THE REIGN OF THE EMPEROR CHARLES V

BOOK XI.

ABDICATION OF CHARLES V

As soon as the treaty of Passau was signed, Maurice, in consequence of his engagements with Ferdinand, marched into Hungary with twenty thousand men [Aug. 3]. But the great superiority of the Turkish armies, the frequent mutinies both of the Spanish and German soldiers, occasioned by their want of pay, together with the dissensions between Maurice and Castaldo, who was piqued at being obliged of resign the chief command to him, prevented his performing anything in that country suitable to his former fame, or of great benefit to the king of the Romans.

When Maurice set out for Hungary, the prince of Hesse parted from him with the forces under his command, and marched back into his own country, that he might be ready to receive his father upon his return, and give up to him the reins of government which he had held during his absence. But fortune was not yet weary of persecuting the landgrave. A battalion of mercenary troops, which had been in the pay of Hesse, being seduced by Reifenberg, their colonel, a soldier of fortune, ready to engage in any enterprise, secretly withdrew from the young prince, as he was marching homewards, and joined Albert of Brandenburg, who still continued in arms against the emperor, refusing to be included in the treaty of Passau.

Unhappily for the landgrave, an account of this reached the Netherlands, just as he was dismissed from the citadel of Mechlin, where he had been confined, but before he had got beyond the frontiers of that country. The queen of Hungary, who governed there in her brother's name, incensed at such an open violation of the treaty to which he owed his liberty, issued orders to arrest him, and committed him again to the custody of the same Spanish captain who had guarded him for five years with the most severe vigilance. Philip beheld all the horrors of his imprisonment renewed, and his spirits subsiding in the same proportion as they had risen during the short interval in which he had enjoyed liberty; he sunk into despair, and believed himself to be doomed to perpetual captivity. But the matter being so explained to the emperor, as fully satisfied him that the revolt of Reitenberg’s mercenaries could be imputed neither to the landgrave nor to his son, he gave orders for his release; and Philip at last obtained the liberty for which he had so long languished. But though he recovered his freedom, and was reinstated in his dominions, his sufferings seem to have broken the vigour, and to have extinguished the activity of his mind: from being the boldest as well as most enterprising prince in the empire, he became the most timid and cautious, and passed the remainder of his days in a pacific indolence.

The degraded elector of Saxony, likewise, procured his liberty in consequence of the treaty of Passau. The emperor having been obliged to relinquish all his schemes for extirpating the protestant religion, had no longer any motive for detaining him a prisoner; and being extremely solicitous, at that juncture, to recover the confidence and good-will of the Germans, whose assistance was essential to the success of the enterprise which he meditated against the king of France, he, among other expedients for that purpose, thought of releasing from imprisonment a prince whose merit entitled him no less to esteem, than his sufferings rendered him the object of compassion. John Frederick took possession accordingly of that part of his territories which had been reserved for him, when Maurice was invested with the electoral dignity. As in this situation he continued to display the same virtuous magnanimity for which he had been conspicuous in a more prosperous and splendid state, and which he had retained amidst all his sufferings, he maintained during the remainder of his life that high reputation to which he had so just a title.

The loss of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, had made a deep impression on the emperor. Accustomed to terminate all his operations against France with advantage to himself, he thought that it nearly concerned his honor not to allow Henry the superiority in this war, or to suffer his own administration to be stained with the infamy of having permitted territories of such consequence to be dismembered from the empire.

This was no less a point of interest than of honor. As the frontier of Champagne was more naked, and lay more exposed than that of any province in France, Charles had frequently, during his wars with that kingdom, made inroads upon that quarter with great success and effect, but if Henry were allowed to retain his late conquests, France would gain such a formidable barrier on that side, as to be altogether secure, where formerly she had been weakest. On the other hand, the empire had now lost as much, in point of security, as France had acquired; and being stripped of the defence which those cities afforded it, lay open to be invaded on a quarter, where all the towns having been hitherto considered as interior, and remote from any enemy, were but slightly fortified. These considerations determined Charles to attempt recovering the three towns of which Henry had made himself master; and the preparations which he had made against Maurice and his associates enabled him to carry his resolution into immediate execution.

As soon, then, as the peace was concluded at Passau, he left his inglorious retreat at Villach, and advanced to Augsburg, at the head of a considerable body of Germans which he had levied, together with all the troops which he had drawn out of Italy and Spain. To these he added several battalions, which having been in the pay of the confederates entered into his service when dismissed by them; and he prevailed likewise on some princes of the empire to join him with their vassals. In order to conceal the destination of this formidable army, and to guard against alarming the French king, so as to put him on preparing for the defence of his late con­quests, he gave out that he was to march forthwith into Hungary, in order to second Maurice in his operations against the Infidels. When he began to advance towards the Rhine, and could no longer employ that pretext, he tried a new artifice, and spread a report, that he took this route in order to chastise Albert of Brandenburg, whose cruel exactions in that part of the empire called loudly for his interposition to check them.

But the French having grown acquainted, at last, with arts by which they had been so often deceived, viewed all Charles's motions with distrust. Henry immediately discerned the true object of his vast preparations, and resolved to defend the important conquests which he had gained with vigor equal to that with which they were about to be attacked. As he foresaw that the whole weight of the war would be turned against Metz, by whose fate that of Toul and Verdun would be determined, he nominated Francis of Lorrain, duke of Guise, to take the command in that city during the siege, the issue of which would equally affect the honor and interest of his country. His choice could not have fallen upon any person more worthy of that trust. The duke of Guise possessed, in a high degree, all the talents of courage, sagacity, and presence of mind, which render men eminent in military command. He was largely endowed with that magnanimity of soul which delights in bold enterprises, and aspires to fame by splendid and extraordinary actions. He repaired with joy to the dangerous station assigned him, as to a theatre on which he might display his great qualities under the immediate eye of his countrymen, all ready to applaud him. The martial genius of the French nobility in that age, which considered it as the greatest reproach to remain inactive, when there was any opportunity of signalizing their courage, prompted great numbers to follow a leader who was the darling as well as the pattern of every one that courted military fame. Several princes of the blood, many noblemen of the highest rank, and all the young officers who could obtain the king's permission, entered Metz as volunteers. By their presence they added spirit to the garrison, and enabled the duke of Guise to employ, on every emergency, persons eager to distinguish themselves, and fit to conduct any service.

But with whatever alacrity the duke of Guise undertook the defence of Metz, he found everything upon his arrival there, in such a situation, as might have induced any person of less intrepid courage to despair of defending it with success. The city was of great extent, with large suburbs; the walls were in many places feeble and without ramparts; the ditch narrow; and the old towers, which projected instead of bastions, were at too great distance from each other to defend the space between them. For all these defects he endeavored to provide the best remedy which the time would permit. He ordered the suburbs, without sparing me monasteries or churches, not even that of St. Arnulph, in which several kings of France had been buried, to be leveled with the ground; but in order to guard against the imputation of impiety, to which such a violation of so many sacred edifices, as well as of the ashes of the dead, might expose him, he executed this with much religious ceremony. Having ordered all the holy vestments and utensils, together with the bones of the kings, and other persons deposited in these churches to be removed, they were carried in solemn procession to a church within the walls, he himself walking before them bare-headed, with a torch in his hand. He then pulled down such houses as stood near the walls, cleared and enlarged the ditch, repaired the ruinous fortifications, and erected new ones. As it was necessary that all these works should be finished with the utmost expedition, he labored at them with his own hands: the officers and volunteers imitated his example, and the soldiers submitted with cheerfulness to the most severe and fatiguing service, when they saw that their superiors did not decline to bear a part in it. At the same time he compelled all useless persons to leave the place; he filled the magazines with provisions and military stores; he burnt the mills, and destroyed the corn and forage for several miles round the town. Such were his popular talents, as well as his arts of acquiring an ascendant over the minds of men, that the citizens seconded him with no less ardor than the soldiers; and every other passion being swallowed up in the zeal to repulse the enemy, with which he inspired them, they beheld the ruin of their estates, together with the havoc which he made among their public and private buildings, without any emotion of resentment.

Meantime the emperor having collected all his forces, continued his march towards Metz. As he passed through the cities on the Rhine, he saw the dismal effects of that licentious and wasteful war which Albert had carried on in these parts. Upon his approach, that prince, though at the head of twenty thousand men, withdrew into Lorrain, as if he had intended to join the French king, whose arms he had quartered with his own in all his standards and ensigns. Albert was not in a condition to cope with the Imperial troops, which amounted at least to sixty thousand men, forming one of the most numerous and best appointed armies which had been brought into the field during that age, in any of the wars among Christian princes.

The chief command, under the emperor, was committed to the duke of Alva, assisted by the marquis de Marignano, together with the most experienced of the Italian and Spanish generals. As it was now towards the end of October, these intelligent officers represented the great danger of beginning, at such an advanced season, a siege which could not fail to prove very tedious. But Charles adhered to his own opinion with his usual obstinacy, and being confident that he had made such preparations, and taken such precautions, as would ensure success, he ordered the city to be invested. As soon as the duke of Alva appeared [Oct. 191], a large body of the French sallied out and attacked his vanguard with great vigor, put it in confusion, and killed or took prisoners a considerable number of men. By this early specimen which they gave of the conduct of their officers, as well as the valor of their troops, they showed the Imperialists what an enemy they had to encounter, and how dear every advantage must cost them. The place, however, was completely invested, the trenches were opened, and the other works begun.

The attention both of the besiegers and besieged was turned for some time towards Albert of Brandenburg, and they strove with emulation which should gain that prince, who still hovered in the neighborhood, fluctuating in all the uncertainty of irresolution, natural to a man, who, being swayed by no principle, was allured different ways by contrary views of interest. The French tempted him with offers extremely beneficial; the Imperialists scrupled at no promise which they thought could allure him. After much hesitation he was gained by the emperor, from whom he expected to receive advantages which were both more immediate and more permanent. As the French king, who began to suspect his intentions, had appointed a body of troops under the duke of Aumale, brother to the duke of Guise, to watch his motions, Albert fell upon them unexpectedly with such vigour that he routed them entirely [Nov. 41], killed many of the officers wounded Aumale himself, and took him prisoner. Immediately after this victory, he marched in triumph to Metz, and joined his army to that of the emperor. Charles, in reward for this service, and the great accession of strength which he brought him, granted Albert a formal pardon of all past offences, and confirmed him in the possession of the territories which he had violently usurped during the war.

The duke of Guise, though deeply affected with his brother's misfortune, did not remit, in any degree, the vigor with which he defended the town. He harassed the besiegers by frequent sallies, in which his officers were so eager to distinguish themselves, that his authority being hardly sufficient to restrain the impetuosity of their courage, he was obliged at different times to shut the gates, and to conceal the keys, in order to prevent the princes of the blood, and noblemen of the first rank, from exposing themselves to danger in every sally. He repaired in the night what the enemy's artillery had beat down during the day, or erected behind the ruined works new fortifications of almost equal strength. The Imperialists, on their part, pushed on the attack with great spirit, and carried forward, at once, approaches against different parts of the town. But the art of attacking fortified places was not then arrived at that degree of perfection to which it was carried towards the close of the sixteenth century, during the long war in the Netherlands. The besiegers, after the unwearied labor of many weeks, found that they had made but little progress; and although their batteries had made breaches in different places, they saw, to their astonishment, works suddenly appear, in demolishing which their fatigues and dangers would be renewed. The emperor, enraged at the obstinate resistance which his army met with, left Thionville, where he had been confined by a violent fit of the gout, and though still so infirm that he was obliged to be carried in a litter, he repaired to the camp [Nov. 26]; that, by his presence, he might animate the soldiers, and urge on the attack with greater spirit. Upon his arrival, new batteries were erected, and new efforts were made with redoubled ardor.

But, by this time, winter had set in with great rigor; the camp was alternately deluged with rain or covered with snow; at the same time provisions were become extremely scarce, as a body of French cavalry which hovered in the neighborhood, often interrupted the convoys, or rendered their arrival difficult and uncertain. Diseases began to spread among the soldiers, especially among the Italians and Spaniards, unaccustomed to such inclement weather; great numbers were disabled from serving, and many died. At length such breaches were made as seemed practicable, and Charles resolved to hazard a general assault, in spite of all the remonstrances of his generals against the imprudence of attacking a numerous garrison, conducted and animated by the most gallant of the French nobility, with an army weakened by diseases, and disheartened with ill success. The duke of Guise, suspecting the emperor's intentions from the extraordinary movements which he observed in the enemy's camp, ordered all his troops to their respective posts. They appeared immediately on the walls, and behind the breaches, with such a determined countenance, so eager for the combat, and so well prepared to give the assailants a warm reception, that the Imperialists, instead of advancing to the charge when the word of command was given, stood motionless in a timid, dejected silence. The emperor, perceiving that he could not trust troops whose spirits were so much broken, retired abruptly to his quarters, complaining that he was now deserted by his soldiers, who deserved no longer the name of men.

Deeply as this behavior of his troops mortified and affected Charles, he would not hear of abandoning the siege, though he saw the necessity of changing the method of attack. He suspended the fury of his batteries, and proposed to proceed by the more secure but tedious method of sapping. But as it still continued to rain or to snow almost incessantly, such as were employed in this service endured incredible hardships: and the duke of Guise, whose industry was not inferior to his valor, discovering all their mines, counter-worked them, and prevented their effect. At last, Charles finding it impossible to contend any longer with the severity of the season, and with enemies whom he could neither overpower by force, nor subdue by art, while at the same time a contagious distemper raged among his troops, and cut off daily great numbers of the officers as well as soldiers, yielded to the solicitations of his generals, who conjured him to save the remains of his army by a timely retreat. "Fortune", says he, "I now perceive, resembles other females, and chooses to confer her favors on young men, while she turns her back on those who are advanced in years".

Upon this, he gave orders immediately to raise the siege [Dec. 26], and submitted to the disgrace of abandoning the enterprise, after having continued fifty-six days before the town, during which time he had lost upwards of thirty thousand men, who died of diseases, or were killed by the enemy. The duke of Guise, as soon as he perceived the intention of the Imperialists, sent out several bodies both of cavalry and infantry to infest their rear, to pick up stragglers, and to seize every opportunity of attacking thin with advantage. Such was the confusion with which they made their retreat, that the French might have harassed them in the most cruel manner. But when they sallied out, a spectacle presented itself to their view, which extinguished at once all hostile rage, and melted them into tenderness and compassion. The Imperial camp was filled with the sick and wounded, with the dead and the dying. In all the different roads by which the army retired, numbers were found, who, having made an effort to escape, beyond their strength, were left, when they could go no farther, to perish without assistance. This they received from their enemies, and were indebted to them for all the kind offices which their friends had not the power to perform. The duke of Guise immediately ordered proper refreshments for such as were dying of hunger; he appointed surgeons to attend the sick and wounded; he removed such as could bear it to the adjacent villages; and those who would have suffered by being carried so far, he admitted into the hospitals which he had fitted up in the city for his own soldiers. As soon as they recovered, he sent them home under an escort of soldiers, and with money to bear their charges. By these acts of humanity, which were uncommon in that age, when war was carried on with greater rancor and ferocity than at present, the duke of Guise completed the fame which he had acquired by his gallant and successful defence of Metz, and engaged those whom he had vanquished to vie with his own countrymen in extolling his name.

To these calamities in Germany, were added such unfortunate events in Italy as rendered this the most disastrous year in the emperor's life. During his residence at Villach, Charles had applied to Cosmo di Medici for the loan of two hundred thousand crowns. But his credit at that time was so low, that in order to obtain this inconsiderable sum, he was obliged to put him in possession of the principality of Piombino; and by giving up that, be lost the footing which he had hitherto maintained in Tuscany, and enabled Cosmo to assume, for the future, the tone and deportment of a prince altogether independent. Much about the time that his indigence constrained him to part with this valuable territory, he lost Sienna, which was of still greater consequence, through the ill conduct of Don Diego de Mendoza.

Sienna, like most of the great cities in Italy, had long enjoyed a republican government, under the protection of the empire; but being torn in pieces by the dissensions between the nobility and the people, which divided all the Italian commonwealths, the faction of the people, which gained the ascendant, besought the emperor to become the guardian of the administration which they had established, and admitted into their city a small body of Spanish soldiers, whom he had sent to countenance the execution of the laws, and to preserve tranquility among them. The command of these troops was given to Mendoza, at that time ambassador for the emperor at Rome, who persuaded the credulous multitude, that it was necessary for their security against any future attempt of the nobles, to allow him to build a citadel in Sienna; and as he flattered himself that by means of this fortress he might render the emperor roaster of the city, he pushed on the works with all possible dispatch. But he threw off the mask too soon. Before the fortifications were completed, he began to indulge his natural haughtiness and severity of temper, and to treat the citizens with great insolence. At the same time the soldiers in garrison being paid as irregularly as the emperor’s troops usually were, lived almost at discretion upon the inhabitants, and were guilty of many acts of license and oppression.

These injuries awakened the Siennese to a sense of their danger. As they saw the necessity of exerting themselves, while the unfinished fortifications of the citadel left them any hopes of success, they applied to the French ambassador at Rome, who readily promised them his master's protection and assistance. At the same time, forgetting their domestic animosities when such a mortal blow was aimed at the liberty and existence of the republic, they sent agents to the exiled nobles, and invited them to concur with them in saving their country from the servitude with which it was threatened. As there was not a moment to lose, measures were concerted speedily, but with great prudence; and were executed with equal vigour. The citizens rose suddenly in arms: the exiles flocked into the town from different parts with all their partizans, and what troops they could draw together; and several bodies of mercenaries in the pay of France appeared to support them. The Spaniards, though surprised, and much inferior in number, defended themselves with great courage; but seeing no prospect of relief, and having no hopes of maintaining their station long in a half-finished fortress, they soon gave it up. The Siennese, with the utmost alacrity, leveled it with the ground, that no monument might remain of that odious structure, which had been raised in order to enslave them. At the same time renouncing all connection with the emperor, they sent ambassadors to thank the king of France as the restorer of their liberty, and to entreat that he would secure to them the perpetual enjoyment of that blessing, by continuing his protection to their republic.

To these misfortunes, one still more fatal had almost succeeded. The severe administration of Don Pedro de Toledo, viceroy of Naples, having tilled that kingdom with murmuring and disaffection, the prince of Salerno, the head of the malcontents, had fled to the court of France, where all who bore ill-will to the emperor or his ministers were sure of finding protection and assistance. That nobleman, in the usual style of exiles, boasting much of the number and power of his partisans, and of his great influence with them, prevailed on Henry to think of invading Naples, from an expectation of being joined by all those with whom the prince of Salerno held correspondence, or who were dissatisfied with Toledo's government. But though the first hint of this enterprise was suggested by the prince of Salerno, Henry did not choose that its success should entirely depend upon his being able to fulfill the promises which he had made. He applied for aid to Solyman, whom he courted, after his father's example, as his most vigorous auxiliary against the emperor, and solicited him to second his operations, by sending a powerful fleet into the Mediterranean. It was not difficult to obtain what he requested of the sultan, who, at this time, was highly incensed against the house of Austria, on account of the proceedings in Hungary. He ordered a hundred and fifty ships to be equipped, that they might sail towards the coast of Naples, at whatever time Henry should name, and might co-operate with the French troops in their attempts upon that kingdom. The command of this fleet was given to the corsair Dragut, an officer trained up under Barbarossa, and scarcely inferior to his master in courage, in talents, or in good fortune. He appeared on the coast of Calabria at the time which had been agreed on, landed at several places, plundered and burnt several villages; and at last, casting anchor in the bay of Naples, filled that city with consternation. But as the French fleet, detained by some accident, which the contemporary historians have not explained, did not join the Turks according to concert, they, after waiting twenty days without hearing any tidings of it, set sail for Constantinople, and thus delivered the viceroy of Naples from the terror of an invasion, which he was not in a condition to have resisted.

ALBERT OF BRADENBURG

1553.] As the French had never given so severe a check to the emperor in any former campaign, they expressed immoderate joy at the success of their arms. Charles himself; accustomed to a long series of prosperity, felt the calamity most sensibly, and retired from Metz into the Low-Countries, much dejected with the cruel reverse of fortune which affected him in his declining age, when the violence of the gout had increased to such a pitch, as entirely broke the vigour of his constitution, and rendered him peevish, difficult of access, and often incapable of applying to business. But whenever he enjoyed any interval of ease, all his thoughts were bent on revenge; and he deliberated, with the greatest solicitude, concerning the most proper means of annoying France, and of effacing the stain which had obscured the reputation and glory of his arms. All the schemes concerning Germany which had engrossed him so long, being disconcerted by the peace of Passau, the affairs of the empire became only secondary objects of attention, and enmity to France was the predominant passion which chiefly occupied his mind.

The turbulent ambition of Albert of Brandenburg excited violent commotions, which disturbed the empire during this year. That prince's troops having shared in the calamities of the siege of Metz, were greatly reduced in number. But the emperor, prompted by gratitude for his distinguished services on that occasion, or perhaps with a secret view of fomenting divisions among the princes of the empire, having paid up all the money due to him, he was enabled with that sum to hire so many of the soldiers dismissed from the Imperial army, that he was soon at the head of a body of men as numerous as ever. The bishops of Bamberg and Würzburg having solicited the Imperial chamber to annul, by its authority, the iniquitous conditions which Albert had compelled them to sign, that court unanimously found all their engagements with him to be void in their own nature, because they had been extorted by force; enjoined Albert to renounce all claim to the performance of them; and, if he should persist in such an unjust demand, exhorted all the princes of the empire to take arms against him as a disturber of the public tranquility. To this decision, Albert opposed the confirmation of his transactions with the two prelates, which the emperor had granted him as the reward of his having joined the Imperial army at Metz and in order to intimidate his antagonists, as well as to convince them of his resolution not to relinquish his pretensions, he put his troops in motion, that he might secure the territory in question. Various endeavors were employed, and many expedients proposed, in order to prevent the kindling a new war in Germany. But the same warmth of temper which rendered Albert turbulent and enterprising, inspiring him with the most sanguine hopes of success, even in his wildest undertakings, he disdainfully rejected all reasonable overtures of accommodation.

Upon this, the Imperial chamber issued its decree against him, and required the elector of Saxony, together with several other princes mentioned by name, to take arms in order to carry it into execution. Maurice, and those associated with him, were not unwilling to undertake this service. They were extremely solicitous to maintain public order by supporting the authority of the Imperial chamber, and saw the necessity of giving a timely check to the usurpations of an ambitious prince, who had no principle of action but regard to his own interest, and no motive to direct him but the impulse of ungovernable passions. They had good reason to suspect, that the emperor encouraged Albert in his extravagant and irregular proceedings, and secretly afforded him assistance that, by raising him up to rival Maurice in power, he might, in any future broil, make use of his assistance to counterbalance and control the authority which the other had acquired in the empire.

These considerations united the most powerful princes in Germany in a league against Albert, of which Maurice was declared generalissimo [April 2]. This formidable confederacy, however, wrought no change in Albert's sentiments; but as he knew that he could not resist so many princes, if he should allow them time to assemble their forces, he endeavored, by his activity, to deprive them of all the advantages which they might derive from their united power and numbers; and for that reason marched directly against Maurice, the enemy whom he dreaded most. It was happy for the allies that the conduct of their affairs was committed to a prince of such abilities. He, by his authority and example, had inspired them with vigour; and having carried on their preparations with a degree of rapidity of which confederate bodies are seldom capable, he was in condition to face Albert before he could make any considerable progress.

Their armies, which were nearly equal in number, each consisting of twenty-four thousand men, met at Seiverhausen, in the duchy of Lunenburg; and the violent animosity against each other, which possessed the two leaders, did not suffer them to continue long inactive. The troops inflamed with the same hostile rage, marched fiercely to the combat [June 9]; they fought with the greatest obstinacy; and as both generals were capable of availing themselves of every favorable occurrence, the battle remained long doubtful, each gaining ground upon the other alternately. At last victory declared for Maurice, who was superior in cavalry, and Albert's army fled in confusion, leaving four thousand dead in the field, and their camp, baggage, and artillery in the hands of the conquerors. The allies bought their victory dear, their best troops suffered greatly, two sons of the duke of Brunswick, a duke of Lunenburg, and many other persons of distinction, were among the number of the slain. But all these were soon forgotten; for Maurice himself, as he led up to a second charge a body of horse which had been broken, received a wound with a pistol bullet in the belly, of which he died two days after the battle, in the thirty-second year of his age, and in the sixth after his attaining the electoral dignity.

Of all the personages who have appeared in the history of this active age, when great occurrences and sudden revolutions called forth extraordinary talents to view, and afforded them full opportunity to display themselves, Maurice may justly he considered as the most remarkable. If his exorbitant ambition, his profound dissimulation, and his unwarrantable usurpation of his kinsman's honors and dominions exclude him from being praised as a virtuous man; his prudence in concerting his measures, his vigor in executing them, and the uniform success with which they were attended, entitle him to the appellation of a great prince. At an age when impetuosity of spirit commonly predominates over political wisdom, when the highest effort even of a genius of the first order is to fix on a bold scheme, and to execute it with promptitude and courage, he formed and conducted an intricate plan of policy, which deceived the most artful monarch in Europe. At the very juncture when the emperor had attained to almost unlimited despotism, Maurice, with power seemingly inadequate to such an undertaking, compelled him to relinquish all his usurpations, and established not only the religious but civil liberties of Germany on such foundations as have hitherto remained unshaken. Although, at one period of his life, his conduct excited the jealousy of the protestants, and at another drew on him the resentment of the Roman catholics, such was his masterly address, that he was the only prince of the age who in any degree possessed the confidence of both, and whom both lamented as the most able as well as faithful guardian of the constitution and laws of his country.

The consternation which Maurice’s death occasioned among his troops, prevented them from making the proper improvement of the victory which they had trained. Albert, whose active courage, and profuse liberality, rendered him the darling of such military adventurers as were little solicitous about the justice of his cause, soon reassembled his broken forces, and made fresh levies with such success that he was quickly at the head of fifteen thousand men, and renewed his depredations with additional fury. But Henry of Brunswick having taken the command of the allied troops, defeated him in a second battle [Sept. 12] scarcely less bloody than the former. Even then his courage did not sink, nor were his resources exhausted. He made several efforts, and some of them very vigorous, to retrieve his affairs: but being laid under the ban of the empire by the Imperial chamber; being driven by degrees out of all his hereditary territories, as well as those which he had usurped; being forsaken by many of his officers, and overpowered by the number of his enemies, he fled for refuge into France. After having been, for a considerable time, the terror and scourge of Germany, he lingered out some years in an indigent and dependent state of exile, the miseries of which his restless and arrogant spirit endured with the most indignant impatience. Upon his death without issue [Jan. 12, 1577], his territories, which had been seized by the princes who took arms against him, were restored, by a decree of the emperor, to his collateral heirs of the house of Brandenburg.

Maurice having left only one daughter, who was afterwards married to William prince of Orange, by whom she had a son who bore his grand­father's name, and inherited the great talents for which he was conspicuous, a violent dispute arose concerning the succession to his honors and territories. John Frederick, the degraded elector, claimed the electoral dignity, and that part of his patrimonial estate of which he had been violently stripped after the Smalkaldic war. Augustus, Maurice's only brother, pleaded his right not only to the hereditary possessions of their family, but to the electoral dignity, and to the territories which Maurice had acquired. As Augustus was a prince of considerable abilities, as well as of great candor and gentleness of manners, the states of Saxony, forgetting tHe merits and sufferings of their former master, declared warmly in his favor. His pretensions were powerfully supported by the king of Denmark, whose daughter he had married, and zealously espoused by the king of the Romans, out of regard to Maurice's memory. The degraded elector, though secretly favored by his ancient enemy the emperor, was at last obliged to relinquish his claim, upon obtaining a small addition to the territories which had been allotted to him, together with a stipulation, securing to his family the eventual succession, upon a failure of male heirs in the Albertine line. That unfortunate, but magnanimous prince, died next year, soon after ratifying this treaty of agreement; and the electoral dignity is still possessed by the descendants of Augustus.

During these transactions in Germany, war was carried on in the Low-Countries with considerable vigour. The emperor, impatient to efface the stain which his ignominious repulse at Metz left upon his military reputa­tion, had an army early in the field, and laid siege to Térouanne. Though the town was of such importance, that Francis used to call it one of the two pillows on which a king of France might sleep with security, the fortifications were in bad repair: Henry, trusting to what had happened at Metz, thought nothing more was necessary to render all the efforts of the enemy abortive, than to reinforce the garrison with a considerable number of the young nobility. But d'Esse, a veteran officer who commanded them, being killed, and the Imperialists pushing the siege with great vigor and perseverance, the place was taken by assault [June 21]. That it might not fall again into the hands of the French, Charles ordered not only the fortifications but the town itself to be razed, and the inhabitants to be dispersed in the adjacent cities. Elated with this success, the Imperialists immediately invested Hesden, which, though defended with great bravery, was likewise taken by assault, and such of the garrison as escaped the sword were made prisoners. The emperor entrusted the conduct of this siege to Emanuel Philibert of Savoy, prince of Piedmont, who, on that occasion, gave the first display of those great talents for military command, which soon entitled him to be ranked among the first generals of the age, and facilitated his reestablishment in his hereditary dominions, the greater part of which having been overrun by Francis in his expeditions into Italy, were still retained by Henry.

The loss of these towns, together with so many persons of distinction, either killed or taken by the enemy, was no inconsiderable calamity to France, and Henry felt it very sensibly; but he was still more mortified at the emperor's having recovered his wonted superiority in the field so soon after the blow at Metz, which the French had represented as fatal to his power. He was ashamed too, of his own remissness and excessive security at the opening of the campaign; and in order to repair that error, he assembled a numerous army, and led it into the Low-Countries.

Roused at the approach of such a formidable enemy, Charles left Brussels, where he had been shut up so closely during seven months, that it came to be believed in many parts of Europe that he was dead; and though he was so much debilitated by the gout that he could hardly bear the motion of a litter, he hastened to join his army. The eyes of all Europe were turned with expectation towards those mighty and exasperated rivals, between whom a decisive battle was now thought unavoidable. But Charles having prudently declined to hazard a general engagement, and the violence of the autumnal rains rendering it impossible for the French to undertake any siege, they retired, without having performed anything suitable to the great preparations which they had made.

The Imperial arms were not attended with the same success in Italy. The narrowness of the emperor's finances seldom allowed him to act with vigor in two different places at the same time; and having exerted himself to the utmost in order to make a great effort in the Low-Countries, his operations on the other side of the Alps were proportionally feeble. The viceroy of Naples, in conjunction with Cosmo di Medici, who was greatly alarmed at the introduction of French troops into Sienna, endeavored to become master of that city. But, instead of reducing the Siennese, the Imperialists were obliged to retire abruptly, in order to defend their own country, upon the appearance of the Turkish fleet, which threatened the coast of Naples; and the French not only established themselves more firmly in Tuscany, but, by the assistance of the Turks, conquered a great part of the island of Corsica, subject at that time to the Genoese.

The affairs of the house of Austria declined no less in Hungary during the course of this year. As the troops which Ferdinand kept in Transylvania received their pay very irregularly, they lived almost at discretion upon the inhabitants; and their insolence and rapaciousness greatly disgusted all ranks of men, and alienated them from their new sovereign, who, instead of protecting, plundered his subjects. Their indignation at this, added to their desire of revenging Martinuzzi’s death, wrought so much upon a turbulent nobility impatient of injury, and upon a fierce people prone to change, that they were ripe for a revolt. At that very juncture, their late queen Isabella, together with her son, appeared in Transylvania. Her ambitious mind could not bear the solitude and inactivity of a private life; and repenting quickly of the cession which she had made of the crown in the year one thousand live hundred and fifty-one, she left the place of her retreat, hoping that the dissatisfaction of the Hungarians with the Austrian government would prompt them once more to recognize her son’s right to the crown. Some noblemen of great eminence declared immediately in his favor. The basha of Belgrade, by Solyman’s order, espoused his cause, in opposition to Ferdinand; the Spanish and German soldiers, instead of advancing against the enemy, mutinied for want of pay, declaring that they would march back to Vienna; so that Castaldo, their general, was obliged to abandon Transylvania to Isabella and the Turks, and to place himself at the head of the mutineers, that by his authority he might restrain them from plundering the Austrian territories through which they passed.

The Story of Roxalana and Mustapha

Ferdinand's attention was turned so entirely towards the affairs of Germany, and his treasures so much exhausted by his late efforts in Hungary, that he made no attempt to recover that valuable province, although a favorable opportunity for that purpose presented itself, as Solyman was then engaged in a war with Persia, and involved besides in domestic calamities which engrossed and disturbed his mind. Solyman, though distinguished by many accomplishments, from the other Ottoman princes, had all the passions peculiar to that violent and haughty race. He was jealous of his authority, sudden as well as furious in his anger, and susceptible of all that rage of love, which reigns in the East, and often produces the wildest and most tragical effects. His favorite mistress was a Circassian slave of exquisite beauty, who bore him a son called Mustapha, whom, both on account of his birthright and merit, he destined to be the heir of his crown. Roxalana, a Russian captive, soon supplanted the Circassian, and gained the sultan's heart. Haying the address to retain the conquest which she had made, she kept possession of his love without any rival for many years, during which she brought him several sons and one daughter. All the happiness, however, which she derived from the unbounded sway that she had acquired over the mind of a monarch whom one half of the world revered or dreaded, was embittered by perpetual reflections on Mustapha's accession to the throne, and the certain death of her sons, who, she foresaw, would be immediately sacrificed, according to the barbarous jealousy of Turkish policy, to the safety of the new emperor. By dwelling continually on this melancholy idea, she came gradually to view Mustapha as the enemy of her children, and to hate him with more than a stepmother's ill-will. This prompted her to wish his destruction, in order to secure for one of her own sons the throne which was destined for him. Nor did she want either ambition to attempt such a high enterprise, or the arts requisite for carrying it into execution. Having prevailed on the sultan to give her only daughter in marriage to Rustan the grand vizier, she disclosed her scheme to that crafty minister, who, perceiving that it was his own interest to co-operate with her, readily promised his assistance towards aggrandizing that branch of the royal line to which he was so nearly allied.

As soon as Roxalana had concerted her measures with this able confidant, she began to affect a wonderful zeal for the Mahometan religion, to which Solyman was superstitiously attached, and proposed to found and endow a royal mosque, a work of great expense, but deemed by the Turks meritorious in the highest degree. The mufti whom she consulted, approved much of her pious intention; but having been gained and instructed by Rustan, told her, that she being a slave could derive no benefit herself from that holy deed, for all the merit of it would accrue to Solyman, the master whose property she was. Upon this she seemed to be overwhelmed with sorrow, and to sink into the deepest melancholy, as it she had been disgusted with life and all its enjoyments. Solyman, who was absent with the army, being informed of this dejection of mind, and of the cause from which it proceeded, discovered all the solicitude of a lover to remove it, and by a writing under his hand declared her a free woman. Roxalana having gained this point, proceeded to build the mosque, and reassumed her usual gayety of spirit.

But when Solyman, on his return to Constantinople, sent a eunuch, according to the custom of the seraglio, to bring her to partake of his bed, she seemingly with deep regret, but in the most peremptory manner, declined to follow the eunuch, declaring that what had been an honor to her while a slave, became a crime as she was now a free woman, and that she would not involve either the sultan or herself in the guilt that must be contracted by such an open violation of the law of their prophet. Solyman, whose passion this difficulty, as well as the affected delicacy which gave rise to it, heightened and inflamed, had recourse immediately to the mufti for his direction. He replied, agreeably to the koran, the Roxalana’s scruples were well founded; but added, artfully, in words which Rustan had taught him to use, that it was in the sultan's power to remove these difficulties, by espousing her as his lawful wife.

The amorous monarch closed eagerly with the proposal, end solemnly married her, according to the form of the Mahometan ritual; though, by doing so, he disregarded a maxim of policy which the pride of the Ottoman blood had taught all the sultans since Bajazet I to consider as inviolable. From his time, none of the Turkish monarchs had married, because, when he was vanquished and taken prisoner by Tamerlane, his wife had been abused with barbarous insolence by the tartars. That no similar calamity might again subject the Ottoman family to the same disgrace, the sultans admitted none to their beds but slaves, whose dishonor could not bring any such stain upon their house.

But the more uncommon the step was, the more it convinced Roxalana of the unbounded influence which she had acquired over the sultan's heart; and emboldened her to prosecute, with greater hope of success, the scheme that she had formed in order to destroy Mustapha. This young prince having been entrusted by his father, according to the practice of the sultans in that age, with the government of several different provinces, was at that time invested with the administration in Diarbequir, the ancient Mesopotamia, which Solyman had wrested from the Persians, and added to his empire. In all these different commands, Mustapha had conducted himself with such cautious prudence as could give no offence to his father, though, at the same time, he governed with so much moderation as well as justice, and displayed such valor and generosity, as rendered him equally the favorite of the people and the darling of the soldiery.

There was no room to lay any folly or vice to his charge, that could impair the high opinion which his father entertained of him. Roxalana’s malevolence was more refined; she turned his virtues against him, and made use of these as engines for his destruction. She often mentioned, in Solyman’s presence, the splendid qualities of his son; she celebrated his courage, his liberality, his popular arts, with malicious and exaggerated praise. As soon as she perceived that the sultan heard these encomiums, which were often repeated, with uneasiness that suspicion of his son began to mingle itself with his former esteem and that by degrees he came to view him with jealousy and fear she introduced, as by accident, some discourse concerning the rebellion of his father Selim against Bajazet his grandfather: she took notice of the bravery of the veteran troops under Mustapha's command, and of the neighborhood of Diarbequir to the territories of the Persian sophi, Solyman’s mortal enemy. By these arts, whatever remained of paternal tenderness was gradually extinguished, and such passions were kindled in the breast of the sultan, as gave all Roxalana's malignant suggestions the color not only of probability but of truth. His suspicions and fear of Mustapha settled into deep-rooted hatred. He appointed spies to observe and report all his words and actions; he watched and stood on his guard against him as his most dangerous enemy.

Having thus alienated the sultan's heart from Mustapha, Roxalana ventured upon another step. She entreated Solyman to allow her own sons the liberty of appearing at court, hoping that by gaining access to their father, they might, by their good qualities and dutiful deportment, insinuate themselves into that place in his affections which Mustapha had formerly held; and though what she demanded was contrary to the prac­tice of the Ottoman family in that age, the uxorious monarch granted her request. To all these female intrigues Rustan added an artifice still more subtle, which completed the sultans delusion, and heightened his jealousy and fear. He wrote to the bashaws of the provinces adjacent to Diarbequir, instructing them to send him regular intelligence of Mustapha's proceedings in his government, and to each of them he gave a private hint, flowing in appearance from his zeal for their interest, that nothing would be more acceptable to the sultan than to receive favorable accounts of a son whom he destined to sustain the glory of the Ottoman name. The bashaws, ignorant of his fraudulent intention, and eager to pay court to their sovereign at such an easy price, filled their letters with studied but fatal panegyrics of Mustapha, representing him as a prince worthy to succeed such an illustrious father, and as endowed with talents which might enable him to emulate, perhaps to equal, his fame. These letters were industriously shown to Solyman, at the seasons when it was known that they would make the deepest impression. Every expression in recommendation of his son wounded him to the heart; he suspected his principal officers of being ready to favor the most desperate attempts of a prince whom they were so fond of praising; and fancying that he saw them already assaulting his throne with rebellious arms, he determined, while it was yet in his power, to anticipate the blow, and to secure his own safety by his son's death.

For this purpose, though under pretence of renewing the war against Persia, he ordered Rustan to march towards Diarbequir at the head of a numerous army, and to rid him of a son whose life he deemed inconsistent with his own safety. But that crafty minister did not choose to be loaded with the odium of having executed this cruel order. As soon as he arrived in Syria he wrote to Solyman, that the danger was so imminent as called for his immediate presence; that the camp was full of Mustapha's emissaries; that many of the soldiers were corrupted; that the affections of all leaned towards him; that he had discovered a negotiation which had been carried on with the sophi of Persia in order to marry Mustapha with one of his daughters; that he already felt his own talents as well as authority to be inadequate to the exigencies of such an arduous conjuncture; that the sultan alone had sagacity to discern what resolution should be taken in those circumstances, and power to carry that resolution into execution.

This charge of courting the friendship of the sophi, Roxalana and Rustan had reserved as the last and most envenomed of all their calumnies. It operated with the violence which they expected from Solyman’s inveterate abhorrence of the Persians, and threw him into the wildest transports of rage. He set out instantly for Syria, and hastened thither with all the precipitation and impatience of fear and revenge. As soon as he joined his army near Aleppo, and had concerted measures with Rustan, he sent a chiaus, or messenger of the court, to his son, requiring him to repair immediately to his presence. Mustapha, though no stranger to his stepmother's machinations, or to Rustan’s malice, or to his father's violent temper, yet relying on his own innocence, and hoping to discredit the accusations of his enemies by the promptitude of his obedience, followed the messenger without delay to Aleppo. The moment he arrived in the camp, he was introduced into the sultan's tent. As he entered it, he observed nothing that could give him any alarm; no additional crowd of attendants, no body of armed guards, but the same order and silence which always reign in the sultan's apartments. In a few minutes, however, several mutes appeared, at the sight of whom Mustapha, knowing what was his doom, cried with a loud voice, “Lo, my death!” and attempted to fly. The mutes rushed forward to seize him; he resisted and struggled, demanding with the utmost earnestness to see the sultan; and despair, together with the hope of finding protection from the soldiers, if he could escape out of the tent, animated him with such extraordinary strength, that for some time, he baffled all the efforts of the executioners. Solyman was within hearing of his son's cries, as well as of the noise which the struggle occasioned. Impatient of this delay of his revenge, and struck with terror at the thoughts of Mustapha’s escaping, he drew aside the curtain which divided the tent, and thrusting in his head, darted a fierce look towards the mutes, and with wild and threatening gestures, seemed to condemn their sloth and timidity. At sight of his father's furious and unrelenting countenance, Mustapha's strength failed, and his courage forsook him; the mutes fastened the bow-string about his neck, and in a moment put an end to his life.

The dead body was exposed before the sultan’s tent. The soldiers gathered round it, and contemplating that mournful object with astonishment, and sorrow, and indignation, were ready, if a leader had not been wanting, to have broke out into the wildest excesses of rage. After giving vent to the first expressions of their grief, they retired each man to his tent, and shutting themselves up, bewailed in secret the cruel fate of their favorite; nor was there one of them who tasted food or even water, during the remainder of that day. Next morning the same solitude and silence reigned in the camp; and Solyman, being afraid that some dreadful storm would follow this sullen calm, in order to appease the enraged soldiers, deprived Rustan of the seals, ordered him to leave the camp, and raised Achmet, a gallant officer much beloved in the army, to the dignity of vizier. This change, however, was made in concert with Rustan himself; that malty minister suggesting it as the only expedient which could save himself or his master. But within a few months, when the resentment of the soldiers began to subside, and the name of Mustapha to be forgotten, Achmet was strangled by the sultan's command, and Rustan reinstated in the office of vizier. Together with his former power, he reassumed the plan for exterminating the race of Mustapha which he had concerted with Roxalana; and as they were afraid that an only son whom Mustapha had left, might grow up to avenge his death, they redoubled their activity, and by employing the same arts against him which they had practised against his father, they inspired Solyman with the same fears, and prevailed on him to issue orders for putting to death that young innocent prince. These orders were executed with barbarous zeal, by an eunuch, who was despatched to Bursa, the place where the prince resided; and no rival was left to dispute the Ottoman throne with the sons of Roxalana.

Such tragical scenes, productive of so deep distress, seldom occur but in the history of the great monarchies of the East, where the warmth of the climate seems to give every emotion of the heart its greatest force, and the absolute power of sovereigns accustoms and enables them to gratify all their passions without control. While this interesting transaction in the court of Solyman engaged his whole attention, Charles was pursuing, with the utmost ardor, a new scheme for aggrandizing his family.

Mary of England and Philip of Spain

About this time, Edward the sixth of England, after a short reign, in which he displayed such virtues as filled his subjects with sanguine hopes of being happy under his government, and made them bear with patience all that they suffered from the weakness, the dissensions, and the ambition of the ministers who assumed the administration during his minority, was seized with a lingering distemper which threatened his life. The emperor no sooner received an account of this, than his ambition, always attentive to seize every opportunity of acquiring an increase of power, or of territories, to his son, suggested the thought of adding England to his other kingdoms by the marriage of Philip with the princess Mary, the heir of Edward's crown. Being apprehensive, however, that his son, who was then in Spain, might decline a match with a princess in her thirty-eighth year, and eleven years older than himself; Charles determined, notwithstanding his own age and infirmities, to make offer of himself as a husband to his cousin.

But though Mary was so far advanced in years, and destitute of every charm either of person or of manners that could win affection or command esteem, Philip, without hesitation, gave his consent to the match proposed by his father, and was willing, according to the usual maxim of princes, to sacrifice his inclination to his ambition. In order to ensure the success of his scheme, the emperor, even before Edward's death, began to take such steps as might facilitate it. Upon Edward’s demise, Mary mounted the throne of England; the pretensions of the lady Jane Grey proving as unfortunate as they were ill-founded. Charles sent immediately a pompous embassy to London to congratulate Mary on her accession to the throne, and to propose the alliance with his son. The queen, dazzled with the prospect of marrying the heir of the greatest monarch in Europe had fond of uniting more closely with her mother's family, to which she had been always warmly attached; and eager to secure the powerful aid which she knew would be necessary towards carrying on her favorite scheme of reestablishing the Romish religion in England, listened in the most favorable manner to the proposal. Among her subjects, it met with a very different reception. Philip, it was well known, contended for all the tenets of the church of Rome with a sanguinary zeal which exceeded the measure even of Spanish bigotry: this alarmed all the numerous partisans of the Reformation. The Castilian haughtiness and reserve were far from being acceptable to the English, who, having several times seen their throne occupied by persons who were born subjects, had become accustomed to an unceremonious and familiar intercourse with their sovereigns. They could not think, without the utmost uneasiness, of admitting a foreign prince to that influence of their councils, which the husband of their queen would naturally possess. They dreaded, both from Philip’s overbearing temper, and from the maxims of the Spanish monarchy which he had imbibed, that he would infuse ideas into the queen's mind, dangerous to the liberties of the nation, and would introduce foreign troops and money into the kingdom, to assist her in any attempt against them.

Full of these apprehensions, the house of commons, though in that age extremely obsequious to the will of their monarchs, presented a warm address against the Spanish match; many pamphlets were published, representing the dangerous consequences of the alliance with Spain, and describing Philip’s bigotry and arrogance in the most odious colors. But Mary, inflexible in all her resolutions, paid no regard to the remonstrances of her commons, or to the sentiments of the people. The emperor, having secured, by various arts, the ministers whom she trusted most, they approved warmly of the match, and large sums were remitted by him in order to gain the rest of the council. Cardinal Pole, whom the pope, immediately upon Mary's accession, bad despatched as his legate into England, in order to reconcile his native country to the see of Rome, was detained by the emperor's command at Dillinghen in Germany, lest by his presence he should thwart Philip’s pretensions, and employ his interest in favor of his kinsman Courtnay earl of Devonshire, whom the English ardently wished their sovereign to choose for a husband.

As the negotiation did not admit of delay, it was carried forward with the greatest rapidity, the emperor agreeing, without hesitation, to every article in favor of England, which Mary's ministers either represented as necessary to soothe the people and reconcile them to the match, or that was suggested by their own fears and jealousy of a foreign master. The chief articles were [Jan. 12, 15541] that Philip, during his marriage with the queen, should bear the title of king of England, but the entire administration of affairs, as well as the sole disposal of all revenues, offices, and benefices, should remain with the queen; that the heirs of the marriage should, together with the crown of England, inherit the duchy of Burgundy and the Low-Countries; that if prince Charles, Philip's only son by a former marriage, should die without issue, his children by the queen, whether male or female, should succeed to the crown of Spain, and all the emperor's hereditary dominions; that before the consummation of the marriage, Philip should swear solemnly, that he would retain no domestic who was not a subject of the queen, and would bring no foreigners into the kingdom that might give umbrage to the English; that he would make no alteration in the constitution or laws of England; that he would not carry the queen, or any of the children born of this marriage, out of the kingdom; that if the queen should die before him without issue, he would immediately leave the crown to the lawful heir, without claiming any right of administration whatever; that in consequence of this marriage, England should not be engaged in any war subsisting between France and Spain; and that the alliance between France and England should remain in full force.

But this treaty, though both the emperor and Mary’s ministers employed their utmost address in framing it so as to please the English, was far from quieting their fears and jealousies. They saw that words and promises were a feeble security against the encroachments of an ambitious prince, who, as soon as he got possession of the power and advantages which the queen’s husband must necessarily enjoy, could easily evade any of the articles which either limited his authority or obstructed his schemes. They were convinced that the more favorable the conditions of the present treaty were to England, the more Philip would be tempted hereafter to violate them. They dreaded that England, like Naples, Milan, and the other countries annexed to Spain, would soon feel the dominion of that crown to be intolerably oppressive, and he constrained, as these had been, to waste its wealth and vigour in wars wherein it had no interest, and from which it could derive no advantage. These sentiments prevailed so generally that every part of the kingdom was filled with discontent at the match, and with indignation against the advisers of it. Sir Thomas Wyat, a gentleman of some note, and of good intentions towards the public, took advantage of this, and roused the inhabitants of Kent to arms, in order to save their country from a foreign yoke. Great numbers resorted in a short time to his standard; he marched to London with such rapidity, and the queen was so utterly unprovided for defence, that the aspect of affairs was extremely threatening; and if any nobleman of distinction had joined the malcontents, or had Wyat possessed talents equal, in any degree, to the boldness of his enterprise, the insurrection must have proved fatal to Mary's power. But all Wyat’s measures were concerted with so little prudence, and executed with such irresolution, that many of his followers forsook him; the rest were dispersed by a handful of soldiers; and he himself was taken prisoner, without having made any effort worthy of the cause that he had undertaken, or suitable to the ardor with which he engaged in it. He suffered the punishment due to his rashness and rebellion. The queen's authority was confirmed and increased by her success in defeating this inconsiderate attempt to abridge it. The lady Jane Grey, whose title the ambition of her relations had set up in opposition to that of the Queen, was, notwithstanding her youth and innocence, brought to the scaffold. The lady Elizabeth, the queen’s sister, was observed with the most jealous attention. The treaty of marriage was ratified by the parliament.

Philip landed in England with a magnificent retinue, celebrated his nuptials with great solemnity; and though he could not lay aside his natural severity and pride, or assume gracious and popular manners, he endeavored to conciliate the favor of the English nobility by his extraordinary liberality. Lest that should fail of acquiring him such influence in the government of the kingdom as he aimed at obtaining, the emperor kept a body of twelve thousand men on the coast of Flanders in readiness to embark for England, and to support his son in all his enterprises.

Emboldened by all these favorable circumstances, Mary pursued the scheme of extirpating the protestant religion out of her dominions, with the most precipitate zeal. The laws of Edward the Sixth, in favor of the Reformation, were repealed; the protestant clergy ejected; all the forms and rights of the popish worship were re-established; the nation was solemnly absolved from the guilt which it had contracted during the period of its apostasy, and was publicly reconciled to the church of Rome by cardinal Pole, who immediately after the queen's marriage, was permitted to continue his journey to England, and to exercise his legatine functions with the most ample power. Not satisfied with having overturned the protestant church, and re-establishing the ancient system on its ruins, Mary insisted that all her subjects should conform to the same mode of worship which she preferred; should profess their faith in the same creed which she had approved; and abjure every practice or opinion that was deemed repugnant to either of them. Powers, altogether unknown in the English constitution, were vested in certain persons appointed to take cognizance of heresy, and they proceeded to exercise them with more than inquisito­rial severity. The prospect of danger, however, did not intimidate the principal teachers of the protestant doctrines, who believed that they were contending for truths of the utmost consequence to the happiness of man­kind. They boldly avowed their sentiments, and were condemned to that cruel death which the church of Rome reserves for its enemies. This shocking punishment was inflicted with that barbarity which the rancor of false zeal alone can inspire. The English, who are inferior in humanity to no people in Europe, and remarkable for the mildness of their public executions, beheld with astonishment and horror, persons who had filled the most respectable stations in their church, and who were venerable on account of their age, their piety, and their literature, condemned to endure torments to which their laws did not subject even the most atrocious criminals.

This extreme rigor did not accomplish the end at which Mary aimed. The patience and fortitude with which these martyrs for the Reformation submitted to their sufferings, the heroic contempt of death expressed by persons of every rank, and age, and sex, confirmed many more in the protestant faith, than the threats of their enraged persecutors could frighten into apostasy. The business of such as were entrusted with trying of heretics multiplied continually, and appeared to be as endless as it was odious. The queen’s ablest ministers became sensible how impolitic, as well as dangerous, it was to irritate the people by the frequent spectacle of public executions, which they detested as no less unjust than cruel. Even Philip was so thoroughly convinced of her having run to an excess of rigor, that on this occasion he assumed a part to which he was little accustomed, becoming an advocate for moderation and lenity.

But notwithstanding this attempt to ingratiate himself with the English, they discovered a constant jealousy and distrust of all his intentions; and when some members, who had been gained by the court, ventured to move in the house of commons that the nation ought to assist the emperor, the queen’s father-in-law, in his war against France, the proposal was rejected with general dissatisfaction. A motion which was made, that the parlia­ment should give its consent that Philip might be publicly crowned as the queen's husband, met with such a cold reception that it was instantly withdrawn.

The king of France had observed the progress of the emperor's negotiation in England with much uneasiness. The great accession of territories as well as reputation which his enemy would acquire by the marriage of his son with the queen of such a powerful kingdom, was obvious and formidable. He easily foresaw that the English, notwithstanding all their fears and precautions, would be soon drawn in to take part in die quarrels on the continent, and he compelled to act in subserviency to the emperor’s ambitious schemes. For this reason, Henry had given it in charge to his ambassador at the court of London, to employ all his address in order to defeat or retard the treaty of marriage; and as there was not, at that time, any prince of the blood in France whom he could propose to the queen as a husband, he instructed him to cooperate with such of the English as wished their sovereign to marry one of her own subjects. But the queen's ardor and precipitation in closing with the first overtures in favor of Philip, having rendered all his endeavors ineffectual, Henry was so far from thinking it prudent to give any aid to the English malecontents, though earnestly solicited by Wyat and their other leaders, who tempted him to take them under his protection, by offers of great advantage to France, that he commanded his ambassador to congratulate the queen in the warmest terms upon the suppression of the insurrection.

Notwithstanding these external professions, Henry dreaded so much the consequence of this alliance, which more than compensated for all the emperor had, lost in Germany, that he determined to carry on his military operations, both in the Low-Countries and in Italy, with extraordinary rigor, in order that, he might compel Charles to accept of an equitable peace, before his daughter-in-law could surmount the aversion of her subjects to a war on the continent, and prevail on them to assist the emperor either with money or troops. For this purpose he exerted himself to the utmost in order to have a numerous army early assembled on the frontiers of the Netherlands, and while one part of it laid waste the open country of Artois, the main body, under the constable Montmorency, advanced towards the provinces of Liege and Hainault by the forest of Ardennes.

The campaign was opened with the siege of Mariemburg, a town which the queen of Hungary, the governess of the Low-Countries, had fortified at great expense; but, being destitute of a sufficient garrison, it surrendered in six days [June 26]. Henry, elated with this success, put himself at the head of his army, and investing Bouvines, took it by assault, after a short resistance. With equal facility he became master of Dinant; and then, turning to the left, bent his march towards the province of Artois The large sums which the emperor had remitted into England had so exhausted his treasury, as to render his preparations at this juncture slower and more dilatory than usual. He had no body of troops to make head against the French at their first entrance into his territories; and though he drew together all the forces in the country in the utmost hurry, and gave the command of them to Emanuel Philibert of Savoy, they were in no condition to lace an enemy so far superior in number. The prince of Savoy, however, by his activity and good conduct, made up for his want of troops. By watching all the motions of the French at a distance, and by choosing his own posts with skill, he put it out of their power either to form any siege of consequence, or to attack him. Want of subsistence soon obliged them to fall back towards their own frontiers, after having burnt all the open towns, and having plundered the country through which they marched with a cruelty and license more becoming a body of light troops than a royal army led by a great monarch.

But Henry, that he might not dismiss his army without attempting some conquest adequate to the great preparations, as well as sanguine hopes, with which he had opened the campaign, invested Renti, a place deemed in that age of great importance, as, by its situation on the confines of Artois and the Boulonnois, it covered the former province, and protected the parties which made incursions into the latter. The town, which was strongly fortified, and provided with a numerous garrison, made a gallant defence; but being warmly pressed by a powerful army, it must soon have yielded. The emperor, who at that time enjoyed a short interval of ease from the gout, was so solicitous to save it, that, although he could bear no other motion but that of a litter, he instantly put himself at the head of his army, which, having received several reinforcements, was now strong enough to approach the enemy,. The French were eager to decide the fate of Renti by a battle, and expected it from the emperor's arrival in his camp; but Charles avoided a general action with great industry, and as he had nothing in view but to save the town, he hoped to accomplish that, without exposing himself to the consequences of such a dangerous and doubtful event.

Notwithstanding all these precautions a dispute, about a post which both armies endeavored to seize, brought on an engagement [Aug. 13], which proved almost general. The duke of Guise, who commanded the wing of the French which stood the brunt of the combat, displayed a valor and conduct worthy of the defender of Metz; the Imperialists, after an obstinate struggle, were repulsed; the French remained masters of the post in dispute, and if the constable, either from his natural caution and slowness, or from unwillingness to support a rival whom he hated, had not delayed bringing up the main body to second the impression which Guise had made, the rout of the enemy must have been complete. The emperor, notwithstanding the loss which he had sustained, continued in the same camp and the French, being straitened for provisions, and finding it impossible to carry on the siege in the face of a hostile army, quitted their entrenchments. They retired openly, courting the enemy to approach, rather than shunning an engagement.

But Charles, having gained his end, suffered them to march of unmolested. As soon as his troops entered their own country, Henry threw garrisons into the frontier towns, and dismissed the rest of the army. This encouraged the Imperialists to push forward with a considerable body of troops into Picardy, and by laying waste the country with fire and sword, they endeavored to revenge themselves for the ravages which the French had committed in Hainault and Artois. But, as they were not able to reduce any place of importance, they gained nothing more than the enemy had done by this cruel and inglorious method of carrying on the war.

The arms of France were still more unsuccessful in Italy. The footing which the French had acquired in Sienna occasioned much uneasiness to Cosmo di Medici, the most sagacious and enterprising of all the Italian princes. He dreaded the neighborhood of a powerful people, to whom all who favored the ancient republican government in Florence would have recourse, as to their natural protectors, against that absolute authority which the emperor had enabled him to usurp; he knew how odious be was to the French, on account of his attachment to the Imperial party, and he foresaw that, if they were permitted to gather strength in Sienna, Tuscany would soon feel the effects of their resentment. For these reasons, he wished with the utmost solicitude for the expulsion of the French out of the Siennese, before they had time to establish themselves thoroughly in the country, or to receive such reinforcements from France as would render it dangerous to attack them. As this, however, was properly the emperor’s business, who was called by his interest as well as honor to dislodge those formidable intruders into the heart of his dominions, Cosmo labored to throw the whole burden of the enterprise on him; and on that account had given no assistance during the former campaign but by advancing some small sums of money towards the payment of the Imperial troops.

The Siege of Sienna

But as the defence of the Netherlands engrossed all the emperor’s attention, and his remittances into England had drained his treasury, it was obvious that his operations in Italy would be extremely feeble; and Cosmo plainly perceived, that if he himself did not take part openly in the war, and act with vigor, the French would scarcely meet with any annoyance.

As his situation rendered this resolution necessary and unavoidable, his next care was to execute it in such a manner, that he might derive from it some other advantage, beside that of driving the French but of his neighborhood. With this view, he despatched an envoy to Charles, offering to declare war against France, and to reduce Sienna at his own charges, on condition that he should be repaid whatever he should expend in the enterprise, and be permitted to retain all his conquests until his demands were fully satisfied. Charles, to whom, at this juncture, the war against Sienna was an intolerable burden, and who had neither expedient nor resource that could enable him to carry it on with proper vigour, closed gladly with this overture; and Cosmo, well acquainted with the low state of the Imperial finances, flattered himself that the emperor, finding it impossible to reimburse him, would suffer him to keep quiet possession of whatever places he should conquer.

Full of these hopes, he made great preparations for war, and as the French king had turned the strength of his arms against the Netherlands, he did not despair of assembling such a body of men as would prove more than a sufficient match for any force which Henry could bring into the field in Italy. He endeavored, by giving one of his daughters to the pope’s nephew, to obtain assistance from the holy see, or at least to secure his remaining neutral. He attempted to detach the duke of Orsini, whose family had been long attached to the French party, from his ancient confederates, by bestowing on him another of his daughters; and what was of greater consequence than either of these, he engaged John James Medecino, marquis of Marignano, to take the command of his army. This officer, from a very low condition in life, had raised himself, through all the ranks of service, to high command, and had displayed talents, and acquired reputation in war, which entitled him to he placed on a level with the greatest generals in that martial age. Having attained a station of eminence so disproportionate to his birth, he labored with a fond solicitude to conceal his original obscurity, by giving out that he was descended of the family of Medici, to which honor the casual resemblance of his name was his only pretension.

Cosmo, happy that he could gratify him at such an easy rate, flattered his vanity in this point, acknowledged him as a relation, and permitted him to assume the arms of his family : Medecino, eager to serve the head of that family of which he now considered himself as a branch, applied with wonderful zeal and assiduity to raise troops; and as, during his long service, he had acquired great credit with the leaders of those mercenary bands which formed the strength of Italian armies, he engaged the most eminent of them to follow Cosmo’s standard.

To oppose this able general, and the formidable army which he had assembled, the king of France made choice of Peter Strozzi, a Florentine nobleman, who had resided long in France as an exile, and who had risen by his merit to high reputation as well as command in the army. He was the son of Philip Strozzi, who, in the year one thousand five hundred and thirty-seven, had concurred with such ardor in the attempt to expel the family of Medici out of Florence, in order to reestablish the ancient republican form of government; and who had perished in the undertaking.

The son inherited the implacable aversion to the Medici, as well as the same enthusiastic zeal for the liberty of Florence, which had animated his father, whose death he was impatient to revenge. Henry flattered himself that his army would make rapid progress under a general whose zeal to promote his interest was roused and seconded by such powerful passions; especially as he had allotted him, for the scene of action, his native country, in which he had many powerful partisans, ready to facilitate all his operations.

But how specious soever the motives might appear which induced Henry to make this choice, it proved fatal to the interests of France in Italy. Cosmo, as soon as he heard that the mortal enemy of his family was appointed to take the command in Tuscany, concluded that the king of France aimed at something more than the protection of the Siennese, and saw the necessity of making extraordinary efforts, not merely to reduce Sienna, but to save himself from destruction. At the same time, the cardinal of Ferrara, who had the entire direction of the French affairs in Italy, considered Strozzi as a formidable rival in power, and in order to prevent his acquiring any increase of authority from success, he was extremely remiss in supplying him either with money to pay his troops, or with provisions to support them. Strozzi himself, blinded by his resentment against the Medici, pushed on his operations with the impetuosity of revenge, rather than with the caution and prudence becoming a great general.

At first, however, he attacked several towns in the territory of Florence with such vigor as obliged Medecino, in order to check his progress, to withdraw the greater part of his army from Sienna, which he had invested before Strozzi's arrival in Italy. As Cosmo sustained the whole burden of military operations, the expense of which must soon have exhausted his revenues; as neither the viceroy of Naples nor governor of Milan were in condition to afford him any effectual aid; as the troops which Medecino had left in the camp before Sienna could attempt nothing against it during his absence; it was Strozzi’s business to have protracted the war, and to have transferred the seat of it into the territories of Florence. But the hope of ruining his enemy by one decisive blow, precipitated him into a general engagement [Aug. 3], not far from Marciano. The armies were nearly equal in number; but a body of Italian cavalry, in which Strozzi placed great confidence, having fled without making any resistance, either through the treachery or cowardice of the officers who commanded it, his infantry remained exposed to the attacks of all Medecino’s troops. Encouraged, however, by Strozzi’s presence and example, who, after receiving a dangerous wound in endeavoring to rally the cavalry, placed himself at the head of the infantry, and manifested an admirable presence of mind, as well as extraordinary valor, they stood their ground with great firmness, and repulsed such of the enemy as ventured to approach them. But those gallant troops being surrounded at last on every side, and torn in pieces by a battery of cannon which Medecino brought to bear upon them, the Florentine cavalry broke in on their flanks, and a general route ensued. Strozzi, faint with the loss of blood, and deeply affected with the fatal consequences of his own rashness, found the utmost difficulty in making his escape with a handful of men.

Medecino returned immediately to the siege of Sienna with his victorious forces, and as Strozzi could not, after the greatest efforts of activity, collect as many men as to form the appearance of a regular army, he had leisure to carry on his approaches against the town without molestation. But the Siennese, instead of sinking into despair upon this cruel disappointment of their only hope of obtaining relief, prepared to defend themselves to the utmost extremity, with that undaunted fortitude which the love of liberty alone can inspire. This generous resolution was warmly seconded by Monluc, who commanded the French garrison in the town. The active and enterprising courage which he had displayed on many occasions, had procured him this command; and as he had ambition which aspired at the highest military dignities, without any pretensions to attain them but what he could derive from merit, he determined to distinguish his defence of Sienna by extraordinary efforts of valor and perseverance.

For this purpose, he repaired and strengthened the fortifications with unwearied industry; he trained the citizens to the use of arms, and accustomed them to go through the fatigues and dangers of service in common with the. soldiers; and as the enemy were extremely strict in guarding all the avenues to the city, he husbanded the provisions in the magazines with the most parsimonious economy, and prevailed on the soldiers, as well as the citizens, to restrict themselves to a very moderate daily allowance for their subsistence. Medecino, though his army was not numerous enough to storm the town by open force, ventured twice to assault it by surprise; but he was received each time with so much spirit, and repulsed with such loss, as discouraged him from repeating the attempt, and left him no hopes of reducing the town but by famine.

With this view he fortified his own camp with great care, occupied all the posts of strength round the place, and having entirely cut off the besieged from any communication with the adjacent country, he waited patiently until necessity should compel them to open their gates. But their enthusiastic zeal for liberty made the citizens despise the distresses occasioned by the scarcity of provisions, and supported them long under all the miseries of famine. Monluc, by his example and exhortations, taught his soldiers to vie with him in patience and abstinence; and it was not until they had withstood a siege of ten months, until they had eaten up all the horses, dogs, and other animals in the place, and were reduced almost to their last morsel of bread, that they proposed a capitulation [1555]. Even then they demanded honorable terms; and as Cosmo, though no stranger to the extremity of their condition, was afraid that despair might prompt them to venture upon some wild enterprise, he immediately granted them conditions more favorable than they could have expected.

April 22] The capitulation was made in the emperor’s name, who engaged to take the republic of Sienna under the protection of the empire; he promised to maintain the ancient liberties of the city, to allow the magistrates the full exercise of their former authority, to secure the citizens in the undisturbed possession of their privileges and property; he granted an ample and unlimited pardon to all who had borne arms against him; he reserved to himself the right of placing a garrison in the town, but engaged not to rebuild the citadel without the consent of the citizens. Monluc and his French garrison were allowed to march out with all the honors of war.

Medecino observed the articles of capitulation, as far as depended on him, with great exactness. No violence or insult whatever was offered to the inhabitants, and the French garrison was treated with all the respect due to their spirit and bravery. But many of the citizens suspecting, from the extraordinary facility with which they had obtained such favorable conditions, that the emperor, as well as Cosmo, would take the first opportunity of violating them, and disdaining to possess a precarious liberty, which depended on the will of another, abandoned the place of their nativity, and accompanied the French to Monte-Alcino, Porto Ercole, and other small towns in the territory of the republic. They established in Monte-Alcino, the same model of government to which they had been accustomed at Sienna, and appointing magistrates with the same titles and jurisdiction, solaced themselves with this image of their ancient liberty.

The fears of the Siennese concerning the fate of their country were not imaginary, or their suspicion of the emperor and Cosine ill founded; for no sooner had the Imperial troops taken possession of the town, than Cosmo, without regarding the articles of capitulation, not only displaced the magistrates who were in office, and nominated new ones devoted to his own interest, but commanded all the citizens to deliver up their arms to persons whom he appointed to receive them. They submitted to the former from necessity, though with all the reluctance and regret which men accustomed to liberty feel in obeying the first commands of a master. They did not yield the same tame obedience to the latter; and many persons of distinction, rather than degrade themselves from the rank of freemen to the condition of slaves by surrendering their arms, fled to their countrymen at Monte­Alcino, and chose to endure all the hardships, and encounter all the dangers which they had reason to expect in that new station, where they had fixed the seat of their republic.

Cosmo, not reckoning himself secure while such numbers of implacable and desperate enemies were settled in his neighborhood, and retained any degree of power, solicited Medecino to attack them in their different places of retreat, before they had time to recruit their strength and spirits, after the many calamities which they had suffered. He prevailed on him, though his army was much weakened by hard duty during the siege of Sienna, to invest Porto Ercole; and the fortifications being both slight and incomplete, the besieged were soon compelled to open their gates [June 13]. An unexpected order, which Medecino received from the emperor to detach the greater part of his troops into Piedmont, prevented farther operations, and permitted the Siennese exiles to reside for some time undisturbed in Monte-Alcino. But their unhappy countrymen who remained at Sienna were not yet at the end of their sufferings; for the emperor, instead of adhering to the articles of capitulation, granted his son Philip the investiture of that city and all its dependencies; and Francis de Toledo, in the name of their new master, proceeded to settle the civil and military government, treated them like a conquered people, and subjected them to the Spanish yoke, without paying any regard whatever to their privileges or ancient form of government.

The Imperial army in Piedmont had been so feeble for some time, and its commander so inactive, that the emperor, in order to give vigor to his operations in that quarter, found it necessary not only to recall Medecino’s troops from Tuscany, while in the career of conquest, but to employ in Piedmont a general of such reputation and abilities, as might counterbalance the great military talents of the marechal Brissac, who was at the head of the French forces in that country.

He pitched on the duke of Alva for that purpose; but that choice was as much the effect of a court intrigue, as of his opinion with respect to the duke's merit. Alva had long made court to Philip with the utmost assiduity, and bad endeavored to work himself into his confidence by all the insinuating arts of which his haughty and inflexible nature was capable. As he nearly resembled that prince in many features of his character, he began to gain much of his good-will. Ruy Gomez de Silva, Philip’s favorite, who dreaded the progress which this formidable rival made in his master’s affections, had the address to prevail with the emperor to name Alva to this command. The duke, though sensible that he owed this distinction to the malicious arts of an enemy, who had no other aim than to remove him at a distance from court, was of such punctilious honor, that he would not decline a command that appeared dangerous and difficult, but, at the same time, was so haughty, that he would not accept of it but on his own terms, insisted on being appointed the emperor's vicar-general in Italy, with the supreme military command in all the Imperial and Spanish territories in that country. Charles granted all his demands; and he took possession of his new dignity with almost unlimited authority.

His first operations, however, were neither proportioned to his former reputation and the extensive powers with which he was invested, nor did they come up to the emperor's expectations. Brissac had under his command an army which, though inferior in number to the Imperialists, was composed of chosen troops, which having grown old in service in that country, where every town was fortified, and every castle capable of being defended, were perfectly acquainted with the manner of carrying on war there. By their valor, and his own good conduct, Brissac not only defeated all the attempts of the Imperialists, but added new conquests to the territories of which he was formerly master. Alva, after having boasted, with his usual arrogance, that he would drive the French out of Piedmont, in a few weeks, was obliged to retire into winter-quarters, with the mortification of being unable to preserve entire that part of the country of which the emperor had hitherto kept possession.

As the operations of this campaign in Piedmont were indecisive, those in the Netherlands were inconsiderable, neither the emperor nor king of France being able to bring into the field an army strong enough to undertake any enterprise of moment. But what Charles wanted in force, he endeavored to supply by a bold stratagem, the success of which would have been equal to that of the most vigorous campaign. During the siege of Metz, Leonard, father guardian of a convent of Franciscans in that city, had insinuated himself far into the esteem and favor of the duke of Guise, by his attachment to the French. Being a man of an active and intriguing spirit, he had been extremely useful both in animating the inhabitants to sustain with patience all the hardships of the siege, and in procuring intelligence of the enemy’s designs and motions.

The merit of those important services, together with the warm recommendations of the duke of Guise, secured him such high confidence with Vielleville, who was appointed governor of Metz when Guise left the town, that he was permitted to converse or correspond with whatever persons he thought fit, and nothing that he did created any suspicion. This monk, from the levity natural to hold and projecting adventurers; or from resentment against the French, who had not bestowed on him such rewards as he thought due to his own merit; or tempted by the unlimited confidence which was placed in him, to imagine that he might carry on and accomplish any scheme with perfect security, formed a design of betraying Metz to the Imperialists.

He communicated his intention to the queen-dowager of Hungary, who governed the Low-Countries in the name of her brother. She approving without any scruple, an act of treachery, from which the emperor might derive such signal advantage, assisted the father guardian in concerting the most proper plan for ensuring its success. They agreed, that the father guardian should endeavor to gain his monks to concur in promoting the design, that he should introduce into the convent a certain number of chosen soldiers, disguised in the habit of friars; that when everything was ripe for execution, the governor of Thionville should march towards Metz in the night with a considerable body of troops, and attempt to scale the ramparts; that while the garrison was employed in resisting the assailants, the monks should set fire to the town in different places; that the soldiers who lay concealed should sally out of the convent, and attack those who defended the ramparts in the rear. Amidst the universal terror and confusion which events so unexpected would occasion, it was not doubted but that the Imperialists might become masters of the town. As a recompense for this service, the father guardian stipulated that he should be appointed bishop of Metz, and ample rewards were promised to such of his monks as should be most active in co-operating with him.

The father guardian accomplished what he had undertaken to perform with great secrecy and dispatch. By his authority and arguments, as well as by the prospect of wealth or honors which he set before his monks, he prevailed on all of them to enter into the conspiracy. He introduced into the convent, without being suspected, as many soldiers as were thought sufficient. The governor of Thionville, apprized in due time of the design, had assembled a proper number of troops for executing it; and the moment approached, which probably would have wrested from Henry the most important of all his conquests.

But, happily for France, on the very day that was fixed for striking the blow, Vielleville, an able and vigilant officer, received information from a spy whom he entertained at Thionville, that certain Franciscan friars resorted frequently thither and were admitted to many private conferences with the governor, who was carrying on preparations for some military enterprise with great dispatch, but with a most mysterious secrecy. This was sufficient to awaken Vielleville’s suspicions. Without communicating these to any person, he instantly visited the convent of Franciscans; detected the soldiers who were concealed there; and forced them to discover as much as they knew concerning the nature of the enterprise. The father guardian, who had gone to Thionville that he might put the last hand to is machinations, was seized at the gate as he returned; and he, in order to save himself from the rack, revealed all the circumstances of the conspiracy.

Vielleville, not satisfied with having seized the traitors, and having frustrated their schemes, was solicitous to take advantage of the discoveries which he had made, so as to be revenged on the Imperialists. For this purpose he marched out with the best troops in his garrison, and placing these in ambush near the road, by which the father guardian had informed him that the governor of Thionville would approach Metz, he fell upon the Imperialists with great fury, as they advanced in perfect security, without suspecting any danger to be near. Confounded at this sudden attack, by an enemy whom they expected to surprise, they made little resistance; and a great part of the troops employed in this service, among whom were many persons of distinction, was killed or taken prisoners. Before next morning, Vielleville returned to Metz in triumph.

No resolution was taken for some time concerning the fate of the father guardian and his monks, the framers and conductors of this dangerous conspiracy. Regard for the honor of a body so numerous and respectable as the Franciscans, and unwillingness to afford a subject of triumph to the enemies of the Romish church by their disgrace, seem to have occasioned this delay. But at length, the necessity of inflicting exemplary punishment upon them, in order to deter others from venturing to commit the same crime, became so evident, that orders were issued to proceed to their trial. The guilt was made apparent by the clearest evidence; and sentence of death was passed upon the father guardian, together with twenty monks. On the evening previous to the day fixed for their execution, the jailer took them out of the dungeons in which they had hitherto been confined separately, and shut them all up in one great room, that they might confess their sins to one another, and join together in preparing for a future state. But as soon as they were left alone, instead of employing themselves in the religious exercises suitable to their condition, they began to reproach the father guardian, and four of the senior monks who had been most active in seducing them, for their inordinate ambition, which had brought such misery on them, and such disgrace upon their order. From reproaches they proceeded to curse's and execrations, and at last, in a frenzy of rage and despair, they fell upon them with such violence, that they murdered the father guardian on the spot, and so disabled the other four, that it became necessary to carry them next morning in a cart, to­gether with the dead body of the father guardian, to the place of execution. Six of the youngest were pardoned, the rest suffered the punishment which their crime merited.

Though both parties, exhausted by the length of the war, carried it on in this languishing manner, neither of them showed any disposition to listen to overtures of peace. Cardinal Pole indeed labored with all the zeal becoming his piety and humanity, to re-establish concord among the princes of Christendom. He had not only persuaded his mistress, the queen of England, to enter warmly into his sentiments, and to offer her mediation to the contending powers, but had prevailed both on the emperor and the king of France to send their plenipotentiaries to a village between Gravelines and Ardres. He himself, together with Gardiner bishop of Winchester, repaired thither in order to preside as mediators in the conferences which were to be held for adjusting all the points in difference. But though each of the monarchs committed this negotiation to some of their ministers, in whom they placed the greatest confidence, it was soon evident that they came together with no sincere desire of accommodation. [May 21].

Each proposed articles so extravagant that they could have no hopes of their being accepted. Pole, after exerting in vain all his zeal and address, in order to persuade them to relinquish such extravagant demands, and to consent to the substitution of more equal conditions, became sensible of the folly of wasting time in attempting to reestablish concord between those whom their obstinacy rendered irreconcilable, broke off the conference, and returned into England.

The recess of Augsburg

During these transactions in other parts of Europe, Germany enjoyed such profound tranquility, as afforded the diet full leisure to deliberate, and to establish proper regulations concerning a point of the greatest consequence to the internal peace of the empire. By the treaty of Passau in one thousand five hundred and fifty-two, it had been referred to the next diet of the empire to confirm and perfect the plan of religious pacification, which was there agreed upon. The terror and confusion with which the violent commotions excited by Albert of Brandenburg had filled Germany, as well as the constant attention which Ferdinand was obliged to give to the affairs of Hungary, had hitherto prevented the holding a diet, though it had been summoned, soon after the conclusion of the treaty, to meet at Augsburg.

But as a diet was now necessary on many accounts, Ferdinand, about the beginning of this year, had repaired to Augsburg. Though few of the princes were present, either in person or by their deputies, he opened the assembly by a speech, in which he proposed a termination of the dissensions to which the new tenets and controversies with regard to religion had given rise, not only as the first and great business of the diet, but as the point which both the emperor and he had most at heart. He represented the innumerable obstacles which the emperor had to surmount before he could procure the convocation of a general council, as well as the fatal accidents which had for some time retarded, and had at last suspended the consultations of that assembly. He observed, that experience had already taught them how vain it was to expect any remedy for evils which demanded immediate redress from a general council, the assembly of which would either be prevented, or its deliberations be interrupted by the dissensions and hostilities of the princes of Christendom: that a national council in Germany, which, as some imagined, might be called with greater ease, and deliberate with more perfect security, was an assembly of an unprecedented nature, the jurisdiction of which was un­certain in its extent, and the form of its proceedings undefined: that in his opinion there remained but one method for composing their unhappy differences, which though it had been often tried without success, might yet prove effectual if it were attempted with a better and more pacific spirit than had appeared on former occasions, and that was to choose a few men of learning, abilities, and moderation, who, by discussing the disputed articles, in an amicable conference, might explain them in such a manner as to bring the contending parties either to unite in sentiment, or to differ with charity.

This speech being printed in common form, and dispersed over the empire, revived the fears and jealousies of the protestants; Ferdinand, they observed with much surprise, had not once mentioned, in his address to the diet, the treaty of Passau, the stipulations of which they considered as the great security of their religious liberty. The suspicions to which this gave rise were confirmed by the accounts which they daily received of the extreme severity with which Ferdinand treated their protestant brethren in his hereditary dominions, and, as it was natural to consider his actions as the surest indication of his intentions, this diminished their confidence in those pompous professions of moderation or of zeal for the re-establishment of concord, to which his practice seemed to be so repugnant.

The arrival of the cardinal Morone, whom the pope had appointed to attend the diet as his nuncio, completed their conviction, and left them no room to doubt that some dangerous machination was forming against the peace or safety of the protestant church. Julius, elated with the unex­pected return of the English nation from apostacy, began to flatter himself, that the spirit of mutiny and revolt having now spent its force, the happy period was come when the church might resume its ancient authority, and be obeyed by the people with the same tame submission as formerly. Full of these hopes, he had sent Morone to Augsburg, with instructions to employ his eloquence to excite the Germans to imitator the laudable example of the English, and his political address in order to prevent any decree of the diet to the detriment of the catholic faith. As Morone inherited from his father, the chancellor of Milan, uncommon talents for negotiation and intrigue, he could hardly have failed from embarrassing the measures of the protestants in the diet, or of defeating whatever they aimed at obtaining in it for their farther security.

But an unforeseen event delivered them from all the danger which they had reason to apprehend from Morone’s presence. Julius, by abandoning himself to pleasures and amusements, no less unbecoming his age than his character, having contracted such habits of dissipation, that any serious occupation, especially if attended with difficulty, became an intolerable burden to him, had long resisted the solicitations of his nephew to hold a consistory; because he expected there a violent opposition to his schemes in favor of that young man. But when all the pretexts which he could invent for eluding this request were exhausted, and at the same time his indolent aversion to business continued to vow upon him, he feigned indisposition rather than yield to his nephews importunity; and that he might give the deceit a greater color of probability, he not only confined himself to his apartment, but changed his usual diet and manner of life. By persisting long in acting this ridiculous part, he contracted a real disease, of which he died in a few days [March 23], leaving his infamous minion the cardinal de Monte to bear his name, and to disgrace the dignity which he had conferred upon him. As soon as Morone heard of his death, he set out abruptly from Augsburg, where he had resided only a few days, that he might be present at the election of a new pontiff.

One cause of their suspicions and fears being thus removed, the protes­tants soon became sensible that their conjectures concerning Ferdinand's intentions, however specious, were ill-founded, and that he had no thoughts of violating the articles favorable to them in the treaty of Passau. Charles, from the time that Maurice had defeated all his schemes in the empire, and overturned the great system of religious and civil despotism, which he had almost established there, gave little attention to the internal government of Germany, and permitted his brother to pursue whatever measures he judged most salutary and expedient. Ferdinand, less ambi­tious and enterprising than the emperor, instead of resuming a plan which he with power and resources so far superior had failed of accomplishing, endeavored to attach the princes of the empire to his family by an administration uniformly moderate and equitable. To this he gave, at present, particular attention, because his situation at this juncture rendered it necessary to court their favor and support with more than usual assiduity.

Charles had again resumed his favorite project of acquiring the Imperial crown for his son Philip, the prosecution of which, the reception it had met with when first proposed had obliged him to suspend, but had not induced him to relinquish. This led him warmly to renew his request to his brother that he would accept of some compensation for his prior right of succession, and sacrifice that to the grandeur of the house of Austria. Ferdinand, who was as little disposed as formerly to give such an extraordinary proof of self-denial, being sensible that, in order to defeat this scheme, not only the most inflexible firmness on his part, but a vigorous declaration from the princes of the empire in behalf of his title, were requisite, was willing to purchase their favor by gratifying them in every point that they deemed interesting or essential.

At the same time he stood in need of immediate and extraordinary aid from the Germanic body, as the Turks, after having wrested from him great part of his Hungarian territories, were ready to attack the provinces still subject to his authority with a formidable army, against which he could bring no equal force into the field. For this aid from Germany he could not hope, if the internal peace of the empire were not established on a foundation solid in itself, and which should appear, even to the pro­testants, so secure and so permanent, as might not only allow them to engage in a distant war with safety, but might encourage them to act in it with vigour.

A step taken by the protestants themselves, a short time after the open­ing of the diet, rendered him still more cautious of giving them any new cause of offence. As soon as the publication of Ferdinand's speech awakened the fears and suspicions which have been mentioned, the electors of Saxony and Brandenburg, together with the landgrave of Hesse, met at Naumburgh, and confirming the ancient treaty of confraternity which had long united their families, they added to it a new article, by which the contracting parties bound themselves to adhere to the confession of Augsburg, and to maintain the doctrine which it contained in their respective dominions.

Ferdinand, influenced by all these considerations, employed his utmost address in conducting the deliberations of the diet, so as not to excite the jealousy of a party on whose friendship he depended, and whose enmity, as they had not only taken the alarm, but had begun to prepare for their defence, he had so much reason to dread. The members of the diet readily agreed to Ferdinand's proposal of taking the state of religion into consideration, previous to any other business. But as soon as they entered upon it, both parties discovered all the zeal and animosity which a subject so interesting naturally engenders, and which the rancor of controversy, together with the violence of civil war, had inflamed to the highest pitch.

The protestants contended, that the security which they claimed in consequence of the treaty of Passau, should extend, without limitation, to all who had hitherto embraced the doctrine of Luther, or who should here­after embrace it. The Catholics, having first of all asserted the pope's right as the supreme and final judge with respect to all articles of faith, declared, that though, on account of the present situation of the empire, for the sake of peace, they were willing to confirm the toleration granted by the treaty of Passau, to such as had already adopted the new opinions; they must insist that this indulgence should not be extended either to those cities which had conformed to the Interim, or to such ecclesiastics as should for the future apostatize from the church of Rome. It was no easy matter to reconcile such opposite pretensions, which were supported, on each side, by the most elaborate arguments, and the greatest acrimony of expression, that the abilities or zeal of theologians long exercised in disputation could suggest, Ferdinand, however, by his address and perseverance; by softening some things on each side, by putting a favorable meaning upon others; by representing incessantly the necessity as well as the advantages of concord; and by threatening, on some occasions, when all other considerations were disregarded, to dissolve the diet, brought them at length to a conclusion in which they all agreed.

Conformably to this, a recess was framed, approved of and published with the usual formalities [Sept. 25]. The following are the chief articles which it contained : That such princes and cities as have declared their approbation of the confession of Augsburg, shall be permitted to profess the doctrine and exercise the worship which it authorizes, without interruption or molestation from the emperor, the king of the Romans, or any power or person whatsoever; That the protestants, on their part shall give no disquiet to the princes and states who adhere to the tenets and rites of the church of Rome; That, for the future, no attempt shall be made towards terminating religious differences, but by the gentle and pacific methods of persuasion and conference; That the popish ecclesiastics shall claim no spiritual jurisdiction in such states as receive the confession of Augsburg; That such as had seized the benefices or revenues of the church, previous to the treaty of Passau, shall retain possession of them, and be liable to no prosecution in the Imperial chamber on that account; That the supreme civil power in every state shall have right to establish what form of doctrine and worship it shall deem proper, and if any of its subjects refuse to conform to these, shall permit them to remove with all their effects, whithersoever they shall please; that if any prelate or ecclesiastic shall hereafter abandon the Romish religion, he shall instantly relinquish his diocese or benefice, and it shall be lawful for those in whom the right of nomination is vested, to proceed immediately to an election, as if the office were vacant by death or translation, and to appoint a successor of undoubted attachment to the ancient system.

Such are the capital articles in this famous recess, which is the basis of religious peace in Germany, and the bond of union among its various states, the sentiments of which are so extremely different with respect to points the most interesting as well as important. In our age and nation, to which the idea of toleration is familiar, and its beneficial effects well known, it may seem strange, that a method of terminating their dissensions, so suitable to the mild and charitable spirit of the Christian religion, did not sooner occur to the contending parties. But this expedient, however salutary, was so repugnant to the sentiments and practice of Christians during many ages, that it did not lie obvious to discovery. Among the ancient heathens, all whose deities were local and tutelary, diversity of sentiment concerning the object or rites of religious worship seems to have been no source of animosity, because the acknowledging veneration to be due to any one God, did not imply denial of the existence or the power of any other God; nor were the modes and rites of worship established in one country incompatible with those which other nations approved of and observed. Thus the errors in their system of theology were of such a nature as to be productive of concord; and notwithstanding the amazing number of their deities, as well as the infinite variety of their ceremonies, a sociable and tolerating spirit subsisted almost universally in the pagan world.

But when the Christian revelation declared one Supreme Being to be the sole object of religious veneration, and prescribed the form of worship most acceptable to him, whoever admitted the truth of it, held, of consequence, every other system of religion as a deviation from what was established by divine authority, to be false and impious. Hence arose the zeal of the first converts to the Christian faith in propagating its doctrines, and the ardor with which they labored to overturn every other form of worship. They employed, however, for this purpose, no methods but such as suited the nature of religion. By the force of powerful arguments, they convinced the understandings of men; by the charms of superior virtue, they allured and captivated their hearts. At length the civil power declared in favor of Christianity; and though numbers, imitating the example of their superiors, crowded into the church, many still adhered to their ancient superstitions. Enraged at their obstinacy, the ministers of religion, whose zeal was still unabated, though their sanctity and virtue were much diminished, forgot so far the nature of their own mission, and of the arguments which they ought to have employed, that they armed the Imperial power against these unhappy men, and as they could not per­suade, they tried to compel them to believe.

At the same time, controversies concerning articles of faith multiplied, from various causes, among Christians themselves, and the same unhallowed weapons which had at first been used against the enemies of their religion, were turned against each other. Every zealous disputant endeavored to interest the civil magistrate in his cause, and each in his turn employed the secular arm to crush or to exterminate his opponents. Not long after, the bishops of Rome put in their claim to infallibility in explaining articles of faith, and deciding points in controversy; and, bold as the pretension was, they, by their articles and perseverance, imposed on the credulity of mankind, and brought them to recognize it. To doubt or to deny any doctrine to which these unerring instructers had given the sanction of their approbation, was held to be not only a resisting of truth, but an act of rebellion against their sacred authority; and the secular power, of which by various arts they had acquired the absolute direction, was instantly employed to avenge both.

Thus Europe had been accustomed, during many centuries, to see speculative opinions propagated or defended by force; the charity and mutual forbearance which Christianity recommends with so much warmth, were forgotten, the sacred rights of conscience and of private judgment were unheard of, and not only the idea of toleration, but even the word itself, in the sense now affixed to it, was unknown. A right to extirpate error by force was universally allowed to be the prerogative of such as pos­sessed the knowledge of truth; and as each party of Christians believed that they had got possession of this invaluable attainment, they all claimed and exercised, as far as they were able, the rights which it was supposed to convey. The Roman catholics, as their system rested on the decisions of an infallible judge, never doubted that truth was on their side, and openly called on the civil power to repel the impious and heretical innovators who had risen up against it. The protestants, no less confident that their doctrine was well founded, required, with equal ardor, the princes of their party to check such as presumed to impugn it. Luther, Calvin, Cranmer, Knox, the founders of the reformed church in their respective countries, as far as they had power and opportunity, inflicted the same punishments upon such as called in question any article in their creeds, which were denounced against their own disciples by the church of Rome. To their followers, and perhaps to their opponents, it would have appeared a system of diffidence in the goodness of their cause, or an acknowledgment that it was not well founded, if they had not employed in its defence all those means which it was supposed truth had a right to employ.

It was towards the close of the seventeenth century, before toleration, under its present form, was admitted first into the republic of the United Provinces, and from thence introduced into England. Long experience of the calamities flowing from mutual persecution, the influence of free government, the light and humanity acquired by the progress of science, together with the prudence and authority of the civil magistrate, were all requisite in order to establish a regulation, so repugnant to the ideas which all the different sects had adopted, from mistaken conceptions concerning the nature of religion and the rights of truth, or which all of them had derived from the erroneous maxims established by the church of Rome.

The recess of Augsburg, it is evident, was founded on no such liberal and enlarged sentiments concerning freedom of religious inquiry, or the nature of toleration. It was nothing more than a scheme of pacification, which political considerations alone had suggested to the contending parties, and regard for their mutual tranquility and safety had rendered necessary. Of this there can be no stronger proof than an article in the recess itself, by which the benefits of the pacification are declared to extend only to the catholics on the one side, and to such as adhered to the confession of Augsburg on the other. The followers of Zuinglius and Calvin remain all, in consequence of that exclusion, without any protection from the rigor of the laws denounced against heretics. Nor did they obtain any legal security, until the treaty of Westphalia, near a century after this period, provided, that they should be admitted to enjoy, in as ample a manner as the Lutherans, all the advantages and protection which the recess of Augsburg affords.

But if the followers of Luther were highly pleased with the security which they acquired by this recess, such as adhered to the ancient system had no less reason to be satisfied with that article in it, which preserved entire to the Roman catholic church the benefices of such ecclesiastics as should hereafter renounce its doctrines. This article, known in Germany by the name of the Ecclesiastical Reservation, was apparently so conform­able to the idea and to the rights of an established church, and it seemed so equitable to prevent revenues, which had been originally appropriated for the maintenance of persons attached to a certain system, from being alienated to any other purpose, that the Protestants, though they foresaw its consequences, were obliged to relinquish their opposition to it. As the Roman catholic princes of the empire have taken care to see this article exactly observed in every case where there was an opportunity of putting it in execution, it has proved the great barrier of the Romish church in Germany against the reformation; and as, from this period, the same temptation of interest did not allure ecclesiastics to relinquish the established system, there have been few of that order, who have loved truth with such disinterested and ardent affection, as, for its sake, to abandon the rich benefices which they had in possession.

The Court of Paul the Fourth

During the sitting of the diet [April 9], Marcellus Cervino, cardinal of St. Croce, was elected pope in the room of Julius. He, in imitation of Adrian, did not change his name on being exalted to the papal chair. As he equaled that pontiff in purity of intention, while he excelled him much in the arts of government, and still more in knowledge of the state and genius of the papal court; as he had capacity to discern what reformation it needed, as well as what it could bear; such regulations were expected from his virtue and wisdom, as would have removed many of its grossest and most flagrant corruptions, and have contributed towards reconciling to the church such as, from indignation at these enormities, had abandoned its communion. But this excellent pontiff was only shown to the church, and immediately snatched away. The confinement in the conclave had impaired his health, and the fatigue of tedious ceremonies upon his accession, together with too intense and anxious application of mind to the schemes of improvement which he meditated, exhausted so entirely the vigour of his feeble constitution, that he sickened on the twelfth, and died on the twentieth day after his election.

All the refinements in artifice and intrigue, peculiar to conclaves, were displayed in that which was held for electing a successor to Marcellus; the cardinals of the Imperial and French factions laboring, with equal ardor, to gain the necessary number of suffrages for one of their own party. But, after a struggle of no long duration, though conducted with all the warmth and eagerness natural to men contending for so great an object, they united in choosing John Peter Caraffa [May 23], the eldest member of the sacred college, and the son of count Montorio, a nobleman of an illustrious family in the kingdom of Naples. The address and influence of cardinal Farnese, who favored his pretensions, Caraffa’s own merit, and perhaps his great age, which soothed all the disappointed candidates with the near prospect of a new vacancy, concurred in bringing about this speedy union of suffrages. In order to testify his respect for the memory of Paul III by whom he had been created cardinal, as well as his gratitude to the family of Farnese, he assumed the name of Paul the Fourth.

The choice of a prelate of such a singular character, and who had long held a course extremely different from that which usually led to the dignity now conferred upon him, filled the Italians, who had nearest access to observe his manners and deportment, with astonishment, and kept them in suspense and solicitude with regard to his future conduct. Paul, though born in a rank of life which, without any other merit, might have secured to him the highest ecclesiastical preferments, had, from his early years, applied to study with all the assiduity of a man who had nothing but his personal attainments to render him conspicuous. By means of this, he not only acquired profound skill in scholastic theology, but added to that a considerable knowledge of the learned languages and of polite literature, the study of which had been lately revived in Italy, and was pursued at this time with great ardor. His mind, however, naturally gloomy and severe, was more formed to imbibe the sour spirit of the former, than to receive any tincture of elegance or liberality of sentiment from the latter; so that he acquired rather the qualities and passions of a recluse ecclesiastic, than the talents necessary for the conduct of great affairs. Accordingly, when he entered into orders, although several rich benefices were bestowed upon him, and he was early employed as nuncio in different courts, he soon became disgusted with that course of life, and languished to be in a situation more suited to his taste and temper. With this view, he resigned at once all his ecclesiastical preferments; and having instituted an order of regular priests, whom he denominated Theatines, from the name of the archbishopric which he had held, he associated himself as a member of their fraternity, conformed to all the rigorous rules to which he had subjected them, and preferred the solitude of a monastic life, with the honor of being the founder of a new order, to all the great objects which the court of Rome presented to his ambition.

In this retreat he remained for many years, until Paul III, induced by the fame of his sanctity and knowledge, called him to Rome, in order to consult with him concerning the measures which might be most proper and effectual for suppressing heresy, and re-establishing the ancient authority of the church. Having thus allured him from his solitude, the pope, partly by his entreaties, and partly by his authority, prevailed on him to accept of a cardinal's hat, to reassume the benefices which he had resigned, and to return again into the usual path of ecclesiastical ambition which he seemed to have relinquished. But, during two successive pontificates, under the first of which the court of Rome was the most artful and interested, and under the second the most dissolute of any in Europe, Caraffa retained his monastic austerity. He was an avowed and bitter enemy not only of all innovation in opinion, but of every irregularity in practice; he was the chief instrument in establishing the formidable and odious tribunal of the inquisition in the papal territories; he appeared a violent advocate on all occasions for the jurisdiction and discipline of the church, and a severe censurer of every measure which seemed to flow from motives of policy or interest, rather than from zeal for the honor of the ecclesiastical order, and the dignity of the holy see. Under a prelate of such a character, the Roman courtiers expected a severe and violent pontificate, during which the principles of sound policy would be sacrificed to the narrow prejudices of priestly zeal; while the people of Rome were apprehensive of seeing the sordid and forbidding rigor of monastic manners substituted in place of the gayety or magnificence to which they had long been accustomed in the papal court. These apprehensions Paul was extremely solicitous to remove. At his first entrance upon the administration, he laid aside that austerity which had hitherto distinguished his person and family, and when the master of his household inquired in what manner he would choose to live, he haughtily replied, "As becomes a great prince". He ordered the ceremony of his coronation to he conducted with more than usual pomp; and endeavored to render himself popular by several acts of liberality and indulgence towards the inhabitants of Rome.

His natural severity of temper, however, would have soon returned upon him, and would have justified the conjectures of the courtiers, as well as the fears of the people, if he had not, immediately after his election, called to Rome two of his nephews, the sons of his brother the count of Montorio. The eldest he promoted to be governor of Rome. The youngest, who had hitherto served as a soldier of fortune in the armies of Spain or France, and whose disposition as well as manners were still more foreign from the clerical character than his profession, he created a cardinal, and appointed him legate of Bologna, the second office in power and dignity which a pope can bestow. These marks of favor, no less sudden than extravagant, he accompanied with the most unbounded confidence and attachment, and forgetting all his former severe maxims, he seemed to have no other object than the aggrandizement of his nephews. Their ambition, unfortunately for Paul, was too aspiring to be satisfied with any moderate acquisition. They had seen the family of Medici raised by the interest of the popes of that house to supreme power in Tuscany; Paul III had, by his abilities and address, secured the duchies of Parma and Placentia to the family of Farnese.

They aimed at some establishment for themselves, no less considerable and independent; and as they could not expect that the pope would carry his indulgence towards them so far as to secularize any part of the patrimony of the church, they had no prospect of attaining what they wished, but by dismembering the Imperial dominions in Italy, in hopes of seizing some portion of them. This alone they would have deemed a sufficient reason for sowing the seeds of discord between their uncle and the emperor.

But cardinal Caraffa had, besides, private reasons which filled him with hatred and enmity to the emperor. While he served in the Spanish troops be had not received such marks of honor and distinction as he thought due to his birth and merit. Disgusted with this ill usage, he had abruptly quitted the Imperial service; and entering into that of France, he had not only met with such a reception as soothed his vanity, and attached him to the French interest, but by contracting an intimate friendship with Strozzi, who commanded the French army in Tuscany, he had imbibed a mortal antipathy to the emperor as the great enemy to the liberty and independence of the Italian states. Nor was the pope himself indisposed to receive impressions unfavorable to the emperor. The opposition given to his election by the cardinals of the Imperial faction, left in his mind deep resentment, which was heightened by the remembrance of ancient injuries from Charles or his ministers.

Of this his nephews took advantage, and employed various devices, in order to exasperate him beyond a possibility of reconciliation. They aggravated every circumstance which could be deemed any indication of the emperor's dissatisfaction with his promotion; they read to him an intercepted letter, in which Charles taxed the cardinals of his party with negligence or incapacity in not having defeated Paul's election: they pretended, at one time, to have discovered a conspiracy formed by the Imperial minister and Cosmo di Medici against the pope's life; they alarmed him, at another, with accounts of a plot for assassinating themselves. By these artifices, they kept his mind, which was naturally violent, and become suspicious from old age, in such perpetual agitation, as precipitated him into measures which otherwise he would have been the first person to condemn. He seized some of the cardinals who were most attached to the emperor, and confined them in the castle of St. Angelo; he persecuted the Colonnas and other Roman barons, the ancient retainers to the Imperial faction, with the utmost severity; and discovering on all occasions, his distrust, fear, or hatred of the emperor, he began at last to court the friendship of the French king, and seemed willing to throw himself absolutely upon him for support and protection.

This was the very point to which his nephews wished to bring him, as most favorable to their ambitious schemes; and as the accomplishment of these depended on their uncle's life, whose advanced age did not admit of losing a moment unnecessarily in negotiations, instead of treating at second­hand with the French ambassador at Rome, they prevailed on the pope to dispatch a person of confidence directly to the court of France, with such overtures on his part as they hoped would not be rejected. He proposed an alliance offensive and defensive between Henry and the pope; that they should attack the duchy of Tuscany and the kingdom of Naples with their united forces; and if their arms should prove successful, that the ancient republican form of government should be reestablished in the former, and the investiture of the latter should be granted to one of the French king's sons, after reserving a certain territory which should be annexed to the patrimony of the church, together with an independent and princely establishment for each of the pope's nephews.

The king, allured by these specious projects, gave a most favorable audience to the envoy. But when the matter was proposed in council, the constable Montmorency, whose natural caution and aversion to daring enterprises increased with age and experience, remonstrated with great vehemence against the alliance. He put Henry in mind how fatal to France every expedition into Italy had been during three successive reigns, and if such an enterprise had proved too great for the nation even when its strength and finances were entire, there was no reason to hope for success, if it should be attempted now, when both were exhausted by extraordinary efforts during wars, which had lasted, with little interruption, almost half a century.

He represented the manifest imprudence of entering into engagements with a pope of fourscore, as any system which rested on no better foundation than his life, must be extremely precarious, and upon the event of his death, which could not be distant, the face of things, together with the inclination of the Italian states, must instantly change, and the whole weight of the war be left upon the king alone. To these considerations he added the near prospect which they now bad of a final accommodation with the emperor, who, having taken the resolution of retiring from the world, wished to transmit his kingdoms in peace to his son; and he concluded with representing the absolute certainty of drawing the arms of England upon France, if it should appear that the re-establishment of tranquility in Europe was prevented by the ambition of its monarch.

These arguments, weighty in themselves, and urged by a minister of great authority, would probably have determined the king to decline any connection with the pope. But the duke of Guise, and his brother the cardinal of Lorrain, who delighted no less in bold and dangerous undertakings than Montmorency shunned them, declared warmly for an alliance with the pope. The cardinal expected to be entrusted with the conduct of the negotiations in the court of Rome to which this alliance would give rise; the duke hoped to obtain the command of the army which would he appointed to invade Naples; and considering themselves as already in these stations, vast projects opened to their aspiring and unbounded ambition. Their credit, together with the influence of the king's mistress, the famous Diana of Poitiers, who was, at that time, entirely devoted to the interest of the family of Guise, more than counterbalanced all Montmorency's prudent remonstrances, and prevailed on an inconsiderate prince to listen to the overtures of the pope's envoy.

The cardinal of Lorrain, as he had expected, was immediately sent to Rome with full powers to conclude the treaty, and to concert measures for carrying it into execution. Before he could reach that city, the pope, either from reflecting on the danger and uncertain issue of all military operations, or through the address of the Imperial ambassador, who had been at great pains to soothe him, had not only begun to lose much of the ardor with which he had commenced the negotiation with France, but even discovered great unwillingness to continue it. In order to rouse him from this fit of despondency, and to rekindle his former rage, his nephews had recourse to the arts which they had already practised with so much success. They alarmed him with new representations of the emperor's hostile intentions, with fresh accounts which they had received of threats uttered against him by the Imperial ministers, and with new discoveries which they pretended to have made of conspiracies formed, and just ready to take effect against his life.

But these artifices, having been formerly tried, would not have operated a second time with the same force, nor have made the impression which they wished, if Paul had not been excited by an offence of that kind which he was least able to bear. He received advice of the recess of the diet of Augsburg, and of the toleration which was thereby granted to the protestants; and this threw him at once into such transports of passion against the emperor and the king of the Romans, as carried him headlong into all the violent measures of his nephews. Full of high ideas with respect to the papal prerogative, and animated with the fiercest zeal against heresy, he considered the liberty of deciding concerning religious matters, which had been assumed by an assembly composed chiefly of laymen, as a presumptuous and unpardonable encroachment on that jurisdiction which belonged to him alone; and regarded the indulgence which had been given to the protestants as an impious act of that power which the diet had usurped. He complained loudly of both to the Imperial ambassador.

He insisted that the recess of the diet should immediately be declared illegal and void. He threatened the emperor and king of the Romans, in case they should either refuse or delay to gratify him in this particular, with the severest effects of his vengeance. He talked in a tone of authority and command which might have suited a pontiff of the twelfth century, when a papal decree was sufficient to have shaken, or to have overturned, the throne of the greatest monarch in Europe; which was altogether improper in that age, especially when addressed to the minister of a prince who had so often made pontiffs more formidable than Paul feel the weight of his power. The ambassador, however, heard all his extravagant propositions and menaces with much patience, and endeavored to soothe him, by putting him in mind of the extreme distress to which the emperor had been reduced at Innsbruck, of the engagements which he had come tinder to the protestants, in order to extricate himself, of the necessity of fulfilling these, and of accommodating his conduct to the situation of his affairs.

But weighty as these considerations were, they made no impression on the mind of the haughty and bigoted pontiff, who instantly replied that he would absolve him by his apostolic authority from those impious engagements, and even command him not to perform them; that in carrying on the cause of God and of the church, no regard ought to be had to the maxims of worldly prudence and policy; and that the ill success of the emperor's schemes in Germany might justly be deemed a mark of the divine displeasure against him, on account of his having paid little attention to the former, while he regulated his conduct entirely by the latter. Having said this, he turned from the ambassador abruptly without waiting for a reply.

His nephews took care to applaud and cherish these sentiments, and easily wrought up his arrogant mind, fraught with all the monkish ideas concerning the extent of the papal supremacy, to such a pitch of resentment against the house of Austria, and to such a high opinion of his own power, that he talked continually of his being the successor of those who had deposed kings and emperors; that he was exalted as head over them all, and would trample such as opposed him under his feet. In this disposition the cardinal of Lorrain found the pope, and easily persuaded him to sign a treaty [Dec. 15], which had for its object the ruin of a prince, against whom be was so highly exasperated. The stipulations in this treaty were much the same as had been proposed by the pope’s envoy at Paris; and it was agreed to keep the whole transaction secret until their united forces should be ready to take the field.

1556.] Abdication of Charles V

During the negotiation of this treaty at Rome and Paris, an event happened which seemed to render the fears that had given rise to it vain, and the operations which were to follow upon it unnecessary. This was the emperor's resignation of his hereditary dominions to his son Philip; together with his resolution to withdraw entirely from any concern in business or the affairs of this world, in order that he might spend the remainder of his days in retirement and solitude. Though it requires neither deep reflection nor extraordinary discernment to discover that the state of royalty is not exempt from cares and disappointment; though most of those who are exalted to a throne find solicitude, and satiety, and disgust to be their perpetual attendants in that envied pre-eminence; yet to descend voluntarily from the supreme to a subordinate station, and to relinquish the possession of power in order to attain the enjoyment of happiness, seems to be an effort too great for the human mind. Several instances, indeed, occur in history, of monarchs who have quitted a throne, and have ended their days in retirement. But they were either weak princes who took this resolution rashly, and repented of it as soon as it was taken; or unfortunate princes, from whose hands some stronger rival had wrested their scepter, and compelled them to descend with reluctance into a private station. Diocletian is perhaps the only prince capable of holding the reins of government, whoever resigned them from deliberate choice, and who continued during many years to enjoy the tranquility of retirement without fetching one penitent sigh, or casting back one look of desire, towards the power or dignity which he had abandoned.

No wonder, then, that Charles's resignation should fill all Europe with astonishment, and give rise, both among his contemporaries, and among the historians of that period, to various conjectures concerning the motives which determined a prince, whose ruling passion had been uniformly the love of power, at the age of fifty-six when objects of ambition continue to operate with full force on the mind, and are pursued with the greatest ardor, to take a resolution so singular and unexpected. But while many authors have imputed it to motives so frivolous and fantastical, as can hardly be supposed to influence any reasonable mind; while other have imagined it to be the result of some profound scheme of policy; historians more intelligent and better informed, neither ascribe it to caprice, nor search for mysterious secrets of state, where simple and obvious causes will fully account for the emperor's conduct. Charles had been attacked early in life with the gout, and notwithstanding all the precautions of the most skillful physicians, the violence of the distemper increased as he advanced in age, and the fits became every year more frequent, as well as more severe. Not only was the vigor of his constitution broken, but the faculties of his mind were impaired by the excruciating torments which he endured. During the continuance of the fits, he was altogether incapable of applying to business, and even when they began to abate, as it was only at intervals that he could attend to what was serious, he gave up a great part of his time to trilling and even childish occupations, which served to relieve or to amuse his mind, enfeebled and worn out with excess of pain Under these circumstances, the conduct of such affairs as occurred of course, in governing so many kingdoms, was a burden more than sufficient: but to push forward and complete the vast schemes which the ambition of his more active years had formed, or to keep in view and carry on the same great system of policy, extending to every nation in Europe, and connected with the operations of every different court, were functions which so far exceeded his strength, that they oppressed and overwhelmed his mind. As he had been long accustomed to view the business of every department, whether civil, or military, or ecclesiastical, with his own eyes, and to decide concerning it according to his own ideas, it gave him the utmost pain when he felt his infirmities increase so fast upon him, that he was obliged to commit the conduct of all affairs to his ministers. He imputed every misfortune which befell him, and every miscarriage that happened, even when the former was unavoidable and the latter accidental, to his inability to take the inspection of business himself. He complained of his hard fortune, in being opposed, in his declining years, to a rival, who was in the full vigour of life, and that while Henry could take and execute all his resolutions in person, he should now be reduced, both in council and in action, to rely on the talents and exertions of other men. Having thus grown old before his time, he wisely judged it more decent to conceal his infirmities in some solitude, than to expose them any longer to the public eye; and prudently determined not to forfeit the fame, or lose the acquisitions of his better years, by struggling, with a vain obstinacy, to retain the reins of government, when he was no longer able to hold their, with steadiness, or to guide them with address.

But though Charles had revolved this scheme in his mind for several years, and had communicated it to his sisters the dowager queens of France and Hungary, who not only approved of his intention, but offered to accompany him to whatever place of retreat be should choose; several things had hitherto prevented his carrying it into execution. He could not think of loading his son with the government of so many kingdoms, until he should attain such maturity of age, and of abilities, as would enable him to sustain that weighty burden. But as Philip had now reached his twenty-eighth year, and had been early accustomed to business, for which he discovered both inclination and capacity, it can hardly be imputed to the partiality of paternal affection, that his scruples, with regard to this point, were entirely removed; and that he thought he might place his son, without further hesitation or delay, on the throne which he himself was about to abandon. His mother's situation had been another obstruction in his way. For although she had continued almost fifty years in confinement, and under the same disorder of mind which concern for her husband's death had brought upon her, yet the government of Spain was still invested in her jointly with the emperor; her name was inserted together with his in all the public instruments issued in that kingdom; and such was the fond attachment of the Spaniards to her, that they would probably have scrupled to recognize Philip as their sovereign, unless she had consented to assume him as her partner on the throne. Her utter incapacity for business rendered it impossible to obtain her consent. But her death, which happened this year, removed this difficulty; and as Charles, upon that event, became sole monarch of Spain, it left the succession open to his son. The war with France had likewise been a reason for retaining the administration of affairs in his own hand, as he was extremely solicitous to have terminated it, that he might have given up his kingdoms to his son at peace with all the world. But as Henry had discovered no disposition to close with any of his overtures, and had even rejected proposals of peace, which were equal and moderate, in a tone that seemed to indicate a fixed purpose of continuing hostilities, he saw that it was vain to wait longer in expectation of an event, which, however desirable, was altogether uncertain.

As this, then, appeared to be the proper juncture for executing the scheme which he had long meditated, Charles resolved to resign his kingdoms to his son, with a solemnity suitable to the importance of the transaction, and to perform this last act of sovereignty with such formal pomp, as might leave a lasting impression on the minds not only of his subjects but of his successor. With this view he called Philip out of England, where the peevish temper of his queen, which increased with her despair of having issue, rendered him extremely unhappy; and the jealousy of the English left him no hopes of obtaining the direction of their affairs. Having assembled the States of the Low-Countries at Brussels, on the twenty-fifth of October, Charles seated himself, for the last time, in the chair of state, on one side of which was placed his son, and on the other his sister, the queen of Hungary, regent of the Netherlands, with a splendid retinue of the princes of the empire and grandees of Spain standing behind him. The president of the council of Flanders, by his command, explained, in a few words, his intention in calling this extraordinary meeting of the States. He then read the instrument of resignation, by which Charles surrendered to his son Philip all his territories, jurisdiction, and authority in the Low-Countries, absolving his subjects there from their oath of allegiance to him, which he required them to transfer to Philip his lawful heir, and to serve him won the same loyalty and zeal which they had manifested, during so long a course of years, in support of his government.

Charles then rose from his seat, and leaning on the shoulder of the prince of Orange, because he was unable to stand without support, he addressed himself to the audience, and from a paper which he held in his hand, in order to assist his memory, he recounted, with dignity, but without ostentation, all the great things which he had undertaken and performed since the commencement of his administration. He observed, that from the seventeeth year of his age, he had dedicated all his thoughts and attention to public objects, reserving no portion of his time for the indulgence of his ease, and very little for the enjoyment of private pleasure; that either in a pacific or hostile manner, he had visited Germany nine times, Spain six times, France four times, Italy seven times, the Low-Countries ten times, England twice, Africa as often, and had made eleven voyages by sea; that while his health permitted him to discharge his duty, and the vigor of his constitution was equal, in any degree, to the arduous office of governing such extensive dominions, he had never shunned labor, nor repined under fatigue; that now, when his health was broken, and his vigor exhausted by the rage of an incurable distemper, his growing infirmities admonished him to retire, nor was he so fond of reigning, as to retain the scepter in an impotent hand, which was no longer able to protect his subjects or to secure to them the happiness which he wished they should enjoy; that instead of a sovereign worn out with disease, and scarcely half alive, he gave them one in the prime of life, accustomed already to govern, and who added to the vigor of youth all the attention and sagacity of maturer years; that if, during the course of a long administration, he had committed any material error in government, or if, under the pressure of so many and great affairs, and amidst the attention which he had been obliged to give to them, he had either neglected or injured any of his subjects, he now implored their forgiveness; that, for his part, he should ever retain a grateful sense of their fidelity and attachment, and would carry the remembrance of it along with him to the place of his retreat, as his sweetest consolation, as well as the best reward for all his services, and in his last prayers to Almighty God would pour forth his most earnest petitions for their welfare.

Then turning towards Philip, who fell on his knees and kissed his father's hand, “If” says he, “I had left you by death this rich inheritance, to which I have made such large additions, some regard would have been justly due to my memory on that account; but now, when I voluntarily resign to you, what I might have still retained, I may well expect the warmest expressions of thanks on your part. With these, however, I dispense, and shall consider your concern for the welfare of your subjects, and your love of them, as the best and most acceptable testimony of your gratitude to me.

It is in your power, by a wise and virtuous administration, to justify the extraordinary proof which I, this day, give of my paternal affection, and to demonstrate that you are worthy of the confidence which I repose in you. Preserve an inviolable regard for religion; maintain the catholic faith in its purity; let the laws of your country be sacred in your eyes; encroach not on the rights and privileges of your people; and if the time should ever come when you shall wish to enjoy the tranquility of private life, may you have a son endowed with such qualities, that you can resin your scepter to him with as much satisfaction as I give up mine to you”.

As soon as Charles had finished this long address to his subjects and to their new sovereign, he sunk into the chair, exhausted and ready to faint with the fatigue of such an extraordinary effort. During his discourse, the whole audience melted into tears, some from admiration of his magnanimity, others softened by the expressions of tenderness towards his son, and of love to his people; and all were affected with the deepest sorrow at losing a sovereign, who, during his administration, had distinguished the Netherlands, his native country, with particular marks of his regard and attachment.

Philip then arose from his knees, and after returning thanks to his father, with a low and submissive voice, for the royal gift which his unexampled bounty had bestowed upon him, he addressed the assembly of the States, and regretting his inability to speak the Flemish language with such facility as to express what he felt on this interesting occasion, as well as what be owed to his good subjects in the Netherlands, he begged that they would permit Granvelle bishop op of Arras to deliver what he had given him in charge to speak in his name. Granvelle, in a long discourse, expatiated on the zeal with which Philip was animated for the good of his subjects, on his resolution to devote all his time and talents to the promoting of their happiness, and on his intention to imitate his father's example in distinguishing the Netherlands with peculiar marks of his regard. Maeis, a lawyer of great eloquence, replied, in the name of the States, with large Professions of their fidelity and affection to their new sovereign.

Then Mary, queen-dowager of Hungary, resigned the regency with which she had been entrusted by her brother during the space of twenty-five years. Next day [Jan. 6] Philip, in presence of the States, took the usual oaths to maintain the rights and privileges of his subjects; and all the members, in their own name, and in that of their constituents, swore allegiance to him.

Philip the Second

A few weeks after this transaction, Charles, in an assembly no less splendid, and with a ceremonial equally pompous, resigned to his son the crowns of Spain, with all the territories depending on them, both in the old and in the new world. Of all these vast possessions, he reserved nothing for himself but an annual pension of a hundred thousand crowns, to defray the charges of his family, and to afford him a small sum for acts of beneficence and charity.

As he had fixed on a place of retreat in Spain, hoping that the dryness of the air and the warmth of the climate in that country might mitigate the violence of his disease, which had been much increased by the moisture of the air and the rigor of the winters in the Netherlands, he was extremely impatient to embark for that kingdom, and to disengage himself entirely from business, which he found to be impossible while he remained in Brussels. But his physicians remonstrated so strongly against his venturing to sea at that cold and boisterous season of the year, that he consented, though with reluctance, to put off his voyage for some months.

By yielding to their entreaties, he had the satisfaction, before he left the Low-Countries, of taking a considerable step towards a peace with France, which he ardently wished for, not only on his son's account, but that he might have the merit, when quitting the world, of reestablishing that tranquility in Europe, which he had banished out of it almost from the time that he had assumed the administration of affairs. Previous to his resignation, commissioners had been appointed by him and by the French king, in order to treat of an exchange of prisoners. In their conference at the Abbey of Vaucelles, near Cambray, an expedient was accidentally proposed for terminating hostilities between the contending monarchs, by a long truce, during the subsistence of which, and without discussing their respective claims, each should retain what was now in his possession. Charles, sensible how much his kingdoms were exhausted by the expensive and almost continual wars in which his ambition had engaged him, and eager to gain for his son a short interval of peace. that he might establish himself firmly on his throne, declared warmly for closing with the overture, though manifestly dishonorable as well as disadvantageous; and such was the respect due to his wisdom and experience, that Philip, notwithstanding his unwillingness to purchase peace by such concessions, did not presume to urge his opinion in opposition to that of his father.

Henry could not have hesitated one moment about giving his consent to a truce on such conditions, as would lease him in quiet possession of the greater part of the duke of Savoy's dominions, together with the important conquests which he had made on the German frontier. But it was no easy matter to reconcile such a step with the engagements which he had come under to the pope in his late treaty with him. The constable Montmorency, however, represented in such a striking light the imprudence of sacrificing the true interests of his kingdom to these rash obligations, and took such advantage of the absence of the cardinal of Lorrain, who had seduced the king into his alliance with the Caraffas, that Henry, who was naturally fluctuating and unsteady, and apt to be influenced by the advice last given him, authorized his ambassadors [5th Feb.] to sign a treaty of truce with the emperor for five years, on the terms which had been promised. But that he might not seem to have altogether forgotten his ally the pope, who, he foresaw, would be highly exasperated, he, in order to soothe him, took care that he should be expressly included in the truce.

The count of Lalain repaired to Blois, and the admiral Coligny to Brussels, the former to be present when the king of France, and the latter when the emperor and his son ratified the treaty and bound themselves by oath to observe it.

When an account of the conference at Vaucelles, and of the conditions of truce which had been proposed there, were first carried to Rome, it gave the pope no manner of disquiet. He trusted so much to the honor of the French monarch, that he would not allow himself to think that Henry could forget so soon, or violate so shamefully, all the stipulations in his league with him. He had such a high opinion of the emperor’s wisdom, that he made no doubt of his refusing his consent to a truce, on such unequal terms: and on both these accounts he confidently pronounced that this, like many preceding negotiations, would terminate in nothing. But later and more certain intelligence soon convinced him that no reasoning in political affairs is more fallacious, than, because an event is improbable, to conclude that it will not happen. The sudden and unexpected conclusion of the truce filled Paul with astonishment and terror. The cardinal of Lorrain durst not encounter that storm of indignation, to which he knew that he should be exposed from the haughty pontiff, who had so good reason to be incensed; but departing abruptly from Rome, he left to the cardinal Tournon the difficult task of attempting to soothe Paul and his nephews. They were fully sensible of the perilous situation in which they now stood. By their engagements with France, which were no longer secret, they had highly irritated Philip. They dreaded the violence of his implacable temper. The duke of Alva, a minister fitted, as well by his abilities as by the severity of his nature, for executing all Philip's rigorous schemes, had advanced from Milan to Naples, and began to assemble troops on the frontiers of the ecclesiastical state: while they, if deserted by France, must not only relinquish all the hopes of dominion and sovereignty to which their ambition aspired, but remained exposed to the resentment of the Spanish monarch, without one ally to protect them against an enemy with whom they were so little able to contend.

Under these circumstances, Paul had recourse to the arts of negotiation and intrigue, of which the papal court knows well how to avail itself in order to ward off any calamity threatened by an enemy superior in power. He affected to approve highly of the truce, as a happy expedient for putting a stop to the effusion of Christian blood. He expressed his warmest wishes that it might prove the forerunner of a definitive peace. He exhorted the rival princes to embrace this favorable opportunity of setting on foot a negotiation for that purpose, and offered, as their common father, to be mediator between them. Under this pretext, he appointed cardinal Rebiba his nuncio to the court of Brussels, and his nephew cardinal Caraffa to that of Paris. The public instructions given to both were the same; that they should use their utmost endeavors to prevail with the two monarchs to accept of the pope's mediation, that, by means of it, peace might be reestablished, and measures might be taken for assembling a general council. But under this specious appearance of zeal for attaining objects so desirable in themselves, and so becoming his sacred character to pursue, Paul concealed very different intentions. Caraffa, besides his public instructions, received a private commission to solicit the French king to renounce the treaty of truce, and to renew his engagements with the holy see; and he was empowered to spare neither entreaties, nor promises, nor bribes, in order to gain that point. This, both the uncle and the nephew considered as the real end of the embassy; while the other served to amuse the vulgar, or to deceive the emperor and his son. The cardinal, accordingly, set out instantly for Paris [11th March], and travelled with the greatest expedition, while Rebiba was detained some weeks at Rome; and when it became necessary for him to begin his journey, he received secret orders to protract it as much as possible, that the issue of Caraffa’s negotiation might be known before he might reach Brussels, and according to that, proper directions might be given to him with regard to the tone which he should assume, in treating with the emperor and his son.

Caraffa made his entrance into Paris with extraordinary pomp: and having presented a consecrated sword to Henry, as the protector on whose aid the pope relied in the present exigency, he besought him not to disregard the entreaties of a parent in distress, but to employ that weapon which he gave him in his defence. This he represented not only as a duty of filial piety, but as an act of justice. As the pope, from confidence in the assistance and support which his late treaty with France entitled him to expect, had taken such steps as had irritated the king of Spain, he conjured Henry not to suffer Paul and his family to be crushed under the weight of that resentment which they had drawn on themselves merely by their attachment to France. Together with this argument addressed to his generosity, he employed another which he hoped would work on his ambition. He affirmed that now was the time, when, with the most certain prospect of success, he might attack Philip’s dominions in Italy; that the flower of the veteran Spanish hands had perished in the wars of Hungary, Germany, and the Low-Countries; that the emperor had left his son an exhausted treasury, and kingdoms drained of men; that he had no longer to contend with the abilities, the experience, and good fortune of Charles, but with a monarch scarcely seated on his throne, unpracticed in command, odious to many of the Italian States, and dreaded by all. He promised that the pope, who had already levied soldiers, would bring a considerable army into the field, which, when joined by a sufficient number of French troops, might, by one brisk and sudden effort, drive the Spaniards out of Naples, and add to the crown of France a kingdom, the conquest of which had been the great object of all his predecessors during half a century, and the chief motive of all their expeditions into Italy.

July 31.] Every word Caraffa spoke made a deep impression on Henry; conscious on the one hand, that the pope had just cause to reproach him with having violated the laws not only of generosity but of decency, when he renounced his league with him, and had agreed to the truce of Vaucelles; and eager on the other hand, not only to distinguish his reign by a conquest which three former monarchs had attempted without success, but likewise to acquire an establishment of such dignity and value for one of his sons. Reverence, however, for the oath, by which he had so lately confirmed the truce of Vaucelles; the extreme old age of the pope, whose death might occasion an entire revolution in the political system of Italy; together with the representations of Montmorency, who repeated all the arguments he had used against the first league with Paul, and pointed out the great and immediate advantages which France derived from the truce; kept Henry for some time in suspense, and might possibly have outweighed all Caraffa’s arguments. But the cardinal was not such a novice in the arts of intrigue and negotiation, as not to have expedients ready for removing or surmounting all these obstacles. To obviate the king’s scruple with regard to his oath, he produced powers from the pope, to absolve him from the obligation of it. By way of security against any danger which he might apprehend from the pope's death, he engaged that his uncle would make such a nomination of cardinals, as should give Henry the absolute command of the next election, and enable him to place in the papal chair a person entirely devoted to his interest.

In order to counterbalance the effect of the constable's opinion and influence, he employed not only the active talents of the duke of Guise, and the eloquence of his brother the cardinal of Lorrain, but the address of the queen, aided by the more powerful arts of Diana of Poitiers, who, unfortunately for France, co-operated with Catherine in this point, though she took pleasure, on almost every other occasion, to thwart and mortify her. They, by their united solicitations, easily swayed the king, who leaned, of his own accord, to that side towards which they wished him to incline. All Montmorency's prudent remonstrances were disregarded; the nuncio absolved Henry from his oath; and he signed a new league with the pope, which rekindled the flames of war both in Italy and in the Low-Countries.

As soon as Paul was informed by his nephew that there was a fair prospect of succeeding in this negotiation, he despatched a messenger after the nuncio Rebiba [July 31], with orders to return to Rome, without proceeding to Brussels. As it was now no longer necessary to preserve that tone of moderation, which suited the character of a mediator, and which he had affected to assume, or to put any farther restraint upon his resentment against Philip, he boldly threw of the mask, and took such violent steps as rendered a rupture unavoidable. He seized and imprisoned the Spanish envoy at his court. He excommunicated the Colonnas; and having deprived Mark Antonio, the head of that family, of the dukedom of Paliano, he granted that dignity, together with the territory annexed to it, to his nephew the count of Montorio. He ordered a legal information to be presented in the consistory of cardinals against Philip, setting forth that he, notwithstanding the fidelity and allegiance due by him to the holy see, of which he held the kingdom of Naples, had not only afforded a retreat in his dominions to the Colonnas, whom the pope had excommunicated and declared rebels, but had furnished them with arms, and was ready in conjunction with them, to invade the ecclesiastical state in a hostile manner; that such conduct in a vassal was to be deemed treason against his liege lord, the punishment of which was the forfeiture of his fief. Upon this, the consistorial advocate requested the pope to take cognizance of the cause, and to appoint a day for hearing of it, when he would make good every article of the charge, and expect from his justice that sentence which the heinousness of Philip's crimes merited. Paul, whose pride was highly flattered with the idea of trying and passing judgment on so great a king, assented to his request [July 27], and as if it had been no less easy to execute than to pronounce such a sentence, declared that he would consult with the cardinals concerning the formalities requisite in conducting the trial.

But while Paul allowed his pride and resentment to drive him on with such headlong impetuosity, Philip discovered an amazing moderation on his part. He had been taught by the Spanish ecclesiastics, who had the charge of his education, a profound veneration for the holy see. This sentiment, which had been early infused, grew up with him as he advanced in years, and took full possession of his mind, which was naturally thoughtful, serious, and prone to superstition. When he foresaw a rupture with the pope approaching, he had such violent scruples with respect to the lawfulness of taking arms against the vicegerent of Christ, and the common father of all Christians, that he consulted some Spanish divines upon that point. They, with the usual dexterity of casuists in accommodating their responses to the circumstances of those who apply to them for direction, assured him that, after employing prayers and remonstrances in order to bring the pope to reason, he had full right, both by the laws of nature and of Christianity, not only to defend himself when attacked, but to begin hostilities, if that were judged the most proper expedient for preventing the effects of Paul's violence and injustice. Philip, nevertheless, continued to deliberate and delay, considering it as a most cruel misfortune, that his administration should open with an attack on a person, whose sacred function and character he so highly respected.

At last the duke of Alva, who, in compliance with his master's scruples, had continued to negotiate long after he should have begun to act, finding Paul inexorable, and that every overture of peace, and every appearance of hesitation on his part, increased the pontiff's natural arrogance, took the field [Sept. 5] and entered the ecclesiastical territories. His army did not exceed twelve thousand men, but it was composed of veteran soldiers, and commanded chiefly by those Roman barons, whom Paul's violence had driven into exile. The valor of the troops, together with the animosity of their leaders, who fought in their own quarrel, and to recover their own estates, supplied the want of numbers. As none of the French forces were yet arrived, Alva soon became master of the Campagna Romans; some cities being surrendered through the cowardice of the garrisons, which consisted of raw soldiers, ill disciplined, and worse commanded; the gates of others being opened by the inhabitants, who were eager to receive back their ancient masters. Alva, that he might not be taxed with impiety in seizing the patrimony of the church, took possession of the towns which capitulated, in the name of the college of cardinals, to which, or to the pope that should be chosen to succeed Paul, he declared that he would immediately restore them.

The rapid progress of the Spaniards, whose light troops made excursions even to the gates of Rome, filled that city with consternation. Paul, though inflexible and undaunted himself, was obliged to give way so far to the fears and solicitations of the cardinals, as to send deputies to Alva in order to propose a cessation of arms. The pope yielded the more readily, as he was sensible of a double advantage which might be derived from obtaining that point. It would deliver the inhabitants of Rome from their present terror, and would afford time for the arrival of the succors which he expected from France. Nor was Alva unwilling to close with the overture, both as he knew how desirous his master was to terminate a war, which he had undertaken with reluctance, and as his army was so much weakened by garrisoning the great number of towns which he had reduced, that it was hardly in a condition to keep the field without fresh recruits. A truce was accordingly concluded [Nov. 19], first for ten, and afterwards for forty days, during which, various schemes of peace were proposed, and perpetual negotiations were carried on, but with no sincerity on the part of the pope. The return of his nephew the cardinal to Rome, the receipt of a considerable sum remitted by the king of France, the arrival of one body of French troops, together with the expectation of others which had begun their march, rendered him more arrogant than ever, and banished all thoughts from his mind, but those of war and revenge.

BOOK XII.

DEATH OF CHARLES V