, as the Weiss Kunig (White King) and in the Theuerdank, are written in so far-fetched and enigmatical a style as to be of little value as materials for history.''^ Although no general, he was well acquainted with the details of military service, and was the founder of the lansquenets. In short, " On this subject see Ranke, Zur Kritik neuerer Geschicht-schreiher, S. 141. Chap. II.] CANDIDATES FOR THE IMPEEIAL CROWN. 375 lie was a brave soldier and a good-tempered man ; but here bis praise must end. As a politician be was vacillating and irresolute ; so full of levity and restlessness that be would quit tbe most important enterprise for a bunting-party ; so governed by tbe caprices of imagination, tbat be would form a thousand schemes which be as readily abandoned.'*^ By bis reckless expenditure and extravagant projects, be was often reduced to ridiculous straits ; and it was a common saying tbat be never signed a treaty without expecting a pecuniary consideration.''^ His chief aim was the aggrandisement of his family; and though he achieved little or nothing by bis arms, he founded, through his own marriage and those of bis son and grandsons, tbe future greatness of tbe House of Austria. Three candidates for the imperial crown appeared in tbe field : the Kings of Spain, France, and England. Francis I. was now at the height of bis reputation. His enterprises had hitherto been crowned with success, the popular test of ability, and tbe world accordingly gave him credit for a political wisdom which be was far from possessing. He appears to have gained three or four of the Electors by tbe lavish distribution of his money, which bis agent, Bonnivet, was obliged to carry through Grermany on the backs of horses ; for the Fuggers, the rich bankers of Augsburg, were in the interest of Charles, and refused to give the French any accommo- dation. But tbe bought votes of these venal Electors could not be depended on, some of whom sold themselves more tban once to different parties. The infamy of Albert, Elector of Mentz, in these transactions, was particularly notorious. The chances of Henry VIII. were throughout but slender. Henry's hopes, like those of Francis, were chiefly founded on the corruptibility of the Electors, and on tbe expectation that both his rivals, from the very magnitude of their power, might be deemed ineligible. Of the three candidates, the claims of Charles seemed the best founded and tbe most deserving of success. The House of Austria had already furnished six emperors, of whom the last three had reigued eighty years, as if by an hereditary succession. Charles's Austrian possessions made him a Grerman prince, and from their situation, constituted him the natural protector of Grermany against the Turks. Tbe previous canvass of JMaximilian had been of some service to his cause, and all these advantages be *^ "Sta sempre in continue agitazioni gna e sopra V Imjieratore, Op. t. iv. p. 175. d'animo e di corpo, ma spesso disfti la *- From liis poverty, the Italians gave sera quelle conclude la mattina." — Mac- him the nickname of Massi/niliano poco chiavelli, Discorso sopra le cose di Alama- danari, or " Maximilian small-cash." B B 4 376 CHARLES V. ELECTED EMPEROR. [Book II. seconded, like his competitors, by the free use of bribery. On the other hand, it was objected that, though Charles was a Grerman prince, he had never resided in the country, and did not speak its language ; that he had as yet given no proof of capacity, and that the mao-nitude of his dominions was not only calculated to fill the Germans with apprehension that he would be able to devote little time to the affairs of the empire, but also to inspire them with fears for their liberties. Indeed, at one time Charles's prospect of success appeared so doubtful that his aunt Margaret, whom he had reinstated in the government of the Netherlands, proposed to him that he should substitute his brother Ferdinand as a candidate; counsels which he at once rejected, though he promised to share the hereditary dominions with his brother, and at some future time to procure his election as King of the Eomans. Leo X., the weight of whose authority was sought both by Charles and Francis, though he seemed to favour each, desired the success of neither. He secretly advised the Electors to choose an emperor from among their own body ; and as this seemed an easy solution of the difficulty, they unanimously offered the cro^vn to Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony. But Frederick mag- nanimously refused it, and succeeded in uniting the suffrages of the Electors in favour of Charles ; principally on the ground that he was the sovereign best qualified to meet the great danger impending from the Turk. The election of Charles seems also to have been assisted by Francis von Sickingen and Casimir von Brandenburg, who, as the day of election drew near, in order to frighten the Electors from choosing a foreigner, occupied the roads leading to Frankfort with 20,000 men. The new Emperor, now in his twentieth year, assumed the title of Charles V. His well-set frame, of the middle size, his blue eyes, aquiline nose, and light complexion, recalled the lineaments of his grandfather Maximilian, but altered somewhat for the worse by the mixture of Spanish blood. His health was feeble, his countenance wore an air of sadness and dejection, his under lip huno- down, and he spoke but little and with hesitation. He had as yet shown no symptoms of those talents and that force of character which he afterwards displayed; insomuch that the Spaniards, among whom he lived, deemed him to have inherited the intellectual weakness of his mother, which, however, was far from being the case. He was proclaimed as " Emperor Elect," the title borne by his grandfather, which he subsequently altered to that of " Emperor Elect of the Eomans," a designation adopted by his successors, with the omission of the word "elect," down to Chap. II] DISCOXTEXT OF THE SPAXIAEDS. 377 the dissolution of the empire.'*^ After the election, at the instance of Frederick the Wise, a more rigorous capitulation than usual was extorted from the new Emperor, the enormous extent of whose power rendered the Electors jealous of their liberties.'*^ The Elector Palatine was deputed by the college to carry these articles into Spain for Charles's signature, and to invite him into Grermany. Between the death of Maximilian and the election of Charles, the Palatine and the ecclesiastical Electors of Cologne, Mentz, and Treves had formed the Electoral Union of the Ehine for their common defence, and the preservation of the rights of the college. The Pope and the Kings of France and England were all equally dissatisfied with the result of the election. Leo, however, put a good face upon the matter, and sought to retain some portion of his pretensions by gracefully conceding what he had no longer the power to hinder. He hastened to recognise Charles as Emperor Elect, and to dispense with a Constitution of Clement IV., which forbade the Kingdom of Naples to be united with the Imperial Crown ; hoping that Charles in return would not withhold from him the homage prescribed by long-established custom. But the new Emperor manifested no inclination to gratify the pretensions of the Pontiff; and his example on this occasion had the effect of abrooratinor the usaofe."*^ do o Charles's Spanish subjects loudly expressed their dissatisfaction at his acceptance of the Imperial Crown, which was tendered to him at Barcelona by the Palatine and a solemn embassy, November 30, 1519. They complained that his new dignity would not only require his frequent absence from Spain, but would also drain it of men and money in the political quarrels of Grermany and Italy. Nor was their discontent confined to murmurs. Several Castilian cities drew up a remonstrance against Charles quitting the kingdom, and serious disturbances broke out in Valencia, where the nobles had joined the burgesses in organising a Heiinandad or armed brotherhood. The citizens of Valladolid, the usual place for liolding the Cortes, were conspicuously refractory; and Charles therefore summoned that assembly to meet at Compostella in Gallicia, as he was in want of a fresh donative, in order to appear in Grermany with adequate splendour. At this affront the citizens *3 Miiratori. Ann. t. x. p. 125;Henke, ap. ^Aiitriche, t. ii., published by M. Leglay Eoscoe, Leo X. vol. iii. p. 387, note. For in the Documens Inedits ; an important Charles's election, see Goldasti, Polit. source for the first thirty years of the I/iiper. and the Acta Electionis Caroli F"'. sixteenth century. in Freher, Germ. Ber. SS. vol. iii. Cf. ** See Dumont, t. iv. pt. i. p. 298 sqq. Ranke, Zur Kritik, under Sleidan; Nego- ** Pfeflel, t. ii. p. 116. ciations entre la France et la Maison 378 CHARLES V. VISITS ENGLAND. [Book II. of Valladolid rose in arms, and would have massacred the Flemings had not Charles and his courtiers contrived to escape in a violent storm. Toledo sent deputies to CompostelJa only to protest against the legality of the assembly ; Salamanca refused the oath of fidelity ; Madrid, Cordova, and other places protested against the donative. Fortunately for Charles, the Castilian Grandees were alarmed at this new spirit of independence among the Commons, which, though now directed against the Sovereign, might one day be turned against themselves ; and by their aid, together with the arts and bribes of the Court, a majority of the Cortes was induced to vote a supply. They forced Charles, however, to exclude the Flemings from office; who indemnified themselves by selling the places which they could no longer hold, and the Spanish ducats continued to gravitate towards the Netherlands. The impatience of Charles to receive his new crown induced him to leave his Spanish dominions even in this state of open discon- tent, which was still further increased by the unpopular appoint- ment of Cardinal Adrian to the Eegency of Castile. Charles embarked at Corunna, May 22nd 1520 ; and on the 26th he landed in England, having taken that country in his w^ay on the pretext of paying a visit to his aunt Catharine, but in reality for the 2)urpose of diverting Henry VIII. from forming any alliance with France. Henry, however, was then meditating the recovery of that kingdom, which he considered as his ancient patrimony ; a scheme in which nobody could be of more use to him than the Emperor."*^ Charles gained Henry's minister, Wolsey, by large donations, and by dazzling him with the prospect of the tiara ; and he now added a pension of 7000 ducats to one of 3000 livres, which he had settled on Wolsey on his accession to the Spanish throne. He could not, however, prevent an interview which had been already arranged between the French and English Kings for the 7th of June, and after a four days' stay in England he set sail for the Netherlands (May 30th). Both the Emperor and the French King foresaw that a speedy breach between them was inevitable, and they were consequently both disposed to court the friendship of Henry VIII. Not only was the vanity of Francis deeply wounded by the ill-success of his competition for the empire, but he also viewed with alarm the enormous increase of Charles's power ; and he entertained great hopes of forming an alliance with the English King, whohad the same cause as himself for animosity against the Emperor. The circum- ** See the Letters of Pace and Wolsey, in State Papers, vol. i. pp. 36, 46. Chap. II.] MEETING OF HEXRY VIII. AND FRAXCIS I. S79 stances and the splendour of the meeting between the two monarchs at the camp of the cloth of gold, are so familiar from the descriptions in our Euglish historians that we need not here dwell upon them/'' Instead of proceeding to the Belgian capital, the wary Emperor had lingered at Grravelines, with the view of effacing by another meeting with Henry any impression that might be made upon him by his visit to Francis. After quitting Gruines, the Eno-lish King proceeded to Grravelines, and conducted Charles and his aunt Margaret back to Calais, where they passed some da3^s together. Here Charles, who had further assured himself of the support of Wolsey by renewed promises of securing him the tiara, as well as by putting him in immediate possession of the episcopal revenues of Eadajoz and Placentia in Spain, dexterously proposed that Henry should be the arbiter in any dispute that might arise between Francis and himself ; and the English King readily fell in with a proposal which flattered his own favourite pretension of being the arbiter of Europe. It is said that an injudicious throw which the French King gave Henry in a wrestling match, diverted towards himself any ill feeling which the English jNIonarch might have harboured against the Emperor, and greatly facilitated the designs of Charles and Wolsey. On such trivial circumstances may the fate of kingdoms sometimes depend ! The Emperors attention was next engrossed by his coronation. He was consecrated at Aix-la-Chapelle, October 23rd 1520, by the Archbishop of Cologne, and received the Roman Crown from the hands of the three spiritual Electors. In January 1521 he held his first diet at Worms. Here several princes and prelates were put under the ban of the empire for breaches of the Land- friede, or public peace ; but the only case necessary to be noticed in this general history was that of the Duke of Wiirtemberg. Originally a county, Wiirtemberg had been erected into a duchy by the Emperor Maximilian in 1495, in favour of Count Eberhard the Elder, or the Bearded ; to whose great nephew, Ulrich, it had now descended. This prince, whose chief characteristics were his sensuality and his enormous fatness, had excited a rebellion of the peasants by the irksome taxes which he had imposed in order to supply his extravagance; and in 1514 a war broke out which obtained the name of " The war of poor Conrad." Ulrich found '"' By them it is commonly called the The barharian pomp and splendour of the Jield of the cloth of gold, which is not interview appears to have been due to very intelligible, and perhaps arose from the bad taste of Henry. See Winfrfield's substituting champ for camp. Martin du Letter to Wolsey, April 18th 1520, in BeUay calls it "Le camp de drap d'or." Ellis, Orig. Letters, \o\.\.i^. 167 (Istser.). 380 DUKE ULRICH OF WURTEMBERG EXPELLED. [Book II. it necessary to quell this dangerous insurrection by conciliating the aristocracy; and the Treaty of Tiibingen, in July 1514, which may be called the first German constitution, continued to be the fundamental law of Wiirtemberg down to 1819. Its provisions show the despotic power of some of the princes in that age ; as, for instance, that forbidding any body to be hereafter punished Avithout a legal trial and verdict! Ulrich, however, evaded the treaty, and his government became more cruel and tyi'annical than ever. During the interregnum which ensued on the death of Maximilian, he seized Eeutlingen, a town belonging to the Suabian League, between which and his foresters a deadly feud had long existed. The forces of the League assembled under Duke William of Bavaria and Greorge von Frunsberg, and expelled Ulrich from his dominions, which were taken possession of by the League as security for the expenses of the war (1519). In the following year the League, for a sum of 240,000 gulden handed over Wiirtemberg together with Ulrich's children, Christopher and Anne, to Ferdinand, who was then governing Austria for his brother Charles, the Emperor Elect. Ulrich in vain appealed for protection to the Swiss, among whom he had taken refuge ; and he wandered about in exile from court to court. The Austrian Grovernment, on taking possession of Wiirtemberg, confirmed the Treaty of Tiibingen, but exercised many oppressions in order to raise the sum they had agreed to pay. Charles, after his arrival in Grermany, treated Wiirtemberg as his own property. He put Ulrich under the ban of the empire, and heedless of the remon- strances raised on all sides, gave his dominions to Ferdinand, who some years later (1530) received the title of Duke of Wiirtemberg and Teck. ' Several other important affairs were transacted at the Diet of Worms. The Imperial Chamber was reformed, the abuses of the lower courts were abolished, and a Council of Eegency, consisting of a Lieutenant-Greneral of the Empire and twenty-two assessors, was appointed to discharge the Emperor's functions during his absence from Germany. As the right of primogeniture did not yet exist in Austria, Charles, according to his promise, ceded the greater part of the Austrian territories to his brother Ferdinand ; who sub- sequently (in 1540) obtained the complete and hereditary possession of the whole of them. The diet voted an army of 24,000 men to accompany Charles to Eome to receive the Imperial Crown ; but on the express stipulation that these troops should be used for no other purpose than an escort, and to swell the pomp of his coro- nation. Chap. II.] DIET OF WOKMS. 381 The Diet of Worms, however, derives its chief importance from circumstances then considered as merely secondary ; the affairs, namely, of the new heresy, and the appearance at Worms of Martin Luther. The Eeformation had been going on some years in Grermany ; but as it had not till now become a political matter, we have hitherto abstained from adverting to it, in order to present in a connected form its progress to the reader. 382 DR. MARTIX LUTHER. [Book II. CHAPTEE III. JNIaetin Luther, the son of a poor miner, was born at Eisleben in Upper Saxony, November 10th 1483. In his fourteenth year his parents put him to school at Magdeburg; and so extreme was his poverty, that while imbibing the rudiments of that learning which enabled him to shake the Papal throne and deprive it of half its subjects, he was obliged to eke out a scanty subsistence by singing and begging from door to door. He subsequently attended another school at Eisenach, and in 1501 entered the University of Erfurt. Here his progress in learning was rapid, but at the same time marked by a vigorous originality of mind. He began to regard with contempt the scholastic philosophy which formed the staple education of the time ; while the Bible, which he did not see till his twentieth year, made a deep impression on him. In 1505 he took his degree of Master in Philosophy. S3aii23toms of that morbid melancholy which often darkened the course of his future life had already begun to show themselves ; which being increased by a severe illness and the death of a friend named Alexius, whom he tenderly loved, he resolved to renounce the world, and in 1507 entered a convent of Augustinian monks at Erfurt. Staupitz, Vicar-G-eneral of the order in that district, perceived and en- couraged his merit; and in 1508 he w?cS appointed Professor of Theology in the University of Wittenberg, then recently founded by Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony. Here he also lectured on the writings of Aristotle, but was often bold enough to contro- vert the doctrines of that philosopher. A short visit to Rome in 1510 on business connected with his order afforded Luther a glimpse of the state of religion and its professors in the capital of Christendom ; and he used to say in after life that he would not have missed the sight for a thousand florins. Rome was then beo^inninor to clothe herself in all the magnificence of modern art *,, the vast basilica of St. Peter's was rising from its foundations; Raphael and INIichael Angelo were adorning her churches and palaces with their masterpieces : yet neither her treasures of modern art, nor the monuments of her former grandeur, seem to have excited any emotions of surprise or Chap. III.] THE DOCTRINE OF IXDULGEXCES. 383 delight in the mind of Luther, who had no eye for anything but the religious questions in which he was absorbed. He treasured up the impressions of wonder and disgust with which he beheld the lives of the clergy ; at seeing the warlike pontiff Julius II. parading the streets on his white charger, and the priests perform- inof with careless indifference and ill-concealed atheism the most sacred functions of their calling.^ Thus forewarned against the abuses of the Church of Eome by ocular inspection as well as by his own study and the opinions of those learned and enlightened men who had begun to assail them, Luther needed only an adequate occasion to call him forth as a reformer ; and this was afforded by the unblushing effrontery of the Komish priests in the traffic of indulgences. Indulgences were at first merely a remission of punishments and expiations ordered by the Church, and in this view their origin is lost in the remotest antiquity. If a penitent showed symptoms of reformation, the severity of the enjoined penance might be miti- gated, or its term shortened ; and this was the harmless beginning of indulgence : but in process of time, what was at first applicable only to the excommunicated, cam^e to be extended to those who had not incurred the censures of the Church. In this form, it was the crusades that gave the first great impulse to indulgences ; Pope Urban IL, in the Council of Clermont (1096), having promised plenary indulgences to all who took part in the first crusade. The benefit was afterwards extended to those who took arms against European heretics ; and lastly, by Boniface VIIL, in 1300, to those who celebrated the Jubilee at Eome.^ But the chief sources of the abuse of indulgences were the doctrine of Purgatory, established in the tenth century, and the invention by Halesius in the thirteenth century of tlie treasure of the Church in the merits of tlie Ke- deemer, the saints, and martyrs, out of which the Church, and especially the Pope, its head, could impart to those who had fallen away from grace. The doctrine of indulgences was erected into an article of faith by a Bull of Pope Clement VL, in 1343. In the earlier times, the privilege of granting these pardons was exercised with an endur- able moderation. They could be dispensed by bishops as well as by the Pope ; nor was a money payment always exacted for them, but some act of piety or penance, as the giving of alms, or a pilgrimage to ^ For example, in consecrating tlie ele- vininn cs, vimim manchis, Melch. Adam, ments of the mass, some of them would in Vita Luthcri, p. 104 (ed. 1653). mutter, very truly indeed, but with a ^ Ullmann, Krformatorm vor clcr Be- disgra.cei\ille\ity,Fams es, 2>a7iis manebis; formation, S. 260 ff. 384 THE TRAFFIC IX INDULGENCES. [Book H. Rome or to some holy shrine. But in process of time, when the income of the Roman See began to decline, through the causes enumerated in a former chapter, the Popes became more and more alive to the pecuniary profit that might be derived from the sale of indulgences, which, by the beginning of the sixteenth century, they had completely monopolised.^ No pains were taken to con- ceal the fact that the sale of indulgences was regarded as one of the ordinary sources of the Papal revenue; nay, the traffic was considered so legitimate, that it was sometimes solicited from the Pope by temporal princes when they wanted to raise money for some purpose. Thus, Frederick III. of Saxony obtained the sale of indulgences from the Pope in order to erect a bridge over the Elbe at Torgau with the proceeds.'* In 1508 Pope Julius II. opened a sale of indulgences in Hungary, but was moderate enough to take only one third of the produce for the building of St. Peters, leaving the remainder to defray the expenses of the Venetian war.^ The trade became at length so profitable as to excite the envy of the civil magistrate, and induce him to claim a share of the profits. In 1500, the Imperial government would allow the Papal legate to issue indulgences in Grermany only on condition of receiving a third of the produce. The Pope's agents openly disposed of the privilege by auction, and sometimes threw dice for it in taverns over their drink. The scandalous way in which the traffic was conducted had already occasioned great com- plaints in France, Portugal, and Spain, in which last country it had been opposed by Cardinal Ximenes himself, in 1513.^ Grer- many was the chief place for this " fair of souls," where the produce was farmed by the Fuggers, the rich bankers of Augsburg, just as if it had been a tax on leather, or an excise upon wine. In vain had the practice been held up to ridicule before the time of Luther by the wits of Nuremberg, then the literary centre of Grermany ; the German money still flowed abundantly towards Rome, where it was called Feccata Gennanorum, or the " sins of the Grermans." The extravagant expenditure of Leo X., who was reproached after his death with having spent the revenues of three Popes — namely, that of his predecessor Julius II., his own, and his suc- cessor's — led him to raise money in every possible way, without much regard to the dignity or interests of the Holy See. In the * Each form of Indulgence had a price * Loscher, Eeformations Acta, B. i. S. proportioned to its object and extent. See 98. the Instruction of the Archb. of Mentz to ^ Engel, Gcsch. des ungarisch. Retches, the Sub-commissaries of Indulgence, ap. B. iii. S. 143. Merle d'Aubigne, liv. iii. ch. 1 ; Ranke, ^ Gomez, Fita Ximenis, in Schott, His- Deutsche Gesch. B. i. S. 310. 'pania illvstrata, t. i. p. 1065. Chap. III.] COMMISSION TO ALBEET OF MEXTZ. aSo Concordat with Francis I. he had sacrificed the spiritual claims of the Church for the sake of worldly profit ; he had endeavoured to extort large sums from Europe under the pretence of a crusade ; and it is, therefore, no wonder that he should have been induced to push the lucrative and commodious trade of indulgences with more vigour than ever. Commissaries were appointed to collect the revenue arising from it, the chief of whom, Arcimboldi, a ^Milanese doctor of laws, and Papal prothonotary and referendary, had a commission extending over the greater part of Grermany, Denmark, and Sweden. It was in the first of these countries, however, that he was most successful. A Lubeck chronicle of the year 1516 complains bitterly of his ill-gotten gains, part of which he had laid out in silver kettles and frying-pans, a piece of luxury unheard of even among princes. He was accompanied by a man of business, named Anthony de Wele, who collected the cash and transmitted it to the bankers ; but this factotum was strangled one night in a house of ill-fame at Lubeck, and his body thrown down a privy.^ It was, however, the proceedings under another commission, granted by the Pope to Albert of Brandenburg, Archbishop of Mentz and Magdeburg, and Primate of Grermany, which brouojht the Pope's agents into collision with Luther. Albert was a young prelate fond of pomp and pleasure, and with a great taste for building ; habits which had plunged him into debt, and had com- pelled him to borrow from the Fuggers 30,000 florins to pay the fees for his pallium ; a sum which it was impossible to raise in his al- ready well-drained diocese. To this needy prince one John Tetzel offered his services, a Dominican monk, and native of Leipsic, wdio had been already engaged in the traffic under Arcimboldi. Tetzel and his myrmidons were men notoriously infamous ; they did not scruple to help themselves from what passed through their hands: and the Papal controller at Mentz refused to have anything to do with them. But Albert's need was pressing; Tetzel's merits as a clever and unscrupulous agent were great ; he promised a goodly harvest, and a contrivance was adopted to prevent him from reaping more than his due share of it. The keys of the chests containing tlie contributions of the faithful were deposited in the hands of the Fuggers, in whose presence or that of their clerks the chests were to be opened ; when, after deducting all expenses of collection, a portion of the proceeds was to be placed to the credit of the Pope, and the balance to that of the collectors. Tetzel's salary was eighty florins a month, wdth eight more for a servant, besides his pickings. ' Kathmann, Gesch. v. Magdeburg, B. iii. S. 302. TOL. I. C C 386 JOIIX TETZEL AXD MARTIX LUTHER. [Book II. Albert's bishoprics of Magdeburg and Halberstadt were first selected as the scene of Tetzel's operations ; where the pulpits were tuned, and the priests instructed to recommend the benefits which he offered. Tetzel went about in a coach with three horses pro- vided for him by the Fuggers. When he entered a town the Papal Bull under which he acted was carried before him on a splendid cushion ; then followed a procession of priests and monks, magis- trates and burgesses, teachers and scholars ; and the rear was brought up by a miscellaneous crowd, singing hymns, and carrying banners and wax tapers. -In this way Tetzel proceeded to church. After service he opened his market, painted the torments of pur- gatory in the most glowing colours, expatiated on the virtue of indulgences, and inculcated that as soon as the price of one rang in the basin, the liberated soul ascended at once to heaven.* For those who were more anxious about their own state than that of their departed friends he had wares of another kind ; pardons available for all possible or even impossible^ sins, whether already perpetrated or to be committed hereafter : and these he is said to have dispensed without any reference to the irksome conditions of repentance and amendment prescribed by the Church.^^ In the course of his trade Tetzel came to Jiiterbock, a town near Wittenberg, and his proceedings were thus brought under the immediate notice of Luther. Nothing could be more calculated to excite the Augustinian monk's indignation than that justification, the precious reward only of a lively faith, should be procured for money ! With characteristic vehemence he denounced indulgences from the pulpit, and positively refused absolution to those who bought them. In order to alarm him, Tetzel, who was a member of the Dominican Inquisition, caused fires to be frequently lighted in the market-place, as a hint of the fate which might overtake the opponents of the Pope and his indulgences. So far, however, from frightening Luther, this proceeding served only to animate his courage ; and, on the 31st of October 1517, he posted on the door of the castle church at Wittenberg those memorable Theses, which, though even Luther himself had then no conception of it, were in * "qui statim, ut jactus nummus iv. p. 4. He has also given a cut of the in cistam tinnierit, evolare dicunt ani- case which contained it. There was at- mam." — Luther, Thesis 21. tached to it Ijy a silken cord a seal in ' " Etiam, ut aiunt, si per impossibile red wax presenting the bust of St. Peter, quis matrem Dei violasset, quin possit holding a key in the right hand and a book solvi." — Luther's Brief e, B. i. S, 68, De in the left ; below is the triple crown Wette. with two crossed keys, and the legend : ' Some of these letters of indulgence "S. Fabrice S. Petri de Urbe," that is, hare been preserved, and Von der Hardt the seal of the building of St. Peter's at has printed one in his Hist. Lit. Bef. pt. Rome. Cf. Loscher, B. i. S. 378. Chap. III.] THE ELECTOR FEEDEEICK SUPPOETS LUTHEE. 387 fact the commencement of the Eeformation. On the foUowino- day he enclosed these Theses, which are ninety-five in number, to the Elector Albert with a letter.^^ It was fortunate for Luther's cause that he lived under a prince like the Elector of Saxony. Frederick, indeed, was a devout catholic ; he had made a pilgrimage to Palestine, and had filled All Saints' Church at Wittenberg with relics for which he had given large sums of money. His attention, however, was now entirely engrossed by his new university, and he was unwilling to offer up to men like Tetzel so great an ornament of it as Dr. Martin Luther, since whose appointment at Wittenberg the number of students had so wonderfully increased as to throw the univer- sities of Erfurt and Leipsic quite into the shade. He was at variance, too, wdth the Elector Albert, and unwilling that he should extort the price of his pallium from Saxony; and he therefore suffered Luther to take his own way unmolested. Frederick was quite able to protect Luther. As one of the principal Electors he was completely master in his own dominions, and indeed through- out Germany he was as much respected as the Emperor; and Maximilian, besides his limited power, was deterred by his political views from taking any notice of the quarrel. Luther had thus full liberty to prepare the great movement that was to ensue, by those vigorous sermons and treatises which showed him so w^ell qualified to become the leader of it. The contempt entertained by Pope Leo X. for the whole affair was also favourable to Luther ; for Frederick might not at first have been inclined to defend him against the Court of. Eome. Towards the end of 1517 Tetzel caused counter theses to be drawn up by Wimpina, a celebrated theologian of that period, which he published at the university of Frankfort on the Oder. Silvester Prierias, prior of the Dominicans and major-duomo of the Papal palace, also published a reply, but so coarsely and imskilfully drawn up ^^, that it did full as much harm to the cause of Rome as the attack of Luther. The Pope was indeed unfortunate in his advocates. Hochstraten, who had made himself ridicukxis in his controversy with Beuchlin, also took part in the dispute, and earnestly pressed the Pope to commit Luther's writings to the " These Theses w-ill he found in Von '- Among other tilings Prierias said in der Hardt, Hisi. Lit. lief. pt. iy. p. 16, his dedication, that lie was very anxious in Loscher, B. i. S. 438, fif., and in the to try whether this Martin had a nose of Appendix to Eanke's Deutsche Geschichte iron and a head of brass. Seekendorf, irn Zeitcdter chr R< formation (B. t. S. 170 Coram, lib. i. § 16. The coarseness was ff.). printed verbatim from an original in not all on Luther's side, the royal library at Berlin. c c 2 388 IXDIFFERE>'CE OF LEO X. [Book II. flames. But Leo, who was entire!}^ given up to classical, it might almost be said to pagau, tastes and predilections, and regarded with aversion all theological disputes, turned a deaf ear to the suggestion of the officious monk ; nay, he even affected to praise Luther as a man of a fine genius, and to regard the whole affair as a mere envious quarrel of monks.^^ This last view was common enough in that age, and has since been frequently repeated, but mthout any adequate foundation. It was said that the Augustinians were offended at being deprived by the Dominicans of the profitable traffic in indulgences, and that they found a selfish champion in Luther ; a charge, however, which is refuted not only ty Luther's general character, but also by the fact that he was earnestly be- sought by the prior and sub-prior of his order to desist from his attacks upon indulgences, as calculated to bring upon the Augus- tinian order the suspicion of heresy.^* Luther, however, found a more formidable opponent in Dr. John Eck of Ingolstadt, a theologian of great learning and talent, with whom he had formerly been acquainted. In a book entitled Obelisks {Ohelisci) '^, Eck pointed out the similarity between Luther's doctrines and those of the Bohemian heretics ; and as the very name of Hussite was detested in Grerman}', this caused many to keep aloof who would othei-wise have been disposed to join Luther. Luther's answer to this treatise, entitled Asterisks, con- tained such stinging remarks on Eck's learning and talents, that the latter never rested till he had engaged the Pope in the matter. Luther w^as encouraged by George Spalatinus, a man of great influence, who was at once the private secretary and the court preacher of the Elector Frederick : but above all he was supported by his principle that the Scriptures contain the sole rule of faith, and that their authorit}^ is far above that of all doctors of the Church, Papal Bulls, or even decrees of Councils. At the same time Luther's enthusiasm was tempered with an admirable dis- cretion, and it was to the uncommon union of these qualities that he owed his subsequent success. Thus when, in March 1518, several copies of Tetzel's theses were brought to Wittenberg and publicly burnt by the students, Luther strongly expressed his disapprobation of that violent proceeding. The Court of Eome at length became more sensible of the im- portance of Luther's innovations and in August 1518, he was '^ Leo is reported to have said that Gcsch. drr Dcvtschm, B. i. S. 30. "Frate Martino haveva un bellissimo ^* Marheineke, Gcsch. der Deutschen ingegno, e che coteste erano im-idie Bef. B. i. S. 66. fratesche."— Bandello, ap. Menzel, Ncucre " That is, Notes, on Luther's Theses. Chap. III.] LUTHER BEFORE CAJETAXUS. 389 commanded either to recant, or to appear and answer for his opinions at Eome, where Silvester Prierias and the bishop Grhenucci di Arcoli had been appointed his judges. Luther had not as jet dreamt of throwing off his allegiance to the Roman See. In the preceding May he had addressed a letter to the Pope himself, stating his views in a firm but modest and respectful tone, and declaring that he could not retract them. The Elector Frederick, at the instance of the university of Wittenberg, ^vhich trembled for the life of its bold and distinguished professor, prohibited Luther's journey to Rome, and expressed his opinion that the question should be decided in Grermany by impartial judges. Leo consented to send a legate to Augsburg to determine the cause, and selected for that purpose Cardinal Thomas di Vio, better known by the name of Cajetanus, derived from his native city of Gaeta; a prelate of such liberal opinions as even to have incurred a suspicion of heresy. His instructions were that if Luther recanted, he was to be pardoned ; if he persisted in his opinions, he Avas to be imprisoned till further orders; and if these proceedings did not produce the desired effect, then Luther and his followers were to be excommu- nicated, and Saxony placed under an interdict. Thus the whole question was prejudged, and Luther's writings were regarded as containing their own condemnation. Luther set out for Augsburg on foot provided with several letters of recommendation from the Elector, and a safe conduct from the Emperor Maximilian. The latter, though averse to Luther's heresies, seems to have regarded him as a person who might be useful in his quarrels with the Pope, and had recom- mended him to Frederick as one of whom there might some time or other be need.^^ Luther appeared before the cardinal for the first time, October 12th, at whose feet he fell; but it was soon apparent that no agreement could be expected. The cardinal and Luther started from opposite premises. Deep in the traditionary lore of the Church, Cajetanus drew all his arguments from the schoolmen, which the Wittenberg professor answered by appealing to the Scriptures ; and thus the more they discussed the matter the wider and the more irreconcilable became their divergence. Luther's offer to appeal to the universities of Basle, Freiburg, Louvain, and Paris, was regarded as an additional insult to the infallible Church. Cajetanus, who had at first behaved with great moderation and politeness, grew warm, demanded an unconditional retraction, forbade Luther again to appear before him till he was " Ranke's Popes, vol. i. p. 86 (Mis. Austin's transL). cc 3 390 LUTHER ESCAPES FROM AUGSBURG. Book II. prepared to make it, and threatened him with the censures of the Church. The fate of Huss stared Luther in the face, and he determined to fly. His patron Staupitz procured him a horse, and on the 20th of October, Langemantel, a magistrate of Augsburg, caused a postern in the walls to be opened for him before day had well dawned. Enveloped in his monk's frock, so inconvenient for an equestrian, Luther rode that day between thirty and forty miles without drawing bridle, and then, weary and almost fainting, sunk to sleep on a heap of straw. On the following day he resumed his journey, and reached Wittenberg in safety on the 31st of October, the anniversary of the publication of his Theses. Cajetanus now wrote to the Elector Frederick complaining of Luther's refractory departure from Augsburg, and requiring either that he should be sent to Eome or at least be banished from Saxony. Frederick was long undecided as to the course he should pursue, and so uncertain were Luther's prospects that he made preparations for his departure, and even took leave of the com- munity in a farewell sermon. He resolved to proceed to France, erroneously thinking, because the University of Paris had fre- quently opposed the Pope, that he should find safety in that country. At length, just on the eve of his departure, he received an intimation from Frederick that he might remain at Wittenberg. Before the close of the year he gained a fresh accession of strength by the arrival of Melanchthon, a pupil of Reuchlin, who had obtained the appointment of Professor of Greek in the university. Frederick offered a fresh disputation at Wittenberg ; but Leo X. adopted a course more consonant with the pretensions of an infal- lible Church by issuing a Bull dated November 9th 1518, which, without adverting to Luther or his opinions, explained and en- forced the received doctrine of indulgences. It failed, however, to produce the desired effect ; for though Luther had often protested his readiness to bow to the decision of the Holy See, and had even left behind him at Augsburg an appeal to the Pope when he should be better informed, he rejected the Bull and appealed to a general council. Leo now tried the effects of seduction. Carl Von Miltitz, a Saxon nobleman, canon of Mentz, Treves, and Meissen, and one of the Papal chamberlains, through whose influence, solicited by the University of Wittenberg, Leo's consent had been obtained to the hearing of Luther's cause at Augsburg instead of Rome, was despatched to the Elector Frederick with the present of a golden rose, and wdth instructions to put an end, as best he might, to the Lutheran schism. On his way through Grermany, ]\Iiltitz soon perceived that three fourths of the people were in Luther's favour ; Chap. IH.] NEGOCIATIOXS OF MILTITZ. 391 nor was his reception at the Saxon Court of a nature to afford much encouragement. Frederick did not seem particularly en- chanted with the golden rose, although Leo had recommended it to him as usual in a letter describing how he had himself anointed it under his blessing with holy chrism, and sprinkled it with odoriferous musk, and pointing out how it was a gift of deep mystery bestowed only once a year on some distinguished prince who had deserved well of the Holy See.^^ Such were the toys devised by the Eoman Court to seduce the political leaders of Europe. Frederick, however, declined the ceremony of receiving the rose at a public interview, and desired that it might be trans- mitted to him through an officer of his court ; nay, he is even said to have treated the mysterious gift with a ridicule bordering on profanity. In fact, respect for ecclesiastical authority had sunk much lower in Grermany than was dreamt of at Eome, and Miltitz found with astonishment that Tetzel could not quit the walls of Leipsic with safety. ^^ Miltitz saw the necessity for conciliation. Having obtained an interview with Luther at Altenburg, Miltitz persuaded him to promise that he would be silent, provided a like restraint were placed upon his adversaries. On this occasion all theological disputes were avoided, for which, indeed, Miltitz would probably not have been qualified. Luther was even induced to address a letter to the Pope, dated from Altenburg, March 3rd 1519, in which, in humble terms, he expressed his regret that his motives should have been misinterpreted, and solemnly declared that he did not mean to dispute the power and authority of the Pope and the Church of Eome, which he considered superior to everything except Jesus Christ alone. '^ In the same letter, how- ever, he plainly intimated that his writings and tenets had already spread so widely, and penetrated so deeply in Grermany, that it would no longer be possible to revoke them. On leaving Altenburg, Miltitz proceeded to pay a visit to Tetzel at Leipsic, and found him in the Pauline Convent, which he durst not quit for fear of the people. Here Miltitz upbraided him severely for his conduct in the sale of indulgences, which he said had caused all the evil consequences which followed, and so alarmed Tetzel with threats of calling him to an account, that his death, which took place soon after, was ascribed to fear and vexation. Miltitz then returned to Eome, flattering himself that he had settled this weighty business by his skilful conduct. But though he had achieved a temporary success, he was far from being a " Seckendorf, Comment. § 47. '* Luther's Brief e, Th. ii. S. 233, De " Luther's Werke, B. xv. S. 860 ff. Wette. c c 4 392 CIRCUMSTAXCES FAVOURABLE TO LUTHER. [Book II. discreet negociator. He frequently got fuddled with wine, when he would blab out secrets respecting the Pope and the Roman Curia that were very damaging, and that were subsequently made use of at the Diet of Worms. The Emperor Maximilian was now dead, and the Elector Frederick had assumed the vicariat of that part of Germany which was governed by the Saxon law ; a circumstance necessarily favourable to the Reformation, especially as the Pope, wishing to conciliate Frederick for the ensuing election, forbore to fulminate any sentence of excommunication against Luther. Charles's obligations to Frederick for the Imperial Crown also induced him to treat the Lutherans with forbearance for some time after his accession. Another motive disposed him the same way. We have seen that Ferdinand the Catholic had rendered the Spanish Inquisition an engine of government, detested by his subjects and regarded with a jealous eye by Rome. In the disturbances which took place in Spain after Charles's accession, the Cortes of Aragon had prevailed upon Leo X. to issue briefs, by which the constitution of that tribunal was greatly altered, and its proceedings brought nearer to the forms of common law ; and Charles, annoyed by this circum- stance, sent an Ambassador to Rome in the spring of 1520 to procure a revocation of the briefs. The affair of Luther was at that time occasioning much anxiety and debate in the Roman Consistory ; and in a letter of May 12th, 1520, we find the ambas- sador advising his master to go into Grermany and show some ftivour " to a certain Martin Luther," who by his discourses gave much trouble to the Roman Court ; and this method of annoying and opposing the Pope was accordingly adopted by the Emperor.-^ The truce effected by Miltitz lasted only a few months. It was broken by a disputation to which Dr. Eck challenged Bodenstein, a Leipsic professor, better know^n by the name of Carlstadt, and which was held in that town at the very time of the imperial election. It was permitted by Duke Greorge of Saxony, a zealous opponent of the Lutherans, in whose dominions Leipsic lay, and "svho regularly attended. This disputation, in which Luther took part, began in the Pleissenburg, June 27th 1519, and lasted nine- teen days. It had the usual fate of all such discussions, and served only still further to embroil the question. The animosity dis- played on both sides was so great, that watchmen armed with partisans were stationed in the inns to prevent fights between the students attached to different sides ; each party claimed the -" Llorente, Hist, de la Inquisicion, cap. xi. art, iv. § 16. Chap. III.] DISPUTATION AT LEIPSIC. 393 victory, and the students of Leipsic and Wittenberg came to blows about the conclusion, though the greater part of them had fallen asleep during the argument. In the opinion of the majority, how- ever, Eck carried off the palm. He was precisely suited for such an arena ; a big burly man with a stentorian voice, a prodigious memory, vast learning, great readiness, and an inexhaustible flow of words. Melanchthon admits the admiration which he excited ^^, and on the whole, the discussion rather damaged Luther for a time. The Elector Frederick was somewhat shaken by a letter addressed to him by Eck, till he was reassured by another from Erasmus in favour of Luther.^^ Erasmus, who confesses that he had not read Luther's books, was induced to take his part from disgust at the cry raised against himself by the monk party. The Leipsic disputation was preceded and followed by a host of controversies. The whole mind of Grermany was in motion, and it was no longer with Luther alone that Eome had to contend. All the celebrated names in art and literature sided with the Eeformation ; Erasmus, Ulrich von Hutten, Melanchthon, Lucas Cranach, Albert Diirer, and others. Hans Sachs, the Meister-sdnger of Nurem- berg, composed in his honour the pretty song called " the Witten- berof Niofhtingale.""^^ Silvester von Schaumburof and Franz von Sickinsfen invited Luther to their castles, in case he were driven from Saxony ; and Schaumburg declared that a hundred more Fran- conian knights were ready to protect him. Luther, however, always protested his aversion to the use of physical force, and fortunately there was no occasion to resort to it, as the Elector Frederick be- came daily more convinced that his doctrines were founded in Scrip- ture. In a letter which he addressed to the Papal court, April 1st 1520, Frederick in vain endeavoured to open its eyes to the new state of things in Germany, and pointed out that any attempt to put down Luther by mere force, and without refuting his doctrines, could end in nothing but disturbance and detriment to the authority of the Church. ^^ Meanwhile, Luther had made great strides in his opinions since the publication of his Theses. From a mere objector against in- dulgences, he had begun to impugn many of the principles of the Eomish church ; and so far from any longer recognising the para- mount authority of the Pope, or even of a general council, he was now disposed to submit to no rule but the Bible. The more timid t 2' See his Letter to (Ecolampadius in Seckondorf's Comni. de Lutheran. § 51. Jortin's Erasniiis, App. No. XA'iii. ^ Hans Sachs, Gedichte, Th. ii. S. 139 " See a passage in this letter, which is (ed. 1810). not inserted among those of Erasmus, in ^^ Luther's WcrJcc, B. xv. S. 1666. 304 PAPAL BULL AGAINST LUTHER. [Book II. spirits were alarmed at his boldness, and even Frederick himself exhorted him to moderation. It must be acknowledged, indeed, that Luther sometimes damaged his cause by the intemperance of his language ; an instance of which is afforded by the remarkable letter he addressed to Leo X., April 6th 1520, as a dedication to his treatise De Libertate Christiana, which is filled with the coarsest abuse of the Eoman Court, while the Pope himself is treated with a sarcastic irony .^^ Allowance, however, must be made for the manners of the times. Luther, as a modern writer ^^ has observed, was certainly well grounded in all the slang of Eisleben ; but his rude and ponderous battle-axe cut the knot on which the more polished but feebler sword of Erasmus or Melanchthon would have failed to make an impression. The letter just alluded to was, perhaps, the immediate cause of the famous Bull, " Exurge Domine," which Leo fulminated against Luther, June 15th 1520. The Bull, which is conceived in mild terms, condemned forty-one propositions extracted from Luther's works, allowed him sixty days to recant, invited him to Eome, if he pleased to come, under a safe conduct, and required him to cease from preaching and writing, and to burn his published trea- tises. If he did not conform within the above period, he was con- demned as a notorious and irreclaimable heretic ; all princes and magistrates were required to seize him and his adherents, and to send them to Home ; and all places that gave them shelter were threatened with an interdict.^^ The Bull was forwarded to Archbishop Albert of Mentz ; but in North Germany great difficulty was found in publishmg it. The Grermans were disgusted that Eck, who had been very officious in procuring the Bull, should be appointed as Papal legate to superintend the execution of it ; a man who, besides being the personal enemy of Luther, was not of sufficient rank and conse- quence for such a post ; and at Leipsic Eck found it necessary to take refuge in the same convent that had before protected Tetzel. The Emperor seized the opportunity to push his negociations respect- ing the Spanish Inquisition, and plainly told the Papal nuncio that he should be willing to gratify the Pope in the matter of the Bull, provided that His Holiness in return would desist from supporting his enemies. Leo accepted these conditions. The Grand Inqui- ^^5 Roscoe has shown the tnie date of ^® Sehlosser, Wdtgcsch. B. xi. S. 337. this letter to be April 6th, and that it ^^ The Bull is printed in extenso by conseqiiently preceded the Papal Bull of Roscoe, ibid. App. No. clxxxiii. Cf. excommunication. Life of Leo X. vol. Raynald., Ann. Eccl. anno 1520, t. xii. .iy. p. 17, note (ed. 1827). • p. 289. Chap. III.] LUTHER EXTEXDS HIS IXXOYATIOXS. ^95 sitor in Spain was instructed no longer to support the demands of the Aragonese Cortes; and at length, in January 1521, the Pope ao'reed to cancel the briefs which he had issued respecting the In- quivsition.^^ Thus Charles's view of the great religious question ^vhich was agitating Grermany, was made subservient to the inte- rests of his government in Spain ; whilst the Pope, on his side, was ready to sacrifice the Spaniards in order to crush an enemy in Grermany. The Bull was a poor, wordy composition, dark in its philosophy, ob- solete in its theology, with magniloquent but unmeaning apostrophes to Peter, Paul, and all the saints. Hutten published it with notes and an appendix, in which he turned it into ridicule. Its effect upon Luther was to make him write more daringly. Almost si- multaneously with the Bull had appeared his A'p'peal to tlte Em- peror and German Nobles (June 23rd 1520), in which he rejected the notion that the priesthood is a distinct and privileged order in the state, and advocated the marriage of priests. In the course of the summer he published his treatise on the mass, and another on the Babylonish captivity of the Church. In these works he denied the sacrifice of the mass, censured the withholding of the cup, and reduced the seven sacraments of the Church to three — baptism, penance, and the Lord's Supper. Miltitz, who had not given up all hopes of mediation, had another interview with Luther at Lichtenberg, in the middle of October, and succeeded in persuading him again to write to the Pope. In this letter Luther, while protesting that he did not mean to say anything against the Pope's person, or the Catholic Church, gave vent to many coarse and unwelcome truths ; and a little after he published his tract against the Bull of the Antichrist, in which he met the Pope with his own weapons, handing him over to Satan with his Bull, and all his decretals, in case he persisted in his wrath. During this crisis of his history, Luther's fate entirely depended on the Elector Frederick. In the autumn the Papal legates, Aleander and Caraccioli, met that prince at Cologne, where he was awaiting the return of the Emperor from Aix-la-Chapelle, and, in conformity with a Papal brief with which they were provided, intreated him either to punish Luther himself or to send him a prisoner to Rome. On this occasion Frederick consulted Erasmus, who happened to be likewise at Cologne. Erasmus remained in his former favourable opinion of Luther ; he censured indeed the violent language of that reformer, but admitted that he had laid his 28 Pallavicini. 1st. dd Com. di Trcnto lib. i. c. 2-i ; Llorcnte, 7/^-/. Crit. dc la In- quisicion, cap. xi. art. iv. 396 LUTHER BURNS THE POPE'S BULL. [Book II. finger on many abuses. " Lnther," he observed, " has erred in two things ; in touching the crown of the Pontiff and the stomachs of the monks." "29 Frederick, in his answer to the legates, adopted the advice of Erasmus, which coincided entirely with his own opinion ; he proposed that before Luther's books were burnt, he should first be judged by a council of learned and trustworthy men, and his doctrines condemned by the authority of Scripture. Luther continued to enjoy at Wittenberg all his former freedom, and pro- ceeded to make still bolder attacks on the authority of the Pope. On the 17th of November he published a formal appeal against the Bull to a general council, which, besides being couched in terms of the most virulent abuse against the Pope, had been of itself declared an heretical act by Martin Y. and Pius II. On Decem- ber 10th Luther consummated his rebellion by taking that final step which rendered it impossible for him to recede. On the banks of the Elbe before the Elster Gate of Wittenberg, under an oak which, has now disappeared through age, but whose place the piety of a later generation has supplied with another, Luther, in the presence of a large body of professors and students, solemnly committed with his own hands to the flames the Bull by which he had been condemned, together with the code of the canon law, and the writings of Eck and Emser, his opponents ; at the same time exclaiming, " As thou hast vext the holy one of the Lord, so may the eternal fire vex and consume thee." ^° On January 3rd 1521, Luther and his followers were solemnly excommunicated by Leo with bell, book, and candle, and an image of him, together with his writings, was committed to the flames ; but the only feeling excited in Luther by this act was one of satisfaction at being delivered from the laws of his order and from obedience to the Pope. At the Diet of Worms which was held soon after, the Emperor having ordered that Luther's books should be delivered up to the magistrates to be burnt, the States repre- sented to him the uselessness and impolicy of such a step, pointing out that the doctrines of Luther had already sunk deep into the hearts of the people ; and they recommended that he should be summoned to Worms and interrofrated whether he would recant without any disputation. But at the same time they demanded that the abuses of the See of Eome, by which the German nation was oppressed, should be reformed; and, as on some previous -' Sleidan, Coram, lib. ii, p. 48 sq. extent of the Papal power. The Jurists, (en. 1610). however, continued to cling to it obsti- ^° Marheineke, B. i. S. 195. Luther's nateh", and thus impeded the progress of enmity to the Canon Law arose from its the Reformation, extravagant propositions respecting the Chap. III.] LUTHER SUMMOXED TO TVORMS. 397 occasions, they handed in a list of 101 grievances, in which the tricks and maladministration of the Roman Court in general, and of Leo X. in particular, were denounced in the bitterest terms; so that the tone of the paper resembled the books of Hutten or Luther's Appeal to the Gennan Nobles. Even George Duke of Stixony, a zealous champion of the Romish Church, submitted twelve particular complaints. Thus, on the eve of Luther's trial, all Germany recognised the necessity for a reformation, thouoh their demands referred to matters of practice rather than of doctrine. In compliance with the advice of the States, the Emperor issued a mandate, dated March 6th 1521, summoning Luther to appear at Worms within twenty-one days. It was accompanied with a safe conduct ^^, and similar instruments were likewise granted by the princes through whose dominions Luther was to travel. A herald called " Germany " was appointed to escort him ; and the Elector of Saxony instructed the Bailiff and Council of Wittenberg to provide him with a guard where necessary, and to take care that nothing disagreeable befell him on the way. Thus Luther, only a few years previously an obscure monk at Erfurt, had become by the boldness of his opinions an object of solicitude to all Europe. So great was the dread he had now begun to inspire at Rome, that the Pope, as if doubtful of the efficacy of his previous Elimination, included him in the Bull In Coena Doinhii, ordinarily issued every Maun day Thursday, in which heretics of all sorts, as the Arnoldites, Wiclifites, and others, were comprehended. Luther's journey was a kind of triumphal procession. He was ^accompanied by Justus Jonas, afterwards Provost of Wittenberg, by Nicholaus von Amsdorf, Peter von Schwaven, a Danish noble- man, and Jerome Schurf, a jurist of Wittenberg. The coach in which he travelled was presented to him by the town of Wittenberg. At Weimar, Duke John furnished him with money to defray his travelling expenses. But it was at Erfurt, the scene of his former cloister life, that his reception was particularly distinguished ; where forty of the principal inhabitants on horseback, and a still larger number on foot, met him at a distance of nine or ten miles, and escorted him into the town. In spite, however, of his enthu- siastic reception many trembled for his life ; and at Oppenheim he received an admonition from his friend Spalatin not to proceed to Worms lest he should meet the fate of Huss. Luther replied in ^^ Both the Citation and the Safe latter in the library of Ober-Marschall Conduct are still extant ; the former in von Wallenrodt at Konigsberg. the Eath's-Bibliothek at Leipsic ; the 398 LUTHER BEFORE THE EMPEROR. [Book 11. his emphatic way : " Huss has been burnt, yet the truth has not been consumed with him : go I will, be there as many devils aiming at me as there are tiles upon the house-tops.'*^- He arrived at Worms on the 16th of April. It was noon, and the in- habitants were at dinner ; but when the watchman on the tower of the cathedral gave the signal with his trumpet, every body rushed out to see the famous monk. He sat in an open carriage in the habit of an Augustinian ; before him rode the herald in his coat of arms displaying the imperial eagle ; and in this way he was con- ducted to his lodgings by a large body of nobles, followed by a crowd of citizens. In the afternoon of the following day, Luther was conducted into the presence of the Diet by Von Pappenheim, Hereditary Grand- marshal of the Empire, who walked before him, accompanied by the herald. As he was about to enter, the celebrated captain, George Frunsberg, tapped him on the shoulder, exclaiming : " Little monk, little monk, thou art doing a more daring thing than I or any other general e'er ventured on in the most desperate encounter. But if thou art confident in thy cause, go on in God's name, and be of good cheer, for He will not forsake thee." Luther at first seemed overawed by the splendour and majesty of the assembly before which he appeared, and to cool observers, especially foreigners, his bearing did not answer the expectations formed of him. His voice was low and scarcely audible. He acknowledo^ed beincr the author of the books whose titles were read to him, and on being asked whether he would retract them, he demanded time for consideration. Man 3^ thought he would recant. The impression which he made on the Emperor was far fron\ favourable, and he remarked that he should not easily be converted by such a man. But Luther's hesitation and embarrassment were a mere temporary weakness. On the morrow he had recovered all his wonted confidence and courage ; and though he admitted in his interrogation that he had written with unbecoming virulence, he refused to retract any of his opinions, unless refuted by the evidence of Scripture : adding, " I cannot make an unconditional surrender of my faith, either to the Pope, or to general councils, nor can I act against my conscience. I stand here ready to answer for my conduct, which 1 cannot alter. God help me. Amen." ^^ The Emperor delivered his written judgment, April 19th. Its purport was, that as the haughty doctrine of Luther struck a blow s- Luther's Wrrke, B. xv. S. 2174; Lrttcr to ChaWcs V., Be Wette, Th. I S. Brirfe, B. ii. S. 139. 590. ^* Pallavicini, lib. i. c. 26 ; Luther, Chap. III.] LUTHER DISMISSED FROM WORMS. 399 at all constituted authority, the Emperor, agreeably to his descent and his Grerman feelings, would use all his endeavours to extirpate the heresy. He expressed his regret at having so long delayed this work. At present Luther might depart in virtue of his safe conduct, but in all other respects he would be treated as a heretic. It was now the duty of the States to come to a Christian resolution on the subject.^* Luther has himself given a detailed account of the proceedings at this Diet. A letter to Lucas Cranach is characteristic: "I thought," says Luther, "that his Imperial Majesty would have summoned half a hundred doctors, and so have confuted the monk ; but all that passed was : ' Are these books thine ? ' * Yes.' 'Wilt thou retract them?' * No.' 'Then begone!' Oh, we blind Germans ! how foolish we are to allow the Eomanists to make such miserable fools and apes of us." ^^ The Emperor's decision was variously received. The zealous Roman Catholics praised it ; among the majority it excited a great sympathy for- Luther, and the deep impression his doctrines had made was unequivocally manifested. Unseemly placards were posted in the streets, such as — " Woe to the land whose King is a child I " while the threats of Hutten, Sickingen, and other friends of Luther, alarmed the opponents of the Eeformation. " The Grermans are everywhere so addicted to Luther," says Tunstall in a letter to Wolsey from Worms, "that rather than he shall be oppressed by the Pope's authority, a hundred thousand of the people will sacrifice their lives." ^^ Attempts were privately made by some of the Electors to bring Luther to more moderate senti- ments. To the Bishop of Treves, who had asked him to point out some way in which the matter might be accommodated, he answered in the words of G-amaliel : " If it is the work of man, it will perish in a few years; but if it comes from Grod, you will not be able to prevail against it. I will rather yield up my body and life, than abandon God's true and manifest word." ^^ There were some, as the Elector Joachim of Brandenburg, who proposed to violate Luther's safe-conduct ; but this step was rejected by the Emperor, and by the majority of the princes. In fact, Louis, the Elector Palatine, and the Landgrave Philip of Hesse, were on the point of declaring themselves in favour of the Refor- mation. Sickingen also was close at hand with a large force. ^* RaynalcluB, an. 1521, t. xii. p. 321 ; *" Fiddes, Life of Wulsey, p. 230 (ed. Seckendorf, §97 ; Ranke, DeiiUche Gesch. 1726). B. i. S. 485. " Luther, Werke, B. xv. S. 2317. 35 Luther's Werke, B. xv. S. 2320. 400 THE ''' EDICT OF WORMS." [Book IT. Charles V., towards the close of his life, during his retiremeot at Yuste, is said to have expressed regret at having observed Luther's safe-conduct^^ ; but if he did so, he must have forgotten the circumstances attending the Diet. On the 26th of May, Luther was outlawed by an edict ante-dated on the 8th, in order that it might appear to have been sanctioned by the whole Diet, though passed in the Emperor s private apartments, after several of the electors and princes had departed. This famous decree, known as the EDICT of worms, w^as drawn up by Aleander, the Papal Legate, and being filled with abuse of Luther, had more the form of a Papal Bull than an Imperial Edict.^^ It declared Luther a heretic, and ordained that whoever sheltered him, printed or published his books, or bought or read them, should incur the same penalty of outlawry. So great was Aleander's anxiety to get this document completed, that he brought it to the Emperor for signature on a Sunday, when he was in church with all his court. Luther had quitted Worms on the 26th of April, and arrived safely at Eisenach, preaching once or twice by the way, though expressly forbidden to do so. He was everywhere well received, even at the abbeys in which he rested. At Altenstein he was suddenly surrounded by horsemen in disguise, who took him out of his carriage, and having placed him on horseback, led him through a wood for some hours, till at length, near midnight, they brought him to the Wartburg, a castle within a mile of Eisenach, and formerly the residence of the Landgraves of Thuringia. This friendly capture had been arranged with Luther by the Elector Frederick, who was apprehensive that w^hen the ban of the Empire should be published, he might have some difficulty in sheltering the proscribed monk in his dominions. It was generally believed that Luther had been murdered, and for a long while nobody but Frederick knew what was become of him. At the same time with the Grerman Reformation, but quite inde- pendently of it, another was proceeding in Switzerland, conducted by Huldreich, or Ulrich, Zwingli. Of a poor but ancient family, Zwingli was born, January 1st 1484, at Wildenhausen in the county of Toggenburg, one of those elevated regions w^here fruit and vegetables refuse to grow, and w^here the green meadows are sur- rounded by bold and towering Alpine peaks. His father, who had been Ammann of the district, destined Ulrich, one of several sons, for the Church ; and with this view he completed his education at . ^'^ Sandoval, Hist de Carlos V., ap. another before told. See above, p. 330, Prescott, Hi^t. of Philip 11. vol. i. p. 288. note 82. The anecdote s also at variance with ^ Duniont, t. iv. pt. i, p. 335 sqq. Chap. III.] REFORMATIO]Sr IX SWITZERLAND. 401 Vienna and Basle. In 1506 he was appointed to the cure of Grlarus, which he held ten years. Like Luther, Zwingli early formed the determination of taking the Scriptures for his only rule of faith, and, in order to read them in the original, learnt Greek without a master, copying with his own hand the whole of St. Paul's epistles in that language.''*^ This period of his life was, however, diversified by participation in the warlike expeditions of his countrymen ; he was present with his community at the battle of Marignano, and subsequently bound himself to the service of the Pope by accepting a pension. He now opposed all military service UDder the French flag, and being thus brought into collision with the higher classes, he found himself compelled temporarily to abandon his cure. At this period Theobald, Baron of Grherolds- Eck, offered him an asylum at Einsiedeln, the celebrated monastery of Schwytz, where the shrine of our Lady of the Hermits still attracts thousands of pilgrims ; and in the autumn of 1516 he was installed in the curacy of Pfeffikon. In 1518 Bernhardin Samson began to preach indulgences in Switzerland. This man was even more shameless than Tetzel. It was one of his boasts that, during eighteen years, his commission bad brought into the Papal treasury as many hundred thousand ducats. Zwingli, like Luther, zealously denounced this traffic, denying the existence of purgatory, and consequently the utility of masses for the dead. It was in this year that he accepted the office of preacher at Zurich, one of the chief places in the Swiss Confederacy which declined the military service of France. Here he was assisted by Bullinger ; and as the Bishop of Con- stance, in whose diocese Zurich lies, was also at that time an opponent of Papal abuses, though he afterwards combated the new doctrines, the Reformation began to spread apace in Swit- zerland. Zwingli now opposed all foreign enlistment whatsoever, as well as that of France. In 1520 the town council of Zurich published its first reformatory edict, that nothing should be preached except what could be proved to be the word of God ; but it was not till 1524 that they obtained sufficient strength and confidence to alter the outward forms of worship, to abolish images, pro- cessions, reliques, and other Popish usages, and to permit the celebration of the Lord's Supper in both kinds. In Switzer- land, as in Germany, these reforms were the result of a more enlightened state of public opinion, to which the abode of Eras- ■'*' This MS. is still extant in the library at Zurich* VOL. I. D D 402 BOLD OPINIONS OF ZWIXGLI. [Book n. mus at Basle had not a little contributed ; and under these influences the Eeformation soon spread to Schaff hausen, Basle, and Bern. We cannot follow the Swiss Reformation step by step. It will suffice to say that by the year 1521 Zwingli's doctrines had been established not only in the cantons already mentioned, but had also taken root in Neufchatel, the Pays de Vaud, Greneva, Solo- thurn, the Thurgau, Baden, St. Gallon, and other places. Zwingli was even a bolder innovator than Luther. It has been remarked that while Luther wished to retain in the Church all that is not expressly contrary to the Scripture, Zwingli aimed at abolishing all that cannot be supported by Scripture. Their views respecting the eucharist in • particular were essentially different. Luther retained the Eoman Catholic dogma of the real presence, though in a somewhat modified and indeed not very intelligible form — consiibstantiation instead of transuhstantiation ; while Zwingli, like Carlstadt, interpreting the words of the institution figm'atively, held that no change whatever took place in the elements, but that they were mere symbols to be taken in remembrance of Christ's death. This difference gave rise to a bitter controversy between the two reformers ; and Luther, with his usual violence, denounced Zwingli and his followers with every mark of aversion as Sacra- TYientaries. It will appear further on how this difference damaged the cause of the Reformation by preventing the union of the Swiss and Grerman Churches ; but we must here content ourselves with merely indicating these subjects of dispute, the detail of which belongs properly to ecclesiastical history. Another great difference between Zwingli and Luther, which may perhaps be accounted for from the nature of the governments under which they lived, was that Zwingli extended his views to political as well as religious reform, while Luther disclaimed all interference in affairs of government. Zwingli wished to modify the constitution of the Swiss Confederacy ; he did not decline an appeal to arms for such an object ; and a premature and incon- siderate resort to them was the cause not only of his own death, but also of a reaction asfainst the Reformation in Switzerland. We shall here mention by anticipation that the five Catholic cantons, Schwytz, Uri, Unterwalden, Lucerne, and Zug, after the victory at Kappel and the death of Zwingli (October 1531), main- tained the advantage which they had achieved ; and after a war of less than two months, the articles of a peace signed at Haglingen, November 24th, rendered them supreme in the confederacy. Thus a stop was put to the further progress of the Reformation in Chap. III.] DISTURB AJs^CES IN SPAIK 403 Switzerland, and even a Catholic reaction was partially effected.'*^ But to return to the course of our history. While Charles was taking possession of his new dignity, and putting in order the affairs of the Grerman Empire, his Spanish dominions were in a state of open insurrection, the first symptoms of which, excited by the unconstitutional act of the Cortes assembled in Gallicia, had manifested themselves, as we have already observed, before his departure in 1520. Toledo first rose, just as Charles was quitting Spain, under the leadership of Don Juan de Padilla, eldest son of the Commendator of Castile, and Ferdinand d'Avalos, two nobles who now assumed the part of demagogues. The deputies who had voted the donative were either murdered or compelled to fly for their lives. Confederations were formed among the various towns, the chief of those implicated in the revolt being Toledo, Segovia, Zamora, Valladolid, Madrid, Burgos, Avila, Grua- dalaxaro, and Cuen^a. The Eegent Adrian was led to suppose that he could put down the insurrection by making an example of Segovia, with which view he despatched Eonquillo thither early in June; but the Segovians being supported by the Toledans, the royal army was defeated. Antonio de Fonseca, the commander-in- chief, being despatched to Eonquillo's assistance, was refused ad- mittance into Medina del Campo, whither he had gone in order to procure some artillery. Fonseca took the town by storm, and treated it with such cruelty as excited several other places to revolt that had hitherto remained faithful ; while Fonseca's house at Toledo was rased to the ground by the infuriated populace. Adrian was so alarmed at these occurrences that he disclaimed the acts of Fonseca, who proceeded to the Emperor in Flanders. In July, deputies from the principle Castilian cities met in Avila ; and having formed an association called the Sa^nta Junta, or Holy League, proceeded to deliberate concerning the proper methods of redressing the grievances of the nation. The Junta declared the authority of Adrian illegal, on the ground of his being a foreigner, and required him to resign it ; while Padilla, by a sudden march, seized the person of Joanna at Tordesillas. The unfortunate queen displayed an interval of reason, during which she authorised Padilla to do all that was necessary for the safety of the kingdom; but she soon relapsed into her former imbecility, and could not be persuaded to sign any more papers. The Junta nevertheless carried on all their deliberations in her name ; and Padilla, march- ing with a considerable army to Valladolid, seized the seals and *^ The chief authorities for the Swiss tions-gcschichtc, and Ruehat, Hist, de la Reformation are, Bullinger's He forma- Bef. en Suisse. D D 2 404 RE:M0XSTKAXCE of the SANTA JUNTA. [Book II. public archives, and formally deposed Adrian. Charles now issued from Germany circular letters addressed to the Castilian cities, making' great concessions, which, however, were not deemed satis- factory by the Junta ; wdio, conscious of their power, proceeded to draw up a remonstrance containing a long list of grievances. It is remarkable that these complaints very much resemble those subsequently urged by the Commons of England against the Stuarts, thus showing that Spain was then better prepared than any other nation in Europe to throw off feudal oppression and assert the principles of civil libert}^ Among the most important of these demands are — that the King should not reside out of Spain, nor marry without the consent of the Cortes; that no foreigner should be capable of holding the regenc}^ or any other office in Church or State ; that no foreign troops should be brought into the kingdom ; that the Cortes should be held at least once in three years, whether summoned by the King or not, and various conditions were laid down to insure the respectability and inde- pendence of the members, especially that neither they nor any of their family should hold places or pensions from the King; that the judges should have fixed salaries, and not receive any part of the fines or forfeitures of persons condemned by them ; that all the privileges enjo3^ed by the nobility, which were to the detriment of the Commons, should be revoked ; that indulgences should not be preached or sold in the kingdom till the Cortes had examined and approved the reasons for publishing them, and that the profits should be strictly applied to the war against the Infidels ; that all prelates should reside in their dioceses, at least six months in the year, &c. &c. Charles having refused to receive the remonstrance, which was forwarded to him in Grermany, the Junta proceeded to levy open war against him and the nobles ; for the latter, who had at first sided with the Junta, finding their own privileges threatened as well as those of the King, began now to support the royal authority. The army of the Junta, which numbered about 20,000 men, wag chiefly composed of mechanics and persons unacquainted with the use of arms ; Padilla was set aside, and the command given to Don Pedro de Griron, a rash and inexperienced young nobleman, Avho had joined the malcontents out of private pique against the Em- peror. On the other hand, Charles had authorised the Constable and the Admiral of Spain to assist Adrian, and they were joined by the Duke of Najera, the Viceroy of Navarre. Towards the end of November, Giron marched with about 11,000 men towards Hioseco in order to seize the Eegent Adrian^ who had retired Chap. KE.] DONA MORIA DE PACHECO. 405 thither ; but he was out-manoeuvred by the Conde de Haro, the royal general, who, proceeding to Tordesillas, recaptured that place, together ^vith the person of Joanna and the great seal, as well as many leaders of the Junta (Dec. 5th 1520). That party, however, was not discouraged, and they now appointed Padilla their general. But it was Padilla's wife, Dona Maria de Pacheco, a woman of hio-h spirit and noble birth, who was in reality the soul of the league ; and by her advice, all the costly plate and ornaments of the cathedral of Toledo were seized in order to raise money for the support of the arm}^ It was evident, however, that the affairs of the Junta were declining. Neither Padilla nor the Council of Thirteen could succeed in preserving order ; Spain became a wide scene of anarchy and confusion ; and those who loved tranquillity, or had anything to lose, hastened to join the party of the King and the nobility. In the spring of 1521, Padilla attempted to form a junction with the French, who had invaded Navarre and advanced into Spain, a manoeuvre which was prevented by the coming up of the royal army ; and on the 23rd April 1521, Padilla being utterly defeated, and captured near Villalar, was executed on the following day, and met his fate with great fortitude and resolution. The Bishop of Zamora was captured on the same occasion, who was so zfealous a revolutionist as to have organised a regiment of priests, which distinguished itself in the defence of Tordesillas. This defeat proved the ruin of the Junta. Valladolid and most of the other confederated towns now submitted, but Toledo, animated by the grief and courage of Padilla's widow, still held out; till at length the inhabitants, impatient of the long blockade, and despairing of all succour, surrendered the town. Dona Maria retired to the citadel and held it four months longer ; but on the 10th Feb. 1522, she was compelled to surrender, and escaped in disguise to Por- tugal ; after which tranquillity was re-established in Castile. A still more violent insurrection had raged in Valencia, headed by an association calling itself the Hermandad, or Brotherhood ; which, though without any leaders of note, contrived to maintain the war during the years 1520 and 1521. Their efforts, however, were directed, not against the prerogative of the King, but the power of the nobility, whom Charles left to fight their own battles. In Aragon the symptoms of insubordination were checked by the prudent conduct of the viceroy, Don Juan de Lanusa. Andalusia remained perfectly tranquil dvuing these tumults. Had the various Spanish states united together, they might doubtless have enforced their own terms ; but their different forms of government prevented them from joining in any common plan of reform; they still D D 3 406 RIVALRY OF FRAJSTIS AND CHARLES. [Book II. regarded themselves as distinct kingdoms, and retained all their former national antipathies. These commotions in Spain afforded the French the opportunity for invading Navarre, to which we have before alluded, and which was in fact one of the methods by which Francis gave vent to his ill humour at the loss of the empire. His competition with Charles for the Imperial Crown had been conducted apparently with the greatest good humour; and Francis had remarked in a playful tone to Charles's ambassadors — " We are two lovers who woo the same mistress; whichever she prefers the other must submit, and harbour no resentment." But in the bitterness of defeat all these generous feelings vanished. Francis now began to view the Spanish Monarch in a new light ; he no longer regarded Charles as an equal and ally whose scattered dominions wer.e insecure and in some degree at his mercy, and to whom therefore his friend- ship was necessary, but as a rival who had gained a marked supe- riority, and who by his elevation to the empire had not only acquired claims to some parts of the French dominions, but also the power of enforcing them. Pretexts for quarrelling were sufficiently abundant. Navarre was a bleeding wound in the side of Spain, which by the treaty of Noyon Francis had at any time a pretence for opening. The House of Austria had never digested the loss of Burgundy wrested from them by Louis XI. ; Charles even thought more of it than of Grermany, with whose language, feelings, and habits he was but little acquainted. In Italy, where Francis had neither received nor sought investiture of Milan from the Emperor, the old Imperial claims threatened to be a fertile cause of strife. It was plain that before long a war must ensue from the rivalship of two youthful and ambitious monarchs, whose growing disagree- ment was visible in all the transactions of the period. The wounded pride of Francis called loudly for revenge "^^ ; but there were many reasons which dissuaded him from seeking it by an open declaration of hostility. He trembled for the safety of his Italian conquests; he had no funds for carrying on an extensive war, except by the sacrifice of his magnificence and his pleasures ; above all, he knew that if he declared war against the Emperor and the Pope, they would be immediately joined by the King of Eng- land. He therefore resolved to consult both his safety and his anger by adopting towards Charles a petty and underhand system *- The King's mother remarks, in a entre les mains de Jesus Christ, au quel journal which she kept— " Pleut a Dicu il appartient, et non a aultre." (Petitot, que TEmpire eut plus longtemps racque, t. xvi. p. 401.) A virtual condemnation ou Lien que pour jamais on I'eut laisse of lior own son for seeking it ! Chap. III.] FEEXCH IXVASIOX OF XAYARRE. 407 of annoyance, and with this view he had encouraged the Castilian communities in their rebellion, and endeavoured to raise a party against Charles among the electors of Grermany ^^ ; his jealousy rendering him blind to the fact that such a course must inevitably kindle the war which it was so much his interest to avoid. Francis had certainly colourable grounds for an invasion of Navarre, as Charles had neglected that stipulation of the treaty of Noyon by which he was bound to do the ex-king justice within six months. Both John d'Albret and his consort Catherine had died in 1516, and the sceptre of Navarre had devolved to their son, Henry II. The King's mistress, the beautiful Countess of Chateau- briand, of the House of Foix, whose family had reversionary claims to Navarre through their relationship to Henry IL, also used her influence with Francis to induce him to invade Navarre ; and he resolved to strike a blow which love and hatred combined to counsel. The Navarrese were favourable to the cause of their exiled monarch, and the citizens of Estella in particular invoked his presence in language which partook of Eastern poetry. " Do but show yourself. Sire," they wrote, " and you will behold the rocks, the mountains, and the trees arm themselves for your service."'** Francis permitted Andrew de Foix, Lord of Esparre, the third brother of Madame de Chateaubriand, to levy a small army of 5000 or 6000 Grascons, with which, and 300 lances belonging to his eldest brother, M. de Lautrec, he entered Navarre. As Ximenes had rased nearly all the fortresses in that little kingdom, it was soon overrun ; Pampeluna alone, animated by the courage of Ignatius Loyola, made a short resistance. To this siege the w^orld owes the Order of the Jesuits. Loyola, whose leg had been shattered by a cannon ball, found consolation and amusement during his convalescence in reading the lives of the saints, and was thus thrown into that state of fanatical exaltation which led him to devote his future life to the service of the Papacy. Lesparre was stimulated by his easy success to exceed the bounds of his commission, and instead of confining himself to the reduction of Navarre, to pass into Spain, where his attempt to form a junction with the malcontents under Padilla was defeated in the manner before related. At the invitation, however, of the heroine Dona Maria de Pacheco, he undertook the siege of Logroiio, a frontier town of Old Castile, on the further side of the Ebro. All the pride of the Castilians was roused by this insult. Forgetting "3 Befutatio AfologicB Bissuasorice, in " MSS. de Bethune, ap. Gaillard, Vic Goldasti, FoUt. Lap. p. 870. de Frayi^ms I. t. ii. p. 103. D D 4 408 THE DUKE OF BOUILLON" DEFIES CHARLES. [Book II. their complaints against Charles and his Eegent Adrian, they flew to arms ; Lesparre was obliged to raise the siege, and retreat towards Pampeliina; but being overtaken at Esquiros by the Spanish army under the Constable, the Admiral, and the Duke of Najera, was defeated and captured June 30th 1521, having re- ceived a wound in the action of which he shortly afterwards expired. Navarre was now recovered by the Spaniards as easily as it had been overrun by the French. Francis adopted the same policy of petty intervention on his northern frontier. Eobert de la Marck, Duke of Bouillon and Lord of Sedan, long one of Charles's best friends, and who had helped his election to the empire, having a suit respecting a castle on the French frontiers, had taken offence at the Chancellor of Brabant entertaining an appeal from his courts, which he con- tended were independent; and Louis of Savoy, at an interview with the Duke at Eomorantin, fomented his discontent and ap- proved his projects of vengeance. The Parliament of Paris sent an officer to cite before them, not only the President and Attorney- General of Charles's supreme court, but even the Emperor himself, or rather, as the decree ran, the Count of Artois and Flanders ; and the Duke of Bouillon was ridiculous enough to despatch a herald to the Diet at Worms to defy the Emperor before all his princes. With the connivance of the French Court, though con- trary to an ostensible prohibition, De la Marck levied a small army in France, and together with his son Fleurange laid siege to Vireton, a town of Luxembourg. Henry VIII. , at the request apparently of the Emperor, now interfered, and Bouillon, by order of Francis, raised the siege, March 22nd 1521. Charles, however, was not inclined to let his insolence pass unpunished. The Imperial generals, the Count of Nassau, Sickingen, and Frunsberg, not only entered Bouillon's dominions, where they took and destroyed several places, but even crossed the French frontier and committed several acts of violence; and though, on the approach of a French army, Nassau granted Bouillon a truce of six weeks, yet hostilities still continued between the Imperialists and the French. Nassau, who had retired into Luxembourg, again entered France, captured Mouzon and laid siege to Mezieres, which was valiantly defended by Bayard ; but on the approach of the Duke of Alenpon with his army, Nassau was again compelled to retire. An open war seemed to be now impending between Francis and the Emperor, and in this state of things Henry VIIL, assuming his favourite character, offered to mediate between them ; a pro- Chap. III.] HAPACITY OF POPE LEO X. 409 posal whicli, after some reluctance on the part of Francis, was accepted by both princes. Charles had no reason to object to such a course ; he was assured of the support of Wolsey''^, and he was in intimate alliance with the Pope, whose legates were to be present at the discussions. After some delay the conference was fixed to be held at Calais on the 8th of August. But before proceeding to that matter, we must take a brief view of the affairs of Italy and the conduct of the Pope. The thoughts of Leo were perpetually directed towards the tem- poral aggrandisement of his family. We have already seen how, with the connivance of the French King, he succeeded in wresting Urbino from La Eovere, and bestowing it on his nephew Lorenzo. Not content with withholding Modena and Keggio from Alphonso d'Este, he next designed to seize upon Ferrara itself. Having failed, in 1519, in an attempt to surprise that place, he endeavoured in the following year to obtain his end by treachery, and bribed Ridolfo Hello, a Grerman captain in the service of Alphonso, to betray one of the gates to his forces. But Hello revealed the whole plot to his master ; and Alphonso, though unwilling to take any public step in the matter, let the Pope"^^ plainly see that he was aware of his designs. In 1520-' Leo treacherously procured the destruction of the Lords of Perugia and Fermo. Perugia was governed by Grian Paolo Baglioni, a famous condottiere, who had made himself master of his native city. According to contemporary writers Baglioni was a monster steeped in every vice — a fact, how- ever, which can hardly justify Leo's conduct ; who having en- trapped him to Eome under a promise of security, caused him on the following day after his arrival to be apprehended and tortured, when he is said to have confessed enormities that could not be expiated by a thousand deaths. However this may be, he was decapitated next day in the castle of St. Angelo, and the Pope seized his possessions. Ludovico Freducci of Fermo was attacked on similar pretexts by Giovanni de' Medici with an army of 5000 men, and was slain in attempting to escape. After these examples " In the letter announcing the consent procure the assassination of the duke, of the two monarchs to the conference for which he cites the autliority of (July 20th 1521), Wolsey observes: Guicciardini, then governor of Modena "whereof I truste good effecte shall and Reggio for the Pope ; and adds, that ensue, as well to the pacificacion of the the historian himself was alsci innocently differencis betwene theym both, as also implicated in this dark piece of treachery. for thcstraiter conjunction of your Grace But, according to Iloscoe, there is nothing and tK Emperour for every See State in Guicciardini to justify this charge; Papers, vol. i. p. 15. ■ nor can it be substantiated from the ■»« On this occasion Muratori {Ann. t. x. other authorities ^ adduced by Muratori. p. 130) charges Leo with a design to See Life of Leo X, vol. iv. p. 305. 410 ALLIANCE BETWEEN THE POPE AXD EMPEROR. [Book II. many of the smaller tyrants submitted ; some of wliom relying, like Baglioni, on Leo's good faith, were tried for their former conduct and executed. That most of them deserved their fate can hardly be doubted. The wretched state of morals among Italian princes may be inferred with safety from the possi])ility of such a book as Macchiavelli's Principe being written ; but we can hardly applaud the conduct of the Pontiff in condemning those over whom he had no temporal jurisdiction merely in order to appropriate their possessions. Leo seconded these acts of violence by the most treacherous and double-faced negociations. Early in 1521 he had entered into a treaty with Francis I., by which it w^as agreed that they should unite to drive the Spaniards out of Naples ; in the accomplishment of which the town of Gaeta, with all the northern part of Campania Felix as far as the Grarigliano, was to be ceded to the Church, the remainder of the kingdom being assigned to the second son of the French King ; who, however, till he should attain his majority, was to be under the guardianship of an apostolic legate. Francis, either from negligence, fear of England, or suspicion of the Pope's sincerity, seems to have delayed the ratification of this treaty, and to have withheld the promised subsidies. Piqued by this conduct, as well as offended by the proceedings of Lautrec, who had suc- ceeded Bourbon as Grovernor of the Milanese, and especially by his refusing to acknowledge the authority of Kome in the matter of benefices, Leo now secretly entered into an alliance with Charles V., on the basis of a counter-project for driving the French, instead of the Spaniards, from Italy. The chief articles were, that Francis Sforza, second son of Louis the Moor, who had been residing at Trent, should be installed in the Duchy of Milan ; that Parma and Piacenza should be ceded to the Church, and that its claims on Ferrara should be supported by the Emperor ; that the annual tribute paid by Naples to the Holy See should be aug- mented ; that the Neapolitan Duchy of Civita di Penna should be conferred on Alessandro de' Medici''^ a child of nine, and a pension of 10,000 crowns on Cardinal Griulio de' Medici, secured on the revenues of the Archbishopric of Toledo, then vacant. The Pope on his side undertook to forward the claims of the Emperor upon Venice. This treaty, which was concluded while the Diet of Worms was sitting, bears the same date as the outlawry of Luther, or Edict of Worms (May 8th), and it can hardly be doubted that both were intimately connected. By the sixteenth article the ■ " Reputed the illegitimate son of reality the oflfspriug of Cardinal Giulio Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, but perhaps in de' Medici. Chap. HI.] LEO'S PROCEEDIXGS AGAINST THE FREXCH. 411 Emperor engaged to reduce to ol3edience the adversaries of the Apostolic throne, that is, Lnther and his adherents, and to avenge all the injuries they had done it/^ After the conclusion of this treaty, the Pope and Emperor made attempts to gain partisans in the various Italian cities. Jerome Morone, formerly Vice-Chancellor of Milan, one of the numerous citizens whom the harshness of the French G^overnment had com- pelled to quit their native country, proposed to Leo a scheme for attacking several places in the Milanese by means of malcontent exiles. The Pope adopted the project, and secretly advanced money for its execution ; and when it proved abortive, he permitted the exiles to take refuge at Eeggio. Charles and the Pope also supported the Adorni and Fieschi in a plan which they had formed to wrest Genoa from the Fregosi, who governed it for the French ; and the Pope fitted out some galleys ^^ for that purpose. But this scheme also was defeated by the vigilance of Octavian Fregoso. At this time, Odet de Foix, Sieur de Lautrec, the G-overnor of the Milanese, was absent in France, and had left the supreme command to his brother, the Marshal de Foix, commonly called M. de Lescun ; who, hearing of the proceedings of the Pope, marched with some troops to Eeggio, intending if possible to surprise the town, or at all events to demand an explanation On his appear- ance before the place, G-uicciardini, the Governor, gave him an audience outside the gates. Whilst they were conferring, Lescun s men attempted to force an entrance into the town ; a skirmish ensued ; blood was spilt on both sides ; the French were repulsed, and Guicciardini detained Lescun to answer for his conduct, but dismissed him on the following day. Lescun subsequently des- patched an envoy to the Pope to apologise for his conduct ; but Leo, glad of so good an opportunity to throw off the mask, refused to hear the envoy, complained of the hostility of the French King, excommunicated Lescun as an impious invader of the territory of St. Peter, and publicly avowed in the Consistory the treaty which he had concluded with the Emperor. Such was the position of affairs between the Pope, the Emperor, and the French King, when the appointed conference w\as held at Calais. It was managed on the part of Charles by the Count of Gattinara, a Piedmontese, for Chievres had died at Worms in the preceding May; on the part of Francis, by the Chancellor Duprat. Wolsey was master of the situation, the arbiter whom both sides sought to gain. Duprat was assiduous in supplying all his wants, *^ Dumont, t. iv. pt. iii., Supp. p. 96. " Pace to Wolsey, July 20th 1521, State Papers, yoI. i. p. 12. 412 CONFERENCE AT CALAIS. [Book 11. which the cardinal was not scrupulous in intimating : now pro- viding him with a litter, as Wolsey complained of the fatigue of riding his mule ; now sending far and wide for some better French wine than could be procured at Calais.^^ The cardinal, however, was already sold to the Emperor for the reversion of a more splendid prize than it was in the power of Francis to offer. Before the congress assembled, Henry YIII. and his minister had al- ready made preparations for hostilities against Francis, by pro- viding a body of 6000 archers, and devising plans for the des- truction of the French fleet. Nay, so ardent was Wolsey in the cause, that though, as he says, " a spiritual man," and in general prone enough to assert the superiority of the toga over arms, yet he expressed his readiness to march with his cross at the head of the English troops.^ ^ He affected, however, the greatest impar- tiality, and declared that his only solicitude was to ascertain who had first broken the peace. To have effected a satisfactory me- diation between the two Sovereigns would have been impossible. Each made claims which he knew the other would not grant — Francis demanding the restitution of Navarre and Naples ; Charles requiring that Milan and Grenoa should be evacuated, homage for Flanders remitted, and Burgundy restored ! Under these circum- stances it is not surprising that Wolsey's mediation only resulted in procuring a treaty for the suspension of hostilities between the French and Flemish vessels engaged in the herring fishery ! ^^ Technically speaking, Francis was certainly committed by Les- parre's invasion of Spain, of which the Emperor had complained before the opening of the conference, at the same time requiring Henry to declare against France as the first aggressor ^^ ; but, in any event, the result of the conference was predetermined. In fact, the Emperor himself, in a speech which he made to the people of Ghent, in July, had told them that " he would leave the French King in his shirt, or else he should so leave him." ^'^ While the conference was going on, Wolsey, escorted by 400 horse, went in great state to Bruges to visit the Emperor, who received him like a sovereign prince. Here, in the name of his master, the cardinal ^_ ^ MSS. de Bethune, ap. Gaillard, t. at hand. The power of Holland was ii. p. 164 sq. founded on this trade, and according to *' See Pace's Letters to Wolsey, Jnly a Dutch sa3-ing, Amsterdam was built on 28th and August 1st, and Wolsey's to herring bones. Henry VIII., August 4th. State Papers, ^^ Wolsey to King Henry Ylll., July vol. i. pp. 23, 24, 27. 1521. State Papers, vol. i. p. 17. *2 This trade, however, was of great " Letter of Fitzwilliam to Henry VIII., importance, especially to the Nether- August 2nd 1521. State Papcrs,\-ol. ri. landers, and the fishing season was now p. 83. Chap. III.] TREATY OF BEUGES. 413 concluded with Charles a treaty, the chief purport of which was, that in the follomng year the Emperor should invade France on the south, and Henry on the north, each with an army of 40,000 men. At the same time a marriage was agreed on between the Emperor an Bourbon's Orig. Let. and Sir John vol. i. p. 425 sq. '^ Hall, ibid. O G 3 454 NEGOCIATIONS BETWEEN HENRY AND CHARLES. [Book II. crowned in Paris, and that the remainder of PVance 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. So far, then, from hostilities against Francis having been abandoned out of a generous compassion towards the unfortunate monarch, or from any fear that the liberties of Europe were endangered by the victory of Pavia, it appears to have been precisely this event that led to the project of renewing the war with France. Wolsey, indeed, when the splendid prize for which he had so long been intriguing, seemed at length within his master's grasp, could not, Avithout the grossest inconsistency, openly refuse to employ the necessary means for securing it ; and at all events, Henry himself, whatever may have been the feelings of his minister, appears to have earnestly wished to avail himself of the opportunity. 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 monarch promised, if he was crowned there, to accompany the Emperor to Eome for his coronation — no obscure assurance that Henry would help to lay Italy at his feet ; who also engaged that Charles should recover all the possessions claimed by the house of Burgundy and by the empire in France ; nay, at last France, and even England itself, if he married the Princess Mary according to the treaty of 1522.^'* Truly, these propositions betray a most considerate care for the balance of power in Europe, and a most generous temper towards a fallen foe ! The English advances, however, were not very favourably received, and especially in the Netherlands. Wolsey was not unjustly suspected by the Imperial cabinet, and had personally offended the Emperor ; besides which, it was thought, that England, though making such large demands, had con- tributed little or nothing to the success of the war. Never- theless, in the conditions which Charles proposed in April for the liberation of P>ancis, the interests of England were not forgotten: he required the restitution of Normandy, Guienne, and Gascony to Henry, and that the French King should pay the indemnity due to England by himself. The belief at this '' Henry VIII.'s Instructions to Tun- '* See the Instructions to Tunstall and stall and Wingfield, March 30th 1525 Wingfield, extracted by Fiddes, Life of {State Papers, vol. W.). Wolsey, p. 346 sqq. Chap. V.] QUARREL BETWEEN CHARLES AND WOLSEY. 455 period was so strong, that the Emperor would still act in concert with Henry, that we find the Bishop of Bath informing the Pope, in May, of their intention to invade France, and asking his co- operation : when Clement expressed his determination to be neutral. ^^ Charles's propositions were refused by the French government, and after this period the Emperor's conduct towards the English court began to change. He seems to have been disgusted with the extravagant demands of England, which were out of all proportion to the services rendered, and were probably one of the methods by which Wolsey gave vent to his spleen against the Emperor. The most remarkable of these demands are, that Charles should make no terms with the French Kinsf without insisting on the English claims to the crown of France ; nay, that Francis, whom Henry VIII. affected to regard as a rebellious vaftsal, 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 ! Charles, who had for some time altered his style towards Wolsey, now altogether ceased to correspond with him. Early in June, when the Bishop of London, Sir Kichard Wingfield, and Dr. Sampson delivered letters to him at Toledo, from Henry and Wolsey, he gave vent to the bitterest complaints against the latter ; accused the Cardinal of having charged him with aspiring to the monarchy of Europe, of having called himself a liar, his aunt, the Lady Margaret, a ribald, his brother, Don Ferdinand, a child, and the Duke of Bourbon, a traitor. These insults had been uttered when Beaurain, now M. de Rieux, asked to have 200,000 ducats for Bourbon's entry into Burgundy ; and the Cardinal added, " that the King had other things to do with his money than to spend it for the pleasures of such four personages."'^ For these expressions, which had been reported to the Emperor by De Rieux, the ambassadors advised Wolsey to write an apology ; and they ex- pressed their opinion that the Emperor was still inclined to be faithful to his engagements, although he was not in a condition to fulfil them, on account of the disorganised state of his army in Italy. After this outburst, the Emperor applied to be released from his contract to wed the Princess Mary, who was still an infant, on the ground that his subjects were pressing him to enter upon an efficient marriage ; and indeed he was noAv seeking the hand of a Portuguese Princess. Henry VIII. readily complied *5 Bath's Letter, May 14th, ap. Turner, from Toledo, June 2nd 1525, ap. Turner, Henry VIII. vol. i. p. 442. ibid. 454. '^ See the letter of the ambassadors G G 4 456 TEEATY BETWEEN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. [Book 11. with this request, and signed on the 6th of July an authority to his ambassadors to abrogate that part of the treaty of Windsor. Wolsey, however, in order to gratify his spite against the Emperor, instead of forwarding the paper by a courier overland, sent it by sea, so that Charles, who was anxiously expecting the release, did not receive it till the middle of September. Henry himself was so concerned at this delay, that he hastened to forward another authority with still more ample powers. It was plain that the good understanding between the courts of England and Spain was noAV 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 in- clined to treat of peace with France.^^ Accordingly, John Joachim was again invited into England, and a truce of forty days was con- cluded, followed by the treaty of Moore (August 30th 1525), by which the integrity of the French kingdom was guaranteed against the aggressions of the Emperor, while Henry engaged to solicit the release of Francis. France, indeed, paid dearly for this security. The Eegent was obliged to recognise 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 dowiy.*^ This was, in fact, a tribute ; while the pensions subsequently paid by the French cro^vn to some of the Stuarts were the wages of vassalage. Wolsey also was to receive 121,898 crowns, for arrears of his Tournay pension. The Imperial government, which had been thus anticipated, followed the example of England. A truce of six months, regarding Flanders 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 re- spective 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 passed between Charles and his prisoner Francis. Hard indeed were the conditions of the ransom demanded by the Emperor. He began by signifying to the French government at Lyons, through his plenipotentiary, De Rieux, that he might legally claim the whole kingdom of France, since Pope Boniface VIII. had deposed Philip le Bel, and bestowed the French crowTi on Albert of Austria! Nevertheless, with due regard to the welfare of Christendom, he " Eishop of Eath's Letter from Rome, " Rymer, t. xiv. p. 48 sqq. July 25th, ap. Turner, Henr^ VIII. vol. i. »•» Leonard, Traites, t. ii. p. 193 sqq. p. 455. CHAr. v.] CHARLES'S PROPOSITIOXS TO FRANCIS. 457 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 the chief command in the enterprise ; the restitution of Burgundy and all the possessions belonging to Charles the Bold at the time of his death, Picardy included, the whole exempt from any claims of feudal sovereignty ; 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 sovereign. The articles also included, as we have already observed, the cession of Normandy, Gruienne, and Gascony to Henry VIII.^o Such propositions involved in effect nothing less than the partition of France. 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 for ever 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 in- dignantly declared that sooner than dismember France he would remain a prisoner all his life. But his tone soon began to change. Captivity was unendurably irksome to a self-indulgent prince like Francis, who displayed in his reverses anything but the spirit of a hero. The showy qualities which had attracted admiration in his prosperity fell away at the touch of misfortune like so much theatrical pasteboard and tinsel, and the real man stood exposed, as what he was, a Poitevin gentleman of little stuff, whom despair had rendered devout, and who put his woes into rhyme like any other poetaster of the age.^^ In the hope of recovering his liberty he hastened to make large concessions. He agreed to marry the Emperor's sister Eleanor, the Dowager Queen of Portugal, and to assign Burgundy as her dowry ; to which, if she died -without male heirs, the second son of the Emperor should succeed. He re- nounced all his claims on Genoa, Naples, and Milan, reserving only the last for any son he might have by Eleanor. He aban- doned the suzerainty of Flanders and Artois, agreed to purchase back Picardy, and promised to furnish the half of any army which " Captivite de Frangois I. p, 149 sqq. ever, some really good lines, especially *• Michelet, Reforme, p. 245. the apostrophe to the French rirers. See ^ Ibid. p. 242. The verses composed Captivite, &c. Eglogue du Pasteur Ad- by Francis in his captivity contain, how- mettis, p. 227 sqq. 458 FRANCIS'S CONCESSIONS TO CHARLES. [Book II. the Emperor might wish to employ in G-ermany or Italy, either for his coronation at Kome 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, even if the Emperor should not go himself. Bourbon was to be restored to his possessions, and as Francis's proposed marriage would deprive him of Eleanor, he was to be offered the hand of Francis's favourite sister JSIargaret, the widowed Duchess of Alenpon, 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 lieu- tenant of Charles V., against the Turks, against Venice, against the Lutherans of Grermany, 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 that of his kingdom by the milder alternative of abdication. Charles was in no hurry to answer the proposals of his prisoner, whom it was resolved meanwhile to transfer from Pizzighettone to Spain. The three Imperial chieftains, Bourbon, Pescara, and Lannoy, were at variance with one another, and were menaced by their own soldiery, who clamorously 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 embarrass- ment, 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 par- ticularly 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 de- ception so far as to \\Tite to the Pope to provide apartments at Eome. Then it was determined to go by sea, embarking at the port of Genoa. The proposed removal was highly disagreeable to Francis himself. He felt that he should be so much further from his friends, and consequently from any chance of escape ; he pro- tested that the climate of Naples, being hot and on the sea, would be detrimental to his health ; and he contrived to write to his ^ Captivite, ^r., p. 170 sqq. Bp. of Henr?/ VIII. vol. i. p. 445. Bath's Letter to Wolsey, ap. Turner, ^* Michelet, Hefoi-me^ Chap. V.] FRANCIS CARRIED PRISONER TO MADRID. 459 mother to rescue him on the voyage by means of a French squadron. Lannoy, however, having gained the confidence of Francis, communicated to him his real design ; told him that the rigorous conditions prescribed for his release had been framed solely to gratify Bourbon ; and succeeded in persuading him that at a distance from that insolent vassal he would find the Emperor disposed to be much more generous. Francis eagerly caught at these representations. Arrived at Genoa, he not only coimter- manded the sailing of the squadron under La Fayette and Doria, which was to have attempted his rescue, but even ordered six French galleys from Marseilles to transport the Spanish troops that were to form his escort. 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 Xativa, also in Valencia. Early in August he was brought to ]Madrid by order of the Emperor. The captivity of Francis was of the most rigorous description. He was confined in a small chamber in one of the towers of the fortifications, having only a single window secured by double bars of iron, and at such a height from the floor, that it w^as necessary to mount upon a chair in order to view the surrounding country, comprising the arid banks of the Manpanares. He was strictly guarded by Captain Alarpon ; beneath his window, at a depth of 100 feet, two batallions 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 himself aloof at Toledo. The chagrin of this confinement, and vexation at having been duped by Lannoy, at length threw the captive monarch into a dangerous sickness, which the , physicians declared would be fatal, imless the Emperor granted him an interview. Francis's death would have deprived Charles of all the benefits which he expected, and at last, September 18th, he paid the captive a visit. "I am your Imperial Majesty's prisoner," exclaimed Francis, as he entered, at the same time doffing his bonnet. " M ot so," replied Charles, as he embraced the French King and covered his head, — " but my friend and brother. I have no other wish but to set you at liberty, and provide you with every comfort you can desire." ^^^ He added many other kind words, which had the effect of reviving Francis's health and spirits ; but a dreary interval of anxiety and suspense was still to be passed before he recovered his liberty. 2» Du Bellay, in Petitot, t. xriii. p. 310. 460 MARGARET OF VALOIS VISITS MADRID. [Book II. Shortly afterwards he received another consolatory visit from his beloved sister, Margaret of Valois, the widowed Duchess of Alenpon. Margaret was one of those clever and lively women in whom religious exaltation and spiritual mysticism are as much the result of a strong imagination as of devotional feeling, and in whom they by no means exclude, nay, rather foster, a propensity to mundane gallantry. Margaret had shown an early inclination for the doctrines of the Eeformation, which she carried to an extreme ; so that, at a later period, she incurred the reproval of Calvin for the favour which she displayed towards the sect of what were called the " Spiritual Libertines." Her influence was always exerted on behalf of the Eeformers, and on more than one occasion she saved some of them from the stake. After all, however, it is doubtful whether she ever really quitted the Roman Catholic communion, in which faith it is at least certain that she died. The strangely mixed nature of her mind is well displayed in her Hejptaineron^ written when she was Queen of Navarre ; the preface to which, where, under the name of Dame Oisille, she describes the daily routine of her religious exercises, forms a strange introduction to the somewhat equivocal tales which follow. She had sent to Francis in his captivity the Epistles of St. Paul, the favourite apostle of the Eeformers. The warmest affection had subsisted from infancy between Margaret and her brother : an affection said at one time to have been more than fraternal, and concealed by a veil which we shall not attempt to lift.-^ Margaret's visit to Madrid was not, however, prompted solely by sisterly affection. There was in it a dash of feminine speculation. She was a widow ; Charles was in search of a consort : might not the almighty power of love pro6ure at once liberty for her brother, for herself an imperial crown ? We do not retail the gossiping scandal of the French or Spanish court. Scarcely had the Duke of Alenpon expired, when Louisa, with an indiscretion and want of dignity for which even the important nature of the interests at stake presents but a feeble excuse, 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; who, not perhaps without a secret confidence in the effect of a personal interview, resolved to offer up womanly pride and dignity on the altar of fraternal tenderness. Furnished with full powers to treat of peace with 26 See Michelet, Reforme, p. 175 ; Mar- " Cajjtivite, p. 194. tin, Hist, de France, t. viii. p. 83, note. Chap. V.] FR.\NCIS ABDICATES, BUT EETRACTS. 461 the Spanish government, and accompanied by the veteran states- man Eobertet, Margaret set out on her journey towards the end of August, and arrived at Toledo early in October, after payino- 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 pro- cure the escape of the French King, which were discovered and prevented, Francis dismissed his sister towards the end of Novem- ber. 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 favour of his son, the dauphin Francis, appointing his mother, Louisa, and in her default his sister, Mar- garet, regent ; reserving, however, if he should chance to recover his liberty, the right of reassuming the sovereignty by the jus jpostliminii.^^ But he had not resolution enough to carry out this heroic act. At the moment when his fellow captive Mont- morenci, who had been ransomed, was to carry the document to France, the King instructed the French ambassadors in Spain to cede Burgundy (December IQth).^^ The Eegent, apparently with- out consulting her council, had previously given them the same instructions, though with more regai'd 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 Bour- bon, 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, w^ent out to meet Bourbon at the bridge over the Tagus, bestowed on him every mark of honour, and gave a series of fetes and entertainments for his diversion, which strangely contrasted with Charles's studied neglect of Bourbon's sovereign. But the Spanish nation sympathised 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 defi- ance of the parliament of Aix, insisted that nothing should be supplied to the " traitor." ^^ At Toledo, a Spanish grandee, the -5 Captivite, p. 416 sqq, ; Isambert, t. '° See his own MS. letter, quoted by xii. p. 237. Turner, Henri/ VIII. vol. i. p. 466. 28 Captivite, Introd. p. Ivi. " Captivite, p. 340 sq. 462 TREATY OF MADRID. [Book IT. Marquis of Villena, whose hotel the Emperor had requested for the use of Bourbon, replied that he could not refuse any demand of his Sovereign, but that he should burn down his house as soon as the Duke had quitted it. In spite, however, of the public honours heaped upon Bourbon, the Emperor, in the arrangement which he was on the point of concluding with Francis, was pre- pared to sacrifice the pretensions of the Duke, and, on his own part, to content himself with the recovery of Burgundy, his maternal inheritance. 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 Charles the Bold. The French King also renounced his claims to the king- dom of Naples, the Duchy of Milan, the county of Asti, and the city of Grenoa. 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 the Turks or heretics. He withdrew his protection from the King of Navarre, the Duke of Gelderland, and the La Marcks ; took upon himself the Emperor's debt to England, and agreed to give his tv>^o 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 favour was a free pardon for him and his adherents ^^ and their restoration in their forfeited domains. Bour- bon was even deprived of the promised hand of Eleanor, the Em- peror's sister, which was now to be given to Francis, in pursuance of his demand. This was a delicate point in the negociations, 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 frus- trate 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. Grreat offers vs^ere 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 chief of tliem was Philibert of VIII. vol. i. p. 474. The treaty of Chalon, Prince of Orange. Madrid is in Dumont, Corps. Dipl. t. iv. ^ Dr. Lee's Letter to Henry VIIL, pt. i. p. 399. Jan. 26th 1526, apud Turner, Henry Chap. V.] FRAJn^CIS'S PROTEST AGAINST IT. 46i The " great offers " appear to have been a promise of the Duchy of Milan. The provisions of the above treaty Francis promised to execute on the word and honour of a king^ and by an oath sworn with his hand upon the holy Grospels ^'^ : yet only a few hours before he was to sign this solemu act, he had called his plenipotentiaries, too-ether 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 extorted 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 a perjury.^^ Treaties have often been shamefully violated, yet it would per haps be impossible to parallel this gross and deliberate perjury. The treacherous thought appears to have occurred to Francis early in his captivity, but honour long struggled against it. His argu- ment from compulsion is altogether futile. He appealed to the decision of force when he took up arms, and he was in the hands of Charles as a lawful prisoner of war. The usage regarding such prisoners was then very harsh. Even down to the time of Grrotius, who flourished about a century after Francis, the custom of making slaves of prisoners of war was not entirely obsolete, whilst ransom still continued to be the ordinary method of liberation, and was considered the most valuable booty of the victors.^^ The argu- ment from force would go to the dissolution of most treaties of peace, which are rarely entered into except when one party has found itself compelled to accept unpalatable conditions ; and though the terms imposed by Charles were harsh, and such as deprive him of the praise of generosity, yet this does not exculpate Francis in accepting, with the intention of evading, them. Nor could he plead patriotism in excuse, and the desire of benefiting his people. The question was purely personal, and he might have avoided any ill consequences to the French nation by adopting the course which he had once contemplated, and abdicating the throne in favour of his son. On the other hand, the conduct of the Emperor was impolitic as '* " De bonne foi et parole de Roi, siir mont, t. iv. pt. i. p. 412. notre honneur et par notre serment, et ^ Michelet, Reformc, p. 275. pour ce que nous avons donne et touche ^' Grotius, De Jure Belli ac Pads, lib, corporellement aux S. Evangiles de Dieu." iii. c. 14, § 9; Wlieaton, Hist, of the ^* This protest will be found in Du- Law of Nations, p. 162. 464 FEAXCIS DISMISSED FROM MADRID. [Book II. well as ungenerous. His demands were too extravagant in com- parison with his power to enforce them. Some of his best coun- sellors advised liim either to march to Paris and dictate a peace under its walls, or to liberate Francis without conditions ; not that they thought the terms imposed too hard, but the security for them inadequate ; and they pointed out that the worst step of all was to dismiss the French King only half satisfied.^^ This last, however, was precisely the course adopted by Charles ; and he soon found reason to repent it. 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 Torrejo ; 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 observe it ? and Francis repeated his promise, adding, " If I infringe it, look upon me as a base and wicked man." Yet he had already told the Papal Legate at Toledo, soon after signing the treaty, that he did not mean to keep it.^^ The Emperor, whose pertinacity seems to indicate that he suspected his prisoner, and who might perhaps have heard some- thino- of his secret reservation, 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 Bidassoa, March 18th, and in a boat moored in the middle of the river, between Irun and Andaye, he was exchanged for his two sons, Francis and Henry, who were to remain in Spain, as hostages for the execution of the treaty. The tears started to his eyes as he embraced his children, but he consigned them without remorse to a long and dreary exile. 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. ^ See De Praet's Letter, Nov. 14th "^ Giberto to the Bishop of Bajusa, 1525, in the Negociations avcc VAutrichc, Lcttcre diPrincvpi, t. ii. p. 188 b. t. ii. p. 633 {Bocumens inedits sur VHist. *° This story, which rests upon the au- dc France): Cf. Ranke, Deutsche Gcsck. thority of Sandoval and other Spanish his- B. ii. S. 342. The Emperor's Chancellor, torians, has been questioned by Gaillard. Gattinara, is said to have shown his H/.st. de Francois I. t. iii. p. 346, but disapproval of the treaty by refusing to without adequate grounds. Cf. Rauke, sign it. Deutsche Gesch. B. ii. S. 340. Chap. V.] FRANCIS REFUSES TO RATIFY THE TREATY. 465 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 immedi- ately 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 fulfilment of Francis's enofao-ements, the latter introduced him before the assembled princes, prelates, and nobles, who, in the presence of the Imperial Ambassador, pronounced their decision that the King could not alienate the patrimony of France, 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. 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 fulfil his ensrajxements it sufficed for him to return to Spain, as bound by the treaty, and again surrender himself a •prisoner, when another arrangement might be eff'ected.'*^ But Francis was no Eegulus. So far from thinking of the fulfilment of his treaty, he was at this moment negociating 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 and humiliating disasters it had ever sustained ; to explain which, it w^ll be necessary to resume from a somewhat earlier period the thread of Italian affairs. The victory of Pavia had spread alarm through all the Italian States that still retained their independence. The whole peninsula seemed to lie at the Emperor's mercy. Frunsberg, a zealous Lutheran, and other Imperial generals, advised an immediate attack upon the Pope, and the German troops took possession of the ter- ritory 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 « Ferron, lib. viii. p. 205. It was not, Burfzuudy, and enp^aged faithfully to fulfil however, a pure and simple refusal. all the other articles of the treaty. Mar- Francis offered the imperial ambassadors tin^ t. viii. p. 92. ^ 2,000,000 crowns as a compensation for VOL. I. H H 466 VACILLATIXG POLICY OF CLEMEXT VII. [Book II. had contracted a secret alliance with PVancis, now co-operated Avith the Venetians in opening communications with Louisa, the French Eegent, 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 frontiers 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 ne- gociations between the English and Imperial 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 Civita 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 arrear. Charles could enslave his Spanish subjects, but he could not command their purses, and the 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, and with Henry VIII. as its head and protector, at the same time urging the French to send an army into Italy. But Louisa was also insincere. Although, to alarm the Emperor, she encouraged the advances of the Italians, she secretly offered to abandon Italy to him as the ransom of her son ; and at Christmas 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. *' Letter of the Bishop of Bath to " Letters of the English ambassadors Wolsey, March 19th, and that of Bourbon from Toledo to Wolsey in April and Jiine to the Pope, March 24th 1525 ; ap. 1525 ; ap. Turner, ibid. vol. ii. p. 32 sq. Turner, Henr^ VIU. vol. i. p. 428 sq. Chap, v.] CONSPIRACY OF MOROXE. 467 The Italian League was at last effected by means of a conspiracy. The Emperor, after many delays and evasions, had at length reinstated Sforza in the Duchy of Milan, but on conditions which rendered him a mere vassal. Sforza'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, Pescara. The plot seemed feasible. Pescara was known to be offended b}^ the removal of Francis, Avhom he regarded as his own prisoner, into Spain ; an act which appeared to deprive him of the recompense justly due to his valour 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 foun- dation 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 unity and 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 an Italian 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, no tincture of their art and litera- ture ; his reading was confined to Spanish romances, which breathe only loyalty and devotion ; above all, his pride lay in the command of the Spa,nish 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 Grerman shoes and long streaming feathers in his hat. With the cunning which formed part of his character, Pescara ** Clement, to the surprise of Charles, letter, June 23rd 1526. See Eaynaldus, afterwards axowed his complicity in a t. xii, pp. 561, 563. HH 2 468 LEAGUE OF COGNAC. [Book n. did not absolutely repel the advances of iNIorone ; 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 ]\Iorone 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 when the conversation had proceeded far enough, De Leyva stepped out, and arrested the astonished chancellor (October 14th 1525). Morone was conducted 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 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 the arrest of Morone, at the early age of thirty-six. He had distinguished himself as a poet as well as a general. The Emperor now promised the Duchy of Milan to Bourbon. 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 League of Cognac, the Holy League, 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 YIII. and Cardinal Wolsey. Henry VIII. had not indeed joined 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 a 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 jMadrid."*^ « Despatch of Sir Thomas Cheyney Turner, ihid. p. 12. the EngUsh ambassador to Francis; ap. *^ Pallaricini, lib. ii. c. 13. s. 6. Chap. Y.] LUKEWAEMXESS OF THE COXFEDERATES. 469 The Italians were in general enthusiastic in fiivour 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. Griberto, the Datarlo, and confidant of Clement VII., writing to the Bishop of Veruli, says, " It is not a war that concerns a point of honour, 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 Grermany : and thus the German Eefor- mation 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 leasrue, whilst Francis was anxious to avoid a war with the Emperor, and opened separate negociations 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 4000 Grascon troops though he promised a speedy addition of 10,000 Swiss. His reverses had nearly deprived him of his ambition, and his whole course of life soon showed that, in becoming by a perfidy again a king, he had been actuated rather by a desire to indulge in the pleasures which that elevated station enabled him to command, than to promote his own glory and the good of his people. His whole time was spent in hunting, ia magnificent fetes, and in intrigues of gallantry, his ruling passion ; and in pursuit of these pleasiues he was im- patient of being interrupted by affairs of state."^^ The Countess of Chateaubriand, from whom Francis had the meanness to demand back the trinkets with which he had presented her, had now been supplanted by a new mistress, Anne de Pisseleu, a maid of honour to his mother, who at the age of eighteen possessed the most dazzling beauty. To conceal her dishonour, Francis caused her to marry Jean de Brosses, an adherent of Bourbon's, who was content to purchase pardon and advancement at the price of *^ Lcttere di Frincipi, t. i. p. 193. nogociation is very difficult here, as the "8 Dr. Taylor's Letter to Wolsey, July king avoids everythiiii,' likely to give 17th 1526 ; ap. Turner, ibid. p. 15. On him trouble and annoyance."— />(«f re di Sept. 7th the Pope sent a formal com- Principi, t. ii. p. 8, verso. "Alexandre mission to offer Henry the protectorship voyait les femmes quiind il n'avait plus of the league, which, however, was de- d'affaires; Fran(,-oisvoit les affaires quand clined. Kymer, t. xiv. p. 187. il n'a plus de femmes," says Tavannes " Sanga, the Papal envoy, writing in his Mcnwirts. fi'oni Amboise in August, says : " All H H 3 470 MAKRIAGE OF CHARLES V. [Book II. infamy. He became successively a knight, a count, the governor of Brittany, and Duke d'Etampes; under which last title Anne de Pisseleu shone at court, and became known to posterity. 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 Princess Mary ; and soon after the departure of the French king from 3Iadrid, he proceeded to Seville, where he solemnized his nuptials 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 disagree- able 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 characterised 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 JMadrid, 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 sua sjjonte, and not from instructioDS. Both Henry and the cardinal exhorted the French Kinof not to observe oblii^ations 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, the Princess Mary, then only in her eleventh year. Francis received these advances with all due politeness ; he even protested, on the faith of a gentleman, that he had felt a desire to marry Mary before he went into Italy ; but although Sir William Fitzwilliam was espe- cially despatched to second the representations of the former am- ^o Robertson, Charles V. b. 4. p. 330. Wolsey was anxious to claim the merit "' See abstract of the Instructions in of having advised Francis to break the Turner, Hinry VIII. vol. ii. p. 7 sq. treaty. 8ee his Despatch, ap. Turner, »2 Fiddes' Life of Wolsey, p. 380. ibid. p. 13. Chap. V.] AETFUL NEGOCIATIOXS OF WOLSEY. 471 bassadors, the French King at last declared that both honour and conscience called upon him to fulfil 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 Princess 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 jMary's picture. Early in March he even despatched the Bishop of Tarbes to London to negociate for the match ; and a treaty was actually concluded, on the singular condition that either he, or his second son Francis, 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 that neither marriage with Mary ever took place. The negociations, 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 Alencon, the French King's sister ; from which it appears that Henry's divorce from Catherine must have been already in agitation. The English ambassadors were instructed to address the warmest compliments to Margaret, and to press the King's suit. But that princess declined to entertain the proposals of Henry, who had still an undivorced wife, without whose degradation and misery her own' nuptials could not be accomplished ; and in January 1527 she rendered such a project impossible by marrying Henry IL, 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 Eeformation 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. Wolsey's policy at this juncture appears to 5' Tiirner, ibid. p. 25, 29. *® Ann Boleyn, who went to France in ^ Rymer, t. xiv. p. 195. The Bishop the suite of the Princess Mary- on the of Tarbes increased during this visit the occasion of her marriage with Louis XII., scruples of Henry with respect +0 his subsequently remained at the Court of marriage with Catherine. See the Letter Claude, queen of Francis I. ; and after of the Bishop of Bayonne, Le Grand, Claude's death, in July 1524, entered Hist, du Divorce, t. iii. p. 218. the service of Margaret (Turner, Henry " Olhagariij, Hist, de Foix et Navarre, VHI. vol. ii. p. 186). A residence of liv, iii. p. 488. Jeanne, the only survi^nng two years and a half with that Princess daughter of this marriage, was the mother must have served to nourish her evan- of Henry IV. gelical notions. H B 4 472 WOLSEY'S abject HYPOCRISY. [Book n. have been to do the Emperor as much injury as possible, without actually breaking with him. 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 children from Spain without at the same time providing for the payment of the Emperor's debt to England, was endeavouring to make a private arrangement with Charles.^'^ When Wolsey heard of this, he instructed the Bishop of Worcester^*, his special ambassador to the Spanishi Court, to offer the mediation 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, who seems to have become alarmed at this not unnatural result of his crooked policy, condescended to the most abject submission in order to recover Charles's favour, whom he had so long pursued with the bitterest hostilit}^ Dr. Lee was instructed to tell the Emperor from Wolsey, " that your Grrace (i. e. the cardinal) prostrate, and most humbly on your knees, desireth His Majesty at this time to show such demonstrations towards the King's Highness, that his said Highness may well perceive that his Majesty both loveth him and trusteth him ; for so much as no worldly thing could be to your Grace more joyful than to see the continuance of sincere and perfect conjunction between the King's Highness and his Majesty, as ever hath been." ^^ Such was the great cardinal's hypocrisy ! Charles, in his turn, endeavoured to embroil Henry and Francis. Yet he did not repulse the advances of Wolsey. He proposed to reward the cardinal's labours 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 mone}^ A further annuity of 12,000 ducats to Wolsey, and his heirs for ever, was to be added by the Duke of Bourbon out of the revenues of Milan I ^^ But a new turn was about to be given to all these complicated nego- ciations, by a catastrophe which none of the parties had foreseen. " See the treaty of Hampton Court to recover his sons " by the shortest way between Henry and Francis, August 8th, and most easiest thing." Ltttvr of Bath 1526, in Rymer, t. xiv. p. 185; and and Fitzwilliam; ap. Turner, /r«2ry T///. Wolsey's L'tUr to King Henry VIII., vol. ii. p. 29. August 11th, in ^tate Pajxrs, vol. i. p. ^ Jerome de' Ghinucci. an Italian. 169. The English ambassadors in France *^ Dr. Lee's Letter to Wolsey. March told Wolsey, in Dec. that it was difficult 7th, 1527 ; ap. Turner, ibid. p. 38. to say what Francis meant to do, except ^ Ibid. p. 41 sq. Chap. V.] BOURBOX TAKES POSSESSION OF MILAN. 473 Although the Italian confederates were at first unsupported either by French troops or English gold^, yet, had they possessed an enter- prising general, they might easily have mastered the Imperial army. This, which, in the absence of Bourbon, 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 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 the command of the Imperial forces. The citizens of Milan hailed with gladness the arrival of their newly-appointed sovereign, for they had suffered from the Spaniards all the miseries of a town taken by assault. 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 pos- session of Lodi. The citizens now intreated Bourbon to withdraw his army from their city, 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 De Leyva and Del Gruasto, 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 un- soldier-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 his resentment, now to his 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. ^A^liile he was medi- tating 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 instigation of the Emperor, the Cardinal Pompeo Colonna, a man of resolute and ferocious character, having, with his relatives Vespasian and Ascanius Colonna, raised in their possessions near the irontiers of Naples a body of about 8000 retainers and adven- turers, marched with them to Kome (September 20th). Clement 474 THE POPE COERCED BY COLOXXA. [Book II. 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 oVIoncada, 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 reduced to such a state of prostration and despair bv this misfortune that he thoug-ht of inducincr 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 a present of 30,000 ducats ; Francis also gave him money ; and what was better still, that monarch'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 Eno^lish 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 Lombard}^, under pretence of his agreement, but really for his o^\ti protection at Eome, and he allowed all his infantry, under his relative, 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 a fearful vengeance. The cardinal was deprived of his dignity; the palaces of the family in Rome were levelled to the earth ; and bands were sent forth into the provinces to ravage their farms and destroy their houses and gardens. Designs were even formed against Naples ; and Renzo da Ceri, the celebrated defender of Marseilles, undertook to lead a Papal army into the Abruzzi. The instances of Sanga, the Papal envoy at Paris, had procured the despatch of a French fleet, under the command of Andrew Doria and Pedro Navarro, which having been joined by the Papal and Venetian squadrons, blockaded Genoa towards the end of August ; but the attempt proved abortive — on the 3rd of December, Nayarro carried the allied fleet into Civita Vecchia. Shortly afterwards he assisted in an attempt to place Louis, Count of Vaudemont, brother of the 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 8000 or 10,000 men, "' He told the Bishop of Bath that he bondswith him;' Bath's i^«cr to Wolsey, intended to keep no part of the articles, Oct. 10th 1526; ap. Turner, Hinry " as the imperials had often broken their YLIL a'oL ii. p. 21. Chap. Y.] XECESSITIES OF BOURBOX. 475 and made himself master of Salerno, want of mone}-, in those times the cause of so many failm^es, 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 necessities constantly compelled him to resort to new stratagems and fresh acts of tyranny in order to raise money. One of them w^as 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 Sforza. But no means sufficed to raise the required sums, and the troops began to pillage the churches and other places which they had hitherto held sacred. At length, however, a pros- pect of relief appeared. The Emperor in his instructions of July 27th 1526, which de- cided the recess of the Diet of Spires, had desired his brother either to lead or send an army into Italy ; and as the affairs of Hungary required Ferdinand's personal superintendence, and prevented him from adopting the former alternative, he applied to the celebrated captain, George Frunsberg of Mindelheim. Nothing could have been more welcome to Frunsberg than an expedition against the Pope ; a feeling shared by multitudes of the Grerman Lutherans. It w\as given out, indeed, for decency's sake, that the expedition was intended against the Turk : but it was well understood that the Turk meant was no other than the Pope of Eome ; and indeed many of Charles's letters and manifestoes against Clement at this period would not have dissfraced the most zealous follower of Luther. Frunsberg was so ardent in the cause that he pa^\Tied his wife's jewels and ornaments 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 honours.^^ Grermany 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 the Tp-ol towards Lombardy. The pass leading towards 62 Sismondi, Hip. Itah t. xv. p. 2-i7. P. Giovio. EJocji dcgli huomini iUustri, lib. The Pope had conferred Naples and Sicily vi. p. 325 (Sotto il ritratto di Giorgio on Vaudemcfnt. See Dr. Lee's Litter Fraispergo), and by other authorities, is, from Spain, ap. Turner, ihid. p. 110. however, contradicted by Frunsberg's es This anecdote, which is related by biographer, Reisuer, Buch t. S. 95. 476 JUXCTIOX OF BOURBON AND FRUNSBERG. [Book H. 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 of the 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 Gravardo, in the territory of Brescia, without having experienced an}^ 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 neighbouring 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 Grovernolo, where a smart engagement took place ; in which John de' Medici, in attempting to prevent their passage, received a m^ortal 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 neighbourhood 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 1527), consisting of about 5000 Spanish, and 2000 Italian infantry, and 1500 cavalry. The united army, therefore, amounted to near 20,000 men. 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 ** Among them is that being dis- assault on the Roman walls, show him contented with the Emperor, Bourbon anxious to promote the interests of the intended to march to Naples and seize Emperor (Ranke, Deutsche Gesch. B. ii. that kinszdom for himself. Von Raumer, S. 393 f.). Frunsberg's biographer at- Gesch. Fjiropas, B. i. But there are no tributes Bourbon's march to tlie more traces of any misunderstanding between Anilgar but more probal)le motive of want him and Charles; and his last instruc- of provisions. {G. Frunsberg's Kriegs- tions to his confessor, before his fatal tkaten, Buch v. S. 105.) Chap. V.] A MUTIXY, AXD DEATH OF FKUXSBERG. 477 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 splendid booty ; that if unsuccessful, he might still march for- wards 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 Eome 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 Eome in six divisions. The news of Bourbon's march alarmed the Pope, and 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 an}^ 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 both they and the Grermans had fixed their hearts on the plunder of Eome. The appearance of Cesare Fieramosca, who came to propose the truce to Bourbon at S. Griovanni, 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 threat- ened, his tent plundered, his best apparel thrown into a ditch. The Spaniards, who were the ringleaders, infected the Grermans with their discontent, and excited them with cries of Lanz ! Lanz ! Geld ! Geld ! ^^ their only words of G-erman. In this trjdng hour the veteran Frunsberg relied on the affections of his lansquenets. 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 partaken their pro- sperous and adverse fortune, and with mild and prudent words promised them satisfaction. They answered only with cries of Geld! Geld! and levelled their spears against Frunsberg and his officers. The disobedience of his troops, whom he regarded as his ®^ According to Guiceardini lib. xA-iii. S. 604). There might, however, have been the Pope engaged to pay 60,000 ducats ; secret articles. Eanke, Deutsche Gesch. but no article of this kind appears in the B. ii. S. 384. treaty (in Bucholtz, Ferdinand I. B. iii. ^^ Lance ! Lance ! Money ! Money ! 478 BOURBON'S MARCH TO ROME. [Book II. children, overpowered the veteran commander who had faced danger in every shape. He was seized with an apoplexy, and sank speechless and apparently lifeless on a drimi. At this sight the hearts of those rugged soldiers relented. The fate of their beloved general produced the tranquillity which his words had failed to command ; the spears were raised, the orders of the captains obeyed, and those bands, but now so tumultous, 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 expired. He could only recommend Bourbon and the army to one another. The soldiers no longer demanded money ; their only cry was " to Eome ! to Eome ! " 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 Grermans, thinking that such an event might release them from their servitude to the Pope. The Cardinal, 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 at last induced to return to obe- dience. Lannoy went to Florence in person, and obtained from the citizens a promise of 150,000 crowns ; with which offer he pro- ceeded, towards the end of April, to the camp of Bourbon, who had now crossed the Apennines ; but the soldiery raised their demands to 240,000 crowns, and displayed such menacing symp- toms 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 Leacfue ; althouofh he had dismissed the greater part of his troops and left his capital almost defenceless.^^ Bourbon now put his intentions beyond all doubt by taking the high road to Rome and marching on Arezzo. His army had been " Sacco diEoma,Tp. 135 sqq. (ed. 1664). ^s u ^ j^, ^^^ ^^ -^^ thoii£rlit little, con- This work, which is commonly ascribed to siderinp; the Pope's fearful nature, to Fr. Guicciardini, was probably the pro- hare rctiu-ned him into the war." — Letter duction of his nephew. It has also been of the English ambassadors to Wolsey, attributed to Jaeopo Buonaparte, of San- from Rome. April 26th 1527. Tui-ner, miniato, and to Benedetto Varchi. See Henri/ Fill. vol. ii. p. 75, note: Cf. Turner, Hcnr^ VIII. vol. ii. p. 53. Ranke, Deutsche Gcsch. B. ii. S. 391. Chap. V.] TKEPIDATIOX OF POPE CLEMENT YII. 479 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 ouly 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 there- fore 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 alarm, a fanatical pro- phet, a Siennese of middle age, red-haired, haggard, meagre, and naked, perambulated the streets of Rome, vociferating abuse in the ears of the Pope himself, predicting his fall and that of the citjr, 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 cardi- nals' 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, ostlers, and such like persons. It is said that a great part of the population would have been glad to see Rome in the possession of the Emperor, whose splendid court would have been more favourable to trade than the dominion of the priests.'^^ Clement intrusted 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 de- mand 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 "" See the extracts in Bucholtz, Fcrd. " Sacco di Rojua, p. 174. /. B. iii. S. 66 ff. " Turner, ibid. p. 80 sq. '» Du Bellay, liv. iii. " Vettori, ap, Rauke, ibid. p. 324. 480 KOME ASSAULTED. — DEATH OF BOURBON. [Book II. prompt measures ; and on the following morning, mider cover of a foo-, 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, near Santo Spirito, behind St. Peter's and the Vatican. The resistance was greater than had been anticipated, and Bourbon, seeing his troops hesitate, seized a ladder, and was placing it ao-ainst 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 w^ay expired at the foot of the walls while the assault was still pro- ceedino-.^^ 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 w^th cries of " Spain ! Spain ! Kill them ! Kill them I " At this unexpected apparition Eenzo 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 Jovio, 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 recognised. 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 any further.'^^ 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. 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 endeavoured 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 ■" The celebrated sculptor, Benvenuto of this eccentric artist. Cellini, pretends in his Aiitohiograjihy " Sacco di Roma, p. 188 sqq, that it was he who shot Boui-bon. He '" P. Giovio, Vit. di Pon.p. Colonna, likewise asserts that he subsequently p. 173. Kaumer's Briefe aus Pans, Th. killed the Prince of Orange ; but no i. S. 255. reliance can be placed on the assertions Chap. V.] SACK OF ROME. 481 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 Kome 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 violence, and all those deeds which are best hid under the pall of night. This, however, was but the initiation of their crimes and orgies —their baptism of blood in the holy city. During nearly two weeks Kome presented a continued scene of plunder, violation, and massacre. In these excesses, the soldiers of each nation displayed their characteristic qualities ; and whilst the Grermans principally indulged themselves in eating and drinking, the Spaniards and Italians perpetrated the more violent kinds of mischief. These scenes of horror were relieved by some ludicrous incidents. The G-erman Lutherans dressed themselves up to represent the Pope and his cardinals, and rode round the city mounted on asses. One of these processions halted before the castle of St. Angelo; the pretended Pope, drinking off a huge glass of wine, gave his cardinals the blessing ; the cardinals received it on their knees and responded in the same fashion. Then they formed themselves into a con- sistory ; declared that henceforward they would have a Pope who should be more obedient to the Emperor, and elected Luther to the office, amid shouts which must have penetrated to the ears of Clement.^^ With characteristic bigotry, the Spanish soldiers, though stained with blood and crimes of every description, re- garded the mockery of the priests by the Germans with superstitious horror, as the greatest of all ungodliness. It is needless to say that churches as well as palaces were plundered; the Italians themselves under Colonna had done the same. Even the tomb of St. Peter was ransacked, and a golden ring taken from the finger of the corpse of Julius II. The plunder was immense. For centuries the wealth of Europe had been flowing towards Rome, and it now became the prey of that destitute and greedy soldiery which, in expectation of this hour, had so long borne with its privations and misery. Many had suddenly become so rich that they would stake 200 florins on a single throw of the dice. It was fortunate for the Roman nobles, that after a few days Pompeo Colonna came to Rome and protected them against the worst excesses. The chief officers of the Imperial army occupied the '^ Eeisner, Frunsherg's Kriegsthaten, S. 115, verso. VOL. I. II 482 CAPITULATION OF CLEMEXT Yll. [Book n. 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 expecting 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 Eome, 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 a secret satisfaction the mis- fortunes of one of that house who had formerly been his mortal ad- versaries. Such was the deliberation 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 negociations with Lannoy, who had arrived in Rome. After a month's cap- tivity 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 crowns ; and to place Ostia and Civita 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 re- marked that the Turks had not treated the patriarch of Constanti- nople with half the contumely that 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 estates ; and that they were endeavouring under the protection of France to restore the republic of Savonarola. 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 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 '8 Besides the usual historians of the Hoffmann, Script, t. i. ; Comm. de capta period, and the works quoted in the rirbc Roma, in Schardius, Script, t. ii. ; margin, the following may be consulted Paradin, Hist, de notre temps, p. 62 sqq. for the sack of Kome. "AAwais Eomee, in (ed. 1550). Ghap. v.] conduct and POLICY OF CHARLES V. 483 of the Eoman citizens themselves, were in hopes that the young Emperor would take up his residence in that capital. ^ Charles, into whose hands fate and 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 behaviour, he assumed the appearance of his usual moderation. He affected the profoundest sympathy for the Pope's misfortune, ordered that he should be set at liberty, countermanded the fetes for celebrating the birth of his son Philip, and put him- self and his court into mourning. But while prayers were offering up in the Spanish churches for the deliverance of the Pontiff, the Emperor does not appear to have taken any steps towards effecting it ; and the Imperial generals 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 negocia- tions. 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 Eoman See and Holy Eoman 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. 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 organised without conciliating the Grerman reformers and obtaining their hearty co-operation ; and this, as we have seen, had been one of the motives for the favour- able 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 suc- 112 484 REASONS FOR AND AGAINST THE POPE. [Book U. ceeded in exterminating the remains of papistry in that country. Thus he might have established his empire firmly both in Ger- many 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 favourable 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 Alarpon, to whom, by a singular fortune, the custody of the Pope, like that of Francis previously, had been intrusted, to convey Clement to Graeta. 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 Grod." ^^ 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 ad- vantageous to the House of Austria in the struggle for the Hun- garian 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 Roman Catholic party, and especially a numerous and powerful hierarchy, at the head of which were three ecclesias- tical Electors. In short, the Papacy and the Empire were so closely connected 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 of Germany, and his Spanish subjects were bigoted papists, who would have viewed with horror the abasement of their spiritual head. The Spanish grandees who visited the court, temporal as well as spiritual, reminded Charles of the devotion of the 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 Em- peror to demand from him the vicar of Christ, and the court had openly to interfere, in order to prevent so striking a demonstration.^^ Charles's ministers, too, were in favour of Clement's liberation ; and "^ Letter of Charles, June 30th 1527, Baron de Mont St. Vincent, in Bucholtz, ap. Ranke, Deutsche Gcsch. B. ii. S. Ferdinand I. B. iii. S. 97 ff. 401. 81 ^p^ Ranke, Deutsche Gcsch. B. iv. 8° Guicciardini, lib. xviii. ; the Em- S. 107. peror's Instructions to Peter de Verey, ^^ Pallayicini, Kb. ii. c. 14. s. 12. Chap. V.] CHARLES'S TREATY WITH CLEMEXT. 485 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 a serious injury. Nor was it possible entirely to disregard the opinion of Europe, which had already found, in the sack of Eome and captivity of the Pontiff, a handle for real or affected indignation. With a view to exculpate himself, Charles issued circular letters to all the courts of Europe, dated at Yalladolid, August 2nd 1527, in which he explained how. much he had been provoked by Clement ; endeavoured to prove that faith had been broken with him ; asserted that he had never autho- rised Bourbon's march to Eome ; that Bourbon's soldiers, though carrying the Imperial flag, scarcely recognised the Emperor's autho- rity ; 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 scho- lastic Adrian, his years of early manhood passed in Spain, all tended to subordinate him to Eome. His enmity to the Pope, and opposition to him in Grermany, were founded on temporal con- siderations only, and vanished with the occasion of them. We are not, therefore, surprised to find that Charles, in the first instructions to his ambassador to the captive Pope, talks of the necessity of up- rooting the heretical sect of Luther.^'' At length, November 26tli 1527, a formal treaty was concluded between the Emperor and the Pope. Clement was to be liberated on condition of paying between 300,000 and 400,000 gold crowns, and undertaking never again to interfere in the affairs of Naples and the Milanese ; he was to call a general council for the reformation of the Church, and extir- pation of Lutheranism; to admit Imperial garrisons into Ostia, Civita Vecchia, and Civita Castellan a; and to surrender Alexander and Hippolyto 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 83 Lcttcre di Frindpi, t. ii. p. 234 sq. given l)y him, Imt also against liis will, Cf. Raynaldus, t. xiii. p. 13. Charles and that to his much displeasure and had previously told the English am- sorrow." — Despatch of June 27th ; ap. bassadors, "with his hand often laid Turner, //i-wr?/ r//7. vol. ii. p. 119. upon his breast, that these things were " In Bucholtz, Ferdinand 1. B. iii, S. done not only without any commission 99. I I 3 486 ALLIANCE OF HEXRY VIII. AND FRANCIS I. [Book n. 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 Eome and captivity of Clement produced a great sensation in England and Fi-ance. 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 a ruffian, and 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 the former would be confined to a pecuniary aid.^^ The King of France talked of establishing a separate Popedom or Patriarchate in his dominions, now that the Pope was in durance and under the thumb of his adversary ; it was even said that Wolsey was to be the head of it, who was undoubtedly striving to extend his own ecclesiastical power on the ruin of the Pope ; and the Imperial minister made him an offer of a legative power in Lower Germany. But it was mere talk. Just previously to the taking of Eome, 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 favour of Italy by carrying the war into the Netherlands with an army composed of one third English and two thirds French. Pro- vision was also made for the liberation of the 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 Eome gave a new aspect to affairs, and the preceding treaty was modified by another, ]\Iay 29th, by which it was further agreed that a, French army of 30,000 men should invade Ital}^, 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 YIII. and a French princess, Wolsey undertook an embassy into France. As this was the last of the haughty cardinal's public negociations so likewise it was the most splendid. Early in July he passed in 8* Eelcarius, p. 604 ; PallaTicini, lib. ii. «« Hall, p. 727 sq. c. 14, s. 14. and c. 16 ; Le Grand, Hist, du ^^ Dumont, t. iv. pt. i.p. 472. Divorce, t. iii. p. 48 sqq. Chap. V.] WOLSEY'S EMBASSY TO FRAXCE. 487 state through the streets of London, followed by a body of 1200 lords and gentlemen on horseback, all dressed in black velvet livery coats, and having for the most part massy 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 monks to sing a litany to the Virgin in the cathedral, 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 lance-knights.''^^ 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 occupied more than a mile of the road. He would >\illingly have dazzled the eyes of the Parisians wdth his magnificence ; but such a display was not agreeable to the French court; and under pretence of civility, they appointed Amiens as the place for the conference. Francis kept the cardinal waiting some days at Abbeville, and it was not till August 3rd that they met together at Amiens. Francis did him honour by meeting him on the road ; and Wolsey asserted his ecclesiastical pre-eminence 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 Princess 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 balls issued during his detention, if prejudicial to England or France, were null and void ; and that Wolsey, with the assistance of the English prelates, should have power to regulate the ecclesiastical affairs of England.^^ A like regulation was adopted with regard to France. ^ CavendisTi, Life of Wolsey, ch. xiii. Amiens refers to the treaties of April 30th ^^ It is almost needless, however, to and May 29th. observe, that the title of "King of "' Kymcr, //w/.p. 212 sqq. The ratifica- Franee" was retained by English so- tion of the treaty of Amiens, Amtten on ten vereigns down to the time of the Irish leaves of vellum, signed by Francis, and union, at the beginning of the present countersigned by his minister, Robert et. is century. preserved in the Chapter House at West- ^ R}Tner, t. xiv. p 203 sqq. 218 sqq.; minster. It is one of the most beautiful Dumont, t. iv. pt.i. p. 487. The treaty of specimens of the MSS. of the period. Jl 4 488 PROJECTED MAERIAGE OF HENRY AXD RENEE. [Book II. 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 Eenee, 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, Renee had a reversion in that duchy which Francis would have been ill pleased to see transferred to the English crown. A few months later Eenee married the eldest son of the Duke of Ferrara, afterwards Hercules II. Duke Alphonso was thus detached from the Imperial interest, and signed a treaty with France, by which the marriage was arranged, Nov. 27th 1527.. Like her relative, Marcraret of Navarre, Eenee was devoted to literature and science, but her studies were more profound, and to a knowledge of lan- guages^ she added geometry, astronomy, and philosophy. From JNIargaret she had imbibed a love for the doctrines of the Reforma- tion ; her court at Ferrara became the centre of what little progress the new doctrines eter 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 Catherine, and it was at Compiegne that Wolsey opened to the queen-mother, Louisa, his schemes on that subject. He did not quit France till towards the end of September. The Emperor, alarmed at these negociations, 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. Towards the end of July, a French army under the command of Lautrec entered Italy, and at the same time Genoa was blockaded by a French fleet under Andrew Doria, while Csesar Fregoso invested it by land. Thus besieged by the two banished chiefs of the French party, the G-enoese capitulated, expelled the Doge, Antoniotto Adorni, and admitted Theodore Trivulzio, a nephew of the famous captain, as governor in the name of Francis I. The progress of Lautrec was equally successful. He rapidly overran all the country to the 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. \Mien he resumed his Chap. V.] THE FREXCH INVADE ITALY. 489 march in January 1528, the Pope was ah-eady Hberated. The Imperial army, under the Prince of Orange, which had been reduced by various causes to half its original number, evacuated Eome on Lautrec's approach, and retreated through the Abruzzi towards Naples, making only a slight show of resistance at Troja. The advance of the French 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 the death of Lannoy 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 Philippino Doria, who was cruising in the Gulf of Salerno, received a signal defeat, in which he himself was slain, Del 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 the maintenance of his army. His treatment of Andrew Doria was still more impolitic. Montmorenci, who enjoyed the revenues of the harbour of Savona, attempted to improve them at the ex- pense of Genoa, and when Doria resisted these proceedings, which would have been injurious 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 the command of the fleet. Doria having heard of this step, concluded a treat}^ with the Emperor, with, whom he had been some time negociating, 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 combined with the heat of the climate, excessive indulgence in fruit, and the vapours arising from stagnant waters, engendered a terrible pestilence, which swept off the greater part of the French. Among the victims were Lautrec himself, and Vaudemont, who was to have received the crown of Naples. The French precipitately raised the siege (August 29tli), leaving behind them their guns and material. Soon afterwards, the Marquis of SaUizzo, who had succeeded to the command, sur- rendered, 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 executed as a traitor. Thu« 490 IIEXRY^S DIVORCE PERPLEXES CLEMENT. [Book H. was swallowed up the fourth army which had been dispatched into Italy since the accession of Francis I. Clement VIL, in spite of his accommodation with the Emperor, would have beheld with pleasure the success of the French arms, and witb his usual faithlessness he had exhorted Lautrec to ad- vance.^^ Henry VIII.'s divorce, and consequently the fate of Wolse}'', and the infinitely more important question of the English Reformation, depended on the success of Lautrec. The Pope had no objection to grant the divorce ; he was actuated in the matter solely by his fears. On the one hand, he was coerced by the Emperor ; on tlie other, he was alarmed at the prospect, not ob- scurely held out to him by G-ardiner and Fox, the English ambas- sadors at Orvieto, of the defection of England from the Papal See. Their representations had a 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.^^ All that 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 compul- sion.^^ Among other evasions, Clement advised that Henry should take a second wife at once, without making so much stir about the matter — in short, quietly commit bigamy — and then refer his 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 gi^ound of the ill treatment experienced at his hands, and authorise 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 general stood in a favour- able position before Naples, Clement, enticed by the promise that the Veoetians should be induced to restore his cities, gave his legate, Campeggio, full power to conclude the divorce. But after Lautrec's defeat, in August, we find Sanga writing to Campeggio (September 2nd), that, however indebted his Holiness might feel °2 Sir R. Jerningham's Despatch, Dec. 4tli, in Burnet, vol. iii. pt. ii. Records, 3rd 1527; ap. Turner, Henr^ Fill. vol. No. 14. ii. p. 167. _ »* Dr. Knight's Letter in Herbert ^ Gardiner's and Fox's Letter from (Kennett, vol. ii. p. 100). Or^^eto, Monday in Easter-week, 1528 ; »^ Letter of Cassalis, in Herbert in Strype, Ecclesiastical Memor. bk. i. {Ihid. p. 140), Cf. Le Grand, t. i. p. 79. ch. xii. Cf. Gardiner's Letter of May ^ Ranke, Deutsche Gesch. B. iii. S. 25. €hap. v.] treaty BETWEEX CLEMEXT and CHAELES. 491 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 injuries 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. A formal and public reconciliation was effected by the treaty of Barcelona (June 29th 1529), by which Charles engaged to procure the resto- ration of Eavenna, Cervia, Modena, and Eeggio, which had been wrested from the See of Eome, and to re-establish the House of Medici at Florence, under the headship of Alexander de' Medici. 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 palfre3^ The claim of Sforza to the Milanese was left in abeyance till a tribunal should have decided on his gruilt or innocence in the affair of Morone. Eng-aofements were entered into to arrest the progress of the Turks and Lutherans ; and the Pope absolved the soldiers who had participated in the violences and excesses committed at Eome, 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 Alexander 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 devotion. On the 9th of July, he hinted to the English ambassadors the opinion of the Eoman jurisconsults, that the cause must be evoked to Eome ; and when they endea- voured to dissuade him from such a course, he replied, that though sensible of its consequences, he was between the hammer and the forge, and could not resist the Emperor's demands; that if he com- plied with the wishes of the King, he should draw a devastating storm upon himself and the Church.^^ The peace of Barcelona was proclaimed in Eome, July 1 8th, and on the following day, Clement notified to Wolsey that the suit was evoked to Eome. The con- sequences that ensued are well known to the readers of English history — the fall of Wolsey, the victim of his own machinations, and ^'' Apud Eanke, Pdpste, B. i. S. 126. "^ IJurnot, Bcformation, vol. i. p. 152 sq. «• Dumont, t. iv. pt. ii. p. 1. . (ed. 1829). 492 LAST EEVOLUTION AT GENOA. [Book II. the subsequent marriage of Henry with Anne Boleyn. To another of its consequences, the abolition of the Papal supremacy in Eugland, we shall have occasion to advert further on. The treaty of Barcelona was one of the causes which soon after led to a peace between the Emperor and the King of France. The treaties between Francis and the King of England had produced no effect besides the invasion of Italy by the French. The war w^hich Henry had undertaken to w^age with the Flem- ings 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 frontiers of Flanders 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, Sept. 12th 1528 ; the republic was reorganised and placed by Doria under the pro- tection of the Emperor. Efficacious measures were adopted for extinguishing the factions by which Grenoa 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 gi'eat council of the republic, composed of four hundred members, who sat for a year. The Grenoese constitution thus became entirely aristocratic. It was not again overthrown, and, like Venice, 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 admiral of the Emperor. So complete was the control exercised at this period by Wolsey over the foreign negociations 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 andEnglish Kings-at-Arms »" Rymer, t. xiv. p. 264. Chap. V.] CHALLENGE BETWEEN CHARLES AND FEANCIS. 493 appeared before the Emperor at Burgos, and, in the presence of his assembled nobles, declared war against him in the name of their respective sovereigns. When Henry afterwards found fault with this act, Wolsey took subterfuge in a clumsy falsehood, and asserted tha.t the defiance had been given without his orders. The herald was thus forced to defend himself by producing three of Wolsey's letters directing the declaration. The detection of so palpable a falsehood of course raised suspicions of the Cardinal's whole con- duct, and was one of the first incidents that prepared the way for his fall.^°^ The Emperor naturally expressed his 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 honour of a gentleman, and that if Francis asserted the con- trary, he was ready to maintain the charge person to person. Charles's answer to Clarencieux was more moderate ; but he ad- dressed to Henry a letter in which he charged him with the con- templated divorce from Catherine. Charles pointed out that such a step would bastardise the Princess 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? The truth of these reproaches rendered them all the more biting ; for it can hardly be doubted that much of Henry's desire to serve the Pontiff arose from a wish to obtain his good offices in return in the matter of the divorce. Francis, unable to rebut the charge brought against him by the Emperor, replied by a challenge, in which he gave Charles the lie, and which he caused to be read in the presence of Perrenot de Grranvella, the Imperial ambassador, and of the whole French court (March 28 th) ; but when Burgundy, the Imperial King-at- Arms, came back with a reply, fixing the place of combat on the Bidassoa, Francis flew into a violent passion, and would not accord him a hearing ; so that the refusal of the duel rests with the French king. However ridiculous this affair may appear to our modern notions, it was not viewed in that light at a period when the usages of chivalry were not yet obsolete ; especially as the cause of the dispute was in a great measure of a personal nature. The true point of ridicule, as a French historian observes ^°^ is, that the '" See the Letter of Clarencieux, Feb. '"^ Gaillard, Vie de Frangois I. t. iii. 18th 1528; ap. Turner, He7ir^ VIII. p. 444. vol ii. p. 274 ; HaU, p. 745. 494 FREXCH CAMPAIGNS IN ITALY. [Book II. two monarchs, after making the question a point of honour, passing a formal challenge, and fixing the eyes of all Europe upon them, should have suffered the matter to drop without coming to any issue. Charles avenged himself on the P>ench king by persecuting his captive sons. The French agent found the two young princes in a dark, ill-furnished chamber, amusing themselves by playing with little dogs and modelling in wax. They had almost forgotten the French tongue. Their domestics were sent to the galleys, as if they had been prisoners of war, and some of them were sold into Barbary for slaves. ^°^ In spite, however, of their good-will to be revenged on each other, the warlike operations of Charles and Francis were carried on with- out much vigour. Both, in fact, were exhausted. The campaigns of the French in northern Italy in the years 1528 and 1529, under Francois 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 JNIilan, by Antonio de Lej^va ; he himself and most of his principal officers were taken prisoners, and the French army was entirely dispersed. The defeat at Landriano, 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 the north and south; Grenoawas withdrawn from French influence; Venice, by the secession of ^Mantua 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 co-operation against the Nether- lands, and there was a pressing necessity for the delivery of the young French princes from their cruel captivity. The Emperor, on his side, had too much to do in Germany and Hungary to be desirous of continuing the war. Under these circumstances it was, arranged that Louisa, 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 intrust the negociations to female hands. In July the two princesses 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 ><» Michelet, Beforme, p. 506, from the Herbert, ap. Turner, Henry VIU. toI. ii. " Papicrs dc Granvelle; Sandoval and p. 270. Chap. V.] PEACE OF CMIBRAY. ^ 495 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 iixed 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 Flanders and Artois, recognised the treaty imposed by the Emperor on Charles d'Egmont, Duke of Grelderland, in October 1528, by which that old ally of France had entered the Imperial alliance, guarantied the reversion of Gelderland and Zutphen to Charles V., and engaged not to countenance any prac- tices against the Emperor either in Italy or Grermany. Mar- garet 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 Princess Mary, and 50,000 to redeem a golden ^eitr de lys 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, although on this occasion it was impossible for him to allege that any con- straint had been put upon him, 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 honour. Thus fresh hostilities were meditated in the very act of forming a peace ; but Francis was not at present in a condition to avail himself of his protest. Thus were virtually terminated the great 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 "^ Dumont, Corps. Bipl. t. iv. pt. ii. p. 46-4 sq.), and in Horbort (in Kennett, p. 7 sqq. ; Rymer, t. xiv. p. 326. Tlaere vol. ii. p. 130 sqq.). The fleur de lis had is a summary of the treaty in tlie Pa- been pledged to Henry VII. by Charles's ^iers de Granvelle (Documens inid, t. i. father, Philip. 496 * MARRIAGE OF FRAXCIS AXD ELEAXOR. [Book U. 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 Louisa'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 the coffers of this avaricious woman. 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 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 ; on which occasion the absence of all precautions was maliciously remarked. The French King went to meet them, and espoused Eleanor at the convent of Verrieres, near the town of Mont de Marsan in Gascony.i^^ 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 Grermany and the progress of the Eeformation, which have been already brought down to the Diet of Worms in 1521, and the concealment of Luther at the Wartburg.^^^ ^"^ M. du Bellay, liv. iii. (Petitot, t. xviii. p. 91 sqq. 1" ser.) ; Gaillard, t. iv. p. 103. '»« Above, p. 400. Chap. VI.] LUTHER AT THE WARTBURG. 497 CHAPTER VI. Several concurring causes had assisted the German Reformation. After the Diet of Worms the Emperor proceeded into the Nether- lands, and thence, as we have seen, to Spain, where he remained seven years, and seemed to have forgotten church affairs, nay, almost indeed, those of the empire itself. His brother Ferdinand, whom he had left at the head of the Imperial government, was very young, and the influence which the Elector Frederick of Saxony naturally possessed in the Council of Regency, as well from his having been one of its original founders, as from his wisdom and experience, invested him in a great degree with the government of the empire. The majority of the council, including, as it after- wards appeared, the Elector Palatine, who was associated with Fer- dinand in the administration, were in favour of Luther ; and thus the body which represented the Imperial power protected the very person against whom the Emperor himself had issued his ban. The election of Adrian to the Papal chair, a Pontiff who declared himself favourable to some reform in the Church, was calculated to support Luther's cause, although Adrian was hostile to that reformer and his doctrines ; and under all these circumstances no great result could be anticipated from the ban which had been issued against Luther. The success of that reformer was, indeed, more endangered by the indiscreet zeal of his followers than by the open hostility of his adversaries. In his retreat at the Wartburg, which he called his " Patmos," Luther, under the name of Junker Greorge (or Squire George), spent several months, known only to one or two attendants. His solitude was not, however, passed in idleness. Besides writing several tracts, he applied himself assiduously to the study of Greek and Hebrew, and commenced his translation of the Bible into German : till at length some disturbances at Wittenberg deter- mined him, at whatever risk, to return to that town. In spite of the length to which he had carried his speculative opinions, Luther had as yet made no alterations in the forms and VOL. 1, k: K 498 FANATICISM OF CAKLSTADT. [Book II. practical observances of religion, when, towards the end of 1521, the Angustinian monks of Meissen and Thuringia formally abolished the mass, and dissolved their convents ; a proceeding which alarmed a great part of the clergy, and created much anxiety at the court of the Elector Frederick. Carlstadt, who officiated at Wittenberg during Luther's absence, pushed these innovations still further, and Melanchthon had not sufficient strength of mind to oppose him. Dislike of celibacy was one of the chief causes which favoured the advance of the Reformation among the Grerman ecclesiastics. Two priests of the Wittenberg school, Jacob Seidler, of Grlashiitten, and Bartholemew Bernhardi of Kempen, had this year set the first ex- ample of marriage to the Grerman clergy. Seidler, who lived in the dominions of Duke Greorge of Saxony, was thrown into prison, where he died ; while of Bernhardi, who was under the government of the Elector Frederick, no notice was taken. Although the law- fulness of a priest's marriage was a question that had only just begun to be mooted, and though Luther himself had not made up his mind on the subject, Carlstadt, after publishing a treatise against celi- bacy, took a wife, and even made a gi*eat parade of his wedding, inviting, by a printed paper, all the Saxon princes and gentry to be present at it. Wishing to distinguish himself as a reformer, he incited the students to deface the images in the churches, began to administer the sacrament in both kinds, to abolish the elevation of the host, to admit communicants without confession, and to make other innovations. He repaired to the stalls of leather-sellers and cobblers for instruction in the Scriptures, denounced all profane learning, and recommended the students to apply themselves to manual labour, so that the university began to break up. In short, he had joined a band of fanatics, founded by one Storch, a clothier, who appeared at this time in Wittenberg, and must be regarded as the founder of the Anabaptists. Among them was Thomas Miinzer, afterwards noted as a leader of that sect, who had already excited the people of Zwickau by his preaching. These men, who pretended to visions and revelations, and insisted on the necessity of adult baptism, obtained the name of the Zwickau prophets. These outbreaks of fanaticism, the unavoidable accompaniments of the Eeformation, have been made one of its standing reproaches ; though it would be as reasonable to complain of the summer weather, because, whilst it brings the fruits of the earth to maturity, it also produces the thunderstorm. In all great revolutions are to be found men whose vanity or rashness prompts them to overstep the bounds of reason and moderation, or whose enthusiasm, when CaAP. VI.] LUTHER EETURXS TO WITTENBERG. 490 once released from the fetters of authority, can no lono-er be controlled. But Luther, who was distinguished by the cautious- ness with which he adopted his conclusions, as much as by the uncompromising boldness with which, when once formed, he carried them out, viewed these excesses with alarm, as calculated to alienate the minds of the wise and prudent from his cause ; and he resolved to put a stop to them, by returning immediately to Wittenberg. The Elector Frederick admonished him that the Imperial edict stood in the way, and that if called upon to enforce it, he knew not how he could decline ; yet Luther, conscious of his power, determined to leave the Wartburg. His letter to the Elector, from Borna, March 5th 1522, when on his way back to Wittenberg, in which he talks in a high tone of protecting Frederick, rather than the Elector him, seems to reverse the relations of prince and subject.^ Luther arrived safely in Wittenberg, March 7th. The Elector made him draw up a sort of apology, in which he acknowledged that he had taken this step of his own accord; and this letter, after its expressions had been made a little more civil, was for- warded by Frederick to the Imperial government at Nuremberg. Luther, after his return, preached eight consecutive days, incul- cating the necessity of moderation and caution. These discourses are among the best he ever delivered. Like those of Savonarola, they are truly appeals to the people, but with the view of calming instead of exciting their passions.^ By degrees his influence and authority allayed the storm. Luther, indeed, did not absolutely disapprove of all the changes that had been made at Wittenberg; his chief objection to them was that they were premature ; he even retained some of the most essential ones, and left others, as things indifferent, to the option of the people. In the course of the year he published the German Testament which he had been preparing at the Wartburg ; a work which procured for the high Grerman dialect a literary precedence over the others.^ Luther examined the Zwickau prophets, and soon dismissed them as altogether contemptible — a mode of treatment more ' " Ich hab's auch nicht im Sinn, Ton Sontag gcthan^ ah er ans seiner Pathmos E. K. F. G. Sehutz begehren. Ja, ich halt, zu Wittenberg wieder ankommtn. ich wolle E. K. F. G. mehr schiitzen, ' A modern German historian has re- denn sie mich scliiitzen konnte," u. s. -vv. marked, tliat noljody since Lutlier lias - — Luther's Briefe, De Wette, B. ii. S. possessed his masteiy over the language 137. of the people, except Lessing. Gutlio 2 Sichcn Vrcdigtcn D. M. L., so er von vrvota for the higher classes. Schlosser, dem So ntage mvoQaxit bis auf den andern Weltgeschichte, B. xi. S. 333. K R 2 oOO OPPOSITION TO LUTIIERANISM. [Book II. unwelcome to these fanatics than the most bitter persecution. Enraged at Luther's cool contempt of their pretensions, Miinzer and his followers withdrew from Wittenberg, overloading him with all the opprobrious epithets which their rage could suggest, calling him liar, courtly fool, flattering rascal, &c.'* These symptoms, however, caused Luther much anxiety. He foresaw that the agi- tation of his doctrines must produce a period of disturbance before the Eeformation could be established; and he expressed these feelings in some letters which he wrote at this period. A silent movement had, indeed, begun among the people, who applied Luther's method to politics, and had he been so inclined, he might have easily kindled a rebellion in Grermany. He was conscious of this power himself, and says in one of his writings, " Had I wished to proceed with violence, I might have made Grermany a scene of blood ; nay, I might have played such a game at Worms that the Emperor himself would not have been safe. But what would it have been ?— a fool's game." ^ Although, however, Lutheranism was spreading through the greater part of Grermany, there were some states in which it was successfully repressed by the government. Duke G-eorge of Saxony forbade attendance on the evangelical worship, under pain of banishment, while the preaching or propagating of the new doctrines was punished capitally ; he recalled all his subjects who were studying at Protestant places, and prohibited the reading and sale of the Grerman Bible ; a proceeding for which he was stigma- tised by Luther as an apostle of the devil. In Bavaria, the Refor- mation had at first made as much progress as in any other part of Grermany ; no attention had been paid to Leo's bulls, nor had the Edict of Worms been put into execution. The Dukes of Bavaria seemed as much opposed as other Grerman princes to the meddling of priests in temporal affairs; but towards the end of 1521 they began to draw towards the Eomish Court, and on the 5th of March 1522, they issued a mandate commanding their subjects to abide by the ancient doctrines, and prescribing severe penalties against those who disobeyed. They seem to have been determined to this course chiefly by the disturbances created at Wittenberg by Oarlstadt and the Zwickau prophets. Dr. Eck, the well-known opponent of Luther, was the principal agent in effecting this union * Luther's Wcrke, B. xv. S. 2367 ff. gericlitet haben, dass der Kaiser nicLt s ""VVennichhattewollenmit Uugemach sicher ware gewesen. Aber was ware fabren, ich wollte Deutscbland in ein es ? Narrenspiel ware es gewesen." — Ap. grosses Blutvergiesseu gebracht haben ; Menzel, Ncucrc Gcsch. dcr Dcutschcn, B. i. ja, ich wollte zu Worms ein Spiel an- S. 69, Chap. VI.] LAWLESSNESS OF THE GERMAN KNIGHTS. 501 between the Bavarian Dukes and the Court of Eome, in which the former found their temporal advantage. Pope Adrian granted them the fifth of all ecclesiastical incomes within their dominions ; a concession which was renewed from time to time, and continued to form one of the chief bases of the Bavarian system of finance. Thus, by a union with Eome, the Dukes of Bavaria obtained, although at the expense of their independence, what other princes seized by separating from her. About the same time Bavaria and Austria entered into a compact against the Lutherans.^ Luther's prophetic vision of future civil disturbances was pro- bably suggested, not only by the fanaticism of the Zwickau prophets, but also by the spirit which he saw fermenting among the knight- hood of G-ermany. The Landfriede, or public peace, was set at nought by this order. Nuremberg itself, though the seat of the Council of Eegency and of the Imperial tribunal, was surrounded with the wildest feuds. In 1522 the most reckless of the knights, under the leadership of Hans Thomas von Absberg, scoured all the roads ; no merchant or caravan was safe. They still retained the barbarous custom of cutting off the right hand of those whom they made prisoners.^ The rising of the Ehenish knights under Sickingen the same year, assumed the proportions of regular war- fare ; and though its object was political, it was partly connected with religious motives. Sickingen was then the richest and most powerful knight in the Ehenish district ; his reputation had been increased by the part which he played in the Imperial election, and he was, moreover, the Emperor's counsellor, chamberlain, and general. In the spring of 1522, Sickingen became the head of a league, formed at Landau by the knights of the Upper Ehine, with the view of defending their order against the princes of the empire. The knights were discontented with the new institutions; with the Suabian League, at once complainant, judge, and executioner, with the Imperial tribunal, with the Council of Eegency, in short, with everything which threatened to curtail their lawless and irresponsible power. They made religion the pretext of their violence, and their hatred of the priests drew many to their standards. These noble robbers professed themselves friends of the Grospel ; and in Sickingen's castle of Ebernburg and its neigh- bourhood, the purity of evangelical worship had made greater progress even than at Wittenberg itself! He claimed the support of Luther, to whom he had often tendered his protection, and the adherence of the monk of Wittenberg would have given wonderful 6 Ranke, Deutsche Gcsck B. ii. S. 151 foil. » Ibid. S. 102. & K 3 502 CAPTURE AND DEATH OF SICKIXGEX. [Book H. strength to his cause ; but Luther had always declared against the employment of force, and Sickingen received from him nothing but exhortations to peace. On the 27th of August 1522, Sickingen, although the custom, as we have seen, had been legally abolished, declared a feud, or private war, against Eichard von Greiffenklau, Archbishop and Elector of Treves, " for the things which he had done against Grod and his Imperial Majesty;" and in his manifest he promised the subjects of the archbishop, "that he would release them from the heavy anti-christian law of the priests, and help them to evangelical freedom." The immediate cause of the war, however, originated in one of those deeds of violence which the Grerman knights regarded themselves as privileged to commit. Two knights belonging to the League of Landau having demands on two vassals of the arch- bishop, broke into the diocese of Treves, and carried off two of the richest inhabitants, one of whom was the suffragan's father, in order, after the fashion of the Papal banditti of our own days, to extort an exorbitant ransom. For this Sickingen made himself responsible, and the two captives were dismissed ; but on their re- turn they obtained from their superior lord, the archbishop, a release from their engagement. This act was the pretext of Sickingen's foray, who appears to have reckoned, though without foundation, on the support of the Emperor himself.® An army of knights and mercenaries, consisting of 5000 foot and 1500 horse, assembled at the castle of Ebernburg, near Kreuznach, where Sickingen occa- sionally resided, and with these forces he appeared before Treves, Sept. 8th. He was assisted in his enterprise by Albert, Elector of Mentz ; but Philip, the youthful Landgrave of Hesse and friend of Luther, was against Sickingen, as well as the Elector Palatine Frederick, who had formerly supported him. By the vigilance of Philip and the Palatine, Sickingen was deprived of the assistance which he had expected from the other knights of Grermany, and after remaining a week before Treves, he was compelled to abandon the siege. On the 8th of October he was put under the ban of the empire, and soon after his castles of Drachenfels, Ebernburg, Kallenfels, Neustuhl, Hohenburg, and Linzenburg, being either captured or threatened, he caused Landstuhl, near Kaizerslautern, to be fortified anew, where he hoped to defend himself till the knights, to whom he had sent messages by his sons and friends, should come to his assistance. But this was prevented by the allied princes. In April 1523, Philip of Hesse, the Elector of « Letter of Planitz, ap. Eanke, ihid. S. 109, Anm. note. Cf. Pfeffel, t. ii. p 125. CuAP. VI.] DESTRUCTION OF THE GERMAN KXIGHTHOOD. 503 Treves, and the Palatine, appeared before Landstuhl with a for- midable artillery; the castle walls, twenty-four feet thick, were breached and reduced almost to a heap of ruins; yet Sickino-en defended himself like a hero till the 7th of May, when having been severely wounded, he was forced to capitulate. When the princes entered the castle they found him lying in a vaulted chamber at the point of death. " What have I done," exclaimed the arch- bishop, " that you should attack me and my poor people ? " *' Or I," added the Landgrave, " that you should overrun my land in my minority?" Sickingen replied — "I must now answer to a greater Lord." Then his chaplain, Nicholas, asked him if he would confess ? and Sickingen said, " I have already in my heart confessed to Grod." Hereupon the chaplain addressed to him the last words of con- solation ; and as he lifted up the host on high, while the princes bowed their heads and kneeled, Sickingen expired. The princes said a pater noster for his soul.^ The fall of Landstuhl was the death knell of feudal violence in Grermany. The harnessed knights and their strong castles yielded at length to the progress of modern ideas and the improvements in the art of war. All the strongholds of Sickingen and his friends, twenty-seven in number, now fell into the hands of the princes. Ebernburg was the only castle that made any prolonged defence, and here a rich booty was taken. At the same time the Suabian League, whose army of 16,000 or 17,000 men had assembled at Nordlingen, under the command of George Truchsess, destroj^ed the greater part of the castles of the Franconian knights. The Grerman knighthood never rose again. ^° It was fortunate for Luther and his cause that he had not joined the party of the knights. The religious disputes now began gra- dually to assume a political aspect. The conference at Juterbock, in 1523, where the Elector of Saxony, the Dukes of Brunswick, and the Princes of Anhalt, all partisans of Luther, discussed the means of securing themselves against the effects of the Edict of Worms, laid the foundation of the subsequent Lutheran League at Torgau. The terrible insurrection of the Grerman peasants, which broke out in 1524, was, like the war of the knights, partly political, partly religious ; but before we relate that event we must briefly advert to the relations between Grermany and Rome. In November 1522, Pope Adrian had complained to the Diet ^ Miincli, Franz Von SicJcingens Thaten, see Miinch, Franz Von SicJcingens Thatcn; B. iii. S. 222. Meiner, Lchcn Huttcns ; Freher, Rer. ^" For this feud, as well as for the Geryn. SS. t. iii. No. 23 {Historiola dc whole history of these German knights, Francisci a Sickingen rebics gcstis, &c.). K K 4 504 RELATIONS BETWEEN ROME AND GERMANY. [Book If. assembled at Nuremberg that the Edict of Worms remained un- executed, nay, that Luther was encouraged by many distinguished persons, and particularly by the Elector of Saxony ; and he re- quired that the arch-heretic should be destroyed with fire, as a gangrened and incurable member, unless he immediately retracted his errors. At the same time Adrian instructed his legate, Chiere- gato, to admit that many abuses prevailed in the Church, for which these heresies might be regarded as a divine visita,tion, and to notify his resolution to reform the Court of Rome. These con- fessions, as had been foretold by the more worldly-minded prelates, were eagerly seized upon by the States ; who, after adverting to them, required the abolition of Annates, and the calling of a general council within a year in some German city. They declined to resort to any violent measures for fear of creating disturbances ; but they engaged to use their influence with the Elector of Saxony, to prevent Luther from publishing anything further ; and they took the opportunity again to present their Centum Gh^avamina, or list of a hundred abuses in the Church. Before the termination of the Diet, the legate Chieregato pressed once more for the punishment of Luther, and for a restriction of the liberty of the press ; but the States dismissed his application with a short answer, that they were busy with other matters, and could do nothing till their list of grievances had been handed to the Pope, and some prospect of redress afforded. Diets were also held at Nuremberg, then the seat of government, in 1523 and 1524. When Cardinal Campeggio came to attend the latter as legate of Clement VII., he found the state of religious feeling completely altered since his former visit to G-ermany a few years before. He had then seen that country full of submission to the Papal authority ; now, when he entered Augsburg, and, after the traditional fashion, gave his benediction with uplifted hand, he was only received with ridicule. In consequence of this reception, as well as of a hint from the Council of Regency, he laid aside his cardinal's hat, and omitted all the usual ceremonies on entering Nuremberg ; and instead of going to St. Sebald's Church, where the clergy were waiting to receive him, he proceeded at once to his lodgings. Clement VIL, with a less straightforward policy than his predecessor, instructed Campeggio to act as if the Centwni Gra- vaonina had never reached the Court of Rome in a formal shape ; and, treating them merely as a document drawn up by private individuals, to point out the assumed perversity and exaggeration of the complaints. This palpable stratagem gave great offence, and the reforms proposed by Campeggio were regarded as ridiculously Chap. VI.] DIET OF NUREMBERG, 1524. 505 inadequate. The recess, or closing decree, of the Diet (April 18th 1524), ordered that the Edict of Worms should be executed "as far as possible," — a vague expression, which left every one to act as he chose, — that a general council should be summoned, and that mea.nwhile the list of Gravamina should be drawn up afresh and discussed in a new diet to be held at Spires in the following November. Campeggio at once saw the danger of such an assembly, and determined to prevent it. With this view he convoked at Eatisbon, towards the end of June, a meeting of those princes and prelates who were zealous supporters of the Court of Eome, as the Arch- duke Ferdinand, the Dukes of Bavaria, the Archbishop of Salzburg, and others ; and he persuaded them to make such representations to the Emperor as induced him to prohibit the intended diet at Spires. Charles addressed a letter to the States (July 25th), from Burgos, in which the views of the Popish party were supported in the warmest and most lively terms. He complained that the Edict of Worms remained a dead letter; and that a general council was insisted on without even asking his opinion ; he de- clared that he would never consent to a meeting like that appointed at Spires, in which the Grerman States were to enter upon a subject which not all Europe, with the Pope himself at its head, was competent to settle ; he denounced Luther, whom, after his tutor Adrian, he compared to Mahomet, as the promulgator of inhuman opinions ; and he concluded by forbidding the appointed diet under pain of incurring the penalty of high treason and the ban of the empire. The States yielded to the Emperor's commands so far as concerned the calling of the diet ; but they took no steps to enforce the Edict of Worms, although the Kings of England and Portugal, at the instance of Clement, seconded the exhortations of the Emperor.^ ^ It was evident that the government was incompetent to repress the movement. Luther, however, was not content with the resolutions of the Diet ; and he published a treatise, in which he pointed out and ridiculed in the boldest language the contradic- tions between them and the Edict of Worms. He was every day growing bolder in his reforms. He had published in 1523, directions to the clergy respecting the Church service ; and he expected municipal magistrates to put their hands to the work without consulting the Elector, whom he represented as acquiesc- ing in what was done by others, though unwilling to do anything " Luther's Wcrke, B. xv. S. 2705 flf ; Sleidan, lib iv. p. 99 (ed. Frankf. 1610). 506 LUTHER QUITS HIS CONVEXT. [Book IL himself. Frederick appears to have felt some compunctions at abolishing the mass, and was filled with alarm at the tumults which accompanied these innovations. The Chapter of Wittenberg also resisted Luther's views, and it was not till Christmas eve, 1524, that he succeeded in establishing his new service. He had just before taken the final step which severed him from the Eoman communion. On the 9th of October he quitted the Augustinian convent at Wittenberg, laid aside his monk's habit, and entered the church in the dress of a priest. He and the prior were the last to quit. On the other hand, the Eoman Catholics were uniting to up- hold the Church. In spite of the jealousy between the Houses of Bavaria and Austria, Campeggio, the Papal Legate, persuaded Dukes William and Louis of Bavaria to unite with the Arch- duke Ferdinand in defence of the Church. An agreement was entered into at Eatisbon, July 6th 1524, between these thre^ princes, and the Bishops of Salzburg, Trent, Eatisbon, Bamberg, Spires, Strasburg, Augsburg, Constance, Basle, Freisingen, Passau, and Brixen, to enforce in their territories the Edict of Worms, and the recesses of the last two diets of Nuremberg ; also, not to alter the Church service, not to permit the marriage of the clergy, and, in general, to use their best endeavours to extirpate heres}^. At the same time several reforms in the Church were adopted. In short, it was the first attempt to restore Catholicism by improving it, and thus to blunt the weapons of the reformers. It shows, however, a great change in public opinion, that neither the Elector Joachim of Brandenburg, nor Duke Greorge of Saxony, the two most decided opponents of Luther, joined this combination ; nor any of the imperial cities, nor of the spiritual Electors. The alliance of Bavaria and Austria alone secured the Eoman Church in Grermany. The enemies of the Eeformation were beginning to imbrue their hands in the blood of the reformers. In 1524, a crazy Dominican in Suabia, named Eeichler, caused all the Lutherans he could lay hands on to be hanged on the next tree. Henry von Zutphen, whose martyrdom has been described by Luther '2, was executed at Dietmar. Similar executions took place at Bud a and Prague, as well as at Vienna ; and two Augustinian monks were burnt at Brussels. An insurrection of the peasantry at this period threatened, how- ever, more danger to the Lutheran cause than any measures which the Eoman Catholics might adopt. The peasants, as well as the inhabitants of the smaller towns in Upper Germany, had long w Werke, B. xxi. S. 94. Chap. VI.] PEASANT WAR. 507 been discontented with their condition, the soccage services exacted from them, the wasting and plundering of their lands during the private wars, and other grievances, particularly the increased taxes on their favourite drinks ; and they were animated to resistance by the example of the Swiss, who had fought for and won their freedom. Insurrections had repeatedly taken place, of which two are especially remarkable: that called the Bundschiih in 1502, and the League of poor Conrad, in Wurtemburg, in 1514, to which we have already adverted. The religious revolution set on foot by Luther was undoubtedly fitted to stir up these elements of discontent : and it cannot be denied that his address to the people on the recess of the Diet of Nuremberg, in which he denounces as tyrants and persecutors of the Gospel, the Emperor and the Princes of the Empire, and in the words of Scripture threatens them with a fall, was calculated to foment these commotions, which, however, were originally little connected with any religious question. Symptoms of insurrection began to manifest themselves in June 1524, but it was not till the following year that they attained any importance. The revolt commenced in Suabia and the Thurgau, where the Abbot of Eeichenau had forbidden his subjects to have evangelical preachers. The Suabian League succeeded in temporarily restoring order ; the leaders of the malcontents were executed or outlawed ; but nothing was done to alleviate the grievances complained of. In the beginning of 1525 the insurrection broke out afresh with more violence. The peasants of Suabia, Franconia, Lorraine, Al- sace, and the Palatinate now rose in open revolt, and published a manifesto containing their demands in twelve articles, which very much resembled those previously urged by the Bundschuh, The principal were, that the peasants should be allowed to choose their own pastors; that tithes should be paid in kind only, and should be appropriated to the clergy, the poor, and purposes of public im- provement; that serfdom should be abolished; that the right of hunting and fishing, and the use of the forests should be free ; together with other articles respecting taxes and penal laws. This manifesto, and another writing, the peasants submitted to the judgment of Luther, a proceeding which very much embarrassed him. In the Exhortation, which he published in reply, he told the spiritual and temporal princes who had opposed his doctrines, some home truths respecting their government; and he ascribed the disturbances to the repression of the Gospel: then, addressing himself in friendly language to the rebels, he inculcated the duty of submission, by which he incurred the charge of hypocrisy. In February 1525, Ulrich, the expelled Duke of Wiirtemberg, 508 DEFEAT OF THE PEASANTS. [Book II. whose territory, as we have seen, the Suabian League had conquered and sold to Austria, broke into Suabia with 10,000 Swiss; when the peasants, who had formerly complained of his tyranny, flocked to his standard, and talked of the good days they had once enjoyed under his sway. He penetrated as far as Stuttgart ; but the Swiss being recalled by their government, after the battle of Pavia, he was obliged to make a hasty retreat. Truchsess of Waldburg, head of the Suabian League, who had taken the field against the peasants, refused to make any concessions. Whilst he was in the Allgau, and on the Lake of Constance, the peasants, led by one Metzler, formerly an innkeeper, penetrated into Franconia, burning down abbeys and castles. Hearing that Truchsess had caused some of their comrades to be executed, they retaliated, by putting to death Count Ludwig von Helfenstein and sixty of his followers, whom they had captured when they surprised the town of Weinsberg ; and they turned a deaf ear to the supplications of his wife, a natural daughter of the Emperor Maximilian. It was this deed, which, however, had been provoked by the cruelties of the Count, that excited the nobles against them to the highest degree. It also spoilt their cause in the eyes of Luther, who denounced them all as murderers ; called upon the princes and nobles to show no more forbearance or pity, and urged them to the work of death in harsh and even blood-thirsty language.'^ Some of the knights and nobles joined the revolt, either from fear or the hope of playing a great part and obtaining a share in the plunder, and among them, the renowned Grotz von Berlichingen, who became one of the leaders of the peasants, but, as he protested, by compulsion. He stood in an equivocal light with both parties.** The peasants were at first successful, and the main body of them laid siege to Wiirzburg. Truchsess, who was assisted by Greorge Frunsberg, advancing from the Lake of Constance with the army of the Suabian League, overthrew them on the 2nd of May, and speedily reduced the whole of Wiirtemberg to the obedience of the Archduke Ferdinand. At Fiirfeld, Truchsess united his army with that of the Elector Palatine, and marched against another body of the peasants ; they could not withstand the cannon and cavalry of their opponents ; and after a bloody defeat at Konigshofen, early in June, could offer little further resistance. Innumerable " Erasmus has reproaclied him for it and in 1524 he had attacked Luther's in his Hiipcraspistes, ap. Menzel, B. i. doctrine respecting the servitude of the S. 101. Erasmus and Luther were now at -will. variance. As the Reformation proceeded, " Pistorius, Gotzens von Berlichingen the former clung closer to the old Church, Lchensbeschreihmg, S. 207. Chap. YL] FA^UTICISM OF THOMAS MUXZER. 509 prisoners were taken and hanged on the high roads, or otherwise put to death, sometimes with dreadful tortures. About the same time Duke Anthony of G-uise and his brother Claudius overthrew the insurgent peasants in Lorraine and Alsace, with great slaughter. It is reckoned that about 100,000 persons perished in this rebellion, which reduced the most populous and fertile districts to solitudes filled with corpses and smoking ruins. Grotz von Berlichingen was captured, and condemned to perpetual imprison- ment in his own castle, where he remained eleven years : but after the dissolution of the Suabian League, he was pardoned by the Emperor, and subsequently served some campaigns in Hungary and France. The revolt would have sooner come to a natm-al end had not its dying embers been fanned and kept alive by the fanaticism of Thomas Miinzer, whose expulsion from Wittenberg has been already recorded. From that place, Miinzer proceeded to Altstadt in Thuringia, where, inspired, as he pretended, by the Holy Grhost, he set about restoring the Church as it existed under the Apostles, till he was banished at the instance of Duke Greorge of Saxony. A like fate attended him at Nuremberg ; but at Miihlhausen he was favourably received by the populace, with whose aid he deposed the magistrates and drove the monks from their convents. Miinzer, however, though a wild and extravagant fanatic, was a man of moral habits, and did not indulge in those violences and excesses which afterwards characterised the Anabaptists of Miinster. His aim was to establish a theocratic government, and he instituted at Miihlhausen a council called the " Perpetual Council," of which he was himself the president. ^^ He now proclaimed liberty, equality, and the community of goods : doctrines which attracted to Miihlhausen crowds of the idle, the disaffected, and the knavish. As frequently happens in such cases, Miinzer soon lost the control of the movement which he had himself excited. One Pfeifter, a renegade monk of Eeiffenstein, a still greater and more dangerous fanatic than himself, insisted on extending the sect beyond the walls of Miihlhausen. The insurrection of the peasants encouraged the design ; inroads were made on the surrounding districts ; churches, convents, and castles were plundered, and the assertors of community of goods returned home richly laden with those of other persons. Pfeiffer made a devastating expedition into the territory of Eichsfeld, and Erfurt was sacked by a body of many thou- " Melanchthon's account that Miinzer of his assertions on this siihject, to bo lived luxuriously on the property of the without foundation. See Schlosser, Welt- expelled monks, appears, like many other (/csch. li. xii, S. 35. 510 DEATH OF FREDERICK THE WISE. [Book II. sand peasants. All the country was in arms, from the Lake of Consta,nce to the north of Germany. Miinzer thought the moment had arrived for raising the standard against the princes ; and he repaired, with this design, to Frankenhausen, in the district of Schwarzburg, where he found a great body of Mansfeld miners, who had fled thither to escape the arms of their lord. Count Albert. The Landgrave Philip of Hesse, having quelled the insurrection in his own dominions, now allied himself with Duke Henry of Brunsmck, Duke Greorge of Saxony and some neighbouring princes, in order to put down the Anabaptists. Having marched on Frankenhausen, and being willing to avoid an unnecessary effu- sion of blood, they dispatched a young nobleman to treat of peace, whom Miinzer barbarously caused to be put to death. Battle was now the only alternative. On the 15th of May 1525, Miinzer led forth his defenceless herd, without discipline or arms, promising them the miraculous protection of heaven, and invoking the Holy Grhost with hymns and prayers. Their confidence was soon con- verted into despair. They were defeated and slaughtered almost without resistance, and Miinzer, who had attempted to conceal himself, was captured and examined under torture. In the midst of these disturbances the Elector Frederick the Wise expired (May 5th 1525). He was succeeded by his brother, John of Saxony, who joined the allied princes, and proceeded with them to Miihlhausen. PfeifFer was inclined to defend the place, but the inhabitants were of a different opinion, and Pfeiffer fled in the night with about four hundred followers. He was captured at Eisenach, where he and some of the older prisoners were executed. IMiinzer, who was also brought to the camp for execution, returned, when on the point of death, to the Catholic faith. ^^ John, surnamed the Steadfast, the new Elector of Saxony, was a much more zealous supporter of the Reformation than his brother had been. Frederick had merely tolerated Luther ; John became his declared adherent. Encouraged by his support, Luther abo- lished the remnants of papistry still retained in the palace church at Wittenberg, announced the abolition of episcopal jurisdiction, and consecrated the first evangelical priest in that city (May 14th). These innovations were also adopted by the Landgrave of Hesse, and the dukes and princes in Brunswick, Celle, Mecklenburg and Pomerania. In the following month Luther took to wife Catherine ^ " The chief sources for this insiirrec- Th. xri ; Sleidan, lib. v. The best modem tion, are Criniti, BeUi Rusticani Historia, history of the Peasant War of Germany is in Freher, t. iii. ; Hub. Thomje Leodii, 7Ammcyniria.iiiis Gesch.dcs grossenBaiicrn- de eodem Bdlo, ibid.; Melanchthon's ^/*^- Jcricgcs. torie Thomd Miiazcrs, in Luther's Wcr/ce, Chap. VI.] jMAEEIAGE OF LUTHEK. ill von Bora, who, like himself, had been the inmate of a cloister. This act gave his enemies an excellent opportunity for abuse. Luther, it was said, had brought two carriages full of nuns from a convent, had selected the abbess as the handsomest, and that a child had been baptized four weeks after the marriage. Others said that Catherine had lived two years at Wittenberg in a house of ill fame.^*^ The Suabian League, in which the confederates of Ratisbon had the chief influence, followed up their victory by persecution. Many who had taken no part in the insurrection, were executed merely on account of their evangelical principles ; amongst them nine of the richest citizens of Bamberg. A provost, named Aichili, proceeded through Suabia and Franconia with a body of horsemen to superintend the executions, and it is reckoned that in a very narrow circuit he hanged about forty evangelical preachers on trees by the road-side. Luther expressed his disapprobation of these proceedings as strongly as he had condemned the insurrection of the peasants. It was the first violent restoration of Catholicism in High Grermany. Nevertheless, some of the towns belonging to the League itself, as Nuremberg and Augsburg, adopted an evangelical organisation ; and though Wiirtemberg had been conquered by the League, the States declared that evangelism was necessary to the peace of that country. One of the most remarkable revolutions in Germany this year vv^as the secularisation of the territory belonging to the Teutonic Order, its erection into a temporal duchy, and the establishment there of the reformed religion. We have already seen'^ that by the peace of Thorn in 1466, the Teutonic Order made over a great part of Prussia to Poland, and consented to hold the rest as a fief, subject to the Polish King and Republic. Thus Prussia had become divided into two distinct territories : Polish Prussia and Prussia Proper, or, as it was also called, Prussian Prussia. The Grand-Masters of the Teutonic Order soon attempted to shirk the feudal homage due to Poland, and even to recover from that kingdom Polish Prussia. At the period at which we are arrived, Albert, Margrave of Brandenburg, of the branch of Anspach and Baireuth^^, filled the office of Grand-Master, having been chosen in " Kaynald. an. 1523, t. xii. pp. 42-i, At this time Joachim I. was Elector of 428, 430. Braudenbiirg, who had succeeded Albert's ^^ Above, p. 21, son, John Cicero. Joacliim was the '^ After the death of Albert Achilles, brother of Albert, Elector of Mentz, and Elector of Brandenburg, the House of a determined opponent of Luther. Both Hohenzollern became divided into two were cousins of Albert, Grand- Master of branches, one of which possessed Branden- the Teutonic Order, burg, the other Anspach and Baireuth. 512 SUPPRESSION OF THE TEUTONIC ORDER. [Book IT. 1511, in the hope that by means of his family connections he would be able to restore the independence of the Order. This, however, he was unable to do ; and in April 1521, after an unfor- tunate war, he was glad to conclude, through the mediation of the Emperor, a four years' truce with Poland. The Order had now fallen into poverty and contempt, and the immoral lives of several of the knights had rendered it so hateful to the people, that none dared show himself in the mantle of his Order^*^ ; while, on the other hand, many of them had become converts to Lutheranism, and, in spite of their vows, had entered on the marriage state. During the truce, Albert travelled into Germany, and attended the Diet of Nuremberg, in the vain hope of obtaining the assistance of the empire. On his way back he had an interview with Luther, whose principles he had himself partly adopted; when Luther advised him to dissolve the Order, take a wife, and convert Prussia into a tem- poral principality. Albert answered only with a smile ; but it soon appeared that the hint had not been thrown away. Early in 1524 he brought the Church service more into conformity with the Lutheran worship ; and at the expiration of the truce in April 1525, instead of renewing the war, he repaired to Cracow, and concluded a peace with King Sigismund, by virtue of which he received the eastern part of Prussia as a temporal duchy, with succession to his heirs, or in their default to his brother Greorge, but still in feudal dependence upon Poland. Thus by the aid of the Gospel he converted an elective office into an hereditary possession. Duke Eric of Brunswick, commander at Memel, the only member of the Order who refused his consent to this arrangement, was at length persuaded to retire into Germany with an annual pension. The new religion was now thoroughly established in Prussia ; and in the following year Albert married Dorothea, daughter of the King of Denmark. Such was the origin of Ducal Prussia. The Pope declared Albert an apostate, and called upon the Emperor to punish his crime^^ ; who subsequently placed him under the ban of the empire. Albert, however, found security in his remote situation, and in the protection of the King of Poland ; for, though Sigismund was a zealous Catholic, the interest of his kingdom required the suppression of the Teutonic Order. Luther also endeavoured to persuade Cardinal Albert of Brandenburg, Archbishop and Elector of Mentz, to follow the example of his namesake and cousin, and convert his diocese into a temporal principality ; a proceeding which probably he would ^ Menzel, Neuere Gesch. dcr DcutscJien, =' Raynaldus, an. 1526, t. xii. p. 604. B. i. S. 118. J > » i Chap. VI.] POLITICAL CHARACTER OF THE REFORMATIOX. 513 not have been averse to adopt, had not the putting do^vn of the insurrection of the peasants relieved him from his fears that the spiritual principalities were coming to an end. All these events greatly altered the situation of Luther, and determined the political character of the Grerman Reformation. Instead of the man of the people, Luther became the man of the princes ; the mutual confidence between him and the masses, which had supported the first faltering steps of the movement, was broken; the democratic element was supplanted by the aristocratic ; and the Reformation, which at first had promised to lead to a great national democracy, ended in establishing the territorial supremacy of the German princes. The bold knights to whom Luther had formerly appealed, had vanished from his view : Grotz von Berlichingen was in prison, Franz von Sickingen had died in the defence of his last stronghold ; and Ulrich von Hutten had ended his eventful life in exile and poverty on a small island in the Lake of Zurich. The Reformation was gradually assuming a more secular character, and leading to great political combinations. We have already adverted to the Catholic assembly at Ratisbon in 1524; which, though its measures were purely defensive, and its views did not extend beyond the territories of the princes and prelates who had joined it, had nevertheless set the first example of party union. Both Catholics and Reformers had indeed for a while united to put down the insurrection of the peasants, in which they had succeeded without any assistance from the Imperial government ; but after this had been effected, the old antipathies returned more strongly than ever. The evangelical party, who regarded the assembly at Ratisbon as a hostile league, had acquired great power and importance since the Elector John of Saxony, and Philip, the Landgrave of Hesse, whose dominions extended from Cassel to the Rhine, had openly separated from the Romish Church. Besides these princes the new Duke of Prussia, the Counts of Hanau and of Oldenburg, the cities of Nuremberg, Frankfort-on-the-Maine, Strasburg, and several others, comprehending a large part of Grermany, had abolished the Catholic worship. None of these States heeded the commands of the Council of Regency, nor allowed the decisions of the Imperial Chamber to be executed : so that the question was no longer merely one of faith, but also of civil order. In July 1525, some of the most zealous opponents of the Refor- mation, Duke George of Saxony, the Elector Joachim I. of Bran- denburg, Albert Elector of Mentz, Duke Henry the younger of Wolfenbiittel, and Duke Eric of Kalenberg, met together at Dessau, to consult how the continued attacks upon Church and VOL. I. L L 514 LEAGUE OF TORGAU. [Book H. State might be best arrested ; and although there are no authentic records of this meeting, it cannot be doubted that resolutions inimical to the reformers were adopted. Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, supposing that a formal league had been entered into by the Catholics, proposed to the Elector John of Saxony to form on their side a league of mutual security. These negociations were brought to a conclusion at Grotha, in February 1526, and were ratiiied at Torgau on the 4th of March ; whence this alliance has generally obtained the name of the League OF Torgau. It was disapproved of by Luther ; he thought that all such earthly means implied a distrust of God, who would \vith- out them protect and foster true Christianity, as he had done in the centuries of persecution. On the other hand, Duke Henry of Brunswick procured from the Emperor a rescript or exhortation, dated at Seville, March 23rd 1526, and couched in the strongest terms, in which Charles applauded the anti-Lutheran league, exhorted all prelates and Catholic princes strenuously to oppose the new doctrines, and promised that, after visiting Eome, he woiild himself come into Grermany and assist in putting down the heretics by force of arms. The hopes of the Catholic party were excited to a high pitch by this letter, and Duke Greorge openly asserted that it was in his power to become Elector of Saxony at any moment he pleased. The evangelical princes bestirred them- selves on their side. The Landgrave of Hesse undertook to canvass the states and princes of Upper Grermany in favour of the League of Torgau ; but met with little success. The Elector Pala- tine, indeed, was favourable to the cause, but was not prepared openly to join the League. In Lower Germany the Elector of Saxony was more successful in his canvass, chiefly through his fa- mily connections ; and at his invitation four Dukes of Brunswick, Duke Henry of Mecklenbm-g, Prince Wolfgang of Anhalt, and the Counts Albert and Gebhard of Mansfeld, assembled at Magdeburg on the 10th of June. The Emperor's letter from Seville, now first made known to these princes, struck them with alarm, and on the 12th of June they subscribed the League of Torgau ; to which the town of jNIagdeburg, at the instance of its magistrates, was sub- sequently admitted as a party. The confederates declared that as their adversaries had contracted leagues and collected money in order to maintain the old abnses and to make war upon those who allowed the word of God to be preached in their dominions ; so they, though without intending to annoy anybody, had con- federated themselves to defend their subjects from unjust aggres- sion, and to assist one another with all their power in case any Chap. VI.] DIET OF SPIEES, 1526. 515 attack should be made on their religion. Thus a strong and com- pact evangelical alliance was established, and both parties were fully organised when the Diet of Spires met on the 25th of June. The Elector John of Saxony appeared at Spires with the greatest splendour. He was attended by a larger number of mounted followers than any other prince, and had daily to provide for seven hundred mouths. He also distinguished himself by the magnificence of his banquets. The young Landgrave of Hesse was chiefly remarkable for the religious knowledge which he dis- played, and is said to have shown himself better versed in Scrip- ture than any of the prelates. Both he and the Elector John had adopted as their motto, Verhu'in Dei manet in aterniirti, which encircled the armorial shields affixed to their lodmnofs ; and, in conformity with their religious pretensions, they had instructed their followers to observe the most decorous behaviour. When the proceedings were opened, the Archduke Ferdinand, who pre- sided, and the commissioners by whom he was attended, at first insisted on the strict observance of the Edict of Worms. But since the date of Charles's letter from Seville, Clement havinsf organised against the Emperor the Holy League ^^, the relations between them had become completely altered, and they were now at open hostility with each other. In consequence of this change, Charles addressed a letter to his brother Ferdinand, July 27th, in which he instructed him to suspend the penal- ties enjoined by the Edict of Worms, to refer the religious question to the decision of a council, and to use his endeavours to obtain, with the help of the Protestant princes, a vote for a large army to serve against the Turks, whose inroads were now become in the highest degree alarming. Under these cir- cumstances, the recess of the Diet was conceived in the most moderate tone (August 27th). The Emperor was requested to cause a general, or at all events, a national council, to be assem- bled within a year in Germany, and to visit that country himself; and it was resolved that till the council assembled, every mem- ber of the empire should so conduct himself with regard to the Edict of Worms as he should answer for it towards God and the Emperor ; in other words, was to act as he should deem advisable. On the 1 7th of September, the Emperor addressed a violent mani- festo to the Pope, in which he accused him of shedding Christian blood to gratify his arrogance and ambition, and called on him to convoke a general council.^^ A memorable point in the history 2^ Above, p. 468. ^^ Goldasti, J?olit. Imperial^ p. 990, sqq. L L 2 516 HUNGARY AND THE TURKS. [Book II. of Germany and the Reformation ! Catholicism probably could not have subsisted in Grermany had the Edict of Worms been formally withdrawn ; while, on the other hand, if its execution had been insisted on, the evangelical party would not have been able to establish itself by legitimate and peaceful methods. The decree was immediately adopted in Saxony, Hesse, and the neighbouring countries, and during the two following years, in which Charles was more engaged with politics than religion, matters took their natural and unimpeded course, so that the Reformation soon gained a wonderful accession of strength. Before the Diet of Spires was dissolved, alarming news had arrived of the march of Sultan Solyman towards Hungary with an enormous host; the fall of Peterwardein was already an- nounced ; yet the Diet, in its recess dated only the day before the fatal battle of JNIohacs, contented itself with voting that an embassy should be sent to ascertain how matters really stood ! Not a hand was stretched forth to avert the fate of Hungary, which, like Venice previously, was wholly abandoned to its own resom'ces. We have already brought down the affairs of Hungary and the Turks to the capture of Belgrade in 1521. 2* It was during this war that Ferdinand of Austria consummated his marriage with Anne, the sister of Louis, King of Hungary and Bohemia. Louis himself, after the Turks had retreated, solemnised his nuptials with Mary, the sister of Charles and Ferdinand, in the winter of 1521, and took upon himself the conduct of the government.^^ That youthful monarch was then only in his sixteenth year, and his feeble hand was unable to control the turbulent nobles of Hungary, who declined all military service, or, if they appeared at all when summoned, came in their coaches instead of armed and on horseback ^^ ; while they imposed impolitic and absurd taxes on commerce and manufactures in order to raise mercenary troops. Bohemia was in little better plight, and was moreover agitated by religious dissensions. Grermany itself, like both these countries, was, as we have seen, little better than a turbulent oligarchy ; and it is not therefore surprising that no advantage was taken of the respite afforded by Solyman's expedition to Rhodes in order to prepare against any future attacks of the Turks. Fortunately for the Hungarians the Sultan was too much engaged during the next two or three years with the affairs of the Crimea and of Eg3^pt to attack them, though a border warfare had con- tinued to rage on the frontiers of Hungary since the capture of 2* Above, p. 428. 25 E^gej^ ^ ^^ g. 229, f. ^e 75^^^ s. 236. Chap. YL} IBEAHIM PASHA, GEAXD VIZIER. 517 Belgrade. Solyman had purposely abstained from concliidino- a peace, and he observed the same policy with reo-ard to Persia whose ruler, Thamasp, successor of Ismael, the founder of the Sofi dynasty, had formed an alliance wHth the Emperor Charles Y., and with King Louis of Hungary. By the year 1525, Ahmed Pasha, the rebellious governor of Egypt, had been reduced to obedience, Asia Minor had been tranquillised, the power of Persia had been shaken, the revolts of the Janissaries had been quelled ; the Osmanli army, wasted by the terrible siege of Ehodes, had been recruited to its pristine strength, and Solyman was at leisure to turn his atten- tion towards the north. These results had been achieved principally through the vigilance and talents of the Sultan's Grrand Vizier and favourite, Ibrahim Pasha, the son of a Crreek sailor of Parga. Captured when a child by Turkish corsairs, and purchased by a Magnesian widow, who caused him to be instructed in several European and Asiatic languages, Ibrahim had early displayed con- siderable talent, and was fond of studying history ; but it was his engaging countenance and a talent for playing the violin that intro- duced him into the seraglio, where he soon became the chief favourite of Solyman. Appointed Grand Vizier in 1523, he held that office till his fall and death in 1536 ; and much of the splendour and im- portance of Solyman's reign must be attributed to the influence of this remarkable man. His character formed a strange compound of cunning, audacity, and grandeur. Born himself a subject of Venice, his government was swayed by Venetian influence, the man whom he chiefly consulted being Aloysio Oritti, an illegitimate son of Andro Grritti, who was Doge of Venice from 1523 to 1528. In 1525 Solyman commenced his preparations for invading Hungary in the following year ; and he concluded an armistice for seven years with the King of Poland, so that Louis could hope for no assistance from that quarter. An alliance had been also con- tracted between France and the Porte.^^ A French embassy to the Sultan was intercepted by the Sandjak of Bosnia ; the ambassador, whose name does not appear, was murdered, together with his twelve attendants, and robbed of all the valuable presents which he was conveying to the Sultan ; among them a ruby of great price, which Francis had worn on his finger at the battle of Pavia. This ring was subsequently recovered, and was in the possession of Ibrahim in 1533. There is a lurking suspicion that this deed of violence was committed with the privity of Ferdinand, who appears to have 2' On this alliance see Gevay, Ur- tend der Fforte, im xvi. und xvii. Jahr- Jcunden und Actenstiicke zur Gesch. der hundcrte, 3 Lieferung, p. 21. Verhdltnisse zwischen Oestreich, Ungarn L L 3 518 ALLIANCE BETWEEN FRAXCIS AND SOLYMAN. [Book H. known that negociations were carrying on between Francis and the Sultan : and the Turks have, indeed, often expressed their horror at the assassinations committed by the House of Austria. ^^ After this failure, Francis, while still a prisoner at Madrid, contrived to send a member of the Frangipani family as ambassador to Con- stantinople, who succeeded, before the end of 1 525, in effecting an alliance between the French King and the Sultan. Francis pressed Solyman to invade Hungary whilst the French attacked Spain, to which arrangement the Sultan in general terms assented ; for it was indeed a foregone conclusion in his mind. Early in 1526, the most alarming tidings arrived in Hungary of Solyman's vast preparations for invading that kingdom. The Hungarian magnates, at continual feud with one another, were totally unprepared to resist ; the lower classes, who had in gi'eat numbers imbibed the doctrines of Luther, justified themselves for not taking up arms, by appealing to one of his propositions, which had been condemned by Leo X. in his bull of excommunication, viz., " That to fight against the Turks is equivalent to struggling against Grod, who has prepared such rods for the chastisement of our sins."^^ Above all, the treasury, ever since the reign of Wladislaus, had been in a state of absolute exhaustion. So com- plete was this poverty, that the capture of Belgrade, five years before, was attributed to the want of fifty florins to defray the expense of conveying to that place the ammunition which was lying ready at Buda! The only resource was to borrow of the Fuggers, who lent their money on the security of the Hungarian mines, as they did to Charles V. on the mines of the Tyrol, Spain, and America. At length a Diet was appointed to assemble on the 24th of April. Solyman, after visiting the graves of his fore- fathers, and of the old Moslem martyrs, had set out the day before from Constantinople with a force of 100,000 men. The Hungarian nobles, instead of adopting energetic measures, did nothing but wrangle with their king, or rather with the Queen, who acted for him ; for the disposition of Louis was idle and care- less, and his slumbers were often protracted till noon. One of their ^^ See a letter addressed by Ferdinand to la France et la Porte, in the Journal his brother, the Emperor, from Innsbruck, Asinf. (1827), t. x. p. 23. Marcli 14th, 1525, in Lanz, Corrcspondcnz ^9 ^his proposition, originally directed des Kaisers, Karl V., B. i. S. 155 ; Cf, against Papal rapacity in levj-ing money Michelet, Reforrne, p. 311. The miirder under pretence of a Turkish war, which of the French ambassador is mentioned was aftens-ards applied to other purposes, in a Relatione of Pierro Bragadino, the Luther subsequently endeavoured to ex- Venetian envoy at Constantinople, Dec. plain and justify in his treatise Vom 6th, 1525, ap. Hammer, Mhn. sur les Krieg wider den Tiirken, pubhshed in premieres Relations diplomatiques entre 1528. Chap. VI.] SOLYMAX IXVADES HUXGARY. 519 proposals she struck through, and endorsed with the words, " One King, one ruler of the country."^^ On the 19th of June not a gun or vessel was ready at Buda. Louis now revived an ancient custom, and sent round a bloody sabre, as a signal of the most imminent danger. With the consent of the Pope, church plate was sent to the mint to be coined ; and it was indeed time, for the Papal Legate had been obliged to advance money to defray the expenses of couriers.^' Fortunately, Solymans march had been retarded by a series of bad weather, and he did not reach Belgrade before the 9th of July. A flotilla of 800 vessels had conveyed up the Danube a large body of light-armed Janissaries. Peterwardein was taken on the 15th, the citadel on the 27th. A Hungarian council of war was still disputing at Tolna about the mode of operations, when the columns of flame which arose from the town of Essek, annoimced that the Turks had crossed the Drave, and were in full march upon the capital. The Chancellor, Broderith (or Bradarich), who accompanied this expedition, and who afterwards wrote an account of the cam- paigns^, in a letter from Tolna (August 6th), to the Queen, who was anxiously expecting the issue at Buda, tells her that he did not expect there would be a force sufficient to meet the enemy within twenty or thirty days. A twelvemonth, however, would scarcely have sufficed; for Solyman's army had swollen as it advanced, and, after his junction with Ibrahim, was said to number 300,000 men. Yet the young King of Hungary was compelled by his nobles to throw himself in Solyman's way, although he had not yet been joined by his two chief vassals, the Ban of Croatia, and John Zapolya, Voyvode of Transylvania, who was still at Segedin with his forces. With an army of little more than 20,000 men, the command of whom was entrusted to the brave but inexperienced Archbishop Tomory and Oeorge Zapolya, in the absence of his brother John, Louis awaited, in the swampy plain of Mohacs, the approach of Solyman's innumerable host. The King shared the opinion of Broderith, that it would be advisable to retreat to Tolna, and await the arrival of the large forces under John Zapolya. The Palatine and Tomory were, however, for an imme- diate combat, and communicated their rash enthusiasm to the army. On the afternoon of the 29th of August, the Turks began to descend from the hills which the Hungarian generals had left unoccupied. The Hungarians immediately attacked them; but their onslaught was conducted after the ancient fashion. They ^ Engel, B. iii. S. 280. ^i ^^^y/., S. 289, f. "= In Katona, t. xix. p. 616, sqq. L L 4 520 BATTLE OF MOHACS. [Book II. trusted to their cavalry and their steel cuirasses ; infantry and artillery they had little in comparison with the Tui'ks ; while Soly- man, though regarded as a barbarian, had adopted all the appli- ances of the new art of war. His Janissaries w^ere familiar with the use of fire-arms, and 300 pieces of ordnance bristled in his en- trenched camp behind the hills. The leading Turkish squadrons were easily repulsed ; their retreat, which was a mere ruse, was mistaken for a general flight ; the Hungarian cavalry pursued them oyer the rising ground, and, undeterred by the prospect which now burst upon their view, of the immense extent and impenetrable strength of the Osmanli camp, charged up to the very tent of Solyman himself. They soon paid the penalty of their rashness. Mowed down by the fire of the Janissaries and of the Turkish artillery, they were thrown into disorder, and fled in turn. The young Ejng, conducted by a Silesian nobleman, had crossed in his flight the muddy stream which traverses the plain of Mohacs, when his horse, in attempting to mount the opposite bank, fell backwards, and buried himself and his rider in the morass. The body of Louis, who was only in his twentieth year, was found some time after the battle. The flower of the Hungarian nobility perished on that fatal day, among them the brave Paul Tomory, and many other prelates who had exchanged the crosier for the sword. The Turks committed the most horrible massacre, in order to build up their accustomed pyramid of skulls, and burnt down the surround- ing towns and villages. There was nothing to arrest Soly man's march to Buda, the keys of which were presented to him at Fold- var; for the Bohemian forces, which, under Adam von Neuhaus and Greorge of Brandenburg, had advanced as far as Eaab, re- treated when they heard of the overthrow at Mohacs. Solyman entered Buda September 10th. According to the Turkish his- torian^^, Solaksade, he told the nobles who humbled themselves before his throne at Pesth, that he should be willing to recognise and protect as their King, John Zapolya, the Voyvode of Transyl- vania, an announcement which doubtless had a great effect on the ensuing election. Solyman might probably have subjugated all Hungary, but he was called away by disturbances in Caramania ; and after spending a fortnight in Buda, where he celebrated the feast of Bairam, he began his homeward march. He could not prevent a considerable part of the town from being burnt. He or his vizier Ibrahim carried off the famous library collected by Mat- thias Corvinus, together with three bronze statues of Hercules, «» In Hammer, B. iii. S. 62. Chap. VI.] FEEDIXAXD ELECTED KING OF BOHEMIA. 521 Apollo and Diana, which Ibrahim, who was at no pains to conceal his contempt for the Koran, boldly erected before his palace on the Hippodrome at Constantinople.^^ It is said that more than 200,000 Hunorarians were either killed or made slaves durinoj this invasion.^^ The battle of Mohacs was one of those events which decide the fate of nations. By the death of Louis two crowns became vacant, the succession to which was a subject of vital importance to the future welfare of Europe ; and as Solyman was detained the next two years (1527 and 1528) in Constantinople by his own affairs, and especially by the disturbances in Asia Minor, the Hun- garians were left at leisure to settle the question among themselves. Ferdinand of Austria, who considered himself entitled to Hungary and Bohemia, both by the treaty of Presburg, and by his marriage with Anne, the sister of the deceased King ^^, was employed, at the time of the battle of Mohacs, in quelling an insurrection of the peasants which had broken out at Salzburg contemporaneously with that in Suabia and Franconia, and had extended to Austria. He was not therefore in a condition to assert his pretensions by force of arms, and deemed it prudent to submit to the right of election claimed both by the Bohemians and the Hungarians. In both countries he was opposed by a rival candidate. The Bavarian Duke, William, who competed with him for the throne of Bohemia, was, however, from his intimate connection with the Court of Eome, with which the House of Austria was then at variance, re- garded mth an evil eye by the Bohemians, who were for the most part inclined to the doctrines of the Eeformation ; and in October 1526, Ferdinand being elected by a large majority of the three estates, that is, the nobles, knights, and citizens, and proclaimed king in full assembly, a solemn embassy was sent to Vienna to tender him the crown. On the 24th of February 1527, the anniversary of his brother's birth-day, he celebrated his coronation at Prague. The Bohemian States, however, made Ferdinand sign a deed called a Reverse, by which he acknowledged that he obtained the crown by their free choice, and not from any previous right. On the 11th of May he received at Breslau, — for Silesia as well as Lusatia then formed part of the kingdom of Bohemia, — the homage of the Silesians, and of those Grerman princes who held Bohemian fiefs. s* Michelet, Reforme, p. 338. -vnll be foimd in Hammer, B. iii. S. 639, ^ For this campaign, besides Broderith, foil, in Katona, loc. cit., see the Journal kept ^^ See above, p. 361. by Solyman himself, a translation of which 522 JOHN ZAPOLYA, KIXG OF IIUXGARY. [Book n. In Hungary Ferdinand had to contend with a more formidable rival in John Zapolya. After the death of his brother George, who was killed at the battle of Mohacs, John Zapolya was the richest and most powerful of the magnates, and possessed seventy-two castles in Hungary, of which the finest was Burg Trentschin, situ- ated on a hicrh cliff overhanging the river Waaof. Notwithstandino: his power, however, Zapolya was no true Magyar, but a Slavonian by origin, without much education, and destitute of talent, either for the cabinet or the field. The crown of Hungary is said to have been foretold to him at a very early age ; and when, after the death of Wladislaus, the policy of the Emperor Maximilian deprived him of the hand of the deceased monarch's daughter, Anne, as well as of all share in the government, he fell into the bitterest discontent. But the results of the battle of Mohacs enabled him to assert his pretensions to the Hungarian crown. He was supported, as we have seen, by the recommendation of Sultan Solyman, as well as by the intrigues and money of Francis I. and of the Pope ; above all he was at the head of a large force ^^, which not having appeared at the battle of Mohacs, was still untouched, and which was necessary to the protection of the capital. Soon after Solyman's departure, John Zapolya was saluted King at Tokay; and on November 11th 1526, he was crowned at Alba Regia, or Stuhlweissenburg, by the Archbishop of Grran, with the sacred crown of St. Stephen ; an object regarded by the Hungarians with a superstitious veneration.^® A considerable party, however, devoted to the House of Jagellon, now represented by Ferdinand's consort, Anne, met in the same month at Presburg, and elected the Austrian Archduke for their sovereign. The possession of Bohemia enabled Ferdinand to raise forces to assert his claim. In vain did Sigismund, King of Poland, at a congress held in April 1527, at Olmiitz in Moravia, endeavour to mediate between the rivals ; in vain did Pope Clement VII., now the prisoner of the Emperor, excommunicate Zapolya at his dic- tation ^^ ; nothing could decide between them but the arbitra- ment of the sword. In the latter part of July, Ferdinand marched towards Hungary with an army of Grerman troops under the com- mand of Casimir, Margrave of Brandenburg, Nicholas von Salm, and Count Mansfeld. On the 31st Ferdinand reached the half- ^^ Said to amount to 40,000 horse- has been compiled by Peter of Keva, men. Wolsey's Letter to Henry VIII., Count of Turocz, the keeper of the regalia Oct. 1526. State Papers, vol. i. p. 184. in the beginning of the 17th century, and ^* The history of this crown, which was is published in Schwandtner, Brr. Hiin- supposed to have been made by angels, gar. Scripj^. t. ii. p. 435, sqq. The pos- and to have been presented hj Pope session of the crown was reputed to confer Silvester II, to St. Stephen, sixth duke the rights of sovereignty. and first King of Hungary (ann. 1000), ^^ Katona, t. xx. p. 56, sqq. Chap. VI.] ZAPOLYA OVERTHEOWX BY FERDIXAXD. 523 ruined tower on the high road from Vienna to Buda, which marked the boundary between Austria and Hungary; and no sooner was he on Hungarian soil, than he dismounted from his horse, and in the presence of the Palatine Bathori, who, with 200 mounted nobles, had come to welcome him, he swore to observe the consti- tution of the kingdom, and the privileges of the different orders. The frontier fortresses of Himgary were speedily reduced. As Fer- dinand advanced, Zapolya, or King John, was deserted by many of his adherents, and being finally overthrown by Von Salm at the battle of Tokay, Ferdinand entered Buda on August 20th, St. Stephen's day.""^ King John, being now almost completely deserted, fled into Transylvania, and Ferdinand, having assembled the greater part of the nobility at Buda, caused himself to be again elected King, and received the crown at Stuhlweissenburg November 3rd. His consort. Queen Anne, was crowned on the following day. Meanwhile Zapolya had been employing himself in seeking for allies. He had dispatched a Pole named Jerome Lasczy, or A Lasco, to the courts of France and England ; where, though he met with a favourable reception, he does not appear to have obtained any available succours. Wolsey advised his ma,ster to acknowledo-e the Voyvode's title as King of Hungary, and to encourage him as a hogge, or bugbear, in order to depress the power of Ferdinand : but to excuse himself from sending any aid and succours, by reason of the great distance between the cour^tries and the cruel war then raging in Christendom. Towards the end of the year Zapolya sent Lasczy to Constantinople, where, ^vith the assistance of the Venetian Gritti, who pretended to follow the trade of a jeweller, he succeeded in February 1528, in forming an alliance between Solyman and Zapolya, or as the Turks called him King Janusch ; by the terms of which, the Sultan not only engaged to supply guns and ammunition, but also to undertake a fresh expedition into Hungary. King Ferdinand also sent ambassadors to the Porte to treat of peace, but as they ventured to ask back the places which the Turks still held in Hungary, they incurred from Ibrahim the bitterest scorn and anger, and were thrown into prison. When at last they were dismissed in March 1529, after a captivity of several months, Solyman bade them tell their sovereign that he was coming to visit him in person : and on the 10th of May, he again quitted Constantinople for Hungary with a large army. It was a pretension of the Turks, that wherever the horse of the Grrand Signior had once trod, and he himself had rested for the night, the ^° On the very day of his ontry he of Lutheran and Zwinglian books. En- published an edict against the printing gel, B. iv. S. 8. 524 SOLYMAX RESTOKES ZAPOLYA. [Book II. Osmanli power was irrevocably established. Solyman had slept in the palace of Buda, and had only refrained from burning it because he intended to return thither : all Hungary, therefore, belonged to the Sultan.''^ As a last resource, Ferdinand dispatched another ambassador, provided with letters for Solyman and his vizier Ibrahim, couched in the most humble terms, and with instructions to offer a considerable sum under the name of a yearly pension, for that of tribute was too degrading. To such a point was Ferdinand content to humble himself ! But it was now too late. Before the ambassador could reach Mettling on the Kulpa, towards the end of August, Solyman was again encamped with an innumerable host on the blood-stained plain of Mohacs. Here, where the pith of his countrymen had been destroyed. King John, at the head of a large body of Hungarian magnates, met the Sultan, and did him homage. He was received with great ceremony, and admitted to kiss the Sultan's hand ; but the crown of St. Stephen, the palla- dium of Hungary, which had already adorned the heads of both competitors, was surrendered into Solyman 's possession. Since the battle of Mohacs, the Turks had greatly extended their domi- nion in Bosnia, Croatia, Dalmatia, and Slavonia ; Jaicza, the last Hungarian bulwark in Bosnia, had fallen in 1528, and its surrender was followed by that of several smaller places in that and the adjoining provinces. There was nothing, therefore, to oppose the advance of the Turks ; for Southern Hungary w^as in the hands of King John's party. On September 3rd 1529, Solyman again appeared under the walls of Buda, which capitulated after a resistance of five days : but in spite of his engagement, the Sultan was unable to save the garrison from the hands of his Janissaries. Here Zapolya, or King John, was again crowned by the hands of one of the Turkish generals. Solyman in person now marched to Vienna, and invested that capital, while Ferdinand was anxiously waiting at Linz till the Grerman princes should assemble round him with their promised succours. Even the Protestants, — for the Grerman reformers had now acquired that name by their celebrated protest at Spires in the spring of this year, — had not withheld their assistance from King Ferdinand, and the Elector John of Saxony himself had sent 2000 men under the command of his son. The defence of Vienna against an army of 300,000 Turks with 300 guns, besides a strong flotilla on the Danube, is one of the most brilliant feats in the military history of Germany during the sixteenth century. The « Engel, B. iy. S. 14. Chap. YL] YIEXNA BESIEGED BY THE TURKS. 525 van of the Osmanli cavalry appeared before Vienna September 2 1st, and in a few dsLjs the city was surrounded. A small num])er of Hungarians accompanied the Turkish army, but King John, who is said to have possessed neither military talents, nor even personal courage, remained at Buda with a garrison of 3000 Osmanlis. From the top of St. Stephen's tower the Turkish tents might be discerned scattered over hill and dale for miles, while the white sails of their fleet gleamed on the distant Danube. Solyman pitched his tent at the village of Simmering, on a spot now occupied by a powder magazine. Ibrahim Pasha, recently appointed seraskier, conducted the operations of the siege. The walls of Vienna were weak and out of repair, and had no bastions on which guns could be planted. The garrison, commanded by Philip of Bavaria, as representative of the Count Palatine Frederick, the Imperial commander-in-chief, consisted of 20,000 foot and 2000 cavalry, picked troops from various parts of Grermany, including a few Spaniards. They had only seventy-two guns, but these were skilfully disposed. The citizens vied with the troops in valour. The heads of most of the noble Austrian families, the Schwarzenbergs, Stahrembergs, Auers- bergs, Lichtensteins and others, took part in the sallies : among them the veteran Nicholas von Salm particularly distinguished him- self. Solyman sent in a message, that if the garrison would sur- render, he would not even enter the town, but press on in search of Ferdinand ; if they resisted, he should dine in Vienna on the third day: and then he would not spare even the child in the womb. No answer was made ; but the preparations for defence were urged on with a dogged resolution, though without much hope of success. The Osmanlis, however, had no well-concerted plan of operations. Their army, according to traditional usage, was divided into sixteen different bodies, to each of which a separate place and a definite object were assigned ; and although they had made several breaches and mined a portion of the walls, all their assaults were repulsed. The last was delivered October 14th, and in the night they began to retreat. They had several reasons for this course. So large an army could not be provided for during any long con- tinued siege or blockade, although their flour was conveyed to them by 22,000 camels; already at Michaelmas the Janissaries had begun to complain of the cold ; and the forces of the empire and of Bohemia were beginning to arrive. The Turks in this invasion committed their usual barbarities, and wasted the country up to the very gates of Linz. They suffered much in turn in their retreat, as well from the weapons of their foes as from hunger and bad 526 TEUCE WITH THE TURKS. [Book II. weather, and did not reach Belgrade till November 10th. Solyman got back to Constantinople, December IGth.'*^ The peace of Barcelona and that of Cambray having liberated the Emperor's forces in Italy for action in Germany, Solyman deemed it prudent to treat Zapolya with liberality ; as he passed through Buda in his retreat, he restored to that prince the crown of St. Stephen and other regalia, and exhorted the Hungarian nobles to be faithful and obedient to their new King, whom he charged with the defence of Hungary, promising him assistance in case of need. After the departure of the Tm-ks, Ferdinand, who still retained Presburg, gained some successes over Zapolya, but was prevented from following them up with effect by want of money, and by Charles V.'s zeal against the Eeformation, which engrossed all his attention, and the struggle thus degenerated into a petty civil war. Towards the end of 1530 Zapolya was besieged in Buda by Ferdi- nand's general Eogendorf, but without success. Ferdinand, who had been elected King of the Eomans, and wished to devote his attention to the affairs of the empire, was now inclined for peace, and on the 31st January 1531, a truce of three months, afterwards prolonged for a year, was concluded. Solyman, after his retreat from Vienna, did not again appear in Hungary till 1532 ; but the further history of that kingdom must now give place awhile to that of Charles Y. and the Empire. *^ All the sources for this short but Wiens erste aufgehobene tiirkische Bela- famous siege of Vienna, are collected gerung. Mit 30 Beilagen. Pesth, 1829. together in one view by Von Hammer; Chap. VII.] CHARLES SETS OUT FOE ITALY. 527 CHAPTER VII. While the negociatioDs were still pending at Cambray ^, Charles left Spain for Italy, where he wished to carry out a general pacification on the basis laid down in the treaty of Barcelona, as well as to receive the Imperial crown from the hands of the Pope. At the head of 8000 Spanish troops, and accompanied by most of the great nobility of Spain, he landed at Grenoa, August 12th 1529, which republic was now under his protection. With this voyage to Italy a new epoch commences in the life of Charles. During the last seven or eight years he had resided quietly in Spain, conducting everything through his ministers or generals, and though his armies had been gaining splendid victories, taking little or no personal share in affairs. Hence he had been accounted dull, and fit only to be governed ; but in Italy, to the surprise of all, he began to show himself in quite different colours.^ His backward nature had at lengi:h developed itself. He now began to conduct his own negociations, to lead his own armies, to appear in those parts of Europe where his presence was required. Yet though he had adopted as his device the ^YOvds plus ultra^, (still further), he continued to the last to be slow and cautious. All his deliberations were conducted with the greatest circumspection, and his first answers were generally ambiguous, in order that he might have an opportunity for reconsideration. Every resolution cost him a great deal of pains ; couriers were often kept waiting a couple of days ; but when once he had arrived at a decision, he pursued it with a firmness, which, as he himself allowed, often degenerated into obstinacy. He consulted nobody but Grattinara, and after his death in 1530, Perrenot de Grranvella. A like character might be observed in Charles's physical constitution. Whilst arming himself, he would tremble all over ; once armed, he was all courage — it was a thing unknown that an emperor had been shot.'* A change was even remarked in his personal appearance. He had cut off the long flowing locks which had been the charac- * See above, p. 494. ^ In allusion to the columns of Hercules, ^ See the lielaiione of Micheli, ap. the ne 2)^i^ returned, it would be said that it was for fear of " Charles of Spain." 34 These thinofs serve to show the nature of the relations between Francis and the Porte. The French king, ever smce his captivity, had been on the most friendly terms with Solyman. In 1528 the Sultan confirmed to the French and Catalan merchants their com- mercial privileges in Egypt ; and, in the same year, Francis seems to have been desirous of extending his protection to the Christians in Jerusalem, — one of the earliest traces of the pretension still asserted by the French nation to protect the Christian subjects of the Porte. Solyman granted them the use of the churches in Jerusalem, except the chief one, which had been converted into a mosque. Francis appears to have entertained the idea of going in person to Constantinople, to render the Sultan homage and thanks for the aid promised during his captivity, and then pa}dng a visit to the holy sepulchre.^^ Charle&'s applications to the Pope and the Venetians for succour against the Turks were as fruitless as those to Francis, and he was thus driven to rely on his own resources. Never had an Imperial army been so numerously and so promptly assembled. On the plain of Tulln between Linz and Vienna, Charles found himself at the head of about 80,000 men, mostly Grermans, but with an inter- mixture of Italians, Spaniards, and Netherlanders. Of this army 24,000 men had been contributed by the Protestant states. Solyman began his march from Constantinople, April 26th 1532, with all the magnificence of Oriental pomp. A long train of 120 cannon was followed by 8000 chosen Janissaries, and by droves of camels carrying an enormous quantity of baggage. Then came 33 Negociations, <^c. t. i. p. 190. " Gevyy, Vrk. 1530, p. 44. 3^ Ibid. t. i. p. 207. N N 3 550 SOLYMAN'S MARCH TO HUNGARY, 1532. [Book II- 2000 horsemen, the Sipahis of the Porte, with the holy banner, the eagle of the Prophet, gorgeously adorned with pearls and precious stones. Next in the procession were the Christian tribute children educating by the Porte, habited in cloth of gold, having long locks like women, and scarlet caps with white feathers, all bearing similar lances, artfully worked after the fashion of Damascus. Then was borne in state the Sultan's crown, followed by his domestics, 1000 men of gigantic stature, the handsomest that could be found, armed with bows and arrows ; some of whom held coupled hounds, while others carried hawks. In the midst of them rode Solyman himself, in a crimson robe trimmed with gold and a snow-white turban covered with jewels, mounted on a chesnut horse, and armed w4th a superb sword and dagger. The procession was closed by the Sultan's four viziers, among whom Ibrahim was conspicuous, and the rest of the nobles of the court with their servants.^^ Thus did Solyman inaugurate his march. On the way he was joined by troops from all quarters, so that when he entered Hungary in June his army was estimated at 350,000 men. Ferdinand had resolved to try the effect of another embassy, which found the Sultan at Belgrade. Eincon, the French ambas- sador was also there. The Austrians were conducted through a lane of 12,000 Janissaries to Solyman's tent, where they found him sitting on a golden throne ; near him was his magnificent crown made at Venice at the cost of 115,000 ducats; before the legs, or pillars, of his throne were two gorgeous swords, in sheaths set with pearls ; also bows and quivers richly ornamented. The ambassadors estimated the value of w^hat they saw at 1,200,000 ducats. Their errand was of course fruitless. The Sulta^n seemed only anxious to know the distance to Eatisbon, where the Diet was then sitting ; and, on being told that it was a month's journey on horseback the shortest wa}'-, he expressed his determination to go. The ambassadors were detained two months among the Turks, and compelled to follow their movements. On the 20th of July the Turks crossed the Drave at Essek, on twelve bridges of boats. The march of Solyman through Hungary resembled a progress in his own dominions. The fortresses sent him their keys as he approached, and he tried and punished the magnates who had deserted Zapolya. The Turkish fleet also ascended the Danube as far as Presburg ; at which point, Solyman, instead of directing his march towards Vienna, turned to the south, * Venetian Chronicle, ap. Ranke, Deutsche Gesch. B. iiL S. 408. Chap. Vn.] HIS HUMILIATING RETREAT. 551 and leaving the Neusiedler lake on his right, took the road to Styria. On the 1st of August he arrived before the little town of Giins. This insignificant and ill fortified place was destined to inflict upon Solyman the most humiliating disgrace ever experienced by the overweening pride of Oriental despotism since the memorable invasion of Attica by Xerxes. All that pomp and splendour of Eastern warfare, all those myriads of Turkish troops, led by the Grrand Seignior in person, were detained more than three weeks by a garrison of about 700 men, of which only 30 were regular troops, and those cavalry. Under the command of Nicholas Jurissich, w^ho had been one of the Austrian am- bassadors to the Porte, this heroic little band repulsed no fewer than eleven assaults, and the Sultan was at length obliged to content himself with a capitulation, by which ten Janissaries were allowed to remain an hour in the place in order to erect a Turkish standard. This delay, and the defeat by Sebastian Schartlin of a body of 15,000 Turkish horse who were to enter Austria by the Sommering Pass, proved the saving of the country. The French and Venetian ambassadors in Solyman's camp advised him not to venture with an army thus weakened and discouraged a general engagement with Charles's fresh and well organised forces, and the diversion caused by Andrew Doria with his fleet in the Morea served to support this advice ; who, after capturing Koron, Patras, and the two castles which defend the entrance of the Gulf of Lepanto, the Dardanelles of the Morea, had landed his troops, and excited the Greeks to revolt. After investing Gratz, which was well defended, Solyman reluctantly abandoned an enter- prise for which he had made such vast preparations, and on the success oif which he had so proudly relied. Charles was pre- vented from pursuing the retreating enemy by the lateness of the season, the want of provisions, the sickness which began to prevail among his troops, and the desire of several of the princes to return to their homes ; yet, on the whole, his first appearance at the head of his armies had been attendedwith considerable glory and success. The subsequent dispersion of the Imperial army much annoyed King Ferdinand, who had hoped to recover with it the whole of Hungary, Belgrade included: but the German leaders would not listen to such a proposal ; it was not in their instructions, nor, with the majority of them, would it have been popular. For fear of such an event, however, Solyman, at the request of Zapolya, left 60,000 men behind at Essek.^^ In the following year (June 22nd 1533) a ^^ The principal authorities for this p. Sllsqq.: Solyman's Jo?/ r?? a/, in Ham - Turkish expedition are Katx)na, t. xx. mer, B. iii. Schartlin's Lebcnsbeschrd- N N 4 552 TREATY BETWEEN FRA^TIS I. AXD HEXRY VIII. [Book IT. peace was concluded at Constantinople between Ferdinand's am- bassadors and the Porte, by which the former was to retain all that he held in Hungary, and make what terms he pleased with Zapol3'a.^^ After the retreat of the Turks, the Emperor again passed into Italy on his way to Spain, and had another interview with the Pope, at Bologna, in December 1532 ; when the treaty of 1529 was confirmed and extended, and an alliance formed with the Dukes of Milan and Ferrara and the republics of Grenoa and Sienna, for the maintenance of the status quo in Italy. Clement, who was now intriguing with Francis, manifested great unwilling- ness to enter into the Emperor's views. He was offended with Charles on many accounts, and especially by a decision which he had given that the House of Este should hold Ferrara as a fief of the Church and Modena and EesfSfio as fiefs of the Em- pire. Charles pressed the Pope to summon the council so often demanded, and Clement was obliged, though very unwillingly, to issue a fresh proclamation for that purpose.^^ ^Yhile the Emperor was confronting the Turks in Germany, Henry VIII. and Francis I. had an interview at Boulogne. They felt that the}^ should render themselves odious by taking an open part against Charles at such a juncture, and in the treaty which they concluded, October 28th 1532, they even agreed to oppose with an army of 80,000 men " the damned violence of the Turk." It was stipulated however, in one of the articles " that they should take the road which seemed best to them ; " upon which Charles observed, that, while the Turk was in Hungary, the two monarchs would go and meet him in Italy.^° Henry's motive for courting the French king at this period was his still increasing quarrel with the Pope, and consequently with the Emperor also, on the subject of his divorce. When Henry, by the advice of Cranmer, resolved to refer this question to the univer- sities of Europe, he remitted the payment of the 500,000 cro-svns which Francis had engaged to pay for the Emperor, as the latter's penalty for the breach of his promise to espouse Mary, and he allowed the other debt of 400,000 crowns to be discharofed in the course of five years; for which considerations Francis em- ployed himself in procuring a favourable verdict for the English bung ; Ene:el, Gesch. des unqar. Bciches, of. M. du Bellay, liv. ir. : Gaillard, t. iv. B.iT. S. 36ff. "^ p. 203. ^ Zinkeisen, B. ii. S. 744. « Du Bellay, ih. p. 128 sqq.; Gaillard, 3^ The best account of the transactions ih. p. 187 ; Le Grand, t. i. p. 232 sq. at Bologna is in Pallavicini, lib. iii. e. 12 ; Chap. VH.] HEJs^EY VIII. MAERIES AXXE BOLEYT^. 553 monarcli from those universities whicti his influence could reach ; using for that purpose sometimes bribes and sometimes threats, as in the case of the university of Paris.'' ^ During the interview between the two monarchs, the subject of the divorce was much dis- cussed. Henry had brought Anne Boleyn, now Marchioness of Pembroke, with him to Calais, where he repaid Francis's hos- pitalities at Boulogne, and where the French king danced with that fascinating heretic. Henry quoted Scripture, and ecclesias- tical history to prove that his marriage with Catharine was in- valid ; and he endeavoured to inspire Francis with all that hatred of the Pope which had so recently taken possession of his own bosom. The French king was at once surprised and amused at this, to him, incomprehensible display of so much passion com- bined with so profound a submission to the authority of the Church ; and he advised Henry to marry Anne at once, without further ceremony. He himself, indeed, though negociating with Clement for political ends, was half inclined to throw off the Papal yoke. He was grievously sensible of his own poverty ; he looked with an envious eye on the riches of the Grallican Church ; and he observed that the sovereigns of Denmark and Sweden had acquired a great accession of power by the peaceful reformation accomplished in their dominions. But his views were still directed towards Italy, where the assistance of the Pope was necessary to his schemes, Henry, who had no such projects, weary at length of so many years of fruitless pleading, resolved to take the advice of Francis; and although the Pope, at the instance of the Emperor during their interview at Bologna, had issued a bull prohibiting Henry from cohabiting with Anne Boleyn '^-^ (December 23rd 1532), he never- theless privately celebrated his nuptials with her (January 25th 1533) ; soon after which, Cranmer, now Archbishop of Canterbury, having pronounced the sentence of divorce against Catharine, Anne was solemnly and publicly crowned (June 1st 1533). In the course of the same year, Francis drew still closer his relations with the Pope. Ever since June 1531, negociations had been carrying on for a marriage between the French king's second son, Henry Duke of Orleans, and Catherine de' Medici, whose birth we have already recorded ; but they were not brought to a conclu- sion till the time of the Emperor's second sojourn at Bologna, when Clement, irritated by Charles's conduct towards him, and especially ■" Sleidan, though a Protestant, attests Those of some of the French and Italian the helief that the opinions of the Sor- universities will be found in Rymer, t. bonne, and of several universities, were xiv. p. 391 sq. bought (lib. ix. p. 220, ed. Frankf. 1620). « Eaynaldus, t. xiii. p. 264. 554 MARRIAGE OF CATHERINE DE' MEDICI. [Book II. by his pressing the demand for a council''^, agreed to meet the French king at Marseilles in the following autumn, and there to arrange the nuptials.'*^ Francis had demanded that a principality should be erected in favour of the bridal pair, to consist of Pisa, Leghorn, Eeggio, Modena, Eubiera, Parma, and Piacenza ; also Urbino, and even Milan and Grenoa ; and that the Pope should assist in reconquering these places. Clement found these demands reasonable enough, and was willing to satisfy them when an oppor- tunity offered ; only he would not speak out about Milan and Genoa. These arrangements were of course kept as secret as possible. The interview agreed upon took place at Marseilles, towards the end of October 1533, and lasted three weeks. The Pope himself performed the nuptial ceremony, October 25th, and bestowed his benediction on the youthful pair. Henry Duke of Orleans, who, by the death of his elder brother, subsequently became Dauphin, and then King of France, was at this time 15 years of age ; Catherine de' Medici was about two years younger, and is described as short, thin, and plain, with the large eyes pecu- liar to her famil}''.^^ Francis ceded all his claims in Italy to his son. Charles V., who could at first scarcely believe that Francis seriousl}?- contemplated debasing the royal blood of France by mixing it with that of the Medici, so recently mere private citizens of Florence, took no steps to prevent the marriage. The news of Henry YIII.'s marriage had reached Rome some months before' this meeting (May 12th), whither it had been trans- mitted in all haste by Queen Mar}^, Regent of the Netherlands, to the cardinals of the Imperial faction. Only a few^ years before Clement had himself advised Henry to such a step ; but he was not then, as now, under the immediate influence of the Emperor: besides Henry had set at nought the omnipotence of Rome, by neglecting the inhibitory Bull. He was immediately cited to appear at Rome either in person or by proxy, although it had been •understood that no such step should be taken before the interview at Marseilles. It might be anticipated that, when the news of the divorce pronounced by Cranmer at Dunstable should arrive in Rome, the last and most terrible sentence of the Church w^ould be fulminated. But Henry had now irretrievably committed himself, and it was no longer possible to retreat. He resolved therefore to ** Francis wrote to the Bishop of du Roi Fran^-ois I. in Camusat, Melanges Auxorre, his ambassador at Rome, that he Hist. p. 173. and his ally, Henry VIII., would either ** Relazione di Soriano, ap. Ranke, further or oppose the Council, according Popes, vol. i. p. 118. as the Pope demeaned himself. Lcttres " Ibid. vol. iii. App. p. 302. Chap. Vn.] QUARREL OF HENRY VIII. AND CLEMENT VIL 555 blunt the edge of the Papal weapons by anticipating them, and, on the 29th of June, he made a formal appeal, before the Arch- bishop of York, from the expected sentence of the Pope to the next general council.^^ The news of the divorce produced a violent scene between the Pope and the English ambassadors at Eome. One of them, Bonner, the future notorious Bishop of London, who could ill control his tongue, made use of such intemperate language, that Clement threatened to boil him in a cauldron of lead. Henry, how- ever, exhorted him to be firm, and to dispute the matter point by point''^, and on further deliberation, the Pope thought it prudent to reserve for awhile the last blow. By a brief published July 12th Cranmer's sentence of divorce was declared illegal and null ; but though the King by his disobedience had incurred the penalty of excommunication, the fulmination of it was deferred till the end of September, to allow him the opportunity of resuming his former position. Henry at this time endeavoured to establish friendly relations with the Elector of Saxon}^ and the German Protestants ; and with that view despatched Vaughan as ambassador to the Court of John Frederick at Weimar ; who, however, met with so cool a reception, that he soon took his departure.'*^ The German Lu- ' therans were now at least temporarily reconciled with the Emperor, and were not disposed to give him any new cause of offence. The Duke of Norfolk, Henry's ambassador to Francis, if he failed to persuade that monarch to abandon his intended interview with Clement, was ordered to return home instead of proceeding to Marseilles, that he might not be compelled to be present where the Pope was, his master's enemy. '^^ Bonner, however, followed the Pope from Eome, and arrived at Marseilles on the 7th of November, with Henry's appeal. He has left a graphic description of the Pope's anger on receiving it, and of many other particulars which occurred at this conference, in a letter to the King^^, dated No- *^ The substance of this appeal is given shoulders, after the Italian fashion," and by Mr. Froude, Hist, of England, vol. ii. bade him come in the afternoon, as he was p. 123 sqq. The original is in Rymer, going into Consistoiy. When Bonner read t. xiv. p. 476. the appeal at the hour appointed, Clement *' HanvyyiH.to^oxxnQT, State Papers, "fell in a marvellous great clioler and vol. vii. p. 485. rage, not only declaring the same by his ^* Vaughan to Henry VIII. (S^a^e Parens, gesture and manner, but also by words." vol. vii. p. 503. Vaughan to Cromwell, He strove to conceal his anger, which, ibid. p. 509. however, was visible by many tokens. ■•^ Ibid. p. 493 sqq. " And one among others was taken here ** In Burnet, vol. iii. pt. ii. Becords, No. for infallible with them that knoweth the 23. When Bonner announced that he was Pope's conditions, tliat he was continually the bearer of such an instrument, "the folding up and imwinding of his handker- Pope," he says, " having this for a break- chief, which he never doth but when he is fast, only pulled down his head to his tickled tp the very heart with great choler." 556 EXGLAXD THROAYS OFF THE PAFAL YOKE. [Book IP. vember 13th. Francis appears to have made strong representations to the Pope in favour of Henry. Before the meeting broke up, Clement went so far as to say that, if the King of England would, only by a mere matter of form, acknowledge the Papal jurisdiction, he would pronounce sentence in his favour, as he believed his cause to be just ; he even waived the citation to Rome, and offered to appoint a court to sit at Cambray : but Henry, who, not without reason, suspected that the Pope might still deceive him, rejected the offer; and subsequently, in a letter to Francis I., he very forcibly pointed out how much the Pope had committed himself by acknowledging the goodness of his cause, yet refusing to do him justice without extorting conditions.^^ Such a proposition on the part of Clement shows, however, how much he trusted that his connection with Francis would render him independent of the Emperor. These events were followed by that memorable session of the English Parliament, early in 1534, which abrogated the Papal jurisdiction in England. The law was mitigated in favour of suspected heretics. The act abolishing annates, which had been begun, but left unratified, now received the royal assent ; a proceeding which also involved a reform in the appointment of bishops ; for as no annates were to be sent to Rome, so no pallium and bull of investiture were to be expected thence. The crown had already usurped from the chapters the appointment of bishops, and the Pope's share in the transaction had also become a mere shadow. The conge cVelire was now restored to the chapters, but it was accompanied with a nomination by the cro-^Mi, to be made absolute within twelve days, under pain of incurring s, prcemiLnire, Thus the chapters regained, a merely nominal freedom, while the appointment of the crown was left wholly uncontrolled. Peter's pence and other tributes to Rome were abolished ; and unless the Pope did the King justice within three months, his jurisdiction in England was to cease altogether. The session was wound up by the Act of Succession, by which the King's marriage with Catherine was declared invalid, Cranmer's sentence of divorce confirmed, the marriage with Anne Boleyn pronounced lawful, and the issue of it appointed to succeed to the crown. Scarcely was the session terminated, when the news arrived in England (April 7th), that the Pope had pronounced judgment against the King. Through the mediation of the Bishop of Paris, Clement had been induced to defer his sentence to the 23rd of 5' Henry's Letter to the French King, in Foxe, Acts and Monum. vol. t. p. 110. Chap. VII.] DEATH OF POPE CLEMENT YII. 557 March, and Henry, meanwhile, appears to have agreed to the terms proposed ; but his courier, with letters of confirmation, havino- been accidentally delayed on the road, Clement, at the instigation of the Spanish cardinals, who, since the treaty of Barcelona, possessed supreme influence in the Koman Curia, declared the King's first marriage valid, and he himself excommunicate, if he refused to obey this judgment. In pursuance of this sentence, the Emperor was to invade Eno-- land within four months, and depose the King. Large bodies of troops were actually assembled in the Netherlands ; Francis offered Henry his assistance, and that summer, the Channel was guarded by the French fleet.^^ But although Queen Mary had assumed in the Netherlands a very hostile attitude, it was plain, from many symptoms, that the Emperor would be loath to come to extremi- ties with England, and these demonstrations were in fact followed by no result. The die was now irrevocably cast. The Papal authority in England was abolished by the convocation, which was still sittincr, on the same day that the news of the Pope's decision arrived. On the 25th of June, a royal proclamation was issued against the Pope's supremacy ; and in the next session of Parliament, in November 1534, it was abrogated by an act which substituted that of the King in its stead. Before this last formal blow to the Papal authority, Clement had expired. He died towards the end of September — the exact day is uncertain. He had given no marked occasion for scandal : he was naturally grave, diligent in business, and full of ambition ; but false and insincere. Although his capacity was large, his judgment was often perverted by timidity; and he was indeed, on the whole, one of those characters frequently met with in life ; an excellent adviser in a subordinate situation ; but paralyzed by irresolution when the responsibility of decision fell upon himself. During his Pontificate, Papal Eome experienced the most serious disasters it had ever sustained. Clement had seen his capital in the hands of the enemy, and himself a prisoner ; he had beheld the complete establishment of the Reformation in Germany and Switzerland, and the separation of England from the Poman See ; which last misfortune must have wounded him more than any other, as he could not but be sensible that it was chiefly attribut- able to his own misconduct. In choosing Clement's successor a severe struggle ensued between " Froude, vol. ii. p. 219. 558 PAUL III. EXCOMMUNICATES HENRY Vm. [Book II. the French and Imperial parties, which terminated in the election of Alexander Farnese, a m.an devoted to neither (October 12th 1534). He assumed the title of Paul III. Farnese was a Roman by birth, of good abilities and education. He had studied under Pomponiiis Loetus at Rome, and at P'lorence in the gardens of Lorenzo de' Medici ; yet he was not free from the superstition of astrology, so prevalent in that age. He was of an easy, liberal temper, fond of magnificence, and very popular at Rome ; yet, after all, perhaps his chief recommendations to the conclave were, his age of sixty-seven, and the many rich benefices which his elevation would cause to be distributed among the cardinals. Like most of his predecessors, he was addicted to nepotism, and he openly acknowledged an illegitimate son and daughter. It was he who founded the Farnese palace. On the question of the divorce Farnese had always been on Henry's side, and even after the passing of the final sentence, had advised its reconsideration. After he had ascended the Papal throne, overtures for a reconciliation were made to Henry, both through the French King and indirectly from the Pope himself. But Henry was resolved not to be again deceived, and rejected all these offers.'''^ Paul III. therefore issued, early in November 1535, a bull of excommunication against the King, in which, besides the usual revolting penalties contained in those spii'itual fulminations, Henry was deprived of his throne, his offspring by Anne Boleyn were declared infamous, his subjects were released from their obe- dience, and exhorted to take up arms against him, all his treaties with foreign princes and powers were pronounced null and void, and the nations of Europe were called upon to make war upon him till he should be reduced to obedience to the Holy See.^'* The death of Clement sadly interfered with Francis's designs upon Italy. These had taken a more definite form ever since the death of his mother, Louisa, when he found himself the heir of a larger sum than he had ever before possessed ; and from that time he com- menced his preparations. One of the most important of them, was the placing of the French army upon a new and more effective footing, especially by the raising of seven legions of French infantry, each of 6000 men (1534); a force for which France had relied hitherto upon foreigners.'''''' But the jealousy of the nobility pre- vented this plan from being carried out to its full extent. Francis, however, made his first attacks on the Emperor in Germany. After his treaty with the Pope at Marseilles, he had " Froude. vol. ii. p. 339. " Sismondi, Hist, des Frangais, t. xi, ** Rayualdus, t. xiii. p. 370 sqq. 427 sq. Chap. YIL] FRAXCIS INTRIGUES WITH THE GERMANS. 559 despatched M. de Langey into that country to form an intimate alliance with the princes who were dissatisfied with King Ferdinand's election, and, in particular, to support the restoration of the Duke of Wiirtemberg, whose expulsion we have already recorded, as well as the usurpation of his dominions by the House of Austria. In January 1534, Francis himself had an interview with the Land- grave Philip of Hesse, the chief supporter of Ulrich, at Bar-le-Duc, when he agreed to advance 125,000 dollars for the affair of Wiir- temberg, but under pretence of purchasing Miimpelgard, in order that he might not openly violate the peace of Cambray. He had previously paid down 100,000 crowns to the Dukes of Bavaria, in pursuance of the former treaty respecting the election of the King of the Eomans ; and he engaged to pay a third of the expenses of any war that might arise. The restoration of the Duke of Wiir- temberg we shall have occasion to relate further on. Besides the death of Clement, another reason which induced the French King to postpone awhile his meditated invasion of Italy, was the expedition preparing by the Emperor against the corsairs of Barbary ; for he felt that to attack Charles at a juncture when he was perfoi'ming a service beneficial to all Christendom would draw upon himself the execration of Europe. For many years the coasts of Spain and Italy had been infested by Mahometan pirates. The Knights of St. John, to whom, as we have said, the Emperor had ceded Malta and Grozzo, were quite unable to keep them in check. The danger and incon- venience had much increased since Hayradin, or Chaireddin, sur- named Barbarossa, the son of a Lesbian potter, had by his talents and bravery become the commander of a considerable fleet, and had succeeded to the kino-dom of Aimers on the death of his elder brother Horuc, by whom it had been seized. To Barbarossa resorted, as their proper leader, the renegades and freebooters of Southern Europe, and especially the oppressed Moriscoes of Spain. Barbarossa had not even spared the coast of Pro- vence, and in 1533 Francis had concluded with him a separate truce. His subsequent appointment as the Sultan's admiral brought him into friendly relations with Francis, who contem- plated making use of his fleet, in order to recover Genoa, engaging in return to second the enterprises of the Turks. Nay, the French King even sent an ambassador to Solyman, pressing him to termi- nate his Asiatic wars, and act in person against the Emperor.-''^ This alliance with the infidels, merely for the purposes of his " Negociations, ^x. t. i. p. 253 sqq. 560 PIRACIES OF BARBAEOSSA. [Book II. selfish ambition, must ever stamp Francis with a certain infamy. The states that bordered on the Turks, as Venice, were compelled to keep on terms of friendship with them for their own security ; nay, even the French King's defensive alliance with Solyman may be in some degree excused on the plea of its necessity against the overwhelming power of the House of Austria : but this offensive league, a shameless aiding and abetting of those atrocities which called down the execration of Europe, has no such justification. On the coasts of Italy and Spain, and for some miles inland, no father of a family could retire to rest in the confident security of finding his wife and children in the morning. The corsairs sometimes had a commission from a pasha, a bey, or a renegade, to procure them a certain female, and in this way they would carry off the daughters even of persons of rank and station. In 1534 Barbarossa had infested the coasts of Naples and Sicily with his flying squadrons, inflicting a good deal of temporary damage ; then, after plundering the coasts of Sardinia, he passed over to Tunis, and on pretence of punishing Muley Hassan for his tyranny, took possession of his kingdom.^^ After this increase of Barbarossa's power, nobody could sleep in safety from Messina to Gribraltar. The Spaniards, in particular, were loud in their complaints, and Charles, who had been residing in Spain since 1533, was obliged to dismiss for awhile the politics of Europe, and to direct in person all his forces against Africa, in an expedition which assumed the appearance of a crusade. Before he embarked at Barcelona, the Emperor visited the shrine of om' Lady of Mont- serrat, walking in the procession with uncovered head ; while the admiral's ship displayed for its ensign a crucifix with John and Mary standing by. The only aid which Charles received was from Portugal; not indeed, from King John, but from his brother Louis, w^ho furnished twenty-five ships, and 2000 men fully equipped, besides sixty transports. Francis was applied to for aid, but declined to take any part in the enterprise, although there were many French prisoners in Tunis. The army which assembled at Cagliari, under the command of the Emperor in person, consisted of 25,000 foot and 2000 horse, composed of Grermans, Italians, Spaniards, and Portuguese. The expedition sailed in June 1535, and on the 16th arrived at Porto Farina, near the ancient Utica. The Goletta, the fortress which protects Tunis, was easily taken by storm. On the 20th Barbarossa was defeated in a pitched battle, and put to " Hadschi Chalifeli, Maritime Wars, p. 49 ; cf. Michelet, Beformc, p. 436 sq. Chap. VII.] TUXIS CAPTUEED BY CHAKLES V. 561 flight, and five days afterwards Tunis was captured, with the help of the Christian slaves. In these operations Charles displayed not only personal courage, but also the qualities of a good general. Muley Hassan was restored to his dominions, under a treaty by which he engaged to put down piracy, to leave all Christians unmolested, to allow them the free use of their worship, and to pay an yearly tribute of 12,000 ducats.^^ Having achieved this brilliant conquest, the Emperor re-em- barked, August 17th, and landed at Palermo on the 4th of Sep- tember. Thence he proceeded to Naples, where he spent several months, and celebrated the carnival with fetes and tournaments, in which he himself combated in a Moorish dress. His success seemed to have inspired him with new sentiments ; and he appears at this epoch as the chivalrous cavalier, whilst Francis, his once more brilliant rival, was sinking down into the crafty negociator. It was during his stay at Naples that Charles confirmed the marriage of his natural daughter, Margaret, with Alexander de' Medici, a man stained with every vice. Hippolytus de' Medici, who, after the death of Clement VII., had become the head of that family, had, at the instance of some leading Florentines, preferred a long list of complaints against his relation Alexander to the Emperor, who was then at Tunis. Charles promised to inquire into the charges, on his return ; but meanwhile Alexander bribed the Cardinal's cup-bearer to poison him (August 10th 1535). The charges were nevertheless pursued ; Alexander was cited to Naples ; yet, though condemned by a tribunal, he was suffered to retain his power, and in June 1536 celebrated with royal pomp his marriage with Margaret. The Florentines offered Charles large sums of money to annul the treaty which he had entered into with Clement, and to restore the republic ; but though he rejected their proposals he seems to have put some check to the tyranny of Alexander.^^ After the Emperor's return from Tunis, Francis resolved to invade Italy, for which, what he called the murder of his ambas- sador Maraviglia, or Merveilles, served as a pretext. Th's man, without any publicly accredited post, had been employed by Francis as a sort of spy at the court of the Duke of Milan, and Charles had required Sforza to dismiss him ; but an opportunity arose to put him out of the way in a more effectual manner. Some of Mara- viglia's people had killed Count Castiglione in a street brawl ^° *^ Dumont, Corps Dijplom. t, iv. pt. ii. tiglione had been commissioned to make p. 128. away with Maravic^lia, and was killed ^^ Varchi, Storia Fiorcnt. lib. xiv. ; while breaking into his house. Schlosser, .Tovius, lib. xxxiv. B. xii. S. 199. Cf. Gaillard, t. iv. p. 247 ®" According to another version, Cas- sqq. VOL. I. 562 CHARLES TAKES POSSESSION OF MILAX. [Book II. (July 1533); and ]\Iaraviglia was consequently arrested, and, after a summary process, executed. This act was a pledge of reconcilia- tion between Charles and Sforza, and the latter now received the Emperor's niece in marriage, as previously arranged by treaty. Francis, on the other hand, chose to regard the execution of Maraviglia as a breach of the law of nations, and loudly demanded satisfaction both from Sforza and the Emperor. Sforza had no doubt acted with precipitation and injustice; but Francis, from the causes already mentioned, had postponed his demand of redress till the Emperor's return ; refusing, in the mean time, the most humble apologies on the part of Sforza, and the most liberal offers of reparation. The death of Sforza, October 24th 1535, put matters on a new footing. He was the last of the ducal branch of his house, and left the Emperor his heir, who took possession of Milan as an Imperial fief, and appointed Antonio de Leyva to the government of it. The French King now shifted his ground. He pretended that, by the treaty of Cambray, he had renounced his claims to the Milanese only in favour of Sforza ; that they were consequently revived by the death of that prince without issue ; and on this pre- tence, he demanded investiture from the Emperor. Instead, however, of following up this demand, by striking a vigorous blow, he suffered the Emperor to amuse him some months with fruitless negociations. Charles held out the hope that he would confer the Milanese on the French King's third son, the Duke of Angouleme, except in the case that the latter should succeed to the crown of France; whilst Francis wished to procure it for his second son, who had married Catherine de' Medici, and on the condition that he himself should first hold it during pleasure. Meanwhile, however, Francis, unwilling that his large forces should remain unemployed, resolved to seize Savoy. It is said that Clement VII. first suggested this idea to him during the interview at Marseilles, pointing out that all his former Italian expeditions had failed for want of a proper base of operations. Such a step was now all the more necessary to his contemj^lated invasion of Italy, as Duke Charles III. of Savoy, although uncle of Francis, belonged to the party of the Emperor, and was indeed his brother- in-law, having married Beatrix of Portugal, sister of the Empress. The French King had at hand several pretexts for hostilities. He complained that the Duke had mediated an alliance between the Emperor and the Swiss ; that he had refused to lend the castle of Nice for the interview between himself and the Pope ; that he had sent the Prince of Piedmont to be educated at Madrid ; that he had lent Bourbon jewels, which the latter pawned to raise troops ; Chap. VII.] FRANCIS INVADES SAVOY. 563 that he had written to Charles to congratulate him after the battle of Pavia., &c. INIore particularly was he offended that the Duke, or rather his consort Beatrix, had accepted the county of Asti, which Francis had been compelled to renounce by the peace of Cambray; a proceeding which he regarded almost as a personal affront. Besides all these grievances, Francis set up a claim to part of his uncle's dominions. Louisa, his mother, was the second child of Duke Philibert, and by his first wife ; his uncle, Duke Charles, was the third child, but second son, and by a second wife. Charles, however, had now been thirty years in possession, having succeeded to the dukedom on the death of Philibert in 1504 ; Louisa and her husband, the Duke of Angouleme, had renounced all pretension to Savoy at the time of their marriage ; although, without such renunciation, the claim of the male heir was preferable, the suc- cession being regulated as in France by the salique law. Francis pretended indeed that this law had been abrogated on the marriage of his grandmother, jMargaret of Bourbon, with Philip of Savoy ; but he could never produce the deed of abrogation. Nevertheless he sent Poyet, President of the Parliament of Paris, to make the following demands on his imcle : a payment of 180,000 crowns, the dowry of his grandmother ; La Bresse, the ancient apanage of his grandfather Philip, together with its revenues for the last forty years ; Asti and Vercelli, as possessions of the House of Orleans ; the county of Nice, the barony of Faucigni, and several domains in the marquisate of Saluzzo, as ancient fiefs of Dauphine and Provence ; nay, even Turin itself and great part of Piedmont, as having formerly belonged to Charles of Anjou, brother of St. Louis. Duke Charles offered to refer his nephew's claims to arbi- tration ; but Francis interpreted this offer as a refusal, and declared war against him.^^ Covert hostilities had already taken place between France and Savoy. It had been the object of Duke Charles's reign to obtain possession of Greneva, the feudal sovereignty of which had been ceded to the House of Savoy at the beginning of the fifteenth century by Odon de Villars, Count of Geneva ; but the Grenevese had, as we have seen, protected themselves from the attempts of the Dui^eby an alliance with Friburg and Bern. Farel, the precursor of Calvin, having however abolished Popery at Geneva in 1535, Friburg abandoned the alliance, and the Duke renewed his attempts upon the liberties of the city. Francis had dispatched two small expe- ^' Guiclienon, Hist, de Savoie, t. ii. p. 211 ; Gaillard, t. iv. Dissert, p. 512. o o 2 564 CONQUEST OF SAVOY AND PIEDMONT. [Book 11. ditions to the aid of the Grenevese for the purpose of annoying his uncle ; but both had been defeated by the vigilance of the Duke's officers, and these checks had increased the ill-humour of the French King. In February 1536, the admiral Chabot de Brion, Francis's lieu- tenant-general, marched against Duke Charles at the head of a French army. La Bresse and Savoy were soon overrun; the Duke abandoned Turin on the approach of Chabot, and took refuge at Vercelli, and all the country as far as the Dora Grrossa was speedily subdued. De Brion even crossed that river, and was preparing to attack Vercelli, when the Cardinal of Lorraine, who had arrived at the French camp, April 18th, forbade him to do so, on the ground that as Vercelli properly belonged to the Duchy of Milan, an attack upon it would be a virtual declaration of war against the Emperor. Charles, meanwhile, had proceeded from Naples to Eome, which he entered April 5th, and there learned the progress of the French arms in Savoy. On the 17 th of the same month, he gave an audience to the French ambassadors in the presence of the Pope and assembled cardinals, when he recapitulated in a long speech all his former grounds of complaint against Francis ; and he con- cluded by making three proposals : that the French King should accept Milan for his third son, the Duke of Angouleme, and evacuate Savoy ; or that Francis should meet him in a duel, to be fought in their shirts with sword and dagger, the vanquished to renounce all pretensions either to Burgundy or Milan, as the case might be, and to undertake the extirpation of heresy and the con- quest of the Turks ; or thirdly, to decide their differences by a war. Francis treated the challenge as a joke ; but it is singular that the King who passed for a model of chivalry, should have twice declined to meet the Emperor, whose renown has been thought to rest chiefly on his diplomacy. During these negociations, Charles had collected an army of 50,000 or 60,000 men in Lombardy, with 100 guns, besides another in the Netherlands for the invasion of Picardy, while some bodies of troops on the northern frontiers of Spain threatened Languedoc. By the aid of the Marquis of Saluzzo, who went over to the Imperialists, Fossano was taken, and Charles now called a council of war to deliberate concerning the invasion of France itself. The Marquis del Guasto and Don Ferrante Gonzaga strongly dissuaded him from the enterprise ; Antonio de Leyva as strongly urged it^^, affirming that it had been foretold to him tliat *- P. Jovius, lib. xxxy. Chap. VII.] THE EMPEROR INVADES FRANCE. 565 he should die in France, and be interred at St. Denis. The Em- peror referred the question to the decision of the arm}^, who, with a unanimous shout of approval, declared for the invasion. The Var was crossed July 25th, the anniversary of Charles's victory at Tunis. Elated with his rapid success, the Emperor inquired of La Roche du Maine, the commandant of Fossano, how many days' march it might be to Paris ? " At least a dozen days of battle," replied La Roche, " if the aggressor be not vanquished on the first."63 Francis had neglected the defence of his frontiers, and as the danger approached, resorted, by the advice of Montmorenci, to a barbarous method of defence. The whole district between the sea and the Durance, the Alps and the Rhone, was laid waste ; the mills were destroyed ; the crops burnt ; the wells corrupted ; the towns, even Aix itself, the capital, dismantled and abandoned. Three places only, Aries, Tarascon, and Marseilles, were to be defended against the enemy. Such was the misery which the reckless ambition of Francis had drawn down upon one of his finest provinces. On the other hand, Charles might have been warned by the fate oi Bourbon how difficult an enterprise he had undertaken, though he could hardly have anticipated the desperate measures adopted by the French. The death of the Dauphin Francis at this juncture (August 10th) seemed to open a prospect of accommodation. Charles intimated that, if the French King would demand Milan for the Duke of Angouleme, peace might still be made. Francis, however, was not content with such an arrangement, nor was he disposed to give up his conquests in Piedmont. A projected attempt upon Aries was abandoned ; Avignon, which was inclined to the Emperor, had been seized by Montmorenci, who took up his head-quarters there, whilst Francis himself was at Valence higher up the Rhone. The march of the Imperialists was there- fore directed on Marseilles, to which siege was laid August 25th. Want of provisions, however, and an epidemic among his troops, soon obliged Charles to raise it, and on the 10th of September, he began a disastrous retreat, leaving behind him a considerable quantity of guns and baggage. In one respect the prediction of Antonio de Leyva was accomplished, he left his bones in France — a man in whom the qualities of a great general were deformed by avarice, cruelty, and superstition. Fortunately for the Imperialists they were not pursued by Montmorenci, or hardly one could have escaped ; their loss, as it was, is said to have been 30,000 men, « G. du Bellai, liv. vi. t o 3 566 DISASTROUS RETREAT OF THE IMPERIALISTS. [Book II. Grarcilasso de la Vega, one of the best pastoral poets of Spain, fell in this retreat. He was fired upon by some peasants posted in a tower in the village of Muy, who, from his brilliant equipage, mis- took him for the Emperor. Charles arrived at Genoa towards the end of November, fatigued, unwell, and dispirited, and immediately sailed for Spain. The Imperialists were also repulsed on the northern frontiers of France. Nassau had penetrated as far as Peronne, the siege of which he was forced to abandon, September 11th, about the same time that the Emperor also commenced his retreat. The French still held possession of Piedmont. Turin had not even been attacked, and the French garrison had made successful sorties for eight or ten miles round. These campaigns do not convey a very high idea of the art of war in that age. In spite of the more extended use of artillery and of regularly disciplined troops, warfare still somewhat partook the character of a maraud- ing expedition, nor were those expedients yet adopted by which alone conquests can be secured as well as made. One of the chief causes of this was no doubt a want of funds to keep regular armies for a long period in the field. The death of the Dauphin occasioned in Francis either real or affected suspicions of the most horrible description. The image of the EmjDeror constantly haunted his mind as the chief cause of all his misfortunes, and this morbid impression, heightened probably by the actual presence of Charles in France, suggested to Francis the idea that his son had been poisoned. The Dauphin's cup- bearer, ]\Iontecuculi, was arrested and subjected to the torture, who, being a person of feeble and nervous temperament, said all that was suggested to him while racked with pain, and confessed that he had been suborned by De Leyva and Gronzaga, at the in- direct suggestion of the Emperor himself, to poison the French King and his three sons. Montecuculi was condemned to be quartered alive ; and Francis, attended by his whole court, feasted his eyes with the spectacle of the execution. The only colourable evidence against the accused was that a MS. treatise on poisons had been found in his possession. It is difficult to imagine that Francis could seriously have believed in the Emperor's guilt, and, indeed, at a later period and in cooler moments, he appears to have dismissed the thought. The circumstances of the Dauphin's death suffice to account for it from natural causes, — he had drunk a glass of iced water when heated with playing at tennis. Chap. YIII.] THE AXABAPTISTS OF MUXSTER. 567 CHAPTER nil. About this time, Grermany was the scene of one of the most extra- ordinary triumphs ever achieved by fanaticism. Since the execution of Thomas Miintzer, the anabaptists, to avoid the persecutions to which they were exposed in Germany, had taken refuge in East Friesland, Westphalia, and the Nether- lands, where they made many converts. Early in 1534, Ian Mat- thys, or Mathiasen, a baker of Leyden, who had imbibed the ana- baptists' tenets, and laid claim to supernatural powers, accompanied by his disciple Ian Bockelsohn, repaired to Miinster, the capital of Westphalia, where they were hospitably entertained by Bernhard Knipperdolling, one of the leading citizens. The striking dress, the enthusiastic bearing of the two Hollanders, made a great im- pression, especially on the nuns, among whom they found their first converts ; married women next began to slip into the meetings, bringing their jewels and trinkets as offerings to the prophet and pledges of their devotion. The men were at first alarmed and angry, but, as it happens in such matters, were themselves at length drawn in and converted. The epidemic soon became irresis- tible. iMatthys, who was thought to possess a supernatural potion with which he charmed all those whom he baptized, gradually acquired so much power that he could set the town council at defiance ; and on the 8th of February a struggle for the mastery took place. The anabaptists, mostly strangers, were arrayed in the market-place; the magistrates and unconverted citizens seized the streets leading to it and the gates of the town ; a pitched battle seemed inevitable, when, at the last hour, a capi- tulation was entered into, by which it was arranged that each party should enjoy its own creed, but pay obedience to the civil magis- trate. After such a trial of their strength the sect of the anabap- tists naturally went on increasing. New followers streamed to Miinster from all parts: wives without their husbands, husbands without their wives; sometimes whole families together; all the profligate knaves and half-witted persons in the neighbouring provinces. The fanaticism was increased by the conversion of one Rottmann, an educated clergyman, who promised those who joined o O 4 568 MUXSTER BESIEGED. THE " PROPIIET " SLAIX. [Book II. the sect that they should obtain tenfold what they abandoned. At the ensuing election of magistrates, all offices were filled by enlightened brothers, mostly mechanics, and Knipperdolling was chosen burgomaster. On the 27th of February an armed assembly met in the council house for prayers, when suddenly the prophet, starting up as from a profound sleep, exclaimed that all unbelievers must be driven from the city. " Away," he cried, " with the chil- dren of Esau ! the inheritance belongs to the children of Jacob !" and his voice was answered on all sides by the cry, " Begone, ye Godless ! " On that bitter winter's day, w^hen snow mixed with rain was pelting through the air, all who would not deny their baptism, young and old, men, women, and children, were driven through the gates, where the last penny was taken from them, often the miserable savings of a long life ; and the anabaptists having now sole possession of the city, established their spiritual republic. All the rights of property were abolished, and everything was put together into one common stock, concealment being punished with death. Yet everybody continued to exercise his trade, which was looked upon as a sort of office ; food and drink were provided at the public expense ; and the two sexes, or, as they were called, the brothers and sisters, sat at separate tables, and ate in silence, while a chapter w^as read from the Bible. These proceedings had naturally excited alarm among the neigh- bouring princes ; and in April, the Bishop of Mlinster invested his capital with an army raised among his own subjects, as well as in the Duchy of Cleves and the Electorate of Cologne. The siege, however, made but little progress. The garrison was animated with all the fury of enthusiasm ; the very children had been taught to shoot with the bow, in which they had acquired great dexterity. Matthys, who was no sham enthusiast, having made a sally at the head of a few ill-armed followers, in the full confidence of di'iving the enemy before him, like one of the heroes of Israel, was slain with all his followers, and the mantle of the prophet now devolved to his disciple, Ian Bockelsohn, the son of a headborongh at the Hague, who, after wandering about the world, had settled down as a tailor at Leyden, where he afterwards opened a wine and beer shop. Bockelsohn, or John of Leyden, who was of a goodJy person, well spoken, fiery, and enthusiastic, began his administration by appoint- ing a council of twelve elders, six of whom sat alternately in tribunal every morning and afternoon, and whatsoever they ordered was done. John of Leyden introduced plurality of wives, though not without a struggle, many among the anabaptists themselves viewing such a custom with a natural repugnance ; some even opposed it with Chap. VIIT.] EXECUTIOX OF JOHX OF LEYDEX. 569^ ..rms, but being driven into the town hall, were forced to surrender, and cruelly put to death. John of Ley den was now chosen king, and reigned supreme and despotic. Thrice a week he sat with crown and chain on his throne in the market-place, and held his tribunal; while KnipperdoUing, who had been appointed execu- tioner, stood a step lower, bearing the sword of justice. Bockelsohn had already twelve wuves, when, having courted a thirteenth, who refused his addresses, he beheaded her with his own hands and trampled on her body, while his wives stood around singing " Glory to God in the highest ! " The Bishop of Mtinster's army was at length re-enforced by some Imperial troops, and the city being completely invested, began to suffer all the extremities of famine ; till on the night of June 24th 1535, with the assistance of some within, it was taken by assault. Eottmann and many others perished in the conflict. Bockelsohn, KnipperdoUing, and an associate named Krechting, were taken alive and executed, after having their flesh torn with red-hot pincers, and enduring the most dreadful tortures. The first confessed his errors. Their skeletons were then placed in iron cages, affixed to the tower of St. Lambert's church.* These excesses were detested alike by the moderate of all per- suasions. Towards the end of 1535, the Protestants renewed and extended the League of Smalcald, which now received several accessions, and especially that of Ulrich, Duke of Wiirtemberg, whose restoration had been effected by the Landgrave Philip of Hesse w^th the assistance of French gold ; but not till after the dissolution of the Suabian League, in December 1533, which had frustrated several attempts for that purpose. Philip of Hesse, after his interview with Francis in January 1534, raised an army of 25,000 men with the money supplied by that monarch, and totally defeated the forces of King Ferdinand at the decisive battle of Lauffen, near Heilbronn, May 13th. The rest of Wiirtemberg was soon reduced, and Ulrich reinstated in his duchy. Ulrich's son Christopher had been kept a close prisoner by King Ferdinand, the usurper of the duchy, under pretence of educating him, and in the autumn of 1532 Charles had resolved to carry him into Spain ; but on the way through the Tyrol he contrived to escape, and, after many dangers, got safely into Bavaria, where he was protected by the dukes, his maternal uncles. ' Eespecting the anabaptists of Miinster, Scripp. t. iii.no. 23; Jochmus, Gesck. see Hermann von Kersenbroch, Xarratio dcr Kirchen-Bcf, zu Munster (Miinster, de Obsidione Monasteriensi, in Mencke, 1825). 570 DUKE ULKICII OF WURTEMBERG RESTORED. [Book II. The affairs of Wiirtemberg were settled by the peace of Cadan -, June 27th 1534. Ferdinand waived his claim to the duchy, though with the salvo that it should be regarded as an arriere fief of the empire, dependant on the House of Austria. On the other hand, the confederates of Smalcald, who were, parties to this treaty, consented to recognise P'erdinand as King of the Eomans, stipulating, however, that for the future none should be elected to that dignity without the unanimous concurrence of the Electors. But this transaction owes its chief importance to its effect upon the state of religion in Germany. It was agreed that the Imperial Chamber should no longer exercise any jurisdiction in matters re- latino- to the church, and that all previous decrees in contravention of this principle should be annulled. Wiirtemberg was imme- diately reformed, and thus this revolution must be regarded as forming an epoch in the rise of German protestantism. The Ee- formation was soon afterwards established in Holstein, Pomerania, the jNIarch of Brandenburg, and other places. Besides Wiirtemberg, the King of Denmark (as Duke of Hol- stein), Barnim and Philip of Pomerania, George and Joachim of Anhalt, and the towns of Kempten, Frankfort, Augsburg, Hanover, Hamburg, and others, acceded to the League of Smalcald at its renewal in 1535. The King of France also joined it, and the King of England declared himself its protector. The League was renewed for a term of ten years, and the direction of its affairs was divided half-yearly between the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse, with the title of Captains-General. At the same time John Frederick of Saxony caused a new Protestant Confession to be drawn up by Luther and other divines, under the name of the Articles of Smalcald, which were essentially the same as those of the Confession of Augsburg, but much more strongly worded, betraying the hand of Luther instead of that of Melanchthon, and at the same time revealing the con- sciousness of the Protestants of the strength which they had acquired. In particular the Pope was loudly abused, stigmatised as the anti'Christ, and represented as under the dominion of avarice, pride, lust, and other evil passions.^ Whilst Francis was favouring the Protestants of Germany, where he thought that such a com-se would be injurious to the Emperor, he was persecuting those in his own dominions with circumstances of the greatest cruelty ; though it must be admitted that he had received great provocation from the intemperate zeal of some of 2 A town in Eohemia. The treaty is ^ Luther's Wcr/cc, Th. xvi. S. 2326, in Dumont, t. iv. pt. ii. p. 119. 2323. Chap. VIII.] FRAXCIS I. PEESECUTES THE PROTESTAXTS. 571 the new converts, which was condemned even by the more mode- rate of their own party/ Placards containing gross and violent attacks upon the mass and other articles of the Roman Catholic faith, which Feret, a servant of the King's apothecary, had caused to be printed at Neufchatel, were posted up in the streets of Paris, some even on the Louvre, nay, on the very door of the King's apart- ments at Blois. Montmorency and Cardinal Tournon persuaded Francis, who was natm-ally incensed at the audacity displayed in these placards, that this was a commencemeDt of anabaptism in France, and as his orthodoxy laboured at that time under con- siderable suspicion from his connection with the German Pro- testants, with Henry VIII., and also with the Turks, he seized the opportunity to vindicate it in the cruellest and most signal manner. Some victims had been already made in November 1534 ; the 29th of the following January was signalised by a solemn auto- da-fe. The image of St. G-enevieve, together with her relics, as well as those of the other martyrs preserved at Paris, as St. Ger- main, St. Mery, St. Marceau, St"". Opportune, St. Landry, St. Honore, the head of St. Louis, and all the relics of the St^. Cha- pelle, were carried through Paris in solemn procession, followed by the King on foot, his head uncovered, and bearing a taper in his hand. His three sons, and the rest of the royal family, the great officers of state, cardinals, bishops, and others, bear- ing lighted flambeaux, the Council, the Parliament of Paris, and all other public bodies, joined the procession, which went to Notre Dame to hear a solemn mass. Francis afterwards dined at the Eveche, where, in the presence of a numerous company, he declared in an animated speech, that he would sacrifice with his own hand any of his children who might be infected with the new heresies. In the evening six wretches, who had been con- victed of them, were burnt by means of a machine so constructed as to dip them repeatedly in the flames, till the fire having at length consumed the cords, they fell in and perished. Others to the number of twenty-four were afterwards sacrificed in like manner. At the same time an edict was published for the extir- pation of Lutheran and other heretics, as well as for the suppres- sion of printing ; but the latter does not appear to have been acted upon. These persecutions, which were continued till May with increasing atrocity, caused many Reformers to fly from Paris, and among them John Calvin, destined afterwards to play so dis-^ tinguished a part at Geneva. * Beza, Hist. Eccl liv. i. p. 10 (ed. 1841). 572 MARRIAGE OF JAMES V. OF SCOTLAND. [Book II. To the confederates of Smalcald, who were naturally revolted at this conduct of their pretended ally, Francis excused himself by alleging that the persons burnt were rebels rather than schismatics, and not Lutherans, but " sacramentaries." He even held out the hope of a union between the Church of France and the Lutheran Church of Germany ; and in an autograph letter, January 28th 1535, invited Melanchthon to Paris, to discuss with his doctors the question of the eucharist: but John Frederick, who mistrusted the pliability of Melanchthon's temper, forbade him to accept the invi- tation. Such quarrels are, however, easily accommodated, when the interests of both parties are the same, and at present neither Francis nor the Lutherans were disposed to part. On his way back to Paris, after the retreat of the Emperor from Provence, Francis had been met by James V. of Scotland, who had come to demand the hand of his eldest daughter Madeleine. The alliance of that youthful monarch was sought by the three greatest sovereigns of Europe. Henry VIII. offered James his daughter Mary, but on condition that he should declare himself, after Henry's own example, supreme head of the Scotch Church ; a step which the Scottish King was not prepared to take. The Emperor offered him a choice among three of his female relatives, including also his cousin Mary, for whom he promised to procure the crown of England. Charles, however, since the death of his aunt Catha- rine, in January 1536, had been renewing his advances to Henry VIII. ; and the French King, sensible that his influence in that quarter was declining, determined to strengthen himself by an alliance with Scotland: with which view he offered James the hand of Mary of Bourbon, daughter of the Duke of Vendome. Eesolved to judge for himself, the Scottish King paid a visit, incognito, to Vendome, in September 1536. The lady did not come up to his expectations ; but he saw on this occasion Madeleine, the eldest daughter of Francis, then 17 years of age; a mutual passion is said to have ensued, which the French king found it difficult to oppose; the royal lovers were married January 1st 1537, and after some months spent in fetes and rejoicings, arrived in Scotland, May 28th. Unfortunately, howeyer, a consumptive malady, to which Madeleine was subject, made rapid progress in the harsh climate of Scotland, and soon carried her off (July 7th). James was now pressed by his clergy to marry again. He had already cast his eye on Mary of Guise, widow of the Duke of Longueville, and he despatched Cardinal Beaton and Robert JNIax- well into France to demand her hand. Henry VIIL, who was again a widower, by the death of Jane Seymour in childbed, October 13th Chap. VIII.] LEAGUE BETWEEN FRANCIS AND THE PORTE. 573 1537, endeavoured to disappoint James by making proposals for Mary himself; but Francis, much to his chagrin, preferred the suit of the King of Scots. This marriage, however, which was to be fraught with such momentous consequences both to England and Scotland, was not consummated till the summer of the follow- ing year. Francis meanwhile had been preparing for new wars. In a Lit de Justice, held in January 1537, "Charles of Austria" was sum- moned to appear before the parliament of Paris, to do homage for Flanders and Artois, which, it was alleged, through Charles's viola- tion of the treaty of Cambray, were again vested in the French • King. Such a citation, before the conquest of Flanders, was simply ridiculous ; Charles of course failed to appear, and was condemned as a faithless and contumacious vassal. The views of Francis embraced, besides an attack on the Netherlands, large operations in Italy, to be assisted by an invasion by Sultan Solyman. The French envoy La Foret had concluded with the vizier Ibrahim, in January 1536, an alliance, which, under the appearance of a com- mercial treaty, was in fact a political league ; and it was arranged that, in 1537, Barbarossa should transport an Osmanli army into Apulia for the conquest of Naples, while Francis should cause a diversion in the north, by entering Lombardy with. 50,000 men. Want of vigour on the part of the French King — perhaps even some secret stings of conscience — prevented these plans from being carried out to their full extent. Francis's efforts were first directed towards the Netherlands. He, and Montmorenci hir> lieutenant-general, opened the campaign towards the end of March, and took without much difficulty Hesdin, St. Pol, and St. Yenant ; when the King, with an inconceivable supineness, and content apparently with very small successes after such vast pretensions, dismissed great part of his army, sent another part into Piedmont, and hastened back to Paris to enjoy his pleasures (May). Count Buren, the Imperial general, now appeared in the north with an army of 35,000 men, retook St. Pol, captured Montreuil, and laid siege to Terouenne. Francis hastily reassembled his army, which, under the Dauphin Henry and Montmorenci, was marching to the relief of Terouenne, when proposals of peace were made by Queen Mary, the Flemish Regent ; and on the 30th of July, a truce of ten months was signed at Bomy by her and her sister Eleanor, Queen of France. Solyman, meanwhile, in pursuance of his engagement, had assembled a vast force at Avlona, whence the coast of Otranto may be discerned, and Barbarossa w^as in readiness to transport the 574 EARBAROSSA IXFESTS ITALY. [Book II. Turkish army with a fleet of 100 sail, which had been joined by the French admiral, the Baron St. Blancard, with twelve galleys. All Italy was in consternation. Pope Paul prepared to fly from Eome ; the garrisons were strengthened in all the ports belonging to the Roman States ; Andrew Doria, the Imperial admiral, was compelled to put into Messina to escape J3arbarossa's fleet, and left the coasts of Apulia exposed to the descents of the Turks. Barba- rossa landed 10,000 cavalry near Otranto, but, being unprovided with artillery, they could effect nothing against the larger towns, and contented themselves with making an attempt on Castro, wasting the open country, and carrying off about 10,000 persons into slavery.^ Francis, however, neglected to appear in Italy at the appointed time, and Solyman, therefore, did not follow up the invasion. The events just related took place in the summer, and it was not till the end of September, that Francis prepared to enter Italy. By the 31st of October, the French had penetrated as far as Rivoli, and were desirous of engaging the enemy, when Francis, jealous of his generals, and even of his own son, sent them a message to await his arrival. The prospect of peace may, however, have been the chief cause of his inactivity. After the truce of Bomy, negociatious had been continued at Mon^on, in Aragon ; and on the 16th of November the plenipotentiaries at Monpon signed a truce of three months, to be published in Piedmont by the 27th. The two armies were to be disbanded, and each power was to retain the territory which it held at the time of the publication of the armistice. It was also agreed that plenipotentiaries should be appointed to consider and adjust a definitive treaty of peace. Pope Paul III., who, like the Emperor, was desirous of arresting the progress of the Turks, as well as of putting an end to the schism which distracted the Church, neither of which objects could be effectually accomplished so long as Europe was disturbed by the disputes of Charles and Francis, had long been endeavouring to bring their wars to a termination ; and in these projects he was seconded by the Emperor's sisters, the Queens of France and Hungary. The aged Pontiff did not shrink from fatigue and danger in order to promote a design which he had so* much at heart. He had also, it is true, some personal interests to forward. After the example of his predecessor, he wished to form .con- nexions both with the Emperor and the French King, by manying into their families his two grandchildren, Octavius' and Victoria, * Negociations, &c,, t. i. p. 330 sqq. ; Panita, Int. Vincc. lib. yiii. p. 686. Chap. VIII.] CHARLES AXD FRAXCIS AT XICE. 575 the offspring of his son, Peter Louis Farnese, a sort of Caesar Borgia in miniature, whom he had made Duis:e of Camerino by seizing that place because it had fallen to a female. With these views, Paul arranged a meeting between Charles and Francis at Nice, where a definite pacification might be settled. Francis readily agreed to an interview which offered him a chance of gaining his ends by negociation instead of arms ; and the Emperor, on his side, felt the burthen of supporting at once a war with France and with the Turks, and endeavouring at the same time to re-establish the Imperial authority in Grermany. His finances were far from flourishing. The Sovereign of half Europe, as well as Mexico and Peru, could not raise money enough to pay his mercenaries. The Netherlands were his true Indies ; but his subjects there, though able, were not always willing to pay, and serious symptoms of revolt had manifested themselves at Ghent on the subject of taxes. When Paul arrived at Nice, jMay 27th 1538, he found that the Duke of Savoy was not inclined to admit either himself or the Monarch s into the only town which the fortune of war had left him. The Pope was obliged to take up his abode in a Franciscan convent in the suburbs ; the French King established his quarters at the village of Villanuova, about two miles from the town, while the Emperor was fain to abide in the little port of Villafranca, in the galley which brought him. Paul could not prevail upon Charles and Francis to see each other, and he therefore received the visits of both in turn, and acted as mediator between them. A mutual mistrust, not unnatural after all that had passed between them, pos- sessed the minds of the two Sovereigns. They could not persuade themselves that any agreements would be faithfully observed ; and under these circumstances the only method for obtaining a peace seemed to be to enter into no prospective conditions at all, but to treat on the basis of uti possidetis. Such a method was highly favourable to Francis, as it would give him Savoy and a great part of Piedmont, a possession almost as valuable as the Milanese, and much more conveniently situated with regard to his own dominions. Charles, indeed, felt some shame, though Beatrix was dead, in thus abandoning his brother-in-law, the Duke of Savoy, whatever feel- ings Francis might entertain in stripping his uncle. The wounds of political morality, however, are soon salved, and, as commonly happens in such cases, the helpless party was sacrificed. One of the conditions of the proposed peace was, that Francis should join the Holy League against the Turk, recently concluded between the Pope, the Emperor, and Venice ; but Francis was not inclined 576 TREATY OF TOLEDO. [Book II. to an open and public breach with the Grand Signior^, and a truce of ten years was therefore substituted for a regular treaty of peace (June 1 8th). Both parties thought, and probably with reason, that such a truce was as likely to be observed, and to last as long, as a more formal treaty. Thus Bresse, Savoy, and half of Piedmont, occupied by Francis, remained in his hands, while the rest of Piedmont and the Milanese were retained by the Emperor. Hesdin was restored to the French, but Francis yielded respecting G-uelderland, and recognised the Duke's promised rever- sion to the Emperor. The county of Nice alone was left to the Duke of Savoy. The Pays de Vaud was retained by the Swiss, and Geneva preserved its newly acquired liberty — a circumstance by w^hich both monarchs unconsciously sowed the seeds of future revolt in their own dominions, by enabling that city to become the seat of Calvin's reformation. Such is the Nemesis of subtle and grasp- ing politicians. Francis also obtained Mirandola, and altogether his position was vastly improved by this treaty when compared with that of Cambray.'^ Charles of Savoy was abused as well as robbed. It was said that he had drawn his misfortunes on his ot\ti head by his want of complaisance to his powerful visitors, although his reluctance to admit a foreign garrison during the congress was natural enough under the circumstances. Early in the follow- ing year the truce was converted into a " perpetual peace," ^ by the treaty of Toledo (January 10th). Paul III. succeeded during these conferences in effecting one of his matrimonial projects. Margaret of Austria, the Emperor's natural daughter, had in the preceding year become a widow, throuorh the assassination of her husband, Alexander de' Medici. The roving eyes of that tyrannical and licentious prince were often directed towards the purest as well as highest among the Florentine ladies, and not content with robbing them of honour, he publicly boasted of his success. But his kinsman, Lorenzino, who shared and assisted his pleasures, meditated, under the cloak of that base office, the means of procuring the supreme power for himself. Alex- ander had been captivated by Lorenzino's still young and hand- some aunt, the wife of Leonardo Ginori, but had long sought her favour in vain, when Lorenzino pretended that he had procured him an assignation. Blinded by lust, Alexander suffered himself to * Bdazione di Niccolo Tiepolo, in in tliose days, and ridiculed by Leibnitz Tommasoo, Relations des Ambnssadeurs in the -preface to his Codex Juris Gentit(7)i Venitinis sur Ics affaires de France au Dij^Iomaticus, where he cites with appro- xvi^ siecle {Boc. Ind.) t. i. p. 214 sqq. bation the sign of a Dutch shopkeeper, ' Dumont. t. iv. p. ii. pt. 169, sqq. the picture of a cemetery, with the in- * A magnificent title frequently used scription, A la jpaix perj>etuelle ! Chap. VIII.] GK.\XD-DUCHY OF TUSCAXY. 577 be enticed into a dark and secret chamber, where, as he lay expect- ing the promised fair one, he was set upon by Lorenzino and a hired assassin, and stabbed to the heart (January 6th 1537). Want of resolution, however, prevented Lorenzino from reapino- the fruits of his crime. Struck with remorse and horror at what he had done, instead of rousing the people and putting himself at their head, he fled precipitately to Bologna, and thence to Venice. The Florentines, by the advice of Cardinal Cibo and Francis Gruicciardini, now placed the youthful Cosmo de Medici, a descen- dant of the younger branch of the family, at the head of their affairs, and the choice was subsequently ratified by the Emperor. Cosmo caused Lorenzino to be murdered at Venice, in 1547. In process of time he reduced all Tuscany under his dominion ; and in 1569 Pope Pius V. gave him the title of Grrand-Duke of Tuscany, which was afterwards confirmed to the son of Cosmo by the Em- peror Maximilian IL Cosmo was himself desirous of marrying his predecessor's widow, as a means of securing the Emperor's favour, and establishing his own position at Florence ; but Paul succeeded in obtaining her hand for his grandson Oetavius Farnese, and the marriage was celebrated soon after the conference at Nice. His scheme for marrying his granddaughter, Victoria, to Antony of Bourbon, son of Charles Duke of Vendome, was not successful. Francis promised, indeed, to second the Pontiff's views ; but Antony married Jeanne d'Albret, only child of Henry King of Navarre and Margaret sister of Francis L, and became the father of Henrv IV. of France.^ The refusal of Charles and Francis to see each other at Nice had impressed their respective Courts, as well as the Pope, with the idea that, though from necessity they had agreed upon a truce, they were still at deadly enmity, and that the war would be renewed at the first opportunity. This, however, was an erroneous notion. Their unwillingness to have an interview at Nice seems to have arisen from a wish not to expose their plans before witnesses, and it is probable that the two monarchs had already arranged there a future meeting. However this may be, Francis lingered after the breaking up of the conference at an abbey in the diocese of Nimes, where the arrival of the Imperial fleet at Aigiies Mortes being announced to him (July 14th), he immediately mounted his horse and rode to the coast. A boat conveyed him to the Emperor's galley, and Charles helped him with his own ^ Jeanne was first married Jiily loth Berg, and Juliers; but tlie marriage was 1540, being then only 12 years of age, never consummated, and was afterwards to WiJliam de la Marck, Duke of Cleves, annulled, VOL. I. P P 578 CHARLES AND FRANCIS AT AIGUES MORTES. [Book II. hand to ascend the side. " Brother, behold me once more your prisoner ! " exclaimed Francis, as he set his foot upon the deck. This mark of confidence was returned on the following day by the Emperor, who paid Francis a visit on shore. Queen Eleanor embraced, alternately, a brother and a husband, and the oblivion of past offences appeared to be so complete that even Andrew Doria was presented to Francis. During the few days that the Sovereigns remained here, they had long interviews, to w^hich only the Queen, the Cardinal of Lorraine, and the Constable Mont- morenci, were admitted on the side of France, and on that of the Emperor, Grranvella, Keeper of the Seals, and the Grrand-Com- mander Govea. On the 17th of July, the King conducted the Emperor to his galle}^, and the meeting terminated. The scene just described is calculated, at first sight, to fill us with astonishment. A little previously, Francis had solemnly con- demned the Emperor as a rebellious vassal, nay, had even accused him of poisoning the Dauphin ; whilst Charles had publicly chal- len<^ed the French King to mortal combat, with every mark of aversion and contempt. The explanation of this altered policy is chiefly to be sought in the influence acquired, at this period, by Montmorenci. That prince, a man of harsh, overbearing, and arro- o^ant character, but possessing considerable administrative ability, had recently been elevated to the dignity of constable, which, since the treason of Bourbon, had remained in abeyance ; and, being a bigoted Eoman Catholic, he was naturally inclined towards the policy of the Emperor, the consistent and persevering foe of the heretic and the infidel ; while the course hitherto pursued by France had necessitated leagues with the Lutherans and the Turks. Francis, effeminated by luxury and debilitated by disease ^^, was more than ever inclined to intrust to other hands the reins of government ; though in the temporary, but violent, reactions from his lethargy of pleasure, one idea, the dream of his life, still haunted him — the recovery of the Milanese. This Montmorenci taught him to expect, not from arms, but negociation ; and Francis was suffi- ciently humbled, or sufficiently indolent and enervated, to seek from the good- will of his rival an object which he had in vain attempted to wrest from him by force. In a letter dated from Nimes (July 18th), only a day or two after the interview at Aigues Mortes, he declared that thenceforth the affairs of the Emperor and his own should be the same.^^ '" Soon after the interview at Aigues which wasted his faculties and shortened Mortes, he was laid up at Compi^gne by his days. L. Guyon, Lemons divcrscs, ap. a fresh attack of a disgraceful malady, Martin, t. yiii. p. 254. brought upon him, it is said, by the sin- " Archives C'urieicses, t. iii. p. 26. gular revenge of an injured hus^band, Chap. VIII.] CHANGE OF FRE^X1I POLICY. 579 The change in the policy of France soon became manifest. Two of the questions discussed at Aigues Mortes seem to have turned on the affairs of religion, and the conduct to be observed towards England. There being no longer any reason to conciliate the Grerman Protestants, the severity of the persecutions in France was redoubled. An inquisitor at Toulouse, who had been con- verted by the very persons whom he was appointed to punish, was burnt in that town (September 10th 1538); and on the 10th December following appeared an edict against the Eeformers, far more severe than any hitherto published. Nor was it lona* before the Grerman Lutherans received intimation of this change. Mont- morenci signified to Duke Ulrich of Wiirtemberg, that he must not attack the neighbouring Catholic bishops —which, indeed, he was not contemplating — unless he wished to draw down upon himself the indignation of France.^^ The French policy with regard to England was also completely altered, and seemed to be now founded on the presumption that a reconciliation between Henry VIII. and the Emperor was im- possible. As there appeared to be no longer any need for courtino" the friendship of the English monarch, Francis even began to con- sider whether it might not be for his interest to break completely with Henry. The obligation to pay 100,000 crowns a year, according to the treaty of Moore, was irksome ; the payment had been suspended with Henry's consent, in consideration of the distress of France consequent on the Emperor's invasion; and after the truce of Nice, Francis, whose practice it was to observe treaties no longer than was convenient, began to question altogether the validity of the debt. Several causes of coolness had sprung up between the two monarchs. We have already alluded to Francis's refusal of Henry's suit te Mary of Guise. That was not the only French princess wdth whom Henry entertained matrimonial projects. He had also thought of another daughter of the house of Gruise, and of Mademoiselle de Vendome; but before makino- his choice, he wished to see all these ladies at Calais. So un- chivalrous a proposal excited the derision of Francis, whose minis- ter wrote to Castillon, ambassador at the English Court: — "The King has laughed at the conferences they have had with you on this subject. It seemed, he says, as if in England they selected their wives like their ponies ; that is, to get together a good quantity, make them trot, and take that which wdll go the easiest." '^ Henry's 12 Sleidan, lib. xii. ; Eibier, Lcttrcs et in Le Grand, Hist, du Divorce, t. iii. p. Mem. d'Etat, t. i. p. 423. 638. The method would, howerer, have " Letter of M. Bochetel to Castillon, saved trouble in the case of the " Flan- P P 2 580 PAPIST SCHEMES AGAINST HENRY VIII. [Book II. passion, indeed, could not have been \rery violent, as lie was at the same time soliciting the hands of the widow of Duke Sforza and of Queen ^lary, the Emperor's sister. If Henry was regarded by Charles and Francis with an evil eye on account of his heresy, the same cause naturally excited a great deal more indignation at Kome. After the execution of Anne Boleyn, indeed, both the Pope and the Emperor had endeavoured to effect a reconciliation with the English King, and Charles seems to have pursued that object down to the very time of the conference at Nice. From some diplomatic papers still extant '^, it appears, that even while at Villa Franca in the summer of 1538, the Em- peror made proposals to Henry for a league against France. The scheme seems to have been connected with the marriage before alluded to, between Henry VIII. and Charles's niece, the widowed Duchess of Milan, as well as with a plan for making the Emperor's son-in-law, Don Louis of Portugal, Duke of Milan, and giving him the hand of the English princess Mary. But after Charles's close alliance with France all these projects vanished, and in Nov. 1538 we find Henry complaining of his coldness. ^^ In the same year Paul III. renewed against Henry his bull of deprivation. That Pontiff dreamt of nothing less than hurling the English monarch from his throne by means of the new alliance between the Emperor and France. The scheme was fomented by the intrigues of Cardinal Eeginald Pole, who, as a member of the House of York, had some pretensions to the English crown, and who, in the true spirit of the Popish hierarchy, while thus conspiring against his sovereign and benefactor, affected to give out that it was only from his love for Henry and for that prince's own good, that he was striving to reduce him into obedience to the Pope.^^ The French Court entered into the plan. There was undoubtedly discontent in England, which Castillon, the French ambassador, represented to be such, that if the Emperor and the Kings of France and Scotland combined together, it would be easy not only to dethrone Henry, but even to conquer and partition his kingdom ; the northern part of which, as far as the Humber, might then be given to Scotland, the Emperor, taking the midland counties between the Humber ders mare." Henry VIII. seems to have edited by Mr. Gairdner for the Kolls inherited from his father his niceties Commission, p. 223 foil. and peculiarities respecting the fair sex, '* MS. in Brit. Mus., ap. Turner, Henry to judge from the minute and amusing VIII. vol. ii. p. 487. instructions given by Henry VII. to his " Harl. MS. p. 59, ibid. p. 490. ambassadors to observe and report upon '^ His Letters to Cromwell, in Burnet, the person of the young Queen of Naples vol. iii. pt. ii. Records, no. 53. He had (1505), whom he then thought of marry- adopted the same style in his book, Pro iug. See the Memorials of Henry VII., Ecclesiasticce unitatis Dcfensione. Chap. YIIL] HEXRY'S M.\RRIAGE WITH AXXE OF CLEYES. 581 and the Thames, and Francis the southern part as far as Wales. Charles declined the proposal on the ground that his first care must be to reduce the Lutherans and Turks ; adding, however, that he should see with pleasure the enterprise undertaken by Francis, who had not, like himself, to contend with domestic enemies. But Francis, or rather the Constable, was not disposed to enter upon it alone, and Pole and his patron the Pope were obliged to adjourn the project. The agitation of these schemes, however, occasioned Henry a good deal of alarm. In March 1539, an embargo was laid on the Flemish shipping in English ports. The English coast was fortified under the King's personal inspection, the fleet w^as increased to 150 sail, and levies of troops were made throughout the kingdom.'^ It was the same danger that induced Henry to draw closer his alliance with the confederates of Smalcald, and with that view also, under the guidance of Cromwell, to contract his unfortunate marriage with Anne of Cleves. But this subject requires a few words of explanation. We have already mentioned ^^ that in 1505 the Archduke Philip obtained possession of G-uelderland and Zutphen. He did not, however, hold them long. Charles d'Egmont escaped from custody and recovered his dominions, which he retained with the support of the French ; and when, in 1508, the League of Cambray was formed, he was provisionally confirmed in them, though he was compelled to give up a few places. Like Sickingen in Germany, Charles d'Egmont was a sort of robber-prince and breaker of the public peace ; his dominions became the resort of all the unquiet spirits of the surrounding districts ; and, being constantly sup- ported by France, he caused the Flemish government a great deal of trouble and anxiety. In 1528, however, Charles V. compelled him by the treaty of Grorcum to engage that he would appoint the Emperor his successor in Guelderland and Zutphen, in case he himself should leave no heir ; and this arrangement was recognised by Francis I. in the treaty of Cambray (1529). But in spite of these encraorements, Charles d'Eo^mont made in 1534 a formal dona- tion of his dominions after his decease to the King of France, in consequence of which a PVench envoy repaired to Guelderland, and received an oath of fidelity from the commandants of the principal fortresses. Among the people of the country this step was highly unpopular. They washed to be the vassals neither of " Hall, p. 827 foil. ; Despatches of Marillac, ap. Ranke. Deutsche Gcsch. B. iv. S. 181. '8 Above, p. 246. P P 3 582 TURKISH AXD VEXETIAX WAR. [Book II. Francis nor of Charles, and they turned their eyes on a neighbour- ing prince, John III., Duke of Cleves, who had the nearest pre- tensions to the inheritance, although the Duke of Lorraine also asserted a claim in right of his mother Philippina, sister of Charles d'Egmont. In 1538 the Duke of Guelderland, at the instance of his states, entered into a treaty with John III., by which he engaged to leave his dominions to the latter's son, William, sur- named the Eich, and by the death of the Duke in June, William came into possession the same year. In the following February he also became Duke of Cleves by the death of his father John. His possessions now extended from the Werre to the Meuse, and along both banks of the Khine from Coloo^ne to the neicrlibourhood of Utrecht ; for his father had obtained Berg, Jiilich, and Eavensberg by marrying the daughter and heiress of the last duke. Sibylla, a sister of this powerful prince, was married to John Frederick the Elector of Saxony, and in 1539 Henry VIIL, by the advice of the Protestant members of his council, married Anne of Cleves, another sister ; a step which proved the downfall of Cromwell, and even- tually drove the King into the arms of the Catholic party. After the failure of Barbarossa's attempt on Italy, Sol3^man turned against Venice the preparations he had made for the conquest of Naples ; in which design he was encouraged by the French envoy. La Foret. In August 1537, the Turkish armament assembled at Avlona was directed against Corfu. The attack was, however, repulsed ; Solyman w^as compelled by disturbances in Asia to with- draw great part of his forces, leaving only enough to besiege Napoli di Eomania and Malvasia, the chief towns held by the Venetians in the Morea. Barbarossa with his fleet, closely followed by the French squadron under St. Blancard'^, proceeded to attack the islands of the Archipelago and the ^gean, most of which fell during this year and the next into the hands of the Turks. The Holy League, effected in 1538, proved of little benefit to the Venetians. Doria, who seems to have cared little for Venetian interests, performed nothing worthy of his ancient renown, and in March 1539, the republic concluded a three months' truce with the Porte, which was subsequently prolonged till the end of September, for the purpose of negociati,ng a peace. In these nego- ciations, Eincon, a Spanish adventurer, who had succeeded Marillac as French envoy at Constantinople, pretended to second the Venetians, but only to betray them. He had purchased from the secretaries of the Council of Ten and of the Pregadi, the secret '" St. Blancard's entertaining journal of the cruise is published in the Negocia- tions, ^x. t. i. p. 3-iO sqq. Chap. VIII.] CHARLES S PROCEEDIXGS IX SPAIX. 583 that the Venetian government was resolved on a peace at any price ; and this intelligence he communicated to the Porte. Hence in the treaty at length concluded in November 1540, the hardest terms were insisted on by the Sultan ; and besides Napoli di Eomania, Malvasia, and other places, the Venetians were com- pelled to cede all the islands captured by Barbarossa and to pay 300,000 ducats: conditions which so reduced the power of the haughty republic that she was obliged to place herself as it were under the protection of France.^^ After his interview with Francis at Aigues Mortes, Charles had proceeded into Spain, where he soon became involved in disputes ^\dth the Cortes. The Spaniards, and especially the gi-andees, murmured at the increased burthens to which they were subjected, as well as at the drain of their best troops for enterprises in which the nation had no concern ; and the Cortes refused to vote a larger sum than 40,000 ducats. The grandees, headed by the con- stable Velasco, otherwise a staunch adherent of the house of Austria, were highly offended at a plan of Charles's to introduce an excise to which their order would be subject. Velasco insisted that the payment of taxes was the badge of the peasantry ; that to impose them on the nobles not only curtailed their privileges, earned by the blood of their forefathers, but even derogated from their honour ; and he offered the inconvenient and almost insulting advice, that in order to better his circumstances Charles should remain at home and diminish his expenditure. The nobles, he maintained, w^ere bound merely to serve the King at their own expense in his wars, and that only in defence of Spain. Charles, finding that he could obtain no more from the Cortes, civilly dis- missed them in February 1539. But by this parsimony they even- tually lost all their influence. This was the last general assembly of the Cortes, for Charles forbore to summon a body from which he could obtain so little, and consequently to consult them on public aff^iirs. The Cortes were henceforth composed only of the deputies of eighteen towns, who were convened jjvo fornid to grant the taxes to which the commonalty were subject. The Spanish nobles now retired to their country seats, or shut themselves up in their palaces ; quadrangular buildings in the Moorish fashion, without windows towards the street, and enclosing a court planted with trees. They were men of vast possessions, some of them having incomes of 100,000 ducats or more, with 30,000 families dependent on them. They were haughty beyond ^^ Ziukeisen, Gcsch. des osm. Rcichcs, B. ii. S. 807. P P 4 584 REVOLT OF GHENT. [Book II. imagination. Each of them kept his little court, which was often adorned with a splendid body-guard of 200 men. Their consorts were served by ladies on their knees ; the page who handed the cup remained kneeling till his mistress had finished drinking. Being excluded from public affairs, the nobles squandered their revenues in rivalling one another in magnificence ; they lost all their martial habits, ran into debt, and reduced themselves at last to fear the monarch whom they had once caused to tremble. Charles V. seldom held a court ; Philip II. knew how to keep the grandees at a distance ; and both would trust only those whose fidelity, like that of the Duke of Alva, was beyond all suspicion.^^ As the Emperor had thus to contend in Spain with the pride and power of the nobles, so be had to repress in the Netherlands the factious spirit of his commercial subjects, which had also been roused on the question of taxation. We have already alluded to the refusal of the citizens of Grhent to pay an impost that had been levied on them. In 1537 Mary Queen of Hungary, Regent of the Netherlands, liad obtained from the states assembled at Brussels a vote of 1,200,000 florins, the payment of which was proportionally allotted to the various towns and provinces. To this assessment all submitted except Charles's native city, Ghent, which, by means of its guilds and the exertions of Van Artevelde had achieved a democratic constitution and asserted the right of levying its own taxes. The population of G-hent was divided into three classes : the Poorters, or rich, the mechanics and the proletarians. Of these the last two had in certain cases a voice in the orovernment of the city, and they now refused to make any money payment, though they offered to find troops according to ancient custom, while the Poorters declined both the one and the other ; in con- sequence of which refractoriness, Mary directed all citizens of Grhent to be arrested, wherever they might be found. From this order Ghent appealed to Charles, who, however, refused to hear the case, and referred it to the Grand Council of Mechlin, by which the citizens v/ere condemned. The latter now rose in open revolt, expelled the nobility and Imperial officers, put their city in a posture of defence, and in 1539 sent deputies to the King of France to solicit his protection as their sovereign ; which, indeed, he had claimed to be when, as already related, he had two years previously, in a solemn Lit de Justice, summoned the Emperor to appear before him as his vassal. But the views of Francis were now completely changed. His present policy was to court, instead of 2. -Ranke, Filrsten und Volkcr, B. i. S. 221 ff. Chap. VIU.] THE EMPEROR PASSES THROUGH FRAXCE. 585 to oppose, the Eniperor, and he not only refused this demand for aid, but even acquainted Charles with the plans of his rebellious subjects, although they had been communicated to him in the strictest confidence. At the same time he renewed an offer which he had made some months before, that the Emperor should travel through France in case his presence was required in Belgium. Charles accepted this offer, but it is impossible to believe that for the mere convenience of it he consented to surrender the Milanese. The story rests on the authority of Du Bellay ^2, who has been copied by other writers. It is difficult in such cases to jDrove a negative, but a little reflection will show the utter impro- bability of the tale. The revolt had been going on two or three years ; it did not extend beyond Ghent and one or two smaller towns, and could easily have been put down without Charles's presence, whose only object in going thither was to make the punishment of his rebellious fellow-townsmen more signal and con- spicuous. He saved no time by passing through France, the journey, from the ceremonies attending his reception, having oc- cupied a quarter of a year ! If he was averse to a long sea voyage, yet even the route through Italy and Germany would not have occupied three months, and there was nothing to deter him from it, as he was then on very good terms w^ith the German Pro- testants. Indeed, he accepted the offer of Francis with reluctance, and only because the refusal would have betrayed a want of confi- dence ^^ ; for besides the danger of being seized as a hostage, he foresaw that it would expose him to the importunities of the French court. The invitation, like the betrayal of the citizens of Ghent, was clearly a part of Montmorenci's policy to obtain from the gratitude of Charles what force had failed to extort, and Francis's much extolled generosity merely an attempt to sell at an exorbitant price a very common act of hospitality. Charles set out in October 1539. The King's tw^o sons and the Constable Montmorenci met him at Bayonne, when the latter offered the two princes as hostages for the Emperor's safety ; but Charles would not hear of it, and insisted on their accompanying him on his journey. The meeting of the two sovereigns at Loches was celebrated with magnificent fetes, which were repeated at ^2 Mhnoircs, liv. viil (Petitot, t. xix. Roy et des S"-, et passer le plus legere- 295.) ment et diligemment que faire se pourra, -^ This appears from a letter from (xcuscmt de ricn traicUr /a, comme a la Charles to his sister, the Queen of Hun- A-erite, ne conviendi'oit, ni le voudroit gary. Madrid, September 30, 1839: — faire, sans avoir parle au Roy, Mgr. '■'• Puisq^ie Von est venu a tant, fault de- notre frere, et a vous." — Raumer's Hist, monstrtr entlere confidence diudlt^QigTXQUv lasckcnbicch, 1842, p. 561. 586 PUXISHMEXT OF GIIEXT. [Book II. Amboise, Blois, Orleans, and Fontainebleau, but surpassed by the entry into Paris, January 1st 1540. In tlie midst of these festi- vities many little accidents occurred to disconcert and alarm the Emperor. An officious perfumer nearly stifled him with smoke ; the Chancellor Poyet was awkward enough to knock down a large piece of wood on his head and wound him severely ; and the Duke of Orleans, jumping suddenly with French vivacity on the crupper of his horse, embraced him tightly, and told him to consider him- self a prisoner. Brusquet, the court fool, asserted his pre-eminence in this play of wit. He kept what he called a book of fools, in which he wrote the name of Charles V. for having ventured into France. " But what," asked Francis, " if I let his Majesty depart unmolested ? " " In that case," replied Brusquet, "I shall rub out his name and insert yours." These pleasantries were, however, seasoned with importunities respecting the Milanese, w4iich more than counterbalanced, says Brantome ^^, all the honours and good cheer w^hich the Emperor experienced. Charles crossed the frontier towards the end of January 1540, and entered Grhent without opposition on the 24th of February, his birthday. Although the leaders of the revolt, as if unconscious of any criminal act, did not attempt to escape, the Emperor pro- ceeded agamst them with great severity. The bell of Roland, that formidable tocsin, which had so often called the inhabitants to arms, was destroyed ; the sheriffs and principal citizens were obliged to ask pardon on their knees, bareheaded and barefooted ; twenty of the popular magistrates were executed, and all of them deposed, their places being supplied by persons devoted to the Emperor's service ; the ancient privileges of the city were suppressed, and a citadel erected on the site of the ancient Abbey of St. Bavon, in order to coerce the inhabitants, the fines levied upon them serving to defray the expense of building it. Oudenarde and Courtrai, which had partaken in the revolt, were also punished. Thus an end was put to the liberties of Grhent, for which she had so often fought. Her commercial prosperity vanished with them, and passed away to Antwerp ; her republican spirit to Holland, where new Arteveldes were soon to arise.^'^ Charles had scarcely set his foot in the Netherlands, when the two French ambassadors who had accompanied him, demanded for their master the investiture of Milan, as the price of his passage 24 T_ {I ifiscours, 46, p. 254 (ed. 1822). gicn, t. iii. pt. ii. p. 263 sqq. ; Arendt, Bcr " For the revolt of Ghent ^ee Jean Genttr Avf stand vom Jahrc, 1539; in d'Hollander, Discours dts I'roufibs ad- Raumer's Hist. Taschinbuch, 1842. On vniies en la Ville de Gand, 1539, in Charles's passage through France, Kibier, Hoy nek van Papendrccht's Anakcta Bd- t. L p. 487 sqq. Chap. VIIL] DISGRACE OF MOXTMOREXCI. 587 throuofli France. Nettled at this demand, Charles bei:r£red that they would first suffer him to attend to his own affairs ; stated that he could enter into no discussions without consulting his brother Ferdinand, w^hom he expected to meet in the Netherlands; and when further pressed, denied entirely having made the promise imputed to him. When the subject \vas renewed at Ghent, Charles declared, that he would never consent to cede the ^Milanese to France, and thus sever the chain of connection between his own dominions ; but he offered to marry his eldest daughter to the Duke of Orleans, and to give her as a dowry, either his Flemish possessions, together with Burgundy, or the Charolais, or else the Milanese : a proposition that was rejected by Francis. Both parties, however, announced their intention of observing the truce of Nice. The Emperor, after waiting some months to ascertain whether Francis was inclined to renew the negociations, invested his son Philip with the Milanese at Brussels, October 11th 1540.^^ Montmorenci's policy, which had thus completely failed, ended in his own disgrace. Early in 1541, he found himself compelled to quit the court, and retire to Ecouen ; yet during the six years in which he lived in retirement, he continued to enjo}'- the favour of the Dauphin. Meanwhile Francis, vexed with his disappoint- ment, and ashamed of the truckling part Vvdiich he had been made to play, began to meditate an occasion to renew the war with the Emperor. This was not long in offering itself: but before we relate the events of the next campaigns, we must direct our atten- tion for aw^hile to the affairs of the German Protestants, as well as of the Turks ; with both of whom JVancis now strove to draw closer the bonds of union and friendship. 2" Ribier, t. i. p. 542 (522) ; Gaillard, t. ir. p. 8 ; Dumout, t. iv. pt. ii. p. 140. 5»8 HOLY LEAGUE OF XUKEMBERG. [Book II. CHAPTER IX. The efforts of Pope Paul III. had been directed to the establish- ment of peace in the Church as well as between the Emperor and France. He had dispatched nuncios to the Protestant as well as the Catholic princes of Germany, in order to bring about an under- standing respecting a general council, and on this subject the nuncio Vergerio had had an interview in Saxony with Luther, but without much success. In June 1536 Paul issued briefs for the assembly of a council at Mantua in May of the following year. The assembly was, however, opposed on various grounds by the Kings of France and England, and by the Duke of Mantua himself, as well as by the Grerman Protestants, who objected to an Italian town. The latter were not of course any better pleased with the substitution of Vicenza, where the Papal legates, Campeggio and Aleander, nominated to preside over the council, actually remained several months ; but the war having then broken out between the Emperor and France, not a single prelate appeared. The Re- formers had now begun to question altogether the expediency of a council, and required that it should at least be composed, as in ancient times, not only of priests, but also of princes and the representatives of the States ; and that the Pope should appear in it not as a judge but as a party. ^ The Emperor's endeavours to support the Pope's authority had only tended still further to alienate the Protestants. The Imperial Chancellor, Held, who was dispatched to back the representations of the Papal nuncio, Yorstius, to the confederates of Smalcald, behaved intemperately, and the debates which ensued were vio- lent and unsatisfactory. Held subsequently travelled about the country canvassing against the Protestants, and at length suc- ceeded in organising a Catholic League, called the Holy League OF Nuremberg (June 1538). The principal members of this confederacy, which was established for a term of ten years, were King Ferdinand, Duke G-eorge of Saxony, the Dukes of Bavaria, the Archbishops of Mentz and Salzburg, with a few other Catholic > Sai-pi, Storia del Cone. Trident, p. 74 sqq. (efl. 1619). Chap. IX.] DUCHY OF SAXOXY BECOMES PROTESTAXT. 580 princes. This league was the more alarming to the Protestants on account of the truce concluded at the same time between Charles and Francis at Nice. It was subsequently confirmed by the Emperor at Toledo (May 20th 1539), who contributed to it 50,000 florins.2 In the spring of that year a conference took place at Frankfort between the Elector Palatine on the part of the Emperor, and Joachim IL, Elector of Brandenburg, as representative of the leacrue of Smalcald. The latter prince, who succeeded to the Electorate in 1535, was as warm in the Protestant cause as his predecessor, Joachim L, had been in support of the old religion. At this meeting a sort of truce was arranged for a period of fifteen months, by which it was agreed that the decree of the Diet of Nuremberg, and the edict of pacification issued at Eatisbon in 1532, should continue to be observed till the next Diet, and that meanwhile the jurisdiction of the Imperial Chamber in religious matters should remain suspended. In the interim the disputed points of doctrine were to be amicably discussed by some eminent doctors selected from each side, and a report rendered to the next assembly of the States ; and although the Pope annulled this convention as deroga- tory to the authority of the Holy See, it nevertheless continued to be observed. About the same time the Protestants gained an accession of strength by the death of Greorge, Duke of Saxony (April 17th 1539). That prince, as we have seen, was a violent opponent of the Kefor- mation ; and as his two sons had died, he appointed by his will, that in case his brother and successor Henry, surnamed the Pious, a zealous Protestant, should attempt to introduce any innovations in religion, the Emperor and King Ferdinand should assume the administration of his dominions. These, which must be carefully distinguished from the Saxon Electorate, were vested in the younger, or Albertine branch of the Saxon family, who, as Mar- graves of Misnia and Thuringia, possessed extensive territories, including the towns of Leipsic, Dresden, &c. Henry, however, succeeded without opposition, and immediately began to introduce the Lutheran religion into that part of Saxony. The most eminent divines were invited to Leipsic, and among them Luther himself, who soon abolished the Popish worship ; much to the satisfaction of the people, who had long been Protestant at heart. The latter creed now prevailed almost universally from the Baltic to the Rhine. "^ Sleidan, lib. xii. ; Pallavicini, lib. iv. cap. 2. 590 DIET OF RATISBOX, 1541. [Book II. As arranged at Frankfort, a disputation between Papist and Protestant doctors was held at Worms in November 1540, in the presence of Morone, the Papal nuncio, and of Granvella, who had recently been appointed Imperial Chancellor, in place of the intem- perate Held. The disputation was chiefly conducted by Dr. Eck on the part of the Romanists, and by Melanchthon on that of the Protestants, but soon became involved in such subtleties on the question of hereditary sin, that by the advice of Granvella the Emperor adjourned the discussion till the meeting of a Diet at Ratisbon in the ensuing spring. This year is remarkable for the institution of the Order of the Jesuits, the scheme of which had been submitted by Ignatius Loyola to the Court of Rome in 1539. The Pope referred the matter to a committee of three cardinals, who gave it their approval, chiefly on account of the vow of implicit obedience (September 27th 1540). At the commencement of 1541, the order counted only ten members.^ The Emperor, in his accustomed plain and unostentatious manner, opened in person the Diet which assembled at Ratisbon, in April, 1541. Cardinal Contarini, a member of the Oratory of Divine Love, a man of great learning as w^ell as warm religious feeling, attended the assembly as Papal legate. Luther was also present. Contarini made large concessions ; but it was soon evident that the discussion would be, as usual, fruitless, and the Emperor dissolved the Diet (July 28th). Francis I. protested to the Papal ambas- sadors against the concessions made by Contarini, which were also viewed with suspicion at Rome ; and Paul annulled all the acts of the colloquy on the ground, that a secular assembly w^as not competent to discuss religious matters. The Roman Catholics and Reformers, however, came on this occasion more nearly to an accommodation than at any previous or subsequent period.'* The Pope and his legate, as well as the Dukes of Bavaria, now pressed upon the Emperor the necessity of putting down the Protestants by force of arms ; but Charles, who had still need of their services against the Turks, was disposed to act with more moderation. He replied that he had neither money nor power for such an enter- prize, and he issued a declaration which left matters nearly on the same footing on which they had been placed by the religious peace of Nuremberg. ' Raynaldus, t. xiii. p. 517 and 566. account of the religious proceedings at We shall return to this subject. the Diets of Frankfort, Worms, and * The reader will find a more detailed Eatisbon, in my Life of Calvin, eh. iii. Chap. IX.] THE EMPEROR'S PROTESTANT ALLIANCES. 5P1 Besides the Turks, an enemy nearer home, the powerful Duke of Cleves and Gruelderland, induced the Emperor at this period to court the friendship of the Protestant princes. In 1540, after Charles had punished Grhent, and a new w^ar threatened to break out between him and Francis, both monarchs had sought the alli- ance of Duke William, and Francis had succeeded in enticing him with the promise of the hand of Jeanne, only daughter of Henry d'Albret, though the French court had already formed the plan of imiting what remained of Navarre to the crown ; which indeed was afterwards effected by the marriage of Jeanne to Antony of Bourbon, first prince of the blood. It was with a view to his relations with the Duke of Cleves that Charles, while still at Eatisbon, concluded a treaty with the Land- grave Philip of Hesse (June 13th). The Landgrave had been for some time on a friendly footing with Queen Mary, the Eegent of the Netherlands, who was herself suspected of a leaning towards the Protestants. She was the leading supporter in the Imperial Court of an anti-French and anti-Roman policy, and her only wish was to see Germany united under the Emperor.^ Charles, by his treaty with Philip, granted him an amnesty for all his former enterprizes against the House of Austria, whilst on the other hand the Landgrave promised to embrace the political party of the Emperor, and to oppose any alliance of the League of Smalcald with France or England ; and more particularly not to admit the Duke of Cleves into the league, nor to support - him in any manner; nay, if the Emperor should be attacked, to assist him, if necessary, in person.^ In the following July, Charles also concluded a treaty with Joachim II. of Brandenburg, in wdiich the latter promised to stand by the Emperor in the affair of Cleves, and to assist him in recoverinsf the contested territories. He further engaged to embrace the Imperial party in the question of Ferdi- nand's election, which was now again mooted ; he agreed to oppose all recruiting for France, and he assured Charles of his entire devo- tion. The Emperor, on his side, permitted the Elector of Bran- denburg to maintain the Protestant religion in his dominions, till the assembling of a council, or till the States should have come to a better decision. The reformed worship that had been established in Brandenburg was thus in a measure legalised, and the Elector cheerfully undertook neither to overstep what had been already done, nor to join the League of Smalcald. An attempt to bring over the Elector of Saxony proved unsuccessful. ^ Ranke, Popes, vol. iii. App. p. 332. * Abstract of Treaty ap. Ranke, Deutsche Gesch. B. iv. S. 225. 592 . BIG.\^IY OF THE L.\XDGRAVE OF IIESSE. [Book II. There was another cause besides his friendship for the Flemish Regent, that induced the Landgrave of Hesse to conclude with the Emperor the treaty just mentioned. Philip had one of those not uncommon temperaments in which amorousness combines with the fervour of devotion ; and as his consort, Christine, daughter of Duke Greorge of Saxony, though she had borne him several children, was distasteful to him both in temper and person, he sought in unlawful love a solace for his domestic unhappiness. His frequent transgressions were, how^ever, accompanied with as frequent a re- pentance, and in this struggle with Satan, he at length hit upon one of those compromises which sometimes present themselves to minds constituted like his. He determined to cover his sins with a cloak of legality, and to sanctify his concubinage with the holy name of matrimony. At the court of his sister at Eochlitz he had been captivated by Fraulein Margaretha von der Saal, but the young lady, under the guidance of her mother, resisted all his unlawful advances. Philip now applied himself to consult the Scriptures, and in the books of the Old Testament it was not difficult to find passages that seemed to justify a plurality of wives. Christine, who appears to have been of an easy temper, gave her formal consent in writing to her husband's second marriage (December 11th 1539), with the reservation, in other respects, of her own rights and those of her children. Philip's conscience, however, was not satisfied without the sanction of the theologians, and he appealed to Luther and Melanchthon as the fountain heads of gospel lore, the very Popes of the Eeformation. The case was difficult. It was hard to sanction bigamy, harder still to lose so staunch and powerful an upholder of the Protestant cause as the Landgrave of Hesse. The paper in which they answered his application contains all the reasons which could be uro^ed acfainst it, and looks like a dissuasion ; yet they withheld not their consent, and w^ere parties to the bigamy, but under the seal of confession, and with the injunction of the strictest secrecy.'^ We can here discern but little difference between these Protestant doctors and Pope Cle- ment VII., when he advised Henry VIII. to take an additional wife. Bigamy, however, is not only a moral and religious crime : it is also a legal offence; and the Landgrave began to fear that the Emperor and the Imperial tribunal might find in it a fresh handle for pursuing him. Under this apprehension, he first endeavoured ' " Quodsi denique Vestra Celsitudo contradictiones aut scandala ; nihil enim omnino concluserit adhuc unam conjxigem est inusitati, Prinoipes concubinas alere." ducere,juramiis id secrcto faciendum. ., . — Luther's Brief e, Th. v. S. 241. (De Hinc non sequuntur alicujus momenti Wette.) Chap. IX.] FERDIXAXD'S ^'EGOCIATIONS WITH THE PORTE. o93 to draw closer his alliance with the Elector of Saxony, and eno-ao-ed to aid him in matters not provided for by the League of Smal- cald, as the affairs of John Frederick's brother-in-law, the Duke of Cleves, provided the Elector would, in turn, support him in his new marriage, which he consummated in ]March 1540. The strict principles of the Elector forbade him, however, to enter into such an arrangement, and Philip, in consequence, threw himself, as we have seen, into the arms of the Emperor. His marriage, of course, soon became publicly kno^vn, and occasioned great scandal. Melanchthon, who was then on the point of proceeding to the Diet at Hagenau, was so mortified and alarmed by the part which he had played in the business, that he was seized with a dangerous illness ; and it required all the consolations of Luther, who was of a more robust frame of mind, to restore his confidence and self- possession. The moderation displayed by Charles at Ratisbon tended to conciliate the Protestants, who encracred to assist him aofainst the Turks. They wished him to undertake the war in person ; but Charles was then meditating another expedition to Africa, to repress the dreadful devastations committed on the coasts of Italy and Spain by Hassan Aga, commandant of Algiers, a renegade eunuch in the service of Barbarossa, and he therefore intrusted the conduct of the war against Solyman to his brother Ferdinand. The peace with the Porte before mentioned^, in 1533, to which the Emperor was not a party, had left many things unsettled, and early in 1534, Cornelius Duplicius Schepper was despatched to Constantinople to make, if possible, a more satisfactory arrange- ment. He found a very altered state of things. Aloysio Grritti had lost great part of his influence ; the power of Ibrahim himself was fast sinking, against whom a formidable part}^, headed by Barbarossa and Junisbeg, the interpreter to the Porte, had arisen . in the divan. Schepper's efiforts were unavailing. In the last audience granted to him, the Sultan repeated that Hungary belonged to himself, that Janus Krai (King John) was merely his slave, and acted only in his name, and he warned Ferdinand not to undertake anything against that potentate.^ Soon afterwards Gritti was despatched tcf Hungary as the Sultan's plenipotentiary, and entered Transylvania at the head of 7000 men. He was, howr ever, hated and suspected, as well by the party of Zapolya as of Ferdinand ; 40,000 men rose in arms, overpowered his little army, * Above, p. 551. mentioned that the ambassador (Schep- ® Gevay, p. 57. As a specimen of the per) had hired a bravo to blow upBarba- political morality of the age, it may be rossa in his galley. YOL. I. Q Q 59t DEATH OF ZAPOLYA. [Book II. and delivered Grritti himself to the executioner. This act naturally roused the anger of Sotyman, and left no room for a peaceful solu- tion of the points in dispute. Ferdinand sent ambassadors both to Ibrahim and the Sultan, then in Bagdad, to clear himself from blame, by charging Zapolya with the execution of Gritti ; but Solyman would not accept his excuses, and demanded reparation. From this time, however, Zapolya began to sink in reputation with the Porte. Junisbeg, whom the Sultan had despatched to inquire into the circumstances of Grritti 's murder, was gained over by King Ferdinand, with the promise of a pension ; and Zapolya was condemned to pay 1,200,000 ducats, partly for arrears of " pension " due to the Porte, and partly for valuables belonging to Gritti on which he had seized. It was soon after the return of Junisbeg to Constantinople, that the Vizier Ibrahim was mur- dered, in consequence of some secret court intrigue. Meanwhile, as the Turkish hordes were pressing on from Bosnia towards Essek, Ferdinand's general, Katzianer, advanced with an army of about 24,000 men, mostly Germans, to keep them in check ; but being surrounded by the Osmanli cavalry, he was compelled to a disastrous retreat, in which he lost all his artil- lery (November 1536), while his army was dispersed and almost entirely cut up. After this no warlike movements of any importance occurred for some time. In 1538, the Emperor and Ferdinand concluded a peace with Zapolya, which cost the latter the loss of the Sultan's confidence. By this treaty, Charles and his brother consented to recognise Zapolya as a brother, that is, as a king, and to concede to him all the territory of which he -then stood possessed ; but on condition that after his death, whether he left children or not, his dominions should revert to Ferdinand.'*^ In September 1539, Hieronymus Lasczi, who had now deserted the service of Zapolya for that of Ferdinand, repaired to Constantinople as the latter's ambassador ; but before any negociations could be concluded, the state of things was completely changed by the death of Zapolya (July 21st 1540). He had married in the previous year, Isabella, daughter of Sigismund Augustus, King of Poland, who had borne him a son only nine days before his decease ; and a party immedia.tely sprung up in f^ivour of the infant prince, at the head of which was Martinuzzi, or brother George, Bishop of Grosswardein. Some of Zapolya's former supporters, however, as Gregory Frangepani, Peter Pereny, and others recognised Ferdinand. French intrigues " Engel, B. ir, S. 53 sq. The treaty is in Katona, t. xx. Chap. IX.] BUDA TAKEN^ BY SOLYMAX. 595 vere now revived; the amicable policy of Francis towards the House of Austria had, as we have seen, terminated at this period ; and the French envoy at Constantinople induced the Hungarian ambassadors themselves to beg of the Sultan, that in case the throne of that country became vacant, the Duke of Orleans should be elected to it.^^ An end was now abruptly put to Lasczi's negociations, who was imprisoned and put on short allowance ; and war was declared against Ferdinand. In June 1541, Solyman in person began his march towards Hungary, and entered Buda without resistance (August 25th 1541), before the forces voted by the Diet of Eatisbon, under the command of Count Fiirstenberg, could come up. A Turkish government under a pasha of three tails, w^as now established in the Hungarian capital, the principal church was converted into a mosque, and Buda remained in the hands of the infidels near a century and a half. Zapolya's queen and infant son were ejected from the palace, and sent to Lippa on the other side of the Theiss. After a three weeks' sojourn in Buda, where he received and con- temptuously dismissed another embassy from Ferdinand, Solyman returned homewards and reached Constantinople November 20th. On this occasion, Ferdinand offered to hold Hungary as tributary to the Porte ; but the proposition was spurned by Solyman, who even demanded a yearly tribute for Austria.^^ It was during this time that Charles was conducting his un- fortunate expedition to Algiers ; but before relating that event we shall pursue the affairs of Hungary to their catastrophe. The rapid progress of the Turks had created a panic in Grermany, and the Diet which assembled at Spires early in 1542, voted with unaccustomed alacrity, a force of 40,000 foot and 8000 horse, the command of which was intrusted to Joachim II. of Brandenburg. With part of these troops Joachim marched to Pesth, which had a garrison of 8000 Osmanlis; but after cannonading the town, and in vain attempting to bring his men to the assault, who were in a state of mutiny for want of pay, he found himself compelled to retreat. In 1543, Solyman again appeared in Hungary, and after a short stay at Buda, laid siege to Grran. The garrison made a brave defence, till the gilt cross on the cathedral having been shot away, they were struck with a superstitious terror, and surrendered (August 10th). Tata and Stuhlweissenburg next fell, the latter after a brave defence, expiated by the massacre of neai-ly all the population. In 1544, Wissegrad " Letters of the Bishop of Montpellier to Francis I. and Rincon, Negociations, 4'C. t. i. p. 443 sqq. '^ Engel, B. ir. S. 76. Q Q 2 596 CHARLES V.'S EXPEDITION TO ALGIERS. [Book II. was taken, the ancient and magnificent seat of royalty ; after which, and the capture of some castles near Tolna, the Turks car- ried the war into Croatia and Slavonia. Ferdinand's troops gained some partial advantages, but on the whole his prospects were hopeless. In 1545 he concluded a truce with the Pasha of Buda, and sent an ambassador to Constantinople to arrange the terms of a peace. After lingering negociations, Solyman, whose views were then directed towards Persia, at length consented to a truce of five years (June 13th 1547), guaranteeing the maintenance of the status quo, on condition of Ferdinand paying to the Porte a yearly tribute, disguised under the name of a "pension," of 30,000 ducats. The government of the Turkish conquests in Hungary, like other territories under the dominion of the Porte, had been already divided into Sandjaks, which were at first twelve in number, as Buda, G^ran, Stuhlweissenburg, Mohacs, Fiinfkirchen, &c. The Emperor, as w^e have said, had resisted the solicitations of the Diet of Eatisbon in 1541, that he should lead the Imperial troops in person against Solyman, in order that he might conduct his long-projected enterprise against Algiers, The success of his former expedition seems to have inspired him with a taste for these maritime crusades. The present one, however, was undertaken against the advice of his admiral, Andrew Doria, at too late a period of the year. It was the 20th of October before the Imperial fleet appeared at Algiers, having on board a fine army of about 22,000 men, together with 100 Knights of St. John. Only part of the troops had been landed when a high wdnd, accompanied with a heavy fall of rain, carried away the tents, rendered the ammunition useless, and converted the encampment into a swamp ; and a vio- lent storm which followed wrecked the greater part of the fleet, and thus deprived the army of provisions. In these trying circum- stances Charles behaved with great fortitude ; whilst he shared the dangers and hardships of the meanest soldier, he displayed all the best qualities of a general. When the scattered ships that had escaped were reassembled, Charles commanded all the horses to be drowned in order to make room on board for the men ; but scarcely had this been done when another storm again dispersed the ships. The anxious question now arose how the troops were to be carried home ; but this point was soon decided by a pestilence which carried off the greater part of them. The EmjDeror was the last to embark, and after encountering many more perils, at length arrived with the remnant of his armament at Carthagena (Decem- ber 1st). The news of Charles's disaster was received at the French court Chap. IX.] MUEDER OF FRANCIS'S AMBASSADORS. 597 with transports of joy. The opportunity appeared to Francis favourable for commencing a new war, and an occurrence which had taken place in the preceding summer afforded him a pretext for declaring it. Soon after the conclusion of the peace between Venice and the Porte, Rincon, the French envoy at Constanti- nople, had returned home for fresh instructions, and was sent back in June 1541 in company with a Genoese named Fregoso, who was to act as French ambassador at Venice. Both these men were the Emperor's subjects. Rincon, as we have said, was a Spanish renegade ; Fregoso was an opponent of Doria and the Imperial party at Grenoa, from which city he had been expelled and declared a rebel ; and as they had entered the service of Francis, a price had been set upon their heads. For the convenience of Rincon, who was very corpulent, and disliked the fatigue of riding or posting, he and Fregoso agreed to descend the Po in boats, dis- guised, and without passports. A kind of small underhand warfare was already going on in Italy between the troops of Du Bellay Langey, the French governor of Turin, and the Imperialists ; and he and the Marquis del G-uasto, the governor of Milan, were con- stantly on the watch to intercept each other's couriers. Some of Del Guasto's bravi having fallen in with Rincon and Fregoso proceeded to arrest them; the latter resisting, were killed in the skirmish which ensued, and their papers seized. Francis was loud in his complaints of this proceeding, which he denounced as a vio- lation of the law of nations ; for the present, however, he stifled his resentment, and except for the unfortunate termination of Charles's expedition to Algiers, would probably have suffered the affair to sink into oblivion. But no sooner did he hear of that event than he sought to connect himself with all who had any cause of discontent against the Emperor. He had already formed an alliance with the Duke of Cleves, who disputed Guelderland with Charles, and he now leagued himself with the Neapolitan malcontents; but he could not persuade Henry VIII. to enter any longer into his selfish plans. The alliance with the Duke of Cleves, besides affording an opportunity to attack the Netherlands on both sides, also enabled Francis to draw what troops he wanted from Germany through the Duke's dominions. On November 19th 1541, the French King also concluded at Fontainebleau a treaty with Christian III. King of Denmark, for a term of ten years, during which the latter engaged to close the Sound against the enemies of France ^^ ; and in the following July he effected, at " Dumont, t. ir. pt. ii, p. 216. Q Q 3 598 WAR BETWEEN CHARLES AND FRAXCIS. [Book IT. Eagny, an offensive and defensive league ^'* with Gustavus I. of Sweden. Having thus endeavoured to set all Europe in a flame in order to gratify his private ambition and resentment, Francis, in the summer of 1542, called into the field no fewer than five armies; of which three were directed against the Netherlands ; the fourth, commanded by the Dauphin, marched towards the frontiers of Spain ; while the remaining one, under the Admiral Annebaut, consisted of the troops cantoned in Piedmont. Hostilities began on the side of Cleves. The Duke caused one of his captains, Martin von Rossem, a sort, of condottiere, to assemble his irregular troops on the frontiers of the Netherlands, but without expressly avowing him. To the remonstrances of the Queen of Hungary, the Duke replied that the troops were not his, and that he believed them to be destined against the Turks. Von Rossem, however, suddenly presented himself before Liege, and demanded a passage over the Meuse. The citizens shut their gates, and Von Rossem, crossing the river at a higher point, and devastating everything on his route, directed his march towards Antwerp, with the design of taking and plundering that city. Rene de Nassau, Prince of Orange, who attempted to arrest his progress, was defeated at Hoch Straet with a loss of 1400 men ; but nevertheless succeeded in putting Louvain and Antwerp in a posture of defence. These occurrences determined Francis to commence the war on the side of the Netherlands. He did not declare it till July 12th 1542, and then in the most virulent terms. Nicholas de Bossu, Sieur de Longueval, was sent to join Von Rossem's army, in order that its movements might be combined with those of the French forces; One French army, under the command of the Duke of Orleans, though virtually under that of Claude, Duke of Guise, the young prince's instructor in the art of war, assembled on the frontiers of Luxemburg; whilst another, led by the Duke of Vendome, threatened the frontiers of Flanders. The Imperialists, not expecting to be attacked in Luxemburg, had made little preparation for defence. Damvilliers, Yvoy, Arlon, Montmedy, even the capital, Luxemburg, itself, fell rapidly before the French arms, and were for the most part cruelly handled, the capitulation of Luxemburg only being respected. Young and ardent, the Duke of Orleans was dissatisfied with such easy conquests ; he longed to flesh his niaiden sword in a pitched battle in the field ; and hearing '* Dumont, t. h'. pt. ii. p. 228. Chap. IX.] SIEGE OF PERPIGNAX. 599 » that one was likely to be fought by the army in the south under the command of his brotlier, the Dauphin, he suddenly dismissed the greater part of his troops, retaining only enough to cover the frontiers of France ; a step of which the Queen of Hungary imme- dia':ely took advantage to recover Montmedy and Luxemburg. Francis was very much chagrined at this news. He gave the Duke of Orleans, though his favourite son, a very cool reception at Montpellier ; and the Duke was further mortified b}^ finding that there was no more probability of a battle being fought in the south than in the quarter he had just left. The Dauphin was at the head of 40,000 infantry, and 4000 cavalry. Margaret, the King's sister, wished this noble force to be employed in the re- covery of Navarre ; but, by the advice of Montpesat, Grovernor of Guienne, that project was abandoned, and the army directed against Rousillon, which it was thought would prove an easy conquest. The plan of the campaign was to take Perpignan, to obtain command of the sea, to occupy Le Pertuis, and thus to prevent any succours for Rousillon arriving from Spain. But the scheme was ruined by the dilatoriness of Francis, who ordered that nothing should be done before his arrival ; and as he travelled with all the pomp and slowness of a royal progress, it was the middle of August before the Dauphin's army entered Rousillon. Meanwhile a body of Aragonese, under the command of the Duke of Alva, had thrown themselves into Perpignan, and Doria had landed artillery and ammunition enough for the most vigorous defence. The place, indeed, presented so formidable an appearance that Du Bellay compared it to a porcupine darting its quills on every side. The Dauphin did not appear before it till August 26th. The Admiral Annebaut, who had come from Piedmont to suj^erintend the siege, conducted it unskilfully. The sandy soil rendered the works of the besiegers useless ; the autumnal rains began to swell the torrents into rivers, and to render the situation of the French army extremely dangerous. On the 4th of October the King arrived within twelve leagues of Perpignan ; when, finding that no progress had been made, and after several assaults had been repulsed, he ordered the siege to be raised. Thus this splendid army, the finest ever collected during the reign of Francis, re- treated without striking a blow. The immense preparations which had been made on all sides ended only in the capture of a few small places near Boulogne and Calais by the Duke of Vendome, and some others in Piedmont by Du Bellay Langey ; a result which must be ascribed partly to the indiscretion of the Duke of Orleans, partly to the dilatoriness of Francis, but still more to the plan of Q Q 4 600 DEATH OF JAMES V. OF SCOTLAND. [Book II. dividing the French forces, instead of striking in one quarter a decisive blow with their united strength. During this campaign, the Emperor had remained quietly in Spain, without approacliing the scene of action. After his return from Africa, he had visited in succession Tarragon, Tortosa, Valencia, Alcala de Henares, and Madrid, presenting his son Philip to the people, and encouraging the enthusiasm which the attack of the French had already roused. Meanwhile he had been quietly pro- viding funds for carrying on the war. The Cortes voted him considerable supplies; he obtained a large dowry for his son by affiancing him to the Infanta of Portugal ; and by ceding his pretensions to the Molucca Islands to the Infanta's father, John III., he procured a large sum by way of loan. The mines of America, too, had been more than usually productive, and he was thus better provided with means for carrying on the second campaign than he had been at the beginning of the first, while on the other hand the resources of France were almost exhausted. The Emperor further strengthened himself by an alliance which he concluded with Henry VIII. The part taken by Francis in the affairs of Scotland had increased the coolness between him and the English King. Henry had been endeavouring to effect an alli- ance with James V. of Scotland, whom he wished to engage in the same measm^es of ecclesiastical reform as he had himself adopted in England, nor did the Scottish King seem disinclined to enter into his views ; but the plans of Henry were defeated by the oppo- sition of the Scottish clergy and the intrigues of the French Court, ■\vhich foresaw the loss of its influence in Scotland in the event of a union between that country and England. Enraged at this disap- pointment, Henry resorted to force. An army of 20,000 men, under the Duke of Norfolk, crossed the Tweed in the autumn of 1542, in- flicting great loss and devastation ; and it is said that the melan- choly occasioned by his ill-successes near Solway Firth hastened the death of James, who expired December 14th. This event caused a change in Henry's policy. He laid aside his hostile pre- parations against Scotland, and sought to bring about a union between the two countries by the marriage of his son Edward with ]\Iary, the infant daughter of James. It was evident, however, that this plan would also be opposed by the French Court, and Henry therefore determined to effect an alliance with the Emperor. A treaty was accordingly concluded, February 1 1th 1543, by which the two sovereifjns aoTeed that Francis should be summoned to renounce his alliance with the Turk, to compensate the Em- peror for the losses and injuries which he had suffered from it. Chap. IX.] TREATY BETWEEN CHAELES AXD HEXEY. 601 and to execute all his previous agreements, whether with Charles or Henry. If the French King rejected these conditions, then war was to be declared against him, and to be prosecuted by each sove- reign with an army of 20,000 foot and 5000 horse, and with a fleet carrying 2000 sailors, until the Emperor should have recovered the Duchy of Burgundy and Picardy, and Henry the rest of France. The treaty, which was not published till the following June, also contained some clauses more particularly relating to the con- tracting parties themselves ; and especially they engaged recipro- cally, — the Emperor, that no English book, Henry that no German one, should be printed in their respective dominions.^ ^ No operations, however, of any importance were undertaken in pur- suance of this treaty till the year 1544. The campaign of 1543 opened like the previous one with some successes on the part of Yon Rossem, especially the defeat of the Imperialists at Sittard, March 24th. Francis was thus led again to direct his chief strength towards that quarter ; but he had formed no settled plan, and his orders were vacillating and contradictory. After some operations of too little moment to be worth detailing, he retired towards the end of July to Rheims, where he dismissed part of his army, and forgot the affairs of war in the pleasures of tbe chace. In this campaign Francis received some assistance from the Danes, who made descents on the coasts of the Netherlands, and attempted to take Walcheren. On the other hand Charles had determined on punishing his rebellious vassal, the Duke of Cleves, and with that view proceeded through Italy into Grermany. The Italian princes flocked to pay him court at Grenoa ; and Cosmo de' Medici redeemed with 20,000 gold crowns the fortresses of Leghorn and Florence, which were held by Imperial troops. On the 22nd of June, Charles had an interview with the Pope at Busseto, in the Parmesan. Paul in vain endeavoured to persuade the Emperor either to purchase peace by ceding Milan to the King of France, or to establish in it Ottavio Farnese, Paul's grandson, and the son-in-law of Charles ; but though the Pope offered 300,000 sctidi for the investiture of Farnese, the Emperor refused to grant it. Towards the end of July, Charles arrived at Spires, and made immediate preparations for punishing the Duke of Cleves. It was fortunate for the Emperor that he had secured the alliance of the Landgrave of Hesse. The Elector of Saxony, the Duke of Cleves's brother-in-law, was covertly assisting him, and even wished to '* Eymer, t. xlv. p. 768 sqq. ; Herbert, p. 238. 602 CHARLES PUMSHES WILLIAM OF CLEVES. [Book II. procure his admittance into the League of Smalcald, to qualify himself for which, Duke William had received the sacrament in both kinds (February 22nd 1543). Philip, however, who had bound himself to the Emperor not to lend any countenance or support to the Duke of Cleves, would not consent to his admittance into the League. The Archbishop of Spires and the ambassador of the Elector of Saxony interceded with the Emperor in favour of the Duke; but Charles replied that if the Turks were at his very gates, his attention should be first directed to punish a rebel, who had chosen the moment of his country's greatest danger to ally himself with its enemies. The part played by the Duke of Cleves was indeed very annoying. Besides the usurpation of Guelderland, he procured for Francis the help of German troops, rendered possible an attack from Denmark, and destroyed the peace, and even neutralised the power of the Netherlands. Charles had brought with him a choice body of 4000 Spanish, and as many Italian veterans, to which he added 26,000 lansquenets, and 4000 horse, commanded by the Prince of Orange. And now Francis and his sons, who had been so anxious to do battle with the Emperor, were presented with a fair opportunity ; yet with an inexplicable infatuation, which marked all Francis's operations in his later years, he was amusing himself at this critical juncture with hunting at Kheims, and abandoned the Duke of Cleves to his fate, an ally who had done him such good service, and whom he had united with the royal family of France. Charles laid siege to Diiren ; in four days a battery of forty cannon effected a breach ; and on the 26th of August the place was carried by assault. A horrible massacre ensued, and on the evening of the same day not a living soul was left in Diiren, except the troops who had entered by the breach. The fall and fate of Diiren, the strongest place in the Duchy of Juliers, struck terror into the rest: Juliers, the capital, Euremonde, Venlo, submitted ; and the Duke of Cleves, who had despatched courier after courier to Francis with the most urgent prayers for assistance, but without effect, hastened to Venlo to throw himself at the feet of the Emperor. In this humiliating posture Charles suffered his rebellious vassal to remain a consider- able time, without so much as deigning to look at him. Ulti- mately, however, he was admitted to a sort of capitulation. His hereditary dominions were restored, with the exception of two towns, that were retained as pledges for his fidelity ; but . he was required to give up Gruelderland and Zutphen ; to return to the Eoman Catholic faith ; to renounce the alliance of the Kings of France and Denmark ; to swear fealty to the Emperor, and to the Chap. IX.] CAMPAIGX OF 1543. 603 King of the Eomans ; to release the people of Guelderland from the oath of fidelity which they had taken to him, and to transfer Von Kossem with his formidable band to the Imperial service.*'' Francis began to bestir himself when it was too late. He re- assembled his army, marched into Luxemburg, and recovered the capital (September 27th). Hence, the Admiral Annebaut was ordered to proceed to the relief of the Duke of Cleves : but before he could set out, a herald arrived from that prince, to announce to Francis, that he had been compelled to abandon the French alliance, and at the same time to demand that his wife, the heiress of Navarre, should be sent to him, in whose favour he forwarded a safe-conduct from the Emperor. But Francis replied, that as his alliance was renounced, he was no longer the Duke's debtor, and that William with regard to his consort, had better apply to the King and Queen of Navarre, and see w^hether they w^re disposed to grant him their daughter. Neither they, however, nor Jeanne d'Albret herself, as Francis well knew, were inclined to carry out the marriage contract, which wa.s now declared null and void. The Duke of Cleves sub- sequently married a daughter of King Ferdinand's, and five years afterwards the heiress of Navarre espoused Antony of Bourbon, Duke of Yendome. The remainder of the campaign of 1543 presents nothing worth reletting. Francis advanced as far as Cateau-Cambresis, v/here his army and that of Charles were so near, that frequent skirmishes of outposts took place ; yet neither monarch ventured to quit the heights to risk a general engagement. The chief incidents were the sieges of Landrecies and Luxemburg by the Imperialists. But, though the latter were joined by 6000 English, under Sir John ^Yallop, nothing important was effected, and in November, both armies went into winter-quarters. The only gain to the Emperor was Cambray, a free, and Imperial city, which had claimed the privilege of neutrality. Charles persuaded the citizens to erect a citadel, as a defence against Francis, and after his return from Lpmdrecies, introduced into it a garrison, which held the city in subjugation. While these things were passing in the north, the proceedings of the Turkish fleet under Barbarossa, the ally of Francis, drew down upon the latter the indignation of Europe. Agreeably to a convention between the Porte and Paulin, the French envoy, Barbarossa, with a fleet of 1 10 galleys and a quantity of smaller vessels, appeared in the month of May off the coast of Calabria, '^ Dumont, t. iv. pt. ii. p. 265. 604 NICE BESIEGED BY THE TURKS AND FREXCH. [Book II. and laDcIing large bodies of soldiers, destro3^ed the olives and the vines, and carried off into slavery all the inhabitants whom he could seize. Keggio was burnt in June without attempting a defence ; • the citizens having fled for safety to the mountains on the approach of the fleet. Before the end of the month, Barbarossa appeared at the mouth of the Tiber. Eome trembled. Numbers of the citizens sought safety in flight. The Cardinal de' Carpi was despatched to ascertain the intentions of those dreaded visitors, when a scene ensued such as Europe had not yet beheld. Paulin the French envoy was not ashamed to appear, and to avow himself the director of Barbarossa's movements. He assured the Cardinal that there was nothing to fear, that the Turks, as the allies of France, would respect the neutrality of the Pope ; and Barbarossa, without committing any further ravages, directed his course towards Marseilles. Here he put up to public sale the unhappy captives whom he had taken in Calabria, and^, strange to say, pur- chasers were not wanting. ^^ Barbarossa, who had expected to find at Marseilles ever3rthing in readiness for some grand enterprise, to be achieved by the united arms of Solyman and Francis, vexed and astonished to see in the harbour only twenty-two galleys and some transports, and these unprovided either with men, or provisions, or ammu- nition, broke out into curses and menaces, threatening the resent- ment of the Sultan if the summer were allow^ed to pass over unemployed. Paulin hastened to Francis to acquaint him with Barbarossa's threats, and returned with a few soldiers and orders to attack Nice, which had been already attempted without success by the Duke d'Enghien. The Duke of Savoy was totally unpre- pared to resist such an attack. Towards the end of August, the combined forces got possession of the town, though bravely defended by Montfort, a Savoyard gentleman; but the citadel, under the command of Paolo Simian e, a Knight of Malta, still held out ; and on the 8th of September, the approach of Doria's fleet, as well as of Del Gruasto with an army on the land side, compelled the Turco-Grallic forces to retire. Thus Francis had not even the consolation of success to place against the infamy of the undertaking. To propitiate Barbarossa's ill-humour, he ordered all Mussulman slaves in the French galleys to be liberated, and assigned Toulon as the winter-quarters of the Turkish fleet. All the French were ordered to evacuate that place, and a letter " The best account of Barbarossa's cniise in 1543 is in P. Jovius, lib. xliii. sq. Chap. IX.] DIET OF SPIRES, 1544. 605 written from it during the time of its occupation b}^ the Turks describes it as resembling Constantinople J ^ France was the only European power that acted offensively with the Mussulmans. The Venetians equipped a fleet to protect the coasts of the Adriatic, and Francis, unwilling to offend his ancient allies, sent Jean de Montluc, Bishop of Valence, to excuse and gloss over his conduct. In a long harangue to the Venetian Senate, the Bishop quoted Scripture in Francis's defence, and showed how King David and King Asa had availed themselves of the ser- vices of the infidels ! ^^ Early in 1544 Charles repaired from Belgium to Spires to open the Diet in person. It was one of the most august that had assembled during his reign, and was attended by King Ferdinand, and most of the princes of the Empire. In his opening speech (February 20th), Charles dwelt chiefly on the unnatural alliance between the French and the Turks, and insisted on the necessity of crushing France in order to save Europe from the Turkish yoke. King Ferdinand supported the impression thus produced by re- lating the progress of Solyman in Hungary. The Protestant members of the Diet having professed themselves unconcerned with the quarrels of the Emj^eror, and affirmed that the French King had always been friendly to the liberties of Grermany, the Emperor produced some letters -^Titten to him by Francis in 1540, in which this monarch, in consideration of the alliance concluded between them, promised his active assistance in suppressing the Lutherans, whom he denouQced as rebels alike to the authority of their sovereign and of the Church. The indignation excited by this communication was increased when the ambassador of the Duke of Savoy related the capture of Nice, the only asylum that remained to his master, by the Mussulman pirates ; and the King of Denmark's ambassador solemnly renounced the alliance contracted with Francis, who had rendered himself odious to all Christians by his league with the Turks. The French King, hoping that his treachery towards the Protestants would have remained concealed, had despatched the Cardinal John du Bellay, and the president, Olivier, to Spires, to conciliate the friendship of that party. But the herald, who had been sent forward to procure a safe-conduct for the French ambassadors, was dismissed, with the intimation that he might consider himself fortunate to escape with his life ; as an envo}^ from the ally of the Mussulman pirates of Barbary was without the pale of Christian international law. Alarmed at this in- '8 Negociations, cfr. t. i. p. 567 sqq. " Commentaires de Montluc, liv. i. 606 CONCESSIONS TO THE PR0TESTA2>TS. [Book II. telligence, the ambassadors, who had advanced to Nanci, fled thence by night, and, on their return to Paris, Du Bellay published a manifesto, which, on the admission even of historians not unfavour- able to Francis, was filled with the grossest inconsistencies and falsehoods. Sometimes the" Turkish alliance was altogether dis- avowed, sometimes justified by examples drawn from the Old Testament; in a word, there was no subterfuge to which the ministers of the French King scrupled to descend.^^ Francis also endeavoured to clear himself in a remarkable letter to .John Frederick the Elector of Saxony.^^ The Diet voted the Emperor supplies both against France and the Turk, and Charles pledged his w^ord to attack the Osmanlis on the conclusion of the French war. The discussion of the affairs of religion was postponed to another Diet, to be summoned ex- clusively for that purpose; unless a general council could be assembled, in which the Emperor promised to preside in person. Meanwhile the decrees of former Diets in favour of the Protestants were confirmed ; the free and public exercise of their religion was allowed ; they were again declared capable of filling the places of assessors in the Imperial cham ber ; and the custom of swearing on the relics the members of that tribvmal, was abrogated in their belipJf. These concessions were wrung from the Emperor by his political necessities. The Pope, in a letter, bitterly reproached him with them (August 24th), and Charles is said to have been secretly negociating at this very time with Paul respecting the methods of extirpating the Protestants.^'^ In Piedmont the war had not ceased during the winter. After the raising of the siege of Nice, Del Guasto had obtained some notable advantages over Marshal de Bouttieres, successor of Du Bellay Langey, who had died in January 1543. Mondovi and Carisfuano had been recovered by the Duke of Savoy. The arrival of the Count d'Enghien, however, in the spring, arrested the progress of Del G-uasto. The French and Imperial forces in Piedmont were nearly equal ; but as both the money and credit of Francis were exhausted, he impressed upon D'Enghien the necessity of caution, and forbade him to risk a general engagement. Such an injunction was intolerable to the French nobles. Blaise de ]Montluc, a soldier of the true Gascon stamp, was despatched to the French court for the purpose of getting the veto removed, which he accomplished by 2° The paper is in Frelier, Scripp. Her. t. i. p. 575. Germ. t. iii. -- R:iynaldus, t. xiv. p. 70, sqq. ; Pfeffel, 2' Published in the Negociations, ^'c. t. ii. p. 157. Chap. IX.] INSOLENCE OF BARBAROSSA AT TOULON. 607 his playful and spirited eloqvience.^^ D'Enghien gained a signal victory over the Imperialists at Cerisola, more by the brilliant valour of himself and his troops, than by good generalship.^^ Del Gruasto had told the people of Asti, when marching out towards Cerisola, to shut their gates against him if he did not return victorious. They took him at his word. Want of money, however, obliged D'Enghien to discharge the Swiss in his service, and the inconsiderate demand of Francis, who required him to send 12,000 of his best troops into France, not only rendered his victory fruit- less, but also nearly disorganised his army. The only result was the recovery of Carignano. The Imperial army, however, was in almost as bad a condition, and both generals found it convenient to conclude an armistice of three months. The Emperor, meanwhile, with the assistance of some of the leading Protestants, as Albert of Brandenburg, Maurice of Saxony, a )^oung prince of twenty who had just succeeded his father Henry in the dukedom, and some others, had assembled an army of 40,000 men in Lorraine, which he joined towards the end of May, after it ha.d already reduced Luxemburg and some other towns and was preparing to invade Champagne. The situation of Francis was perplexing. His league with the Turks had deprived him of al] other allies ; yet by them he had been treated more as a vanquished enemy than a confederate prince. During their stay at Toulon they had acted as if they were in an enemy's country, and furnished the benches of their galleys by carrying off all the men they could seize on the adjacent coasts, while the w^omen served to supply their harems. Nay, Barbarossa even took the crews out of the royal galleys and left them totally useless. To induce so dangerous an ally to quit Toulon, Francis made him a payment of 800,000 crowns. Barbarossa sailed in April for Cdbstantinople, again carrying terror and desolation along the coasts of Ital}^ This was his last notable exploit. He died two years after at a very ad- vanced age (July 4th 1546). Before Francis succeeded in assembling his army in the north, the Emperor had taken Commercy and Ligny and invested St. Dizier. The gallant defence of the last place, however, which held out till the 17th of August, allowed the French King some breathing time. Meanwhile the English forces had been engaged in the spring in a campaign in Scotland ; but though Edinburgh was taken and pillaged, they were unable to maintain themselves there. -^ Henry IV. used to call the Commen- first time used in this battle, by the taires of Montluc, La Bible du Soldat. Imperial troops. They were invented at ^* Pistols are said to hare been for the Pistoia, in Tuscany. 608 HENRY VIII. INVADES FRANCE. [Book n. In the summer the Duke of Norfolk landed at Calais with an English division, and proceeded to lay siege to Montreuil, while Henry crossed the Channel with the main body about the middle of July, and was soon after joined by some 25,000 Flemings and Grer- mans. The original plan appears really to have been to cross the Somme and press on to Paris. ^^ But Henry and Charles did not act cordially together. Each believed the other insincere respecting the partition of France, and this distrust ended at length in open hatred. Henry, instead of proceeding to join the Emperor, laid siege to Boulogne. An ancient author has described his forces. The van and rear consisted each of about 12,000 foot, 500 lightly armed horse, and 1000 more with breastplates and lances. Their uniform w^as blue with red trimmings. Interspersed w^ere 1000 Irish, clothed in long tight shirts, and a cloak, their only clothing, while their heads had no other covering than their long hair. They were armed with three javelins and a long sword, and an iron guard protected the left arm to the elbow. The centre division, led by the King, consisted of 20,000 foot and 2000 horse all in red uniform with yellow trimmings. The artillery comprised 100 large guns and many smaller. A hundred one-horse mills to prepare their flour, and ovens to bake it, were conveyed in waggons. These and the baggage waggons required 25,000 horses ; while 15,000 oxen and a vast quantity of other animals followed the army to supply it with meat.^^ Both Charles and Henry were inclined to negociate with the French King , but the Emperor, in spite of his successes, was the first to treat. He had penetrated as far as Chateau Thierry, within two days' march of Paris. That capital was filled with consterna- tion. The citizens were flying on every side both by land and water ; the Seine was completely covered with boats filled with fugitives. Francis hastened from Fontainebleau, and accompanied* by the Duke of Guise rode through the streets of Paris, haranguing the citizens and exhorting them to take courage. "If I cannot prevent you from being afraid," said he, " I will at least prevent you- from being hurt." This address restored confidence, and a great number of citizens, students and others flew to arms.-^ The Emperor found a great difiiculty in procuring subsistence for his army, and to winter in France seemed wholly impossible. Under these circumstances, negociations were opened at the little village of La Chaussee, between Vitry and Chalons, and instead of crossing " See the plan of the campaign traced -^ Botero, Belationi Universalis p, 276 by Thomas, Duke of Norfolk {Concidera- (eel. 1640). tions, ^c.) in titate Papers, vol. i. p. 761. ^7 Pai-adin, ZTw^. c^e wo^re Temps,^. 138. Chap. IX.] TREATY OF CRESPY. 609 the Marne, Charles retired to Villars Cotteret, and thence to Soissons, which he phmdered. Francis eagerly embraced his pro- posals for a peace, and preliminaries were signed at Crespy in the Laonnois, September 18th. Charles's conduct on this occasion seems precipitate, and must perhaps be ascribed to the policy which he had adopted of peace at almost any price with France, in order to pursue, without interruption, his two grand objects of reducing the Lutherans and checking the Turks. Yet it does not appear why he might not have dictated terms at Paris instead of Crespy. At least two months remained during which field operations might have been carried on ; he was within two days' march of Paris ; and Henry VIIL, after taking Boulogne, which capitulated September 14th, was also in full march upon that capital ; a circumstance, however, such was the want of communication between them, of which the Emperor was ignorant. And perhaps, indeed, Charles was as miuch disinclined to forward the schemes of that monarch as to increase the alienation of Francis by the humiliating capture of Paris. By the treaty of Crespy each party was to restore the places taken by either since the treaty of Nice ; the French were to eva- cuate the territories of the Duke of Savoy, with the exception of Pignerol and Montmelian, and the dispute between Francis and his uncle was to be referred to arbitration. Francis again re- nounced all claim to the kingdom of Naples, the suzerainty of Flanders and Artois and their dependencies, as well as to Gruelder- land and Zutphen. The Emperor, on his side, gave up the Duchy of Burgundy and the towns and lordships on the Somme, formerly held by Philip the Grood. In order to render these terms more palatable, the Emperor offered some of the disputed provinces as a dowry either to his eldest daughter, Mary, or to his niece, the second daughter of King Ferdinand, whichsoever the Duke of Orleans might select for his consort ; the former to bring him the Netheilands and Franche Comte, the latter the Duchy of Milan. The Duke was to declare within four months which of the prin- cesses he preferred, and the marriage was to take place within a year. The Emperor was to retain possession of these provinces till his death, but the Duke of Orleans and his consort were to be made governors immediately. One of the stipulations was that Francis and the Emperor should co-operate in restoring the union of the Church ; that is, should enter into an alliance against the Protestants, and should defend Christendom against the Turks ; and Francis not only abjured the alliance of the latter, but also pro- VOL. I. K K 610 DISSATISFACTION OF HEXEY VIII. [Book II. mised 600 lances and 10,000 foot for the war in Hungary.^^ At the same time another and a secret treaty appears to have been signed, the contents of which have never come to light, but which excited the suspicion and hostility of the Court of Eome.^^ The peace of Crespy gave great offence both to the Dauphin and to the King of England. The former was dissatisfied because his father, in order to gain an establishment for his second son, had sacrificed the dignity of his kingdom, abandoned the ancient rights of the French crown, and thus curtailed those of the Dauphin when he should come to be King. And, though he would not offend his father by refusing to ratify the treaty, yet he secretly caused a notarial protest to be drawn up against it, which he signed at Fontainebleau (December 12th) in the presence of the Duke of Vendome and the Counts d'Enghien and d'Aumale^^ ; thus imitating the unworthy example of his royal father. The Parlia- ment of Toulouse, at the instigation probably of the Dauphin's partisans, also entered a protest against the peace. Henry VIII., on the other hand, was indignant that the Emperor should have concluded a treaty with France without his participa- tion or even knowledge. He himself appears, however, to have entered into negociations with the French previously to the Emperor. The Earl of Oxford and the Bishop of Winchester, Henry's plenipotentiaries, had an interview with the ambassadors of Francis at Hardelot, near Boulogne, September 9th, when they demanded that Francis should abandon his alliance with Scotland, and pay up the arrears of money which he owed, as well as the expenses of the present war. The French ambassador, so long as Charles was menacing Paris, pretended to entertain these proposi- tions ; but no sooner had Francis concluded with the Emperor than he rejected them with scorn. On hearing that event, and also that the Dauphin was marching against him with his whole army, Henry, who had advanced to Montreuil, immediately re- treated, and embarked his troops for England, leaving, however, a garrison of 7000 men in Boulogne, the capture of which place was the only advantage he had derived from the campaign. After the peace of Crespy, the Emperor suddenly altered his policy towards the Protestants. Besides the assistance promised to Charles by Francis, in case of need, against the Turks, he after- wards undertook to mediate a peace between the Emperor and the Porte 3^, and we have seen that a truce was actually concluded ^® Dumont, t. ix. pt, ii. p. 279, 57^, sq. *> Hankc, Deutsche G(sch.,B. iv.S. 347. =^' Lanz, Corespondcn-, B. ii. S, 435, ^ Dumont, ib., 288 ; Ribier, t, i. p, 4/5.5 ; Negociations, &c., t. i. p. 596 sqq. Chap. IX.] AETICLES OF LOUVAIX. 611 between Ferdinand and the Turks in 1545.^^ Being thus delivered from his two most troublesome enemies, Charles, for the first time found himself free to act as he pleased in the religious affairs of Grermany ; and the change in his views was soon apparent in the diet that met at Worms in the following spring. The Pope had been highly offended by the proceedings of the Diet of Spires as well ?«s with the treaty of Crespy. The announce- ment of a national council to decide on ecclesiastical affairs, and the promise of a general council given without consulting the Court of Eome, were equally distasteful to him. Paul, that he might appear to act independently, resolved to anticipate any formal application ; and on the 19th November 1544 he issued a Bull, summoning the adjourned council to meet at Trent on the follow- ing 15th of March. The short notice was purposely contrived in order that the assembly might consist almost entirely of his own courtiers and of Italian bishops, who would thus have the regula- tion of all the forms to be observed ; but the prelates who then met were so few, being only about twenty in number, that it was found necessary to adjourn the council to the following 13th of December.^^ The Emperor overlooked the Pope's apparent slight. He was glad to see that a coimcil had, at all events, been summoned, and he meant that its labours should not be confined to the eradication of heresy, but should also include a reform of the Church itself in its head and members, as formerly promised by his ancient tutor Pope Adrian. He therefore accepted the Pope's Bull, and gave orders that the doctors of theology, both in Spain and the Nether- lands, should prepare to proceed to Trent. Before he quitted the Low Countries, he gave a specimen of what might be expected from him, now that he was at peace with France, by causing the Uni- versity of Louvain to draw up a Confession of Faith in thirty-two articles, which cut short all the questions raised by the Lutherans. To these articles his subjects in the Netherlands were required to conform under pain of death ; and to show that this was no un- meaning threat, he ordered a Calvinist preacher, named Peter du Breuil, to be seized at Tournay, and burnt alive by a slow fire in the public square of that town (February 19th 1545).-^'* The Ger- man Protestants had reason for alarm, for the period of the religious peace was terminated ipso facto by the assembly of a council. The Diet opened at Worms, March 24th 1545, was chiefly occupied with the affairs of religion. The Emperor, being laid up 3- Above, p. 596. "* Sarpi, p. 106 ; Sleidan, lib. xvi. ; ^^ Sarpi, lib. ii. p. 105 ; Eaynaldus, EaynalJus, ib. p. So. t. xiv. p. 84. R R 2 612 DIET OF WORMS, lo-lo. [Book IL with the gout at Brussels, did not appear till May 16th. The Protestants refused to grant any supplies for the Turkish war till their safety should be established by a perpetual law. They objected to the authority of the Council of Trent, declared that they would not vindicate their opinions before a body assembled purposely to condemn them, and demanded that a national council should be summoned instead, in which the disputed points might be settled, not by authority but by fair and amicable discussion. The Count de Grignon, the French ambassador, addressed them in menacing terms, and called upon them to submit to the council summoned b}^ Paul. The Emperor declared that he had no power to call a national council ; and Cardinal Farnese, the Papal legate, threatened that if the Protestants persisted in dictating laws to the Pope and Emperor, it might be necessary to have recourse to coercion. These dissensions were for a while appeased by a reso- lution for a fresh conference between the theologians of both parties, the results of which were to be referred to a new Diet to meet at Ratisbon. The Emperor, however, had begun to throw off the mask. As if it were no longer necessary to conceal his real sentiments, the Lutheran preachers w^ere forbidden to hold forth at Worms ; whilst his own chaplain, an Italian monk, w^as allowed to inveio'h ao-ainst them in the most furious manner, and to call upon the Emperor to fulfil the duty of a Christian prince by their annihilation. In the phalanx of Protestant princes appeared only a single waverer. The youthful Duke Maurice of Saxony had, as we have said, succeeded his father Henry in 1541, and as head of the Albertine line of that house, he ruled all South Saxony, from Leipsic to the borders of Bohemia and Franconia. At the very commencement of his reign he adopted a line of policy to which he owed his subsequent advancement. Although a zealous Pro- testant with regard to doctrine, he carefully abstained from mixing himself up with the political views of the Protestant party, and consequently withdrew from the League of Smalcald. He had assisted King Ferdinand in person in the Hungarian campaign of 1542, as well as the Emperor in his expedition against the Duke of Cleves ; on both which occasions he was distinguished no less by his zeal and intrepidity than by the gracefulness of his person and his dexterity in all military enterprises. At Worms he sought to ingratiate himself with the Emperor by inclining to recognise the authority of the Council of Trent; and by his talents and his insinuating manners he succeeded in gaining the confidence of Charles. Chap. IX.] THE VAUDOIS. 613 The views of the Emperor with regard to religious affairs were warmly seconded by the French King, who not only despatched an ambassador to Worms to support them, but also caused a committee of the doctors of the Sorbonne to draw up resolutions for the consi- deration of the Council of Trent ; to which assembly he invited the university of Paris to send a deputation. At the same time he displayed, in his own dominions, his zeal for the holy Catholic faith by a persecution unparalleled since the tiaie of Diocletian. The exhortations of his priests, who took advantage of one of those disgraceful attacks to which his health was constantly exposed by his profligacy, to urge him to make his peace with Grod by the slaughter of some thousands of persons who wor- shipped Him in a different manner from themselves, induced Francis to enforce an edict passed by the parliament of Pro- vence so long ago as November 1540, the execution of which, at the intercession of the Grerman Protestants, had been hitherto suspended. Among the high Alps which separate France from Piedmont existed a scattered Christian population which had preserved from time immemorial in their religious worship traditions and customs widely different from those of the Church of Rome. They were called Vaudois, probably from the valleys which they inhabited ^^ (vaux), and had experienced some persecution under the reign of Charles VIII., but had been saved by Louis XII. from the hands of the inquisitors. Their pastors, whom they called harhas (uncles), recognised with pleasure the similarity of their own tenets to those of the Protestants of Switzerland and Germany ; nor could the Reformers themselves have seen without emotion the principles which they had deduced from reason and research so strikingly confirmed by the practice of a community whose remote and almost inaccessible position had preserved them during centuries from being infected with the errors and abuses which had gradually been engrafted on the Church of Rome. Except the questions of free will and predestination, there were few topics or practices in which they differed from the Reformers, and even in these they were, for the most part, persuaded by Farel to conform with the Protestants, in a great synod held in 1532, in the valley of ^^ We find these populations mentioned pauvrcs de Lyon (the poor brethren of in the Chroniquc de Sahit Tron, written Lyons). They may be traced at least early in the twelfth century, as contami- as high as Bishop Chuule of Turin, who nated with an inveterate heresy; and in the ninth century energetically pro- they could not, therefore, have derived tested against the worship of _ images Either their doctrines or their name from and other Koman practices, Martin, t. iv. Peter Valdo, who founded, towards the p. 6 sq. end of that century, a sect caUed Les R R 3 614 MASSACRE OF THE VAUDOIS. [Book II. Anofroofna, in Piedmont, in which all the colonies of the Vaudois were represented. It was on a settlement of these people, which had been estab- lished two or three centuries in Provence on the northern bank of the Durance among the mountains, which, rising near the cele- brated fountain of Vaucluse, stretch awa}^ towards the Alps, that Francis, incited by the Cardinal de Tournon, determined to wreak the vengeance of persecution. Their industry had converted that rugged district into a smiling garden, abounding with corn, wine, fruit, and cattle ; for one of their axioms was, " to work is to pray : " ^"^ a maxim often reversed by their Roman Catholic perse- cutors. After their connection with the Reformers, the Vaudois had departed from their former prudent reserve, and had drawn down upon themselves persecutions, which, in 1535, they had opposed with arms. On the 1st of January 1545, Francis addressed a letter to the Parliament of Provence, directing them to put in execution the decree of 1540, already mentioned, whose dreadful purport was, that al] fathers of families should be burnt, their wives and children reduced to serfdom, their property confiscated, and their dwellings razed. And this was required to be done in such a manner, " that Provence should be entirely cleared and depopu- lated of such suborners."^' Three men of learning and liberality had attempted to avert this dreadful sentence : Chasseneux, a learned jurisconsult, first president of the parliament of Provence ; Sadolet, the amiable and enlightened Bishop of Carpentras^^ ; and William du Bellay Langey, the governor of Piedmont, which last had made a very favourable report of the Vaudois to the King. But Chasseneux was now dead, and had been succeeded in his office by Meinier, Baron d'Oppede, a man fitted for the execution of such atrocities. D'Oppede kept the King's mandate a profound secret till he had assembled a small army of about 3000 men, chiefly composed of disbanded soldiers from Piedmont, accustomed to the wars of Italy, and revelling in blood and plunder. He was assisted by the Papal legate, Antonio Trivulzio, who supplied 1000 foot soldiers and some cannon. When all his preparations were made, D'Oppede read the King's letter to the Parliament of Provence, April 12th, which immediately ordered the decree of 1540 to be executed. The next day D'Oppede, '^ Michelet, Reformc, p. 346. Melanchthon -words particularly deserving ^' " De faire en sorte que le pays de to be remembered by all leaders of reli- Provence fut entierement depeuple et gious parties: "Non ego enim sum qui nettoyes de tels seducteurs." Bouche, ut quisque a nobis opinione dissentitj Hist, de Provence, liv. x. t. ii. p. 615. statim eum odio habeam." Martin, t. viii. ^ It was he who once addressed to p. 330. Chap. IX.] FURTHER PERSECUTIOXS. 615 accompanied by Paulin, Baron de la Garde, whom we have known as envoy to the Porte, and companion in arms of Barbarossa, passed the Durance with his force, and immediately began the work of havoc. The crops and frnit trees were destroyed, the villages burnt, the inhabitants massacred. On the 18th D'Oppede arrived at the little town of Merindol. It had been abandoned by all the inhabitants except a poor idiot lad of eighteen, who was imme- diately tied to a tree and shot. At Cabrieres about ninety of the townspeople had remained, and as they made a show of defending themselves, they obtained a capitulation granting them their lives. But no sooner were they in the hands of D'Oppede than he caused them all to be massacred, on the ground that no faith is to be kept with heretics. Those who had succeeded in escaping awhile were hunted down like wild beasts. With the exception of 600 or 700 of the more robust, selected for the galleys, nearly the whole popu- lation was destroyed.^^ Althoutrh this cold-blooded massacre was heard in the ca-eater o o part of Europe with indignation and horror, it was deliberately approved and adopted by Francis, the French clergy, and the Par- liament of Paris. When the Swiss interceded for the few A^audois still left alive, Francis bade them mind their own business and not interfere in the affairs of his kins^dom. At the beoinninoj of the following reign, the Dame de Cental, one of the proprietors of the district ravaged, instituted a suit in the Parliament of Paris against the authors of the massacre which had completely ruined her property, but that body acquitted them after twenty hearings, thus deliberately sanctioning this atrocious deed.''^ In the following year (1546) the persecutions were continued in France. At Meaux, which continued to be a great centre of reform, fourteen persons were burnt together, and a great many others subjected to corporal or pecuniary penalties. It was fatal to any followers of Calvin if a French Bible, or the Christian Institution of that reformer, was found upon him. One of the most illustrious victims was Stephen Dolet, burnt August 3rd 1546, on the Place Maubert, at Paris, on the charge of heresy, atheism, and eating flesh on a fast day ! He was the friend of Eabelais and Clement Marot, and a distinguished scholar, the author of some celebrated Commentaries on the Latin language. France was at this time in a deplorable condition, the effect of its long wars as well as of mal-administration. Some of the pro- ^^ For this persecution of the Vaudois Alexis Muston, Hist.des Vai(do2s,tA. ch.x. see Du Thou, liy. vi. ; Beza, Hist. Ecd. *° Bcza, Bist.EccL,t.i.-p. 28; Sarpi, lib. liv. i.; Bouche, Hist, de Provence, liv. x.; ii. p. 115. 616 THE FEENCII ATTACK EXGLAXD. [Book II. vinces were almost ia a state of anarchy. Perigord revolted against the gahelle, and the judge sent to try the malcontents narrowly escaped being murdered. The war with England still remained on hand : Francis was determined to recover Boulogrne ; yet it was difficult to raise the necessary funds without imposing fresh taxes, which excited universal discontent. He was also medi- tating a descent on the southern coast of England as well as an attack on the side of Scotland. The Scottish regent Hamilton had at first consented to a marriage between the infant Mary and Edward Prince of Wales. The treaty, however, was scarcely signed (August 25th 1543), when listening to the Catholic fanatics, and that party which nourished an ancient enmity against England, he changed his mind, reconciled himself with Cardinal Beatoun, and connived at a violent persecution of the Eeformers, several of whom were burnt alive. A small French force, under James Montgomery, Seigneur de Lorges, landed in Scotland to support this movement, and to assist in an invasion of Northumberland (July 1545). The combined Scotch and French forces marched towards the frontier, but Montgomery could not persuade the Scotch to cross the Tweed, and the campaign resulted in a few unimportant skirmishes with the Earl of Hertford. The French naval expedition against England, though prepared on a more magnificent scale, had an equally fruitless result. The French navy was at that time much superior to the English. Their largest vessel, called a Carraquon, measured 800 tons and mounted 100 guns, most of which, however, must have been of small calibre. In rivalry of this extraordinary vessel, Henry VIII. had built an exact counterpart, also called a Carraquon '^^ , but so badly con- structed as to be entirely useless. No better fate, however, attended the French vessel. Francis repaired with his court to Havre de Grace, to be present at the sailing of the expedition, when a grand fete was given on board the Carraquon (July 6th 1545). Large fires having been lighted for cooking, in spite of the remonstrances of the sailors, the ship caught fire, and was completely destroyed, together with most of its crew ; and it was with difficulty that the court ladies and the military chests could be rescued. The arma- ment nevertheless set sail. It consisted of 25 galleys brought round from Marseilles, 150 vaisseaux ronds, or ships of war, and 60 transports, the whole under the command of the Admiral Annebaut. On the 18th of July the French fleet appeared ofF the Isle of Wight. The English fleet was much inferior, con- ^ *' It is difficult to say wliether this be a proper name or an intensive of caraque viz., a large carrack. Chap. IX.] ATTEMPT TO KETAXE BOULOGIS-E. 617 sisting only of sixty vessels, some of which, called ramberges, a sort of advice boat, were adapted both for sailing and rowing. Never- theless the English came out, but being too inferior in force to venture a close engagement, retired after a distant cannonade into Portsmouth. The French sunk the " Mary Kose," and the vessel called the " Grreat Henry " was near sharing the same fate. The French commander, however, did not venture to attack Portsmouth, and after making some descents on Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, set sail for Boulogne, which town was then besieged by Marshal de Biez. Annebaut landed some of his forces to construct a fort at Outreau, in order to command the entrance of the harbour : but on the appearance of the English fleet, which had been re- en- forced, retired into Havre. The fort at Outreau proved useless, and the English had still free access to Boulogne. While the siege of that town was proceeding, a great calamity overtook Francis, the death of his favourite son, the Duke of Orleans. The Dauphin he regarded with jealousy and hatred, and only a few weeks before a scandalous scene of anger and violence had taken place between them. Francis had wished to make the Duke of Orleans in some degree the rival of his brother, and regarded with satisfaction the future greatness which he had provided for him by the treaty of Crespy. But these hopes were destined to frustration. During the siege the King resided with his two sons at Foret Moutiers, near Abbeville. The neio-hbour- hood was infected with the plague, which the Duke of Orleans is said to have caught by venturing with his usual thoughtlessness into the house of a peasant. He expired September 9th 1545. This event deprived Francis of all the benefits he had promised himself from the peace of Crespy. At the same time, however, it revived his own pretensions in Flanders and the Milanese, which had been renounced only in favour of his son's marriage ; and on this ground he opened fresh negociations with the Emperor. Charles, who was then at Antwerp engaged in borrowing money from the Flemish towns for the war which he was meditatincr asrainst the Protestants, received the French ambassadors very coldly. After expressing some decent regret for the death of his intended son-in-law, he declared that it afforded no reason either why he should recognise claims which he had always repudiated, and which Francis had twice solemnly renounced, or why he should not demand the restitution of the dominions of Savoy for a prince who was at once his brother- in-law, his ally, and his vassal ; and he declared that all he could promise was that if France did not attack him he would not attack France. With this answer the ambassadors, after staying 618 OPEXIXG OF THE COUXCIL OF TKEXT. [Book IT. a week, were fain to return. Thus the unfortunate Duke of Savoy lost all hope of recovering his dominions, which, by the treaty of Crespy, Francis was not bound to restore till the Duke of Orleans had been put in possession either of Milan or the Nether- lands. The fliilure of Francis's negociations with the Emperor determined him again to change his policy. He recalled his prelates from the Council of Trent, then on the point of assembling ; he also in- structed his envoy at the Porte to do all in his power to thwart Fer- dinand's negociations with Solyman, which he had been previously forwarding, and to induce the Sultan to recommence hostilities in Hungary. But being still embarrassed by his war with England, the French King did not venture upon an open rupture with the Emperor. That war had cost him much money and many soldiers, and as the winter approached his men died by hundreds in the camp. The Grerman Protestants, alarmed by the preparations which Charles was making against them in Flanders, had in vain sought to reconcile the French and English monarchs, whose assistance they foresaw would be needful to them in the approach- ing struggle. But neither was yet prepared to accept the terms demanded by his adversary. At the very moment when the Council was about to meet at Trent for the reformation of the Church, Paul III. occasioned a new scandal by granting his natural son, Peter Louis Farnese, Parma au.d Piacenza, with the title of Duke ; a step also highly offensive to the Emperor, who regarded those cities as belongiug to the Milanese, and he therefore refused to confirm the investi- ture. Such was the origin of the Duchy of Parma. The new Duke of Parma rendered himself so odious by his vices and crimes that he was assassinated two years afterwards (September lOtli 1547), when Ferdinand G-onzaga, governor of Milan, took posses- sion of Piacenza in the name of the Emperor. Philip II., however, restored, in 1557, Piacenza and its dependencies to Octavius Farnese, the son and successor of Peter Louis ; and the house of Farnese continued to hold the Duchy of Parma as a fief of the Holy See till the extinction of its male heirs in 1731. The affair of Parma did not disturb the understanding between Charles and the Pope, who were now both intent on putting down the German Protestants. • The Council of Trent was at length opened for the despatch of business, December 13th 1545. The meeting of this assembly may be considered as forming a new epoch in the history of Europe, and we shall therefore postpone to another bjok the account of its proceedings. A general council CuAP. IX.] DEATH OF LUTHER. 619 had always been regarded as affording the last chance of restoring the unity of the Church, and when its authority was rejected by the Protestants, no alternative seemed left but an appeal to arms. Tha,t extremity, which might have crushed Protestantism when in its infancy, had been hitherto avoided ; but our next volume, con- taining the history of a century, will exhibit the rise, progress, and termination of the so-called religious wars, arising from the Ke- formation in Grermany, France, and the Netherlands. Luther did not live to behold these scenes of violence. At the very time when his doctrines were under examination at Trent, the lowly monk whose strong head and fearless heart had thus engaged in angry and anxious discussion, as over their dearest interests both in this world and the next, the highest, the most powerful, and the most learned men in Europe, was quietly ex- piring in the obscure little town that gave him birth. He had gone to Eisleben to reconcile a quarrel that had arisen between the Counts Mansfeld ; and while engaged in this mission of peace, was attacked with inflammation, w^hich terminated his life, February 18th 1546, at the age of sixty-three. The Elector of Saxony caused his funeral to be celebrated with great pomp. The dread with which Luther had inspired his adversaries may be gathered from the manner in which his death is recorded by Odoric Ray- naldus, the annalist of the Church. "It is said," writes that author, " that the day on which Luther expired was signalised in Belgiiun by many of the possessed being delivered, because the devils quitted them to accompany Luther's soul to hell ; though they presently returned to resume their functions."'*^ *^ Ann. EccL, t. xiv. p. 193. END OF THE FIEST VOLUME.. , fVlflRARY. VOKK. LONDON MilNTED BY SPOTTJSVVOODE AND CO. 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