416

LEO'S PROCEEDINGS AGAINST THE FRENCH. [CHAP. XI. upon Venice.

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 Emperor engaged to reduce to obedience the adversaries of the Apostolic throne, that is, Luther and his adherents, and to avenge all the wrongs 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 Chancellor of Milan, one of the numerous citizens whom the harshness of the French rule had compelled 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 Reggio. 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 of Foix, Lord of Lautrec, the Governor of the Milanese, was absent in France, and had left the supreme command to his brother, Thomas of Foix, commonly called Marshal de Lescun; who, hearing of the proceedings of the Pope, marched with some troops to Reggio, intending if possible to surprise the town, or at all events to demand an explanation. On his appearance before the place, Guicciardini, 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 despatched an envoy to the Pope to apologize for his conduct; but Leo, glad of so good an opportunity to throw off the mask, refused to hear the envoy, complained of the French King's hostility, excommunicated Lescun as an impious invader of the territory of St. Peter, and publicly avowed in 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 was

Dumont, t. iv. pt. iii. Supp. p. 96.

2 Pace to Wolsey, July 20, 1521, State Papers, vol. i. p. 12.

CHAP. XI.]

CONFERENCE AT CALAIS.

417 held at Calais. It was managed on the part of Charles by the Count of Gattinara, a Piedmontese, for Chièvres 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, which the Cardinal was not scrupulous in intimating now providing 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 conference, Henry VIII. and his minister had already made preparations for hostilities against Francis, by providing a body of 6,000 archers, and devising plans for the destruction 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 impartiality, and declared that his only solicitude was to ascertain who had first broken the peace. To have effected a satisfactory mediation 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 Genoa should be evacuated, homage for Flanders remitted, and Burgundy restored! Under these circumstances it is not surprising that Wolsey's mediation only resulted in procuring a treaty for the suspension of hostilities between the French and Netherland vessels engaged in the herring fishery !3

Technically speaking, Francis was certainly committed by Lesparre'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

1 MSS. de Bethune, ap. Gaillard, t. ii. p. 164 sq.

2 See Pace's Letters to Wolsey, July 28th and August 1st, and Wolsey's to Henry VIII., August 4th. State Papers, vol. i. pp. 23, 24, 27.

This trade, however, was of great importance, especially to the Nether

landers, and the fishing season was now at hand. The power of Holland was founded on this trade, and according to a Dutch saying, Amsterdam was built on herring bones.

Wolsey to King Henry VIII., July 1521. State Papers, vol. i. p. 17.

418

TREATY OF BRUGES.

[CHAP. XI. people of Ghent, in July, had told them that "he would leave the French King in his shirt, or else Francis 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 as if he had been a sovereign prince. Here, in the name of his master, the Cardinal concluded with Charles a treaty, the chief purport of which was, that in the following 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 and Henry's daughter Mary, to be celebrated when the latter should have attained the age of ten. Mary was to have a dowry of £80,000, but from this sum was to be deducted all money owed by the Emperor to England. We have seen that Mary was already betrothed to the Dauphin, and that the Emperor himself had engaged to marry Francis's daughter Charlotte. The treaty was to be kept profoundly secret till such time as Charles should visit England, on his return to Spain, when Henry was to declare war against France. The Pope was not idle during these negotiations. He sanctioned the treaty (August 25th) by a beneplacitum, and on the 4th September he issued a bull of excommunication against Francis I., releasing his subjects from their allegiance. A treaty was also arranged at Bruges, between the Emperor, the King of England, and the Pope, which was ratified November 24th, at Calais. The Emperor' and the King of England promised to support Leo, whose greatest care, it was affirmed, was for spiritual affairs, against the German and other heretics. was at this time that Henry VIII. published his book against Luther, which procured him the title of "Defender of the Faith."3

It

The motives of Wolsey in these negotiations are sufficiently plain; those of his master are not so apparent. He was completely led by the Cardinal, and probably entertained some vague idea of the conquest of France, to the sovereignty of which he pretended. Meanwhile the war went on. On the southern French frontier the Admiral Bonnivet and the Count of Guise, who had been despatched with an army to revenge the disaster of Lesparre,

1 Letter of Fitzwilliam to Henry VIII., August 2nd, 1521. State Papers, vol. vi. p. 83.

2 Lord Herbert's Life of Henry VIII. p. 118.

3 Wolsey's Letter to Henry VIII., from

Bruges, August 24th. State Papers, vol. i. p. 43. Pace's Letter to Wolsey expressing the King's satisfaction at the Pope's acceptance of his book, Oct. 27th ̄(1521), ibid. p. 78.

CHAP. XI.] THE FRENCH AND AUSTRIAN RIVALRY BEGINS. 419 not only succeeded in recovering Lower Navarre, or that part of the Kingdom north of the Pyrenees-which the House of Albret did not again lose-but also took Fuenterabia. This news arrived before the conference at Calais was concluded. Charles V., supported by Henry VIII., immediately demanded the restoration of Fuenterabia, which opened to the French the road into Biscay; and on the refusal of Francis, the negotiations ended. In the north, Francis entered the Cambrésis at the head of his army in October, and on the 22nd came up with Nassau between Cambray and Valenciennes; but with a hesitation quite unusual with him, and contrary to the advice of his best and most experienced captains, missed the opportunity of attacking the Imperialists at an advantage. The French, however, succeeded in capturing Hesdin, after which Francis retired to Amiens, and disbanded the greater part of his army. But this success was more than counterbalanced by the loss of Tournai, which surrendered to the Imperialists before the end of December, after a blockade of six months. During this period we find Wolsey, in his assumed character of a peaceful mediator, writing the most treacherous letter to Francis (October 20th), in order to deter him from a battle with the Emperor, the result of which the Cardinal feared; and this in direct contravention of his master's advice to the Emperor, to provoke the French King to fight.1 Wolsey had followed up this letter by sending an embassy to Francis, then near Valenciennes, to persuade or frighten him into a truce. To this Francis would not consent; but the delay which this embassy occasioned arrested his operations, and probably caused the loss of Tournai. Thus was opened that series of wars between the rival Houses of France and Austria, which, with little intermission, lasted nearly two centuries, and which may be divided into two periods; namely, till the peace of Vervins, in 1598, and to the death of Louis XIV., in 1715.

The war, which was now fairly kindled, soon spread into Italy, where, as we have seen, hostile symptoms had already displayed themselves. The French rule in that country had been anything but wise or popular: the government was conducted with military harshness, and the Italians were made to feel that they were a conquered people. Lautrec, the eldest brother of the frail Madame de Châteaubriand, a good soldier, but a man of cruel and inflexible

1 Pace's Letter to Wolsey, Oct. 15th, and Wolsey's Letter to Francis, Oct. 20th, apud Turner, Henry VIII. vol. ii. p. 287.

2 Wolsey's Instructions to the Earl of Worcester, the lord chamberlain, and others, ibid. p. 289.

420

CABALS OF THE FRENCH COURT.

[CHAP. XI. character, conducted his viceroyalty on a system of terror; his own family, as well as the treasury, was enriched by confiscations and executions, and he is said to have banished half the principal inhabitants of the Milanese. Even the veteran Marshal Trivulzio, a native of Milan, one of the first captains of the age, who had assisted the French in their enterprises in Italy ever since the days of Charles VIII., was treated with contumely by Lautrec, on account of his Guelf principles. At the age of eighty Trivulzio crossed the Alps in winter to lay his complaints at the feet of Francis I., but was denied an audience through the influence of the Countess of Châteaubriand. He died heartbroken soon after

in France.

But the French interests in Italy were as much damaged by intrigues at home as by bad policy abroad. The Court was divided into two factions, each led by a woman; for the period had arrived when cabal and gallantry, female influence and the passions or caprices of mistresses, were to play so great a part in the affairs of France, to direct and often to damage her most important enterprises. At the head of one party was the King's mother, Louise of Savoy, whose principal adherents were the Chancellor Duprat, the Admiral Bonnivet, and René, the Bastard of Savoy, Louise's brother, for whom she wished to obtain the command in Italy. On the other side was the King's mistress, Madame de Châteaubriand, with Lautrec and her other brothers: but the love of Francis was now beginning gradually to decline, and with it the credit of the Countess. Lautrec had neglected to pay the King's mother sufficient court: he had even had the audacity to speak too freely of her adventures of gallantry; and Louise in her wrath resolved to punish him, were it even at the expense of the interests and honour of France. When the cloud of war began to lower over Italy, Lautrec, who, as we have said, was in France, received orders to repair to his government; but he declared that he was in want of money to pay the troops, and refused to stir unless he was supplied with 400,000 crowns. The King and Semblançay, the minister of finance, promised on oath that the money should be remitted to him, and Lautrec departed. When, however, it was collected, Louise seized it for her own use,1 thus gratifying at once her rapacity and her revenge. When in the following year Lautrec, after his defeat in Italy, again returned

She had enormous pensions, and it

is probable that she may have only seized what she had strictly a claim to, but to

the detriment of the military service (Michelet, Réforme, p. 154).