BOOK 3

KINGDOM OF SPAIN.

THE REVOLT OF THE COMUNEROS

 

 

CHARLES, having had the satisfaction of seeing hostilities begun between France and England, took leave of Henry, and arrived in Spain on the seventeenth of June (1522). He found that country just beginning to recover order and strength after the miseries of a civil war, to which it had been exposed during his absence; an account of the rise and progress of which, as it was but little connected with the other events which happened in Europe, had been reserved to this place.

No sooner was it known that the Cortes assembled in Galicia had voted the emperor a free gift, without obtaining the redress of any one grievance, than it excited universal indignation. The citizens of Toledo, who considered themselves, on account of the great privileges which they enjoyed, as the guardians of the liberties of the Castilian commons, finding that no regard was paid to the remonstrances of their deputies against that unconstitutional grant, took arms with tumultuary violence, and seizing the gates of the city, which were fortified, attacked the alcazar, or castle, which they soon obliged the governor to surrender. Emboldened by this success, they deprived of all authority every person whom they suspected of any attachment to the court, established a popular form of government, composed of deputies from the several parishes in the city, and levied troops in their own defence. The chief leader of the people in these insurrections was Don John de Padilla, the eldest son of the commendator of Castile, a young nobleman of a generous temper, of undaunted courage, and possessed of the talents as well as of the ambition which, in times of civil discord, raise men to power and eminence.

The resentment of the citizens of Segovia produced effects still more fatal. Tordesillas, one of the representatives in the late Cortes, had voted for the donative, and being a bold and haughty man, ventured upon his return, to call together his fellow-citizens in the great church, that he might give them, according to custom, an account of his conduct in that assembly. But the multitude, unable to bear his insolence, in attempting to justify what they thought inexcusable, burst open the gates of the church, with the utmost fury, and seizing the unhappy Tordesillas, dragged him through the streets, with a thousand curses and insults, towards the place of public execution. In vain did the dean and canons come forth in procession with the holy Sacrament, in order to appease their rage. In vain did the monks of those monasteries by which they passed, conjure them on their knees, to spare his life, or at least to allow him time to confess, and to receive absolution of his sins. Without listening to the dictates either of humanity or religion, they cried out “That the hangman alone could absolve such a traitor to his country”; they then hurried him along with greater violence; and perceiving that he had expired under their hands, they hung him up with his head downwards on the common gibbet. The same spirit seized the inhabitants of Burgos, Zamora, and several other cities; and though their representatives, taking warning from the fate of Tordesillas, had been so wise as to save themselves by a timely flight, they were burnt in effigy, their houses razed to the ground, and their effects consumed with fire; and such was the horror which the people had conceived against them, as betrayers of the public liberty, that not one in those licentious multitudes would touch anything, however valuable, which had belonged to them.

Adrian, at that time regent of Spain, had scarcely, fixed the seat of his government at Valladolid, when he was alarmed with an account of these insurrections. He immediately assembled the privy council [June 5, 1520], to deliberate concerning the proper method of suppressing them. The counselors differed in opinion; some insisting that it was necessary to check this audacious spirit in its infancy by a severe execution of justice; others advising to treat with lenity a people who had some reason to be incensed, and not to drive them beyond all the bounds of duty by an ill-timed rigor. The sentiments of the former being warmly supported by the archbishop of Granada, president of the council, a person of great authority, but choleric and impetuous, were approved by Adrian, whose zeal to support his master’s authority hurried him into a measure, to which, from his natural caution and timidity, he would otherwise have been averse. He commanded Ronquillo, one of the king’s judges, to repair instantly to Segovia, which had set the first example of mutiny, and to proceed against the delinquents according to law; and lest the people should be so outrageous as to resist his authority, a considerable body of troops were appointed to attend him. The Segovians, foreseeing what they might expect from a judge so well known for his austere and unforgiving temper, took arms with one consent, and having mustered twelve thousand men, shut their gates against him. Ronquillo, enraged at this insult, denounced them rebels and outlaws, and his troops seizing all the avenues to the town, hoped that it would soon be obliged to surrender for want of provisions. The inhabitants however, defended themselves with vigor, and having received a considerable reinforcement from Toledo, under the command of Padilla, attacked Ronquillo, and forced him to retire with the loss of his baggage, and military chest.

Upon this, Adrian ordered Antonio de Fonseca, whom the emperor had appointed commander in chief of the forces in Castile, to assemble an army, and to besiege Segovia in form. But the inhabitants of Medina del Campo, where Cardinal Ximenes had established a vast magazine of military stores, would not suffer him to draw from it a train of battering cannon, or to destroy their countrymen with those arms which had been prepared against the enemies of the kingdom. Fonseca, who could not execute his orders without artillery, determined to seize the magazine by force; and the citizens standing on their defence, he assaulted the town with great briskness [Aug. 21]; but his troops were so warmly received, that, despairing of carrying the place, he set fire to some of the houses, in hopes that the citizens would abandon the walls, in order to save their families and effects. Instead of that the expedient to which he had recourse served only to increase their fury, and he was repulsed with great disgrace, while the flames, spreading from street to street, reduced to ashes almost the whole town, one of the most considerable at that time in Spain, and the great mart for the manufactures of Segovia and several other cities. As the warehouses were then filled with goods for the approaching fair, the loss was immense, and was felt universally. This, added to the impression which such a cruel action made on a people long unaccustomed to the horrors of civil war, enraged the Castilians almost to madness. Fonseca became the object of general hatred, and was branded with the name of incendiary, and enemy to his country. Even the citizens of Valladolid, whom the presence of the cardinal had hitherto restrained, declared that they could no longer remain inactive spectators of the sufferings of their countrymen. Taking arms with no less fury than the other cities, they burnt Fonseca’s house to the ground, elected new magistrates, raised soldiers, appointed officers to command them, and guarded their walls with as much diligence as if an enemy had been ready to attack them.

The cardinal, though virtuous and disinterested, and capable of governing the kingdom with honor, in times of tranquility, possessed neither the courage nor the sagacity necessary at such a dangerous juncture. Finding himself unable to check these outrages committed under his own eye, be attempted to appease the people, by protesting that Fonseca had exceeded his orders, and had by his rash conduct offended him, as much as he had injured them. This condescension, the effect of irresolution and timidity, rendered the malcontents bolder and more insolent; and the cardinal having soon afterwards recalled Fonseca, and dismissed his troops, which he could no longer afford to pay, as the treasury, drained by the rapaciousness of the Flemish ministers, had received no supply from the great cities, which were all in arms, the people were left at full liberty to act without control, and scarcely any shadow of power remained in his hands.

Nor were the proceedings of the commons the effects merely of popular and tumultuary rage; they aimed at obtaining redress of their political grievances, and an establishment of public liberty on a secure basis, objects worthy of all the zeal which they discovered in contending for them. The feudal government in Spain was at that time in a state more favorable to liberty than in any other of the great European kingdoms. This was owing chiefly to the number of great cities in that country, a circumstance I have already taken notice of, and which contributes more than any other to mitigate the rigor of the feudal institutions, and to introduce a more liberal and equal form of government. The inhabitants of every city formed a great corporation, with valuable immunities and privileges; they were delivered from a state of subjection and vassalage; they were admitted to a considerable share in the legislature; they had acquired the arts of industry, without which cities cannot subsist; they had accumulated wealth, by engaging in commerce; and being free and independent themselves, were ever ready to act as the guardians of the public freedom and independence. The genius of the internal government established among the inhabitants of cities, which, even in countries where despotic power prevails most, is democratical and republican, rendered the idea of liberty familiar and dear to them. Their representatives in the Cortes were accustomed, with equal spirit, to check the encroachments of the king and the oppression of the nobles. They endeavored to extend the privileges of their own order; they labored to shake off the remaining encumbrances with which the spirit of feudal policy, favorable only to the nobles, had burdened them; and, conscious of being one of the most considerable orders in the state, were ambitious of becoming the most powerful.

The present juncture appeared favorable for pushing any new claim. Their sovereign was absent from his dominions; by the ill conduct of his ministers he had lost the esteem and affection of his subjects; the people, exasperated by many injuries, had taken arms, though without concert, almost by general consent; they were animated with rage capable of carrying them to the most violent extremes; the royal treasury was exhausted; the kingdom destitute of troops; and the government committed to a stranger, of great virtue indeed, but of abilities unequal to such a trust. The first care of Padilla, and the other popular leaders who observed and determined to improve these circumstances, was to establish some form of union or association among the malcontents, that they might act with greater regularity, and pursue one common end; and as the different cities had been prompted to take arms by the same motives, and were accustomed to consider themselves as a distinct body from the rest of the subjects, they did not find this difficult. A general convention was appointed to be held at Avila. Deputies appeared there in name of almost all the cities entitled to have representatives in the Cortes. They all bound themselves, by solemn oath, to live and die in the service of the king, and in defence of the privileges of their order; and assuming the name of the holy Junta, or association, proceeded to deliberate concerning the state of the nation, and the proper method of redressing its grievances. The first that naturally presented itself, was the nomination of a foreigner to be regent; this they declared with one voice to be a violation of the fundamental laws of the kingdom, and resolved to send a deputation of their members to Adrian, requiring him in their name to lay aside all the ensigns of his office, and to abstain for the future from the exercise of a jurisdiction which they had pronounced illegal.

 

Padilla and the Junta

 

While they were preparing to execute this bold resolution, Padilla accomplished an enterprise of the greatest advantage to the cause. After relieving Segovia, he marched suddenly to Tordesillas, [Aug. 29], the place where the unhappy queen Joanna had resided since the death of her husband, and being favored by the inhabitants, was admitted into the town, and became master of her person, for the security of which Adrian had neglected to take proper precautions. Padilla waited immediately upon the queen, and accosting her with that profound respect, which she exacted from the few persons whom she deigned to admit into her presence, acquainted her at large with the miserable condition of her Castilian subjects under the government of her son, who being destitute of experience himself, permitted his foreign ministers to treat them with such rigor as had obliged them to take arms in defence of the liberties of their country. The queen, as if she had been awakened out of a lethargy, expressed great astonishment at what he said, and told him, that as she had never heard, until that moment, of the death of her father, or known the sufferings of her people, no blame could be imputed to her, but that now she would take care to provide a sufficient remedy; and in the meantime, added she, let it be your concern to do what is necessary for the public welfare. Padilla, too eager in forming a conclusion agreeable to his wishes, mistook this lucid interval of reason for a perfect return of that faculty; and acquainting the Junta with what had happened, advised them to remove to Tordesillas, and to hold their meetings in that place. This was instantly done; but though Joanna received very graciously an address of the Junta, beseeching her to take upon herself the government of the kingdom, and in token of her compliance admitted all the deputies to kiss her hand; though she was present at a tournament held on that occasion, and seemed highly satisfied with both these ceremonies, which were conducted with great magnificence in order to please her, she soon relapsed into her former melancholy and sullenness, and could never be brought, by any arguments or entreaties, to sign any one paper necessary for the dispatch of business.

The Junta, concealing as much as possible this last circumstance, carried on all their deliberations in the name of Joanna; and as the Castilians, who idolized the name of Isabella, retained a wonderful attachment to her daughter, no sooner was it known that she had consented to assume the reins of government, than the people expressed the most universal and immoderate joy; and believing her recovery to be complete, ascribed it to a miraculous interposition of Heaven, in order to rescue their country from the oppression of foreigners. The Junta, conscious of the reputation and power which they had acquired by seeming to act under the royal authority, were no longer satisfied with requiring Adrian to resign the office of regent; they detached Padilla to Valladolid with a considerable body of troops, ordering him to seize such members of the council as were still in that city, to conduct them to Tordesillas, and to bring away the seals of the kingdom, the public archives, and treasury books. Padilla, who was received by the citizens as the deliverer of his country, executed his commission with great exactness; permitting Adrian, however, still to reside in Valladolid, though only as a private person, and without any shadow of power.

The emperor, to whom frequent accounts of these transactions were transmitted while he was still in Flanders, was sensible of his own imprudence and that of his ministers, in having despised too long the murmurs and remonstrances of the Castilians. He beheld, with deep concern, a kingdom, the most valuable of any he possessed, and in which lay the strength and sinews of his power, just ready to disown his authority, and on the point of being plunged in all the miseries of civil war. But though his presence might have averted this calamity, he could not, at that time, visit Spain without endangering the Imperial crown, and allowing the French king full leisure to execute his ambitious schemes. The only point now to be deliberated upon, was, whether he should attempt to gain the malcontents by indulgence and concessions, or prepare directly to suppress them by force; and he resolved to make trial of the former, while, at the same time, if that should fail of success, he prepared for the latter. For this purpose, he issued circular letters to all the cities of Castile, exhorting them in most gentle terms, and with assurances of full pardon, to lay down their arms; he promised such cities as had continued faithful, not to exact from them the subsidy granted in the late Cortes, and offered the same favor to such as returned to their duty; he engaged that no office should be conferred for the future upon any but native Castilians. On the other hand, he wrote to the nobles, exciting them to appear with vigor in defence of their own rights, and those of the crown, against the exorbitant claims of the commons; he appointed the high admiral Don Fabrique Enriquez, and the high constable of Castile, Don Iñigo de Velasco, two noblemen of great abilities as well as influence, regents of the kingdom in conjunction with Adrian; and he gave them full power and instructions, if the obstinacy of the malcontents should render it necessary, to vindicate the royal authority by force of arms.

These concessions, which, at the time of his leaving Spain, would have fully satisfied the people, came now too late to produce any effect. The Junta, relying on the unanimity with which the nation submitted to their authority, elated with the success which had hitherto accompanied all their undertakings, and seeing no military force collected to defeat or obstruct their designs, aimed at a more thorough reformation of political abuses. They had been employed for some time in preparing a remonstrance containing a large enumeration, not only of the grievances of which they craved redress, but of such new regulations as they thought necessary for the security of their liberties. This remonstrance, which is divided into many articles relating to all the different members, of which the constitution was composed, as well as the various departments in the administration of government, furnishes us with more authentic evidence concerning the intentions of the Junta, than can be drawn from the testimony of the later Spanish historians, who lived in times when it became fashionable and even necessary to represent the conduct of the malcontents in the worst light, and as flowing from the worst motives. After a long preamble concerning the various calamities under which the nation groaned, and the errors and corruption in government to which these were to be imputed, they take notice of the exemplary patience wherewith the people had endured them, until self-preservation, and the duty which they owed to their country, had obliged them to assemble, in order to provide in a legal manner for their own safety, and that of the constitution. For this purpose, they demanded: that the king would be pleased to return to his Spanish dominions and reside there, as all their former monarchs had done; that he would not marry but with consent of the Cortes; that if he should be obliged at any time to leave the kingdom, it shall not be lawful to appoint any foreigner to be regent; that the present nomination of cardinal Adrian to that office shall instantly be declared void; that he would not, at his return, bring along with him any Flemings or other strangers; that no foreign troops shall, on any pretence whatever, be introduced into the kingdom; that none but natives shall be capable of holding any office or benefice either in church or state; that no foreigner shall be naturalized; that free quarters shall not he granted to soldiers, nor to the members of the king’s household, for any longer time than six days, and that only when the court is in a progress; that all the taxes shall be reduced to the same state they were in at the death of queen Isabella; that all alienations of the royal demesnes or revenues since that queen’s death shall be resumed; that all new offices created since that period shall be abolished; that the subsidy granted by the late Cortes in Galicia, shall not be exacted; that in all future Cortes each city shall send one representative of the clergy, one of the gentry, and one of the commons, each to be elected by his own order; that the crown shall not influence or direct any city with regard to the choice of its representatives; that no member of the Cortes shall receive an office or pension from the king, either for himself or for any of his family, under pain of death, and confiscation of his goods; that each city or community shall pay a competent salary to its representative, for his maintenance during his attendance on the Cortes; that the Cortes shall assemble once in three years at least, whether summoned by the king or not, and shall then inquire into the observation of the articles now agreed upon, and deliberate concerning public affairs; that the rewards which have been given or promised to any of the members of the Cortes held in Galicia, shall be revoked; that it shall be declared a capital crime to send gold, silver, or jewels out of the kingdom; that judges shall have fixed salaries assigned them, and shall not receive any share of the fines and forfeitures of persons condemned by them; that no grant of the goods of persons accused shall be valid, if given before sentence was pronounced against them; that all privileges which the nobles have at any time obtained, to the prejudice of the commons, shall be revoked; that the government of cities or towns shall not be put into the hands of noblemen; that the possessions of the nobility shall be subject to all public taxes in the same manner as those of the commons; that an inquiry be made into the conduct of such as have been entrusted with the management of the royal patrimony since the accession of Ferdinand; and if the king do not within thirty days appoint persons properly qualified for that service, it shall he lawful for the Cortes to nominate them; that indulgences shall not be preached or dispersed in the kingdom until the cause of publishing them be examined and approved of by the Cortes; that all the money arising from the sale of indulgences shall be faithfully employed in carrying on war against the infidels; that such prelates as do not reside in their dioceses six months in the year, shall forfeit their revenues during the time they are absent; that the ecclesiastical judges and their officers shall not exact greater fees than those which are paid in the secular courts; that the present archbishop of Toledo, being a foreigner, be compelled to resign that dignity, which shall be conferred upon a Castilian; that the king shall ratify and hold, as good service done to him and to the kingdom, all the proceedings of the Junta, and pardon any irregularities which the cities may have committed from an excess of zeal in a good cause: that he shall promise and swear in the most solemn manner to observe all these articles, and on no occasion attempt either to elude, or to repeal them; and that he shall never solicit the pope or any other prelate to grant him a dispensation or absolution from this oath and promise.

Such were the chief articles presented by the Junta to their sovereign. As the feudal institutions in the several kingdoms of Europe were originally the same, the genius of those governments which arose from them bore a strong resemblance to each other, and the regulations which the Castilians attempted to establish on this occasion, differ little from those which other nations have labored to procure, in their struggles with their monarchs for liberty. The grievances complained of, and the remedies proposed by the English commons in their contests with the princes of the house of Stuart, particularly resemble those upon which the Junta now insisted. But the principles of liberty seem to have been better understood, at this period, by the Castilians, than by any other people in Europe; they had acquired more liberal ideas with respect to their own rights and privileges; they had formed more bold and generous sentiments concerning government; and discovered an extent of political knowledge to which the English themselves did not attain until more than a century afterwards.

It is not improbable, however, that the spirit of reformation among the Castilians, hitherto unrestrained by authority, and emboldened by success, became too impetuous, and prompted the Junta to propose innovations which, by alarming the other members of the constitution, proved fatal to their cause. The nobles, who, instead of obstructing, had favored or connived at their proceedings, while they confined their demands of redress to such grievances as had been occasioned by the king’s want of experience, and by the imprudence and rapaciousness of his foreign ministers, were filled with indignation when the Junta began to touch the privileges of their order, and plainly saw that the measures of the commons tended no less to break the power of the aristocracy, than to limit the prerogatives of the crown. The resentment which they had conceived on account of Adrian's promotion to the regency, abated considerably upon the emperor’s raising the constable and admiral to joint power with him in that office; and as their pride and dignity were less hurt by suffering the prince to possess an extensive prerogative, than by admitting the high pretensions of the people, they determined to give their sovereign the assistance which he had demanded of them, and began to assemble their vassals for that purpose.

  

The Junta, meanwhile, expected with impatience the emperor’s answer to their remonstrance, which they had appointed some of their number to present. The members entrusted with this commission set out immediately for Germany [Oct. 20], but having received at different places certain intelligence from court, that they could not venture to appear there without endangering their lives, they stopped short in their Journey, and acquainted the Junta of the information which had been given them. This excited such violent passions as transported the whole party beyond all bounds of prudence or of moderation. That a king of Castile should deny his subjects access into his presence, or refuse to listen to their humble petitions, was represented as an act of tyranny so unprecedented and intolerable, that nothing now remained but with arms in their hands to drive away that ravenous band of foreigners which encompassed the throne, who, after having devoured the wealth of the kingdom, found it necessary to prevent the cries of an injured people from reaching the ears of their sovereign. Many insisted warmly on approving a motion which had formerly been made, for depriving Charles, during the life of his mother, of the regal titles and authority which had been too rashly conferred upon him, from a false supposition of her total inability for government. Some proposed to provide a proper person to assist her in the administration of public affairs, by marrying the queen to the prince of Calabria, the heir of the Aragonese kings of Naples, who had been detained in prison since the time that Ferdinand had dispossessed his ancestors of their crown. An agreed, that as the hopes of obtaining redress and security, merely by presenting their requests to their sovereign, had kept them too long in a state of inaction, and prevented them from taking advantage of the unanimity with which the nation declared in their favor, it was now necessary to collect their whole force, and to exert themselves with vigour, in opposing this fatal combination of the king and nobility against their liberties.

They soon took the field with twenty thousand men. Violent disputes arose concerning the command of this army. Padilla, the darling of the people and soldiers, was the only person whom they thought worthy of this honor. But Don Pedro de Giron, the eldest son of the Conde de Uruena, a young nobleman of the first order, having lately joined the commons out of private resentment against the emperor, the respect due to his birth, together with a secret desire of disappointing Padilla, of whose popularity many members of the Junta had become jealous, procured him the office of general [Nov. 23]; though he soon gave them a fatal proof that he possessed neither the experience, the abilities, nor the steadiness, which that important station required.

The regents, meanwhile, appointed Rioseco as the place of rendezvous for their troops, which, though far inferior to those of the commons in number, excelled them greatly in discipline and in valor. They had drawn a considerable body of regular and veteran infantry out of Navarre. Their cavalry, which formed the chief strength of their army, consisted mostly of gentlemen accustomed to the military life, and animated with the martial spirit peculiar to their order in that age. The infantry of the Junta was formed entirely of citizens and mechanics, little acquainted with the use of arms. The small body of cavalry which they had been able to raise was composed of persons of ignoble birth, and perfect strangers to the service into which they entered. The character of the generals differed no less than that of their troops. The royalists were commanded by the Conde de Haro, the constable’s eldest son, an officer of great experience and of distinguished abilities.

Giron marched with his army directly to Rioseco, and seizing the villages and passes around it, hoped that the royalists would be obliged either to surrender for want of provisions, or to fight with disadvantage before all their troops were assembled. But he had not the abilities, nor his troops the patience and discipline, necessary for the execution of such a scheme. The Conde de Haro found little difficulty in conducting a considerable reinforcement through all his posts into the town; and Giron, despairing of being able to reduce it, advanced suddenly to Villapanda, a place belonging to the constable, in which the enemy had their chief magazine of provisions. By this ill-judged motion, he left Tordesillas open to the royalists, whom the Conde de Haro led thither in the night, with the utmost secrecy and dispatch; and attacking the town [Dec. 5], in which Giron had left no other garrison than a regiment of priests raised by the bishop of Zamora, he, by break of day, forced his way into it after a desperate resistance, became master of the queen's person, took prisoners many members of the Junta, and recovered the great seal, with the other ensigns of government.

By this fatal blow, the Junta lost all the reputation and authority which they had derived from seeming to act by the queen's commands; such of the nobles as had hitherto been wavering or undetermined in their choice, now joined the regents with all their forces; and a universal consternation seized the partisans of the commons. This was much increased by the suspicions they began to entertain of Giron, whom they loudly accused of having betrayed Tordesillas to the enemy; and though that charge seems to have been destitute of foundation, the success of the royalists being owing to Giron’s ill conduct rather than to his treachery, he so entirely lost credit with his party, that he resigned his commission, and retired to one of his castles.

Such members of the Junta as had escaped the enemy’s hands at Tordesillas, fled to Valladolid; and as it would have required a long time to supply the places of those who were prisoners by a new election, they made choice among themselves of a small number of persons, to whom they committed the supreme direction of affairs. Their army, which grew stronger every day by the arrival of troops from different parts of the kingdom, marched likewise to Valladolid; and Padilla being appointed commander in chief, the spirits of the soldiery revived, and the whole party forgetting the late misfortune, continued to express the same ardent zeal for the liberties of their country, and the same implacable animosity against their oppressors.

What they stood most in need of, was money to pay their troops. A great part of the current coin had been carried out of the kingdom by the Flemings; the stated taxes levied in times of peace were inconsiderable; commerce of every kind being interrupted by the war, the sum which it yielded decreased daily; and the Junta were afraid of disgusting the people by burdening them with new impositions, to which, in that age, they were little accustomed. But from this difficulty they were extricated by Donna Maria Pacheco, Padilla’s wife, a woman of noble birth, of great abilities, of boundless ambition, and animated with the most ardent zeal in support of the cause of the Junta. She, with a boldness superior to those superstitious fears which often influence her sex, proposed to seize all the rich and magnificent ornaments in the cathedral of Toledo; but lest that action, by its appearance of impiety, might offend the people, she and her retinue marched to the church in solemn procession, in mourning habits, with tears in their eyes, beating their breasts, and falling on their knees, implored the pardon of the saints whose shrines she was about to violate. By this artifice, which screened her from the imputation of sacrilege, and persuaded the people that necessity and zeal for a good cause had constrained her, though with reluctance, to venture upon this action, she stripped the cathedral of whatever was valuable, and procured a considerable supply of money for the Junta. The regents, no less at a loss how to maintain their troops, the revenues of the crown having either been dissipated by the Flemings, or seized by the commons, were obliged to take the queen’s jewels, together with the plate belonging to the nobility, and apply them to that purpose; and when those failed, they obtained a small sum by way of loan from the king of Portugal.

The nobility discovered great unwillingness to proceed to extremities with the Junta. They were animated with no less hatred than the commons against the Flemings; they approved much of several articles in the remonstrance; they thought the juncture favorable, not only for redressing past grievances, but for rendering the constitution more perfect and secure by new regulations; they were afraid, that while the two orders, of which the legislature was composed, wasted each other’s strength by mutual hostilities, the crown would rise to power on the ruin or weakness of both, and encroach no less on the independence of the nobles, than on the privileges of the commons. To this disposition were owing the frequent overtures of peace which the regents made to the Junta, and the continual negotiations they carried on during the progress of their military operations. Nor were the terms which they offered unreasonable; for on condition that the Junta would pass from a few articles most subversive of the royal authority, or inconsistent with the rights of the nobility, they engaged to procure the emperor’s consent to their other demands, which if he, through the influence of evil counselors, should refuse, several of the nobles promised to join with the commons in their endeavors to extort it. Such divisions, however, prevailed among the members of the Junta, as prevented their deliberating calmly, or judging with prudence. Some of the cities which had entered into the confederacy, were filled with that mean jealousy and distrust of each other, which rivalship in commerce or in grandeur is apt to inspire; the constable, by his influence and promises, had prevailed on the inhabitants of Burgos to abandon the Junta, and other noblemen had shaken the fidelity of some of the lesser cities; no person had arisen among the commons of such superior abilities or elevation of mind as to acquire the direction of their affairs; Padilla, their general, was a man of popular qualities, but distrusted for that reason by those of highest rank who adhered to the Junta; the conduct of Giron led the people to view, with suspicion, every person of noble birth who joined their party; so that the strongest marks of irresolution, mutual distrust, and mediocrity of genius, appeared in all their proceedings at this time. After many consultations held concerning the terms proposed by the regents, they suffered themselves to be so carried away by resentment against the nobility, that, rejecting all thoughts of accommodation, they threatened to strip them of the crown lands, which they or their ancestors had usurped, and to re-annex these to the royal domain. Upon this preposterous scheme, which would at once have annihilated all the liberties for which they had been struggling, by rendering the kings of Castile absolute and independent on their subjects, they were so intent, that they now exclaimed with less vehemence against the exactions of the foreign ministers, than against the exorbitant power and wealth of the nobles, and seemed to hope that they might make peace with Charles, by offering to enrich him with their spoils.

The success which Padilla had met with in several small encounters, and in reducing some inconsiderable towns, helped to precipitate the members of the Junta into this measure, filling them with such confidence in the valor of their troops, that they hoped for an easy victory over the royalists. Padilla, that his army might not remain inactive while flushed with good fortune, laid siege to Torrelobaton, a place of greater strength and importance than any that he bad hitherto ventured to attack, and which was defended by a sufficient garrison; and though the besieged made a desperate resistance, and the admiral attempted to relieve them, he took the town by storm [March 1, 1531], and gave it up to be plundered by his soldiers. If he had marched instantly with his victorious army to Tordesillas, the headquarters of the royalists, he could hardly have failed of making an effectual impression on their troops, whom he would have found in astonishment at the briskness of his operations, and far from being of sufficient strength to give him battle. But the fickleness and imprudence of the Junta prevented his taking this step. Incapable, like all popular associations, either of carrying on war or of making peace, they listened again to overtures of accommodation, and even agreed to a short suspension of arms. This negotiation terminated in nothing; but while it was carrying on, many of Padilla’s soldiers, unacquainted with the restraints of discipline, went off with the booty which they had got at Torrelobaton; and others, wearied out by the unusual length of the campaign, deserted. The constable too had leisure to assemble his forces at Burgos, and to prepare everything for taking the field; and as soon as the truce expired he effected a junction with the Conde de Haro, in spite of all Padilla’s efforts to prevent it. They advanced immediately towards Torrelobaton; and Padilla, finding the number of his troops so diminished that he durst not risk a battle, attempted to retreat to Toro, which, if he could have accomplished, the invasion of Navarre at that juncture by the French, and the necessity which the regents must have been under of detaching men to that kingdom, might have saved him from danger. But Haro, sensible how fatal the consequences would be of suffering him to escape, marched with such rapidity at the head of his cavalry, that he came up with him near Villalar [April 231], and, without waiting for his infantry, advanced to the attack. Padilla’s army, fatigued and disheartened by their precipitant retreat, which they could not distinguish from a flight, happened at that time to be passing over a ploughed field, on which such a violent rain had fallen, that the soldiers sunk almost to the knees at every step, and remained exposed to the fire of some field-pieces which the royalists had brought along with them. All these circumstances so disconcerted and intimidated raw soldiers, without facing the enemy, or making any resistance, they fled in the utmost confusion. Padilla exerted himself with extraordinary courage and activity in order to rally them, though in vain; fear rendering them deaf both to his threats and entreaties; upon which, finding matters irretrievable, and resolving not to survive the disgrace of that day, and the ruin of his party, he rushed into the thickest of the enemy; but being wounded and dismounted, he was taken prisoner. His principal officers shared the same fate; the common soldiers were allowed to depart unhurt, the nobles being too generous to kill men who threw down their arms.

The resentment of his enemies did not suffer Padilla to linger long in expectation of what should befall him. Next day he was condemned to lose his head, though without any regular trial, the notoriety of the crime being supposed sufficient to supersede the formality of a legal process. He was led instantly to execution, together with Don John Bravo, and Don Francis Maldonado, the former commander of the Segovians, and the latter of the troops of Salamanca. Padilla viewed the approach of death with calm but undaunted fortitude; and when Bravo, his fellow-sufferer, expressed some indignation at hearing himself proclaimed a traitor, he checked hint, by observing, “That yesterday was the time to have displayed the spirit of gentlemen, this day to die with the meekness of Christians”. Being permitted to write to his wife and to the community of Toledo, the place of his nativity, he addressed the former with a manly and virtuous tenderness, and the latter with the exultation natural to one who considered himself as a martyr for the liberties of his country.

 

The letter of Don John Padilla to his wife.

 

“Señora,

If your grief did not afflict me more than my own death, I should deem myself perfectly happy. For the end of life being certain to all men, the Almighty confers a mark of distinguishing favor upon that person, for whom he appoints a death such as mine, which, though lamented by many, is nevertheless acceptable unto him. It would require more time than I now have, to write anything that could afford you consolation. That my enemies will not grant me, nor do I wish to delay the reception of that crown which I hope to enjoy. You may bewail your own loss, but not my death, which, being so honorable, ought not to be lamented by any. My soul, for nothing else is left to me, I bequeath to you. You will receive it, as the thing in this world which you valued most. I do not write to my father Pedro Lopez, because I dare not, for though I have shown myself to be his son in daring to lose my life, I have not been the heir of his good fortune. I will not attempt to say anything more, that I may not tire the executioner, who waits for me, and that I may not excite a suspicion, that, in order to prolong my life, I lengthen out my letter. My servant Sosia, an eyewitness, and to whom I have communicated my most secret thoughts, will inform you of what I cannot now write; and thus I rest, expecting the instrument of your grief, and of my deliverance”.

 

After this, he submitted quietly to his fate. Most of the Spanish historians, accustomed to ideas of government and of regal power, very different from those upon which he acted, have been so eager to testify their disapprobation of the cause in which he was engaged, that they have neglected, or have been afraid to do justice to his virtues; and by blackening his memory, have endeavored to deprive him of that pity which is seldom denied to illustrious sufferers.

 

Germanadas. End of the Spanish Revolution

 

The victory at Villalar proved as decisive as it was complete. Valladolid, the most zealous of all the associated cities, opened its gates immediately to the conquerors, and being treated with great clemency by the regents, Medina del Campo, Segovia, and many other towns, followed its example. This sudden dissolution of a confederacy, formed not upon slight disgusts, or upon trilling motives, into which the whole body of the people had entered, and which had been allowed time to acquire a considerable degree of order and consistence by establishing a regular plan of government, is the strongest proof either of the inability of its leaders, or of some secret discord reigning among its members. Though part of that army by which they had been subdued was obliged, a few days after the battle, to march towards Navarre, in order to check the progress of the French in that kingdom, nothing could prevail on the dejected commons of Castile to take arms again, and to embrace such a favorable opportunity of acquiring those rights and privileges for which they had appeared so zealous. The city of Toledo alone, animated by Doña Maria Pacheco, Padilla’s widow, who, instead of bewailing her husband with a womanish sorrow, prepared to revenge his death, and to prosecute that cause in defence of which he had suffered, must be excepted. Respect for her sex, or admiration for her courage and abilities, as well as sympathy with her misfortunes, and veneration for the memory of her husband, secured her the same ascendant over the people which he had possessed. The prudence and vigor with which she acted, justified that confidence they placed in her. She wrote to the French general in Navarre, encouraging him to invade Castile by the offer of powerful assistance. She endeavored by her letters and emissaries to revive the spirit and hopes of the other cities. She raised soldiers, and exacted a great sum from the clergy belonging to the cathedral, in order to defray the expense of keeping them on foot. She employed every artifice that could interest or inflame the populace. For this purpose she ordered crucifixes to be used by her troops instead of colors, as if they had been at war with infidels and enemies of religion; she marched through the streets of Toledo with her son, a young child, clad in deep mourning, seated on a mule, having a standard carried before him, representing the manner of his father’s execution. By all these means she kept the minds of the people in such perpetual agitation as prevented their passions from subsiding, and rendered them insensible of the dangers to which they were exposed, by standing alone in opposition to the royal authority. While the army was employed in Navarre, the regents were unable to attempt the reduction of Toledo by force with and all their endeavors, either to diminish Doña Maria’s credit with the people, or to gain her by large promises and the solicitations of her brother the Marquis de Mondejar, proved ineffectual. Upon the expulsion of the French out of Navarre, part of the army returned into Castile, and invested Toledo. Even this made no impression on the intrepid and obstinate courage of Doña Maria. She defended the town with vigor, her troops in several sallies beat the royalists, and no progress was made towards reducing the place, until the clergy, whom she had highly offended by invading their property, ceased to support her. As soon as they received information of the death of William de Croy, archbishop of Toledo, whose possession of that see was their chief grievance, and that the emperor had named a Castilian to succeed him, they openly turned against her, and persuaded the people that she had acquired such influence over them by the force of enchantments, that she was assisted by a familiar daemon which attended her in the form of a Negro-maid, and that by its suggestions she regulated every part of her conduct. The credulous multitude, whom their impatience of a long blockade, and despair of obtaining succors either from the cities formerly in confederacy with them, or from the French, rendered desirous of peace, took arms against her, and driving her out of the city, surrendered it to the royalists [October 26]. She retired to the citadel, which she defended with amazing fortitude four months longer; and when reduced to the last extremities, she made her escape in disguise [February 10], and fled to Portugal, where she had many relations.

Upon her flight the citadel surrendered. Tranquility was reestablished in Castile; and this bold attempt of the commons, like all unsuccessful insurrections, contributed to confirm and extend the power of the crown, which it was intended to moderate and abridge. The Cortes still continued to make a part of the Castilian constitution, and was summoned to meet whenever the king stood in need of money; but instead of adhering to their ancient and cautious form of examining and redressing public grievances, before they proceeded to grant any supply, the more courtly custom of voting a donative in the first place was introduced, and the sovereign having obtained all that he wanted, never allowed them to enter into any inquiry, or to attempt any reformation injurious to his authority. The privileges which the cities had enjoyed were gradually circumscribed or abolished; their commerce began from this period to decline, and becoming less wealthy and less populous, they lost that power and influence which they had acquired in the Cortes.

While Castile was exposed to the calamities of civil war; the kingdom of Valencia was torn by intestine commotions still more violent. The association which had been formed in the city of Valencia in the year one thousand five hundred and twenty, and which was distinguished by the name of the Germanada, continued to subsist after the emperor’s departure from Spain. The members of it, upon pretext of defending the coasts against the descents of the corsairs of Barbary, and under sanction of that permission which Charles bad rashly granted them, refused to lay down their arms. But as the grievances which the Valencians aimed at redressing, proceeded from the arrogance and exactions of the nobility, rather than from any unwarrantable exercise of the royal prerogative, their resentment turned chiefly against the former. As soon as they were allowed the use of arms, and became conscious of their own strength, they grew impatient to take vengeance of their oppressors. They drove the nobles out of most of the cities, plundered their houses, wasted their lands, and assaulted their castles. They then proceeded to elect thirteen persons, one from each company of tradesmen established in Valencia, and committed the administration of government to them, under pretext that they would reform the laws, establish one uniform mode of dispensing justice without partiality or regard to the distinction of ranks, and thus restore men to some degree of their original equality.

The nobles were obliged to take arms in sell-defence. Hostilities began, and were carried on with all the rancor with which resentment at oppression inspired the one party, and the idea of insulted dignity animated the other. As no person of honorable birth, or of liberal education, joined the Germanada, the councils as well as troops of the confederacy were conducted by low mechanics, who acquired the confidence of an enraged multitude chiefly by the fierceness of their zeal and the extravagance of their proceedings. Among such men, the laws introduced in civilized nations, in order to restrain or moderate the violence of war, were unknown or despised; and they run into the wildest excesses of cruelty and outrage.

The emperor, occupied with suppressing the insurrection in Castile, which more immediately threatened the subversion of his power and prerogative, was unable to give much attention to the tumults in Valencia, and left the nobility of that kingdom to fight their own battles. His viceroy, the Conde de Melito, had the supreme command of the forces which the nobles raised among the vassals. The Germanada carried on the war during the years one thousand five hundred and twenty and twenty-one with a more persevering courage than could have been expected from a body so tumultuary, under the conduct of such leaders. They defeated the nobility in several actions, which, though not considerable, were extremely sharp. They repulsed them in their attempts to reduce different towns. But the nobles by their superior skill in war, and at the head of troops more accustomed to service, gained the advantage in most of the reencounters. At length they were joined by a body of Castilian cavalry, which the regents despatched towards Valencia, soon after their victory over Padilla at Villalar, and by their assistance the Valencian nobles acquired such superiority that they entirely broke and ruined the Germanada. The leaders of the party were put to death almost without any formality of legal trial, and suffered such cruel punishments as the sense of recent injuries prompted their adversaries to inflict. The government of Valencia was reestablished in its ancient form.

In Aragon, violent symptoms of the same spirit of disaffection and sedition which reigned in the other kingdoms of Spain, began to appear, but by the prudent conduct of the viceroy, Don John de Lanusa, they were so far composed, as to prevent their breaking out into any open insurrection. But in the island of Majorca, annexed to the crown of Aragon, the same causes which had excited the commotion in Valencia, produced effects no less violent. The people, impatient of the hardships which they had endured under the rigid jurisdiction of the nobility, took arms in a tumultuary manner [March 19, 1521]; deposed their viceroy; drove him out of the island; and massacred every gentleman who was so unfortunate as to fall into their hands. The obstinacy with which the people of Majorca persisted in their rebellion, was equal to the rage with which they began it. Many and vigorous efforts were requisite in order to reduce them to obedience; and tranquility was reestablished in every part of Spain, before the Majorcans could be brought to submit to their sovereign.

While the spirit of disaffection was so general among the Spaniards, and so many causes concurred in precipitating them into such violent measures, in order to obtain the redress of their grievances, it may appear strange, that the malcontents in the different kingdoms should have carried on their operations without any mutual concert, or even any intercourse with each other. By uniting their councils and arms, they might have acted both with greater force and with more effect. The appearance of a national confederacy would have rendered it no less respectable among the people than formidable to the crown; and the emperor, unable to resist such a combination, must have complied with any terms which the members of it should have thought fit to prescribe. Many things, however, prevented the Spaniards from forming themselves into one body, and pursuing common measures. The people of the different kingdoms in Spain, though they were become the subjects of the same sovereign, retained, in all force, their national antipathy to each other. The remembrance of their ancient rivalship and hostilities was still lively, and the sense of reciprocal injuries so strong, as to prevent them from acting with confidence and concert. Each nation chose rather to depend on its own efforts, and to maintain the struggle alone, than to implore the aid of neighbors whom they distrusted and hated. At the same time the forms of government in the several kingdoms of Spain were so different, and the grievances of which they complained, as well as the alterations and amendments in policy which they attempted to introduce, so various, that it was not easy to bring them to unite in any common plan. To this disunion Charles was indebted for the preservation of his Spanish crowns; and while each of the kingdoms followed separate measures, they were all obliged at last to conform to the will of their sovereign.

The arrival of the emperor in Spain filled his subjects who had been in arms against him with deep apprehensions, from which he soon delivered them by an act of clemency no less prudent than generous. After a rebellion so general, scarcely twenty persons, among so many criminals obnoxious to the law, had been punished capitally in Castile. Though strongly solicited by his council, Charles refused to shed any more blood by the hands of the executioner; and published a general pardon [October 28], extending to all crimes committed since the commencement of the insurrections, from which only fourscore persons were excepted. Even these he seems to have named, rather with an intention to intimidate others, than from any inclination to seize them; for when an officious courtier offered to inform him where one of the most considerable among them was concealed, he avoided it by a good-natured pleasantry; “Go”, says he, “I have now no reason to be afraid of that man, but he has some cause to keep at a distance from me, and you would be better employed in telling him that I am here, than in acquainting me with the place of his retreat”. By this appearance of magnanimity, as well as by his care to avoid everything which had disgusted the Castilians during his former residence among them; by his address in assuming their manners, in speaking their language, and in complying with all their humors and customs, he acquired an ascendant over them which hardly any of their native monarchs had ever attained, and brought them to support him in all his enterprises with a zeal and valor to which he owed more of his success and grandeur.

 

1523. Francis I and Charles duke of Bourbon

 

About the time that Charles landed in Spain, Adrian set out for Italy to take possession of his new dignity. But though the Roman people longed extremely for his arrival, they could not, on his first appearance, conceal their surprise and disappointment. After being accustomed to the princely magnificence of Julius, and the elegant splendor of Leo, they beheld with contempt an old man of an humble deportment, and of austere manners, an enemy to pomp, destitute of taste in the arts, and unadorned with any of the external accomplishments which the vulgar expect in those raised to eminent stations. Nor did his political views and maxims seem less strange and astonishing to the pontifical ministers. He acknowledged and bewailed the corruptions which abounded in the church, as well as in the court of Rome, and prepared to reform both; he discovered no intention of aggrandizing his family; he even scrupled at retaining such territories as some of his predecessors had acquired by violence or fraud, rather than by any legal title, and for that reason be invested Francesco Maria de Rovere anew in the duchy of Urbino, of which Leo had stripped him, and surrendered to the duke of Ferrara, several places wrested from him by the church. To men little habituated to see princes regulate their conduct by the maxims of morality and the principles of justice, these actions of the new pope appeared incontestable proofs of his weakness or inexperience. Adrian, who was a perfect stranger to the complex and intricate system of Italian politics and who could place no confidence in persons whose subtle refinements in business suited so ill with the natural simplicity and candor of his own character, being often embarrassed and irresolute in his deliberations, the opinion of his incapacity daily increased, until both his person and government became objects of ridicule among his subjects.

Adrian, though devoted to the emperor, endeavored to assume the impartiality which became the common father of Christendom, and labored to reconcile the contending princes, in order that they might unite in a league against Solyman, whose conquest of Rhodes rendered him more formidable than ever to Europe. But this was an undertaking far beyond his abilities. To examine such a variety of pretensions, to adjust such a number of interfering interests, to extinguish the passions which ambition, emulation, and mutual injuries had kindled, to bring so many hostile powers to pursue the same scheme with unanimity and vigour, required not only uprightness of intention, but great superiority both of understanding and address.

The Italian states were no less desirous of peace than the pope. The Imperial army under Colonna was still kept on foot; but as the emperor's revenues in Spain, in Naples, and in the Low-Countries, were either exhausted or applied to some other purpose, it depended entirely for pay and subsistence on the Italians. A great part of it was quartered in the ecclesiastical state, and monthly contributions were levied upon the Florentines, the Milanese, the Genoese, and Lucchese, by the viceroy of Naples; and though all exclaimed against such oppression, and were impatient to be delivered from it, the dread of worse consequences from the rage of the army, or the resentment of the emperor, obliged them to submit.

So much regard, however, was paid to the pope’s exhortations, and to a bull which he issued, requiring all Christian princes to consent to a truce for three years, that the Imperial, the French, and English ambassadors at Rome, were empowered by their respective courts to treat of that matter; but while they wasted their time in fruitless negotiations, their masters continued their preparations for war. The Venetians, who had hitherto adhered with great firmness to their alliance with Francis, being now convinced that his affairs in Italy were in a desperate situation, entered into a league against him with the emperor [June 28]; to which Adrian, at the instigation of his countryman and friend Charles de Lannoy, viceroy of Naples, who persuaded him that the only obstacles to peace arose from the ambition of the French king, soon after acceded. The other Italian states followed their example; and Francis was left without a single ally to resist the efforts of so many enemies, whose armies threatened, and whose territories encompassed, his dominions on every side.

The dread of this powerful confederacy, it was thought, would have obliged Francis to keep wholly on the defensive, or at least have prevented his entertaining any thoughts of marching into Italy. But it was the character of that prince, too apt to become remiss, and even negligent on ordinary occasions, to rouse at the approach of danger, and not only to encounter it with spirit and intrepidity, qualities which never forsook him, but to provide against it with diligence and industry. Before his enemies were ready to execute any of their schemes, Francis had assembled a numerous army. His authority over his own subjects was far greater than that which Charles or Henry possessed over theirs. They depended on their diets, their Cortes, and their parliaments, for money, which was usually granted them in small sums, very slowly, and with much reluctance. The taxes he could impose were more considerable, and levied with greater despatch; so that on this, as well as on other occasions, he brought his armies into the field while they were only devising ways and means for raising theirs. Sensible of this advantage, Francis hoped to disconcert all the emperor’s schemes by marching in person into the Milanese; and this bold measure, the more formidable because unexpected, could scarcely have failed of producing that effect. But when the vanguard of his army had already reached Lyons, and he himself was hastening after it with a second division of his troops, the discovery of a domestic conspiracy, which threatened the ruin of the kingdom, obliged him to stop short, and to alter his measures.

The author of this dangerous plot was Charles duke of Bourbon, lord high constable, whose noble birth, vast fortune, and high office, raised him to be the most powerful subject in France, as his great talents, equally suited to the field or the council, and his signal services to the crown, rendered him the most illustrious and deserving. The near resemblance between the king and him in many of their qualities, both being fond of war, and ambitious to excel in manly exercises, as well as their equality in age, and their proximity of blood, ought naturally to have secured to him a considerable share in that monarch's favor. But unhappily Louise, the king’s mother, had contracted a violent aversion to the house of Bourbon, for no better reason than because Anne of Bretagne, the queen of Louis the XII, with whom she lived in perpetual enmity, had discovered a peculiar attachment to that branch of the royal family; and had taught her son, who was too susceptible of any impression which his mother gave him, to view all the constable's actions with a mean and unbecoming Jealousy. His distinguished merit at the battle of Marignano bad not been sufficiently rewarded; he had been recalled from the government of Milan upon very frivolous pretences, and had met with a cold reception, which his prudent conduct in that difficult station did not deserve; the payment of his pensions had been suspended without any good cause; and during the campaign of one thousand five hundred and twenty-one, the king, as has already been related, had affronted him in presence of the whole army, by giving the command of the van to the duke of Alençon. The constable, at first, bore these indignities with greater moderation than could have been expected from a high-spirited prince, conscious of what was due to his rank and to his services. Such a multiplicity of injuries, however, exhausted his patience; and inspiring him with thoughts of revenge, he retired from court, and began to hold a secret correspondence with some of the emperor’s ministers.

About that time the duchess of Bourbon happened to die without leaving any children. Louise, of a disposition no less amorous than vindictive, and still susceptible of the tender passions at the age of forty-six, began to view the constable, a prince as amiable as he was accomplished, with other eyes; and notwithstanding the great disparity of their years, she formed the scheme of marrying him. Bourbon, who might have expected everything to which an ambitious mind can aspire, from the doating fondness of a woman who governed her son and the kingdom, being incapable either of imitating the queen in her sudden transition from hatred to love, or of dissembling so meanly as to pretend affection for one who had persecuted him so long with unprovoked malice, not only rejected the match, but embittered his refusal by some severe raillery on Louise’s person and character. She, finding herself not only contemned but insulted, her disappointed love turned into hatred, and since she could not marry, she resolved to ruin Bourbon.

For this purpose she consulted with chancellor Du Prat, a man who, by a base prostitution of great talents and of superior skill in his profession, had risen to that high office. By his advice, a law-suit was commenced against the constable, for the whole estate belonging to the house of Bourbon. Part of it was claimed in the king’s name, as having fallen to the crown; part in that of Louise, as the nearest heir in blood of the deceased duchess. Both these claims were equally destitute of any foundation in justice; but Louise, by her solicitations and authority, and Du Prat, by employing all the artifices and chicanery of law, prevailed on the judges to order the estate to be sequestered. This unjust decision drove the constable to despair, and to measures which despair alone could have dictated. He renewed his intrigues in the Imperial court, and flattering himself that the injuries which he had suffered would justify his having recourse to any means in order to obtain revenge, he offered to transfer his allegiance from his natural sovereign to the emperor, and to assist him in the conquest of France. Charles, as well as the king of England, to whom the secret was communicated, expecting prodigious advantages from his revolt, were ready to receive him with open arms, and spared neither promises nor allurements which might help to confirm him in his resolution. The emperor offered him in marriage his sister Eleanor, the widow of the king of Portugal, with an ample portion. He was included as a principal in the treaty between Charles and Henry. The counties of Provence and Dauphine were to be settled on him with the title of king. The emperor engaged to enter France by the Pyrenees; and Henry, supported by the Flemings, to invade Picardy; while twelve thousand Germans, levied at their common charge, were to penetrate into Burgundy, and to act in concert with Bourbon, who undertook to raise six thousand men among his friends and vassals in the heart of the kingdom. The execution of this deep-laid and dangerous plot was suspended, until the king should cross the Alps with the only army capable of defending his dominions; and as he was far advanced in his march for that purpose, France was on the brink of destruction.

Happily for that kingdom, a negotiation which had now been carrying on for several months, though conducted with the most profound secrecy, and communicated only to a few chosen confidents, could not altogether escape the observation of the rest of the constable’s numerous retainers, rendered more inquisitive by finding that they were distrusted. Two of these gave the king some intimation of a mysterious correspondence between their master and the count de Roeux, a Flemish nobleman of great confidence with the emperor. Francis, who could not bring himself to suspect that the first prince of the blood would be so base as to betray the kingdom to its enemies, immediately repaired to Moulines, where the constable was in bed, feigning indisposition that he might not be obliged to accompany the king into Italy, and acquainted him of the intelligence which he had received. Bourbon, with great solemnity, and the most imposing affectation of ingenuity and candor, asserted his own innocence; and as his health, he said, was now more confirmed, he promised to join the army within a few days. Francis, open and candid himself, and too apt to be deceived by the appearance of those virtues in others, gave such credit to what he said, that he refused to arrest him, although advised to take that precaution by his wisest counselors; and as if the danger had been over, he continued his march towards Lyons. The constable set out soon after [September], seemingly with an intention to follow him; but turning suddenly to the left, he crossed the Rhone, and after infinite fatigue and peril, escaped all the parties which the king, who became sensible too late of his own credulity, sent out to intercept him, and reached Italy in safety.

Francis took every possible precaution to prevent the bad effects of the irreparable error which he had committed. He put garrisons in all the places of strength in the constable’s territories. He seized all the gentlemen whom he could suspect of being his associates; and as he had not hitherto discovered the whole extent of the conspirator’s schemes, nor knew how far the infection had spread among his subjects, he was afraid that his absence might encourage them to make some desperate attempt, and for that reason relinquished his intention of leading his army in person into Italy.

He did not, however, abandon his design on the Milanese, but appointed Admiral Bonnivet to take the supreme command in his stead, and to march into that country with an army thirty thousand strong. Bonnivet did not owe this preferment to his abilities as a general; for of all the talents requisite to form a great commander, he possessed only personal courage, the lowest and the most common. But he was the most accomplished gentleman in the French court, of agreeable manners and insinuating address, and a sprightly conversation; and Francis, who lived in great familiarity with his courtiers, was so charmed with these qualities, that he honored him on all occasions, with the most partial and distinguishing marks of his favor. He was, besides, the implacable enemy of Bourbon; and as the king hardly knew whom to trust at that juncture, be thought the chief command could be lodged nowhere so safely as in his bands.

Colonna, who was entrusted with the defence of the Milanese, his own conquest, was in no condition to resist such a formidable army. He was destitute of money sufficient to pay his troops, which were reduced, to a small number, by sickness or desertion, and had, for that reason, been obliged to neglect every precaution necessary for the security of the country. The only plan which he formed was to defend the passage of the river Tesino against the French; and as if he had forgotten how easily he himself had disconcerted a similar scheme formed by Lautrec, he promised with great confidence on its being effectual. But in spite of all his caution, it succeeded no better with him than with Lautrec. Bonnivet passed the river without loss, at a ford which had been neglected, and the Imperialists retired to Milan, preparing to abandon the town as soon as the French should appear before it. By an unaccountable negligence, which Guicciardini imputes to infatuation, Bonnivet did not advance for three or four days, and lost the opportunity with which his good fortune presented him. The citizens recovered from their consternation; Colonna, still active at the age of fourscore, and Morone, whose enmity to France rendered him indefatigable, were employed night and day in repairing the fortifications, in amassing provisions, in collecting troops from every quarter; and by the time the French approached, had put the city in a condition to stand a siege. Bonnivet, after some fruitless attempts on the town, which harassed his own troops more than the enemy, was obliged, by the inclemency of the season, to retire into winter quarters.

During these transactions, pope Adrian died; an event so much to the satisfaction of the Roman people, whose hatred or contempt of him augmented every day, that the night after his decease they adorned the door of his chief physician’s house with garlands, adding this inscription, TO THE DELIVERER OF HIS COUNTRY. The cardinal, de Medici instantly renewed his pretensions to the papal dignity, and entered the conclave with high expectations on his own part, and a general opinion of the people that they would be successful. But though supported by the Imperial faction, possessed of great personal interest, and capable of all the artifices, refinements, and corruption which reign in those assemblies, the obstinacy and intrigues of his rivals protracted the conclave to the unusual length of fifty days. The address and perseverance of the cardinal at last surmounted every obstacle. He was raised to the head of the church [November 281] and assumed the government of it by the name of Clement VII. The choice was universally approved of. High expectations were conceived of a pope, whose great talents, and long experience in business, seemed to qualify him no less for defending the spiritual interests of the church, exposed to imminent danger by the progress of Luther’s opinions, than for conducting its political operations with the prudence requisite at such a difficult juncture; and who, besides these advantages, rendered the ecclesiastical state more respectable, by having in his hands the government of Florence, together with the wealth of the family of Medici. 

Cardinal Wolsey, not disheartened by the disappointment of his ambitions views at the former election, had entertained more sanguine hopes of success on this occasion. Henry wrote to the emperor, reminding him of his engagements to second the pretensions of his minister. Wolsey bestirred himself with activity suitable to the importance of the prize for which he contended, and instructed his agents at Rome to spare neither promises nor bribes in order to gain his end. But Charles had either aroused him with vain hopes which he never intended to gratify, or he judged it impolitic to oppose a candidate who had such a prospect of succeeding as Medici; or perhaps the cardinals durst not venture to provoke the people of Rome, while their indignation against Adrian’s memory was still fresh, by placing another Ultramontane on the papal throne. Wolsey, after all his expectations and endeavors, had the mortification to see a pope elected, of such an age, and of so vigorous a constitution, that he could not derive much comfort to himself from the chance of surviving him. This second proof fully convinced Wolsey of the emperor’s insincerity, and it excited in him all the resentment which a haughty mind feels on being at once disappointed and deceived; and though Clement endeavored to soothe his vindictive nature by granting him a commission to be legate in England during life, with such ample powers as vested in him almost the whole papal jurisdiction in that kingdom, the injury he had now received made such an impression as entirely dissolved the tie which had united him to Charles, and from that moment he meditated revenge. It was necessary, however, to conceal his intention from his master, and to suspend the execution of it, until, by a dexterous improvement of the incidents which might occur, he should be able gradually to alienate the king’s affections from the emperor. For this reason he was so far from expressing any uneasiness on account of the repulse which he had met with, that he abounded on every occasion, private as well as public, in declarations of his high satisfaction with Clement’s promotion.

Henry had, during the campaign, fulfilled, with great sincerity, whatever he was bound to perform by the league against France, though more slowly than he could have wished. His thoughtless profusion, and total neglect of economy, reduced him often to great straits for money. The operations of war were now carried on in Europe in a manner very different from that which had long prevailed. Instead of armies suddenly assembled, which under distinct chieftains followed their prince into the field for a short space, and served at their own cost, troops were now levied at great charges, and received regularly considerable pay. Instead of impatience on both sides to bring every quarrel to the issue of a battle, which commonly decided the fate of open countries, and allowed the barons, together with their vassals, to return to their ordinary occupations; towns were fortified with great art, and defended with much obstinacy; war, from a very simple, became a very intricate science; and campaigns grew of course to be more tedious and less decisive. The expense which these alterations in the military system necessarily created, appeared intolerable to nations hitherto unaccustomed with the burden of heavy taxes. Hence proceeded the frugal, and even parsimonious spirit of the English parliaments in that age, which Henry, with all his authority, was seldom able to overcome. The commons, having refused at this time to grant him the supplies which he demanded, he had recourse to the ample and almost unlimited prerogative which the kings of England then possessed, and by a violent and unusual exertion of it, raised the money he wanted. This, however, wasted so much time, that it was late in the season [Sept. 20], before his army, under the duke of Suffolk, could take the field. Being joined by a considerable body of Flemings, Suffolk marched into Picardy, and Francis, from his extravagant eagerness to recover the Milanese, having left that frontier almost unguarded, he penetrated as far as the banks of the river Oyse, within eleven leagues of Paris, filling that capital with consternation. But the arrival of some troops detached by the king, who was still at Lyons; the active gallantry of the French officers, who allowed the allies no respite night or day; the rigor of a most unnatural season, together with scarcity of provisions, compelled Suffolk to retire [November]; and La Tremouille, who commanded in those parts, had the glory not only of having checked the progress of a formidable army with a handful of men, but of driving them with ignominy out of the French territories.

The emperor’s attempts upon Burgundy and Guienne were not more fortunate, though in both these provinces Francis was equally unprepared to resist them. The conduct and valor of his generals supplied his want of foresight; the Germans, who made an irruption into one of these provinces, and the Spaniards, who attacked the other, were repulsed with great disgrace.

Thus ended the year 1523, during which Francis’s good fortune and success had been such as gave all Europe a high idea of his power and resources. He had discovered and disconcerted a dangerous conspiracy, the author of which he had driven into exile, almost without an attendant; he had rendered abortive all the schemes of the powerful confederacy formed against him; he had protected his dominions when attacked on three different sides; and though his army in the Milanese had not made such progress as might have been expected from its superiority to the enemy in number, he had recovered, and still kept possession of, one half of that duchy.

 

1524. Luther’s Reformation Progress

 

The ensuing year opened with events more disastrous to France. Fontarabia was lost by the cowardice or treachery of its governor [Feb. 27]. In Italy, the allies resolved on an early and vigorous effort, in order to dispossess Bonnivet of that part of the Milanese which lies beyond the Tesino. Clement, who, under the pontificates of Leo and Adrian, had discovered an implacable enmity to France, began now to view the power which the emperor was daily acquiring in Italy, with so much jealousy, that he refused to accede, as his predecessors had done, to the league against Francis, and forgetting private passions and animosities, labored, with the zeal which became his character, to bring about a reconciliation among the contending parties. But all his endeavors were ineffectual; a numerous army, to which each of the allies furnished their contingent of troops, was assembled at Milan by the beginning of March. Lannoy, vice­roy of Naples, took the command of it upon Colonna’s death, though the chief direction of military operations was committed to Bourbon and the Marquis de Pescara; the latter the ablest and most enterprising of the Imperial generals; the former inspired by his resentment with new activity and invention, and acquainted so thoroughly with the characters of the French commanders, the genius of their troops, and the strength as well as weakness of their armies, as to be of infinite service to the party which he had joined. But all these advantages were nearly lost through the emperor's inability to raise money sufficient for executing the various and extensive plans which he had formed. When his troops were commanded to march, they mutinied against their leaders, demanding the pay which was due to them for some months; and disregarding both the menaces and entreaties of their officers, threatened to pillage the city of Milan, if they did not instantly receive satisfaction. Out of this difficulty the generals of the allies were extricated by Morone, who prevailing on his countrymen, over whom his influence was prodigious, to advance the sum that was requisite, the army took the field.

Bonnivet was destitute of troops to oppose this army, and still more of the talents which could render him an equal match for its leaders. After various movements and encounters, described with great accuracy by the contemporary historians, a detail of which would now be equally uninteresting and uninstructive, he was forced to abandon the strong camp in which he had entrenched himself at Biagrassa. Soon after, partly by his own misconduct, partly by the activity of the enemy, who harassed and ruined his army by continual skirmishes, while they carefully declined a battle which he often offered them; and partly by the caprice of 6000 Swiss, who refused to join his army, though within a day’s march of it; he was reduced to the necessity of attempting a retreat into France, through the valley of Aost. Just as he arrived on the banks of the Sessia, and began to pass that river, Bourbon and Pescara appeared with the vanguard of the allies, and attacked his rear with great fury. At the beginning of the charge, Bonnivet, while exerting himself with much valor, was wounded so dangerously, that he was obliged to quit the field; and the conduct of the rear was committed to the chevalier Bayard, who, though so much a stranger to the arts of a court that he never rose to the chief command, was always called, in time of real danger, to the post of greatest difficulty and importance. He put his himself at the head of the men at arms, and animating them by his presence and example to sustain the whole shock of the enemy’s troops, he gained time for the rest of his countrymen to make good their retreat. But in this service he received a wound which he immediately perceived to be mortal, and being unable to continue any longer on horseback, he ordered one of his attendants to place him under a tree, with his face towards the enemy; then fixing his eyes on the guard of his sword, which he held up instead of a cross, he addressed his prayers to God, and in this posture, which became his character both as a soldier and as a Christian, he calmly waited the approach of death. Bourbon, who led the foremost of the enemy’s troops, found him in this situation, and expressed regret and pity at the sight. “Pity not me”, cried the high-spirited chevalier, “I die as a man of honor ought, in the discharge of my duty; they indeed are objects of pity, who fight against their king, their country, and their oath”. The Marquis de Pescara, passing soon after, manifested his admiration of Bayard’s virtues, as well as his sorrow for his fate, with the generosity of a gallant enemy; and finding that he could not be removed with safety from that spot, ordered a tent to be pitched there, and appointed proper persons to attend him. He died, notwithstanding their care, as his ancestors for several generations had done, in the field of battle. Pescara ordered his body to be embalmed, and sent to his relations; and such was the respect paid to military merit in that age, that the duke of Savoy commanded it to be received with royal honors in all the cities of his dominions; in Dauphine, Bayard’s native country, the people of all ranks came out in a solemn procession to meet it.

Bonnivet led back the shattered remains of his army into France; and in one short campaign, Francis was stripped of all be had possessed in Italy, and left without one ally in that country.

While the war, kindled by the emulation of Charles and Francis, spread over so many countries of Europe, Germany enjoyed a profound tranquility, extremely favorable to the reformation, which continued to make progress daily. During Luther’s confinement in his retreat at Wartburg, Carlostadius, one of his disciples, animated with the same zeal, but possessed of less prudence and moderation than his master, began to propagate wild and dangerous opinions, chiefly among the lower people. Encouraged by his exhortations, they rose in several villages of Saxony, broke into the churches with tumultuary violence, and threw down and destroyed the images with which they were adorned. Those irregular and outrageous proceedings were so repugnant to all the elector’s cautious maxims, that, if they had not received a timely check, they could hardly have tailed of alienating from the reformers a prince, no less jealous of his own authority, than afraid of giving offence to the emperor, and other patrons of the ancient opinions. Luther, sensible of the danger, immediately quitted his retreat, without waiting for Frederic’s permission, and returned to Wittenberg [March 6, 1522]. Happily for the reformation, the veneration for his person and authority was still so great, that his appearance alone suppressed that spirit of extravagance which began to seize his party. Carlostadius and his fanatical followers, struck dumb by his rebukes, submitted at once, and declared that they heard the voice of an angel, not of a man.

Before Luther left his retreat, he had begun to translate the Bible into the German tongue, an undertaking of no less difficulty than importance, of which he was extremely fond; and for which he was well qualified: he had a competent knowledge of the original languages; a thorough acquaintance with the style and sentiments of the inspired writers; and though his compositions in Latin were rude and barbarous, he was reckoned a great master of the purity of his mother tongue, and could express himself with all the elegance of which it is capable. By his own assiduous application, together with the assistance of Melanchthon and several other of his disciples, he finished part of the New Testament in the year 1522; and the publication of it proved more fatal to the church of Rome, than that of all his own works. It was read with wonderful avidity and attention by persons of every rank. They were astonished at discovering how contrary the precepts of the Author of our religion are, to the inventions of those priests who pretended to be his vicegerents; and having now in their hand the rule of faith, they thought themselves qualified, by applying it, to judge of the established opinions, and to pronounce when they were conformable to the standard, or when they departed from it. The great advantages arising from Luther’s translation of the Bible, encouraged the advocates for reformation, in the other countries of Europe, to imitate his example, and, to publish versions of the Scriptures in their respective languages.

About this time, Nuremberg, Frankfort, Hamburg, and several other free cities in Germany, of the first rank, openly embraced the reformed religion, and by the authority of their magistrates abolished the mass, and the other superstitious rites of popery. The elector of Brandenburg, the dukes of Brunswick and Lunenburg, and prince of Anhalt, became avowed patrons of Luther’s opinions, and countenanced the preaching of them among their subjects.

The court of Rome beheld this growing defection with great concern; and Adrian’s first care after his arrival in Italy, had been to deliberate with the cardinals, concerning the proper means of putting a stop to it. He was profoundly skilled in scholastic theology, and having been early celebrated on that account, he still retained such an excessive admiration of the science to which he was first indebted for his reputation and success in life, that he considered Luther’s invectives against the schoolmen, particularly Thomas Aquinas, as little less than blasphemy. All the tenets of that doctor appeared to him so clear and irrefragable, that he supposed every person who called in question or contradicted them, to be either blinded by ignorance, or to be acting in opposition to the conviction of his own mind. Of course, no pope was ever more bigoted or inflexible with regard to points of doctrine than Adrian; he not only maintained them as Leo had done, because they were ancient, or because it was dangerous for the church to allow of innovations, but he adhered to them with the zeal of a theologian, and with the tenaciousness of a disputant. At the same time his own manners being extremely simple, and uninfected with any of the vices which reigned in the court of Rome, he was as sensible of its corruptions as the reformers themselves, and viewed them with no less indignation. The brief which he addressed to the diet of the empire assembled at Nuremberg [November, 15221], and the instructions which he gave Cheregato, the nuncio whom he sent thither, were framed agreeably to these views. On the one hand, he condemned Luther’s opinions with more asperity and rancor of expression than Leo had ever used; he severely censured the princes of Germany for suffering him to spread his pernicious tenets, by their neglecting to execute the edict of the diet at Worms, and required them, if Luther did not instantly retract his errors, to destroy him with fire as a gangrened and incurable member, in like manner as Dathan and Abirain had been cut off by Moses, Ananias and Sapphira by the apostles, and John Huss and Jerome of Prague by their ancestor. On the other hand, he with great candor, and in the most explicit terms, acknowledged the corruptions of the Roman court to be the source from which had flowed most of the evils that the church now felt or dreaded; he promised to exert all his authority towards reforming these abuses, with as much dispatch as the nature and inveteracy of the disorders would admit; and he requested of them to give him their advice with regard to the most effectual means of suppressing that new heresy which had sprung up among them.

The members of the diet, after praising the pope’s pious and laudable intentions, excused themselves from not executing the edict of Worms, by alleging that the prodigious increase of Luther’s followers, as well as the aversion to the court of Rome among their other subjects on account of its innumerable exactions, rendered such an attempt not only dangerous, but impossible. They affirmed that the grievances of Germany, which did not arise from imaginary injuries, but from impositions no less real than intolerable, as his holiness would learn from a catalogue of them which they intended to lay before him, called now for some new and efficacious remedy; and in their opinion, the only remedy adequate to the disease, or which afforded them any hopes of seeing the church restored to soundness and vigour, was a general council. Such a council, therefore, they advised him, after obtaining the emperor’s consent, to assemble without delay in one of the great cities in Germany, that all who had right to be present might deliberate with freedom, and propose their opinions with such boldness, as the dangerous situation of religion at this juncture required.

The nuncio, more artful than his master, and better acquainted with the political views and interests of the Roman court, was startled at the proposition of a council; and easily foresaw how dangerous such an assembly might prove, at a time when many openly denied the papal authority, and the reverence and submission yielded to it visibly declined among all. For that reason he employed his utmost address in order to prevail on the members of the diet to proceed themselves with greater severity against the Lutheran heresy, and to relinquish their proposal concerning a general council to be held in Germany. They, perceiving the nuncio to be more solicitous about the interest of the Roman court, than the tranquility of the empire, or purity of the church, remained inflexible, and continued to prepare the catalogue of their grievances to be presented to the pope. The nuncio, that he might not be the bearer of a remonstrance so disagreeable to his court, left Nuremberg abruptly, without taking leave of the diet.

The secular princes accordingly, for the ecclesiastics, although they gave no opposition, did not think it decent to join with them, drew up the list (so famous in the German annals) of a hundred grievances, which the empire imputed to the iniquitous dominion of the papal see. This list contained grievances much of the same nature with that prepared under the reign of Maximilian. It would be tedious to enumerate each of them; they complained of the sums exacted for dispensations, absolutions, and indulgences; of the expense arising from the law-suits carried by appeal to Rome; of the innumerable abuses occasioned by reservations, commendams, and annates; of the exemption from civil jurisdiction which the clergy had obtained; of the arts by which they brought all secular causes under the cognizance of the ecclesiastical judges; of the indecent and profligate lives which not a few of the clergy led; and of various other particulars, many of which have already been mentioned, among the circumstances that contributed to the favorable reception, or to the quick progress of Luther’s doctrines. In the end they concluded, that if the holy see did not speedily deliver them from those intolerable burdens, they had determined to endure them no longer, and would employ the power and authority with which God had entrusted them, in order to procure relief.

Instead of such severities against Luther and his followers as the nuncio had recommended, the recess or edict of the diet [March 6,1523] contained only a general injunction to all ranks of men to wait with patience for the determinations of the council which was to be assembled, and in the meantime not to publish any new opinions contrary to the established doctrines of the church; together with an admonition to all preachers to abstain from matters of controversy in their discourses to the people, and to confine themselves to the plain and instructive truths of religion.

The reformers derived great advantage from the transactions of this diet, as they afforded them the fullest and most authentic evidence that gross corruptions prevailed in the court of Rome, and that the empire was loaded by the clergy with insupportable burdens. With regard to the former, they had now the testimony of the pope himself, that their invectives and accusations were not malicious or ill-founded. As to the latter, the representatives of the Germanic body, in an assembly where the patrons of the new opinions were far from being the most numerous or powerful, had pointed out as the chief grievances of the empire, those very practices of the Romish church against which Luther and his disciples were accustomed to declaim. Accordingly, in all their controversial writings after this period, they often appealed to Adrian’s declaration, and to the hundred grievances, in confirmation of whatever they advanced concerning the dissolute manners, or insatiable ambition and rapaciousness, of the papal court.

At Rome, Adrian’s conduct was considered as a proof of the most childish simplicity and imprudence. Men trained up amidst the artifices and corruptions of the papal court, and accustomed to judge of actions not by what was just, but by what was useful, were astonished at a pontiff, who, departing from the wise maxims of his predecessors, acknowledged disorders which he ought to have concealed; and forgetting his own dignity, asked advice of those to whom he was entitled to prescribe. By such an excess of impolitic sincerity, they were afraid that, instead of reclaiming the enemies of the church, he would render them more presumptuous, am instead of extinguishing heresy, would weaken the foundations of the papal power, or stop the chief sources from which wealth flowed into the church. For this reason the cardinals and other ecclesiastics of greatest eminence in the papal court industriously opposed all his schemes of reformation, and by throwing objections and difficulties in his way, endeavored to retard or to defeat the execution of them. Adrian, amazed, on the one hand, at the obstinacy of the Lutherans, disgusted, on the other, with the manners and maxims of the Italians, and finding himself unable to correct either the one or the other, often lamented his own situation, and often looked back with pleasure on that period of his life when he was only dean of Louvain, a more humble but happier station, in which little was expected from him, and there was nothing to frustrate his good intentions.

Clement VII, his successor, excelled Adrian as much in the arts of government, as he was inferior to him in purity of life, or uprightness of intention. He was animated not only with the aversion which all popes naturally bear to a council, but having gained his own election by means very uncanonical, he was afraid of an assembly that might subject it to a scrutiny which it could not stand. He determined, therefore, by every possible means to elude the demands of the Germans, both with respect to the calling of a council, and reforming abuses in the papal court, which the rashness and incapacity of his predecessor had brought upon him. For this purpose he made choice of cardinal Campeggio, an artful man, often entrusted by his predecessors with negotiations of importance, as his nuncio to the diet of the empire assembled again at Nuremberg.

Campeggio, without taking any notice of what had passed in the last meeting, exhorted the diet [February], in a long discourse, to execute the edict of Worms with vigor, as the only effectual means of suppressing Luther’s doctrines. The diet, in return, desired to know the pope’s intentions concerning the council, and the redress of the hundred grievances. The former, the nuncio endeavored to elude by general and unmeaning declarations of the pope's resolution to pursue such measures as would be for the greatest good of the church. With regard to the latter, as Adrian was dead before the catalogue of grievances reached Rome, and of consequence it had not been regularly laid before the present pope, Campeggio took advantage of this circumstance to decline making any definitive answer to them in Clement’s name; though, at the same time, he observed that their catalogue of grievances contained many particulars extremely indecent and undutiful, and that the publishing it by their own authority was highly disrespectful to the Roman see. In the end he renewed his demand of their proceeding with vigour against Luther and his adherents. But though an ambassador from the emperor, who was at that time very solicitous to gain the pope, warmly seconded the nuncio, with many professions of his master’s zeal for the honor and dignity of the papal see, the recess of the diet [April 18] was conceived in terms of almost the same import with the former, without enjoining any additional severity against Luther and his party.

Before he left Germany, Campeggio, in order to amuse and soothe the people, published certain articles for the amendment of some disorders and abuses which prevailed among the inferior clergy; but this partial reformation, which fell so far short of the expectations of the Lutherans, and of the demands of the diet, gave no satisfaction, and produced little effect. The nuncio, with a cautious hand, tenderly lopped a few branches; the Germans aimed a deeper blow, and by striking at the root wished to exterminate the evil.

 

 

BOOK IV.

THE ROAD TO PAVIA