Europe in the Sixteenth Century 1494-1598 Part 17

By this treaty Francis was to cede Tournay, to 'restore' Burgundy in full sovereignty, to surrender all claims on Italy, as well as the suzerainty over Flanders and Artois. He was to withdraw his protection from his allies, pay the debt incurred by Charles to England in the late war, and aid him against the Turk. The Duke of Bourbon was to regain his forfeited possessions, and to receive besides the Duchy of Milan. In ratification of the treaty, Francis promised to marry Eleonora, the widowed Queen of Portugal, sister of the Emperor, and left his sons as hostages for the fulfilment of the treaty. The treaty was not, however, worth the paper it was written on. Although Charles had made Francis swear on the honour of a knight, and on the gospel, to fulfil the compact or return to captivity, no sooner was the latter free again than he repudiated it. The day before he signed it, he had protested to his own amba.s.sadors that he would not consider promises thus extorted from him as binding, and gave them notice that he did not mean to keep it. We are astonished to find that this conduct excited no surprise in Europe. Wolsey actually urged Francis to take this course, and Clement absolved him from his oath.

| The League of Cognac. May 22, 1526.

The release of the French King, therefore, served but to encourage the enemies of Charles, and, on May 22, the Pope, Francis, Sforza, Venice, and Florence concluded the Holy League of Cognac, under the 'protection of Henry of England.' Sforza was to be confirmed in his possession of Milan; all Italian states were to be restored to the position they held before the war; Charles was to release the young French princes for a sum of money, and pay his debt to England within three months. The Leaguers proclaimed their desire to secure a lasting peace. Charles and all other princes were therefore offered the opportunity of joining the League. But if the Emperor refused, he was to be driven not only from the Milanese, but from Naples, which was then to be held by the Pope on payment of a yearly revenue to France.

Charles was now threatened by a coalition more formidable than any previous one. Nor was this all. His army was in a mutinous condition from want of pay and food, and in danger from the determined hostility of the Italians. Colonna, and Pescara, two of his best generals, were dead, while Bourbon had quarrelled with Lannoy, the viceroy of Naples.

In Hungary, Solyman was on the point of winning the battle of Mohacs (August 28, 1526)--a victory which was to give him the larger part of that country; Francis was negotiating with this enemy of Christendom, and even Venice declared she preferred to be the va.s.sal of the Turk rather than of the Emperor.

| Milan capitulates to the Imperialists. July 24, 1526

Fortunately for Charles, the members of the League were not hearty in the common cause. Francis seemed determined to make up for the dreary days of imprisonment, and spent his time in hunting and other pleasures. He expressed the most admirable sentiments as to the necessity of immediate action, and made use of the League to try and extort easier terms from Charles, yet did nothing. Wolsey had no intention of openly breaking with Charles, and prevailed on Henry VIII. to decline the office of Protector of the League. The Divorce Question had already arisen, and if this influenced Wolsey to prevent a reconciliation between Pope and Emperor, it also gave him strong reasons for not needlessly irritating Charles. Finally, the Duke of Urbino, the commander of the Venetian army, either from incompetence, or from a disinclination unduly to extend the power of the Pope, failed to prosecute the war with vigour. The Imperialists, therefore, were able to concentrate their efforts on the citadel of Milan, and on July 24, Sforza was forced to capitulate. The Colonnesi, headed by the Cardinal Pompeio, now rose, and were supported by Don Hugo de Moncada, the successor of Pescara. On August 22, they pretended to come to terms; but no sooner had Clement dismissed his troops, than Moncada and the Cardinal, rivalling the perfidy of Francis, appeared before the walls of Rome with the army of the Colonnesi. The citizens, a.s.sured that the Colonnesi only came to deliver them from the tyranny of the Pope, and threatened with destruction if they stirred, offered no resistance; the papal palace, the houses of the cardinals and amba.s.sadors, were sacked; the Church of St. Peter was rifled, and the Host profaned; and Clement, utterly defenceless, was obliged to submit to the terms dictated by the victors (September 21). He promised to recall his troops from Lombardy, to make a four months' truce with the Emperor, and to pardon the Colonnesi. The news, however, of the taking of Cremona by the army of the League inspired him in an evil moment to break his promises. He sent his troops to ravage the territories of the Colonnesi, and deprived Cardinal Pompeio of his dignities.

| The sack of Rome. May 6, 1527.

Moncada had told the Emperor to disavow his attack on Rome. This Charles did, but at the same time warned the College of Cardinals that if anything befell Christendom, it would be the fault of the Pope who, in thus joining the League, 'had sought the satisfaction of his own desires rather than the honour of Christ and his people's good.' The Emperor also despatched six thousand Spanish troops to Italy, and bade Ferdinand send eight thousand Germans under Frundsberg. In November, this enemy of the Papacy crossed the Alps with an army, levied mostly from the robber fastnesses of Germany, in which there were many Lutherans. By the end of December, he had reached Piacenza, in spite of the feeble attempts of the forces of the League to check him. At the same time Lannoy landed at St. Stefano, in Tuscany, with the levies from Spain. Clement was now 'in such a condition that he did not know where he was,' says an eye-witness. At one moment he haggled over terms of peace with Lannoy, at another he threatened him and his troops with excommunication. Finally, however, on the 15th of March, he made an eight months' truce. This did not, however, save him.

Frundsberg had in February been joined by Bourbon with the troops from Milan. Their first idea had been to attack Florence. Hearing, however, that the city was prepared to resist, and was protected by the army of the League under the Duke of Urbino, Bourbon turned on Rome, declaring that his troops were mutinous and were dragging him there.

As he advanced, his army was swelled by Italians bent on plunder. On the 6th of May, after being twice repulsed, the fortifications of the Eternal City were carried, though Bourbon fell, and Rome was for eight days in the hands of the spoiler. She had suffered much from the barbarians of old, but probably never did she suffer such brutality as now at the hands of Christians. The death of Bourbon, and the absence of Frundsberg, who had been left mortally sick at Bologna, removed the only men who might have restrained the fury of the soldiery.

The Spaniards excelled in cruelty, the Lutherans in blasphemy and sacrilege. They sacked and plundered without discrimination of friend or foe. 'There is not,' says a contemporary, 'a house in Rome, not a church or monastery, either of Romans or of foreigners, great or small, which has not been sacked.' 'Cardinals,' says another, 'bishops, friars, priests, old nuns, infants, dames, pages, servants, the very poorest, were tormented with unheard-of cruelties, often three times over: first by the Italians, then by the Spaniards, afterwards by the lance-knights. Lastly, the villainous Colonnesi came, dying of hunger, and ravaged what the other soldiers had not deigned to take.' The sack of Rome may well be said to close the period of the greatness of Italy. No longer was she to be the leader of the new learning and of art.

| Henry VIII. allies himself with Francis. April-May, | 1527.

| Conference at Amiens. August, 1527.

Meanwhile, the unfortunate Pope lay besieged in the Castle of St.

Angelo. He might have escaped while the city was being sacked; yet he delayed, trusting that the army of the League would hurry to his support. It came, indeed, at last; but the Duke of Urbino, declaring that he was not strong enough to attack, retreated, and, on June 7, Clement was forced to capitulate. He promised to pay the sums of money demanded, surrendered six towns as securities, and consented to remain a prisoner, with his thirteen Cardinals, until the first instalment should be paid. Some now advised the Emperor to take the lands of the Papacy and reduce the Pope to his spiritual functions; or, at least, 'to keep the see apostolic so low that he might always dispose of it and command it.' But though Charles declared the sack of Rome to be the judgment of G.o.d, he was probably sincere in regretting it,[47] and even had he wished to proceed to extremities, he was in no position to do so. Indeed, the capture of the Pope promised to bring him as little advantage as that of the King of France had done. The news of the sack of Rome had at last aroused the pleasure-seeking Francis, and caused England to change her policy of masterly inactivity. To this, Wolsey was driven by his imperious master. Henry VIII. was now bent on divorcing Queen Catherine, the aunt of Charles; it was therefore of importance, not only to gain the support of Francis, but, if possible, to earn the grat.i.tude of the Pope. Accordingly, by the treaties of April 30, and May 29, Henry abandoned his claim to the French throne in return for a perpetual pension; the infant Princess Mary was betrothed to the second son of the French King; and England promised to furnish Francis with money for his Italian campaign. In the following August, Wolsey held a conference at Amiens with the French King. It was agreed that, during the captivity of the Pope, no Bull derogatory to the interests of either King should be admitted into their territories, that the Churches of France and England should be administered by their bishops, and that the judgments p.r.o.nounced by Wolsey in his legatine and archiepiscopal courts should be enforced, notwithstanding any papal prohibition. The contracting parties also decided that the Pope, being in captivity, should be asked to intrust his power to another, who should take steps to meet present necessities. Wolsey even suggested that he himself should be appointed papal Vicar. The pretext for these strange proposals was the fear that Charles might use the spiritual powers of his prisoner to their disadvantage, but there is little doubt that Wolsey also hoped in this way to obtain authority for an immediate settlement of the divorce question.

| The French again enter Italy. July 30.

Meanwhile, a new French army under Lautrec had invaded Italy, and shortly secured the whole of Lombardy except Milan itself, which was stoutly defended by Antonio de Leyva. Had Lautrec concentrated all his efforts on the city, as he was urged to do by Sforza and the Duke of Urbino, it must have fallen; for Leyva had but a handful of men, and was short of money and supplies. Leyva, however, it was known, would fight to the last; and Lautrec, unwilling to weaken his force by so desperate an encounter, turned southward to the relief of Clement (October 1527).

The position of the Pope was indeed a pitiable one. Money he had none, and, without the payment of his ransom, he could not regain his freedom.

Rome, meanwhile, continued to be the victim of the merciless soldiers.

The Duke of Ferrara had seized Reggio and Modena; and even the Venetians, although the allies of the Pope, had occupied Ravenna and Cervia, under the pretext that they did it to save those cities from falling into Ferrarese hands.

| Medici again driven from Florence. May 17, 1527.

Worse than this, the Florentines had in May risen once more against the Medici, driven the Pope's two cousins, Alessandro and Ippolito, from the city, and re-established a Republic under the veteran Nicolo Capponi. Clement had sacrificed the interests of the Church in his attempt to strengthen the temporal power and to aggrandise his family, and this was the result. Before Lautrec reached Rome, however, the Pope had at least regained his freedom. Charles realised that he was gaining nothing by keeping Clement in captivity; he earnestly wished to make peace with him, and to proceed to the extirpation of heresy.

He had therefore ordered Moncada to try to come to terms, warning him at the same time to beware that he was not tricked, as he himself had been, by Francis.

| Clement comes to terms with Charles, Nov. 26. But | flies to Orvieto, Dec. 6.

Accordingly, on November 26, the following agreement was made. The Pope was to pay a certain sum of money at once, and to promise more.

He undertook not to oppose the Emperor's designs on Italy; he granted him a 'cruzada' from the ecclesiastical revenues of Spain, and half of the ecclesiastical t.i.thes of Naples; Ostia, Civita-Vecchia, and Civita Castellana were to be left in Charles' hands as guarantees, as well as five of the cardinals; the Pope was to be freed on the 7th of the following month. On the preceding night, afraid lest he might even yet be kept a prisoner, he fled in disguise to the papal stronghold of Orvieto.

| Critical condition of the Imperialists in Italy.

Even so, the affairs of Charles were going ill. Florence, although she had expelled the Medici, did not abandon the League. Leyva still held Milan, but warned Charles that 'G.o.d did not work miracles every day,' and that, if not speedily relieved, his troops, though they would not surrender, would be starved. Genoa had been once more won for the French by Andrea Doria. Lannoy, the viceroy of Naples, had just died of the plague, and the imperial army, which had marched, under the Prince of Orange, to the relief of Naples, was surrounded by the French army under Lautrec. Naples seemed doomed, and Francis was jubilant.

| Francis quarrels with Doria.

Yet, as had been the case at every important crisis of this long struggle, the French, when most confident, were nearest defeat.

Although the troops of the Emperor were ill paid and ill fed, and, on that account, insubordinate and ready for plunder, they were decidedly superior to those of Francis, both in powers of endurance and on the battlefield. They had hitherto been outnumbered, but their endurance had been wearing out their enemies, and they were soon to be in a position to meet them in the field. The fate of Naples depended on the command of the sea, and this was now in the hands of Andrea Doria and his nephew Filippino. Andrea Doria had taken the lead in the revolution which had recently restored Genoa to the French. He soon repented of his deed. Not only did Francis personally affront him by refusing to pay him properly for the use of his galleys, and by denying him the ransom of the prisoners he had taken, but he also touched his patriotism by neglecting Genoa, and attempting to set up Savona, which the French had lately gained, as her commercial rival.

On Doria's remonstrance, Francis sent a Breton to take command of the French fleet in the Mediterranean, and even thought of having the Doge arrested. Doria accordingly listened to the tempting offers of the Prince of Orange, and, on the 4th of July, ordered his nephew to sail from Naples. His departure at once enabled the city to provision itself from Sicily, and the danger of famine was removed. At this critical moment, the French army, which had also suffered from want of supplies, was attacked by a severe outbreak of the plague. To this Lautrec, with several of his officers, fell a victim, and the army was so decimated that the Marquis of Saluzzo, who succeeded him in command, determined to retreat to Aversa (August 28).

| Battle of Aversa, Aug. 28. The French evacuate | Naples.

| The French finally driven from Genoa. Oct. 28.

| Battle of Landriano. June 20.

As the French attempted to execute this movement, the rear-guard, under Pedro Navarra, was overtaken by the enemy, and forced to surrender. The Prince of Orange, following up his success, pursued the retreating foe, and forced them to capitulate at discretion.

The Marquis of Saluzzo remained a prisoner in his hands with Pedro Navarra, both to die shortly afterwards. The rest of the army were allowed to return to their homes under promise not to serve for the present against the Emperor. Doria now sailed to Genoa, and raised the city against the French. On the 28th of October, the governor Trivulzio was forced to capitulate, and Doria was successful in establishing a government which, if somewhat oligarchical, at least protected the city from those violent party factions which had torn it for years, and secured its independence until the year 1796. Doria then reduced Savona, and the French were driven from the Ligurian coast. In Lombardy the struggle continued for a while. Here Leyva, who still held Milan, was opposed by the troops of the League, commanded by Sforza, the Duke of Urbino with the Venetian troops, and the Count de St. Pol with the new levies from France. The armies of the League, after retaking Pavia, had surrounded Milan, but hesitated to attack the formidable Leyva. In the following June, the Count de St. Pol, as he rashly attempted to make a diversion on Genoa, was surprised by Leyva, who had received information of his movements, and was completely routed at Landriano (June 20). The besieging armies retreated, and Milan was saved.

Charles was not yet complete master in Italy. Asti and Alessandria were still in the hands of the French. Lodi, Cremona, and Pavia were held by Sforza; the Republic at Florence still kept out the Medici, and Venice yet clung to the eastern coast of Apulia. Further resistance on the part of the League was, however, hopeless, unless supported by its more important members, and these were soon to abandon it. England had never intended to act as a princ.i.p.al in the war, and was certainly unable to do so at present: she was weakened by a serious outbreak of the sweating sickness, and the attention of her King was absorbed in the matter of the divorce.

| Clement and the Emperor reconciled at the Treaty of | Barcelona.

Still more fatal to the cause of the League was the final reconciliation of Clement with the Emperor. The real desire of Clement, since his escape from Rome, had been to maintain his neutrality until peace was declared. This, however, was difficult, besieged as he was by the importunate agents of the League, and of Charles. Moreover, Clement cared chiefly for the temporal interests of the Papacy and the aggrandis.e.m.e.nt of his family. To regain the possessions of which he had been robbed, to re-establish the Medici in Florence--these, rather than the freedom of Italy, or the overthrow of heresy, were his aims. As these were not to be gained from the League, the Pope decided after much hesitation to come to terms with the Emperor, the more so, because the ultimate success of Charles seemed certain. Nor can it be denied that, for once, Clement's private interests coincided with those of the Church, for reconciliation with Charles offered the only hope of making head against the formidable Luther. His only apprehension was that Charles would put into effect his threat of summoning a General Council, a threat which he had enforced by his promises to the Diet of Spires in June 1526. On this point, the Emperor's agents succeeded in allaying the fears of the Pope, and no mention of a Council was made in the treaty which was concluded at Barcelona on the 29th June, 1529. By that treaty the Pope promised to invest Charles with the kingdom of Naples, and to crown him Emperor. Charles undertook that the places seized from the Papal States by the Duke of Ferrara, and by Venice, should be restored; he also promised to re-establish the Medici in Florence. Finally, they both agreed to turn their united forces against the infidel and the heretic. Yet the treaty was to lead to another schism. On the 16th of July, Clement, yielding to the wishes of Charles, revoked the powers he had given to Wolsey and Campeggio to try the question of Henry's divorce in England, and cited the cause to Rome. Wolsey's dream of gaining papal sanction was broken, and soon Henry was to take the matter into his own hands and cast off the papal supremacy.

| Peace of Cambray. August 3, 1529.

Meanwhile, negotiations for peace between the Emperor and Francis had been going on. The rivals had, however, challenged each other to single combat the year before, and their honour did not suffer them personally to correspond. The negotiations, therefore, had been conducted by two women--Margaret, Governess of the Netherlands, the aunt of Charles, and Louise of Savoy, the mother of the French King, both of whom were anxious for peace. Francis had been most unwilling to grant the terms demanded, yet he was in no condition to continue the war, and the reconciliation of Pope and Emperor forced him to abandon his scruples, and sign the Peace of Cambray, or Women's Peace, August 3, 1529.

The French King was indeed freed from the necessity of ceding Burgundy, and regained his sons, who had been left hostages in the hands of Charles, in return for a sum of money. The other terms were, however, sufficiently humiliating. Not only did Francis surrender all claims to Italy, and to the overlordship of Artois and Flanders; but he had also to abandon his allies; he even undertook, if necessary, to force the Venetians to disgorge the conquests they had lately made on the Neapolitan coast, and this in the face of his solemn engagement on the honour of a King to include them in any treaty which he might make. Francis, it must be confessed, rated a King's word rather low.

The marriage, first arranged at the Treaty of Madrid, was ratified; it was hoped that if Eleonora, the widowed sister of Charles, were wedded to Francis, the family tie might serve to heal the personal enmity of these two sovereigns, whose rivalry had plunged Europe into an eight years' war.

| Charles leaves Spain for Italy. August, 1529.

| Settlement of Italian affairs.

Before the negotiations had been brought to a successful issue, Charles had left Spain. It was his earnest desire to finish the war himself, and to receive the imperial crown from the hands of the Pope.

It was at Piacenza therefore that he finally ratified the treaty.

Italy was now at the mercy of Charles. He was, however, wise enough to adopt a conciliatory policy towards all her States, except the Republic of Florence. Venice was indeed forced to surrender to Charles her conquests on the east coast of Naples, and to restore Ravenna and Cervia to the Pope, but was not further punished. To Francesco Maria Sforza was left the duchy of Milan, with the exception of Monza, which was granted to Antonio de Leyva, Charles' brave general, and of the citadels of Milan and Como, which Charles kept in his own hands.[48]

This policy had its reward. By a treaty of December 23, 1529, Venice and Sforza joined the Pope in contracting a defensive alliance with Charles; while Savoy was strengthened as an outpost against France by the acquisition of the county of Asti. The affairs of Florence had yet to be settled. Charles would gladly have found some middle course. But the Florentines refused to readmit the Medici even as private citizens, and Clement insisted that they should be restored to power. The city, strengthened by the fortifications designed by Michael Angelo, and defended by the militia formed after the advice of Machiavelli, stood an eight months' siege, during which the Prince of Orange, Charles' general, was killed. No one, however, came to the aid of the unfortunate Republic, which was forced to accept as Duke, Alessandro, the cousin of the Pope, who had married Margaret, the illegitimate daughter of the Emperor.[49]

| Charles crowned Emperor at Bologna. Feb. 23, 1530.

Meanwhile, on February 23, Charles had been crowned Emperor at Bologna by the Pope, and on the following day, the anniversary of his birth, and of the victory of Pavia, had received the iron crown of Italy.

During this long war, which had lasted eight years, we find the same story repeated again and again. Thrice the French seemed on the point of success, only to experience a crushing reverse which s.n.a.t.c.hed from them all they had gained. The imperialist armies, whether composed of Germans or of Spaniards, ill paid and ill fed, often broke out in mutiny, and disgraced their feats of arms by plunder and atrocities of all kinds; yet no sooner were they called upon to meet the enemy than they proved themselves superior whether in defensive or offensive operations; while they were also, as a rule, better led.

Francis, after his capture at Pavia, never appeared in the field again, and although infinitely better supplied with money from his subservient people than was Charles, he was too careless and too fond of pleasure to make full use of his advantage. As for Charles, he had taken no active part in the campaigns at all. Absent in Spain, surrounded by difficulties which the vastness of his Empire entailed upon him, and ever in grievous need of money, it seemed sometimes as if he were forgetful of the war, and neglectful of his soldiers. Yet under this callous exterior there was a determination and fixedness of purpose which nothing could shake, and which, if it sometimes appeared to be sheer stupidity, yet succeeded in the end.

| Solyman invades Hungary. May, 1529.

| Siege of Vienna raised. Oct. 14, 1523.

While the armies of Charles had thus been engaged in winning Italy from his Christian rival, Vienna seemed likely to fall into the hands of the infidel. In May, 1529, Solyman the Magnificent had allied himself with the Hospodar of Moldavia, and with John Zapolya, Waivode of Transylvania, the inveterate enemy of the Hapsburgs, and had invaded Hungary. His pretensions knew no bounds. 'As there is but one G.o.d in Heaven, so must there be but one lord on earth, and Solyman is that lord,' he proudly a.s.serted, a boast which he hoped to carry into effect by reducing the dominions of the Emperor in Germany. The Austrians, afraid to trust the fidelity of the Hungarian forces, had been unable to meet the Turk, and retreated from the country. Solyman, in possession of the sacred crown of Hungary, which was handed to him by an Hungarian bishop, pa.s.sed on into Austria, and on the 20th of September laid siege to Vienna. But divided though Germany was, it was not so lost to shame as to allow the Crescent to be established on the walls of the Austrian city. The Reformers, although irritated by their treatment at the hands of the second Diet of Spires (cf. p. 198), answered to the appeal of Ferdinand and to the injunctions of Luther.