BOOK VIII.

DEATH OF MARTIN LUTHER

 

 

WHILE appearances of danger daily increased, and the tempest which had been so long a gathering was ready to break forth in all its violence against the protestant church, Luther was saved, by a seasonable death, from feeling or beholding its destructive rage. Having gone, though in a declining state of health, and during a rigorous season, to his native city of Eysleben, in order to compose, by his authority, a dissension among the counts of Mansfield, he was seized with a violent inflammation in his stomach, which in a few days put an end to his life, in the sixty-third year of his age [Feb. 18]. As he was raised up by Providence to be the author of one of the greatest and most interesting revolutions recorded in history, there is not any person perhaps whose character has been drawn with such opposite colors. In his own age, one party, struck with horror and inflamed with rage, when they saw with what a daring hand he overturned everything which they held to be sacred, or valued as beneficial, imputed to him not only all the defects and vices of a man, but the qualities of a demon. The other, warmed with the admiration and gratitude, which they thought he merited as the restorer of light and liberty to the Christian church, ascribed to him perfections above the condition of humanity, and viewed all his actions with a veneration bordering on that which should he paid only to those who are guided by the immediate inspiration of Heaven. It is his own conduct, not the undistinguishing censure or the exaggerated praise of his contemporaries, that ought to regulate the opinions of the present age concerning him.

Zeal for what he regarded as truth, undaunted intrepidity to maintain his own system, abilities, both natural and acquired, to defend his principles, and unwearied industry in propagating them, are virtues which shine so conspicuously in every part of his behavior, that even his enemies must allow him to have possessed them in an eminent degree. To these may be added, with equal justice, such purity and even austerity of manners, as became one who assumed the character of a Reformer; such sanctity of life as suited the doctrine which he delivered; and such perfect disinterestedness as affords no slight presumption of his sincerity.

Superior to all selfish considerations, a stranger to the elegancies of life, and despising its pleasures, he left the honors and emoluments of the church to his disciples, remaining satisfied himself in his original state of professor in the university, and pastor of the town of Wittenberg, with the moderate appointments annexed to these offices.

His extraordinary qualities were allayed with no inconsiderable mixture of human frailty and human passions. These, however, were of such a nature, that they cannot be imputed to malevolence or corruption of heart, but seem to have taken their rise from the same source with many of his virtues. His mind, forcible and vehement in all its operations, roused by great objects, or agitated by violent passions, broke out, on many occasions, with an impetuosity which astonishes men of feebler spirits, or such as are placed in a more tranquil situation.

By carrying some praiseworthy dispositions to excess, he bordered sometimes on what was culpable, and was often betrayed into actions which exposed him to censure. His confidence that his own opinions were well-founded, approached to arrogance; his courage in asserting them, to rashness; his firmness in adhering to them, to obstinacy; and his zeal in confuting his adversaries, to rage and scurrility. Accustomed himself to consider everything as subordinate to truth, he expected the same deference for it from other men; and without making any allowances for their timidity or prejudices, he poured forth against such as disappointed him in this particular, a torrent of invective mingled with contempt. Regardless of any distinction of rank or character when his doctrines were attacked, he chastised all his adversaries indiscriminately, with the same rough hand; neither the royal dignity of Henry VIII nor the eminent learning and abilities of Erasmus, screened them from the same gross abuse with which he treated Tetzel or Eccius.

But these indecencies of which Luther was guilty, must not be imputed wholly to the violence of his temper. They ought to be charged in part on the manners of the age. Among a rude people, unacquainted with those maxims, which, by putting continual restraint on the passions of individuals, have polished society, and rendered it agreeable, disputes of every kind were managed with heat, and strong emotions were uttered in their natural language without reserve or delicacy. At the same time, the works of learned men were all composed in Latin, and they were not only authorized, by the example of eminent writers in that language, to use their antagonists with the most illiberal scurrility; but, in a dead tongue, indecencies of every kind appear less shocking than in a living language, whose idioms and phrases seem gross, because they are familiar.

In passing judgment upon the characters of men, we ought to try them by the principles and maxims of their own age, not by those of another. For although virtue and vice are at all times the same, mariners and customs vary continually. Some parts of Luther’s behavior, which appear to us most culpable, gave no disgust to his contemporaries. It was even by some of those qualities, which we are now apt to blame, that he was fitted for accomplishing the great work which he undertook. To rouse mankind, when sunk in ignorance or superstition, and to encounter the rage of bigotry armed with power, required the utmost vehemence of zeal, as well as a temper daring to excess. A gentle call would neither have reached, nor have excited those to whom it was addressed. A spirit more amiable, but less vigorous than Luther’s, would have shrunk back from the dangers which he braved and surmounted. Towards the close of Luther’s life, though without any perceptible diminution of his zeal or abilities, the infirmities of his temper increased upon him, so that he grew daily more peevish, more irascible, and more impatient of contradiction. Having lived to be a witness of his own amazing success, to see a great part of Europe embrace his doctrines; and to shake the foundation of the papal throne, before which the mightiest monarchs had trembled, he discovered, on some occasions, symptoms of vanity and self-applause. He must have been, indeed, more than man, if, upon contemplating all that he actually accomplished, he had never felt any sentiment of this kind rising in his breast.

Sometime before his death he felt his strength declining, his constitution being worn out by a prodigious multiplicity of business, added to the labor of discharging his ministerial functions with unremitting diligence, to the fatigue of constant study, besides the composition or works as voluminous as if he had enjoyed uninterrupted leisure and retirement. His natural intrepidity did not forsake him at the approach of death; his last conversation with his friends was concerning the happiness reserved for good men in a future life, of which he spoke with the fervor and delight natural to one who expected and wished to enter soon upon the enjoyment of it. The account of his death filled the Roman catholic party with excessive as well as indecent joy, and damped the spirits of all his followers; neither party sufficiently considering that his doctrines were now so firmly rooted, as to be in a condition to flourish independent of the hand which had first planted them. His funeral was celebrated by order of the elector of Saxony with extraordinary pomp. He left several children by his wife, Catharine a Boria, who survived him. Towards the end of the last century, there were in Saxony some of his descendants in decent and honorable stations.

The emperor, meanwhile, pursued the plan of dissimulation with which he had set out, employing every art to amuse the protestants, and to quiet their fears and jealousies. For this purpose he contrived to have an interview with the landgrave of Hesse, the most active of all the confederates, and the most suspicious of his designs. To him he made such warm professions of his concern for the happiness of Germany, and of his aversion to all violent measures; he denied, in such express terms, his having entered into any league, or having begun any military preparations which should give any just cause of alarm to the protestants, as seem to have dispelled all the landgrave's doubts and apprehensions, and sent him away fully satisfied of his pacific intentions. This artifice was of great advantage, and effectually answered the purpose for which it was employed. The landgrave, upon his leaving Spires, where he had been admitted to this interview, went to Worms, where the Smalkaldic confederates were assembled, and gave them such a flattering representation of tile emperor’s favorable disposition towards them, that they, who were too apt, as well from the temper of the German nation, as from the genius of all great associations or bodies of men, to be slow, and dilatory, and undecisive in their deliberations, thought there was no necessity of taking any immediate measures against danger, which appeared to be distant or imaginary.

Such events, however, soon occurred, as staggered the credit which the Protestants had given to the emperor's declarations. The council of Trent, though still composed of a small number of Italian and Spanish prelates, without a single deputy from many of the kingdoms, which it assumed a right of binding by its decrees, being ashamed of its long inactivity, proceeded now to settle articles of the greatest importance. Having begun with examining the first and chief point in controversy between the church of Rome and the reformers, concerning the rule which should be held as supreme and decisive in matters of faith, the council, by its infallible authority, determined [Apr. 8], “That the books to which the designation of Apocryphal hath been given, are of equal authority with those which were received by the Jews and primitive Christians into the sacred canon; that the traditions handed down from the apostolic age, and preserved in the church, are entitled to as much regard as the doctrines and precepts which the inspired authors have committed to writing; that the Latin translation of the scriptures, made or revised by St. Jerome, and known by the name of the Vulgate translation, should be read in churches, and appealed to in the schools as authentic and canonical”. Against all who disclaimed the truth of these tenets, anathemas were denounced in the name, and by the authority, of the Holy Ghost. The decision of these points, which undermined the main foundation of the Lutheran system, was a plain warning to the protestants what judgment they might expect when the council should have leisure to take into consideration the particular and subordinate articles of their creed.

This discovery of the council’s readiness to condemn the opinions of the protestants was soon followed by a striking instance of the pope’s resolution to punish such as embraced them. The appeal of the canons of Cologne against their archbishop having been carried to Rome, Paul eagerly seized on that opportunity, both of displaying the extent of his own authority, and of teaching the German ecclesiastics the danger of revolting, from the established church. As no person appeared in behalf of the archbishop, he was held to be convicted of the crime of heresy, and a papal bull was issued [Apr. 16], depriving him of his ecclesiastical dignity, inflicting on him the sentence of excommunication, and absolving his subjects from the oath of allegiance which they had taken to him as their civil superior. The countenance which he had given to the Lutheran heresy was the only crime imputed to him, as well as the only reason assigned to justify the extraordinary severity of this decree. The protestants could hardly believe that Paul, how zealous soever he might be to defend the established system, or to humble those who invaded it, would have ventured to proceed to such extremities against a prince and elector of the empire, without having previously secured such powerful protection as would render his censure something more than an impotent and despicable sally of resentment. They were, of course, deeply alarmed at this sentence against the archbishop, considering it as a sure indication of the malevolent intentions not only of the pope, but of the emperor, against the whole party.

Upon this fresh revival of their fears, with such violence as is natural to men roused from a false security, and conscious of their having been deceived, Charles saw that it now became necessary to throw aside the mask, and to declare openly what part he determined to act. By a long series of artifice and fallacy, he had gained so much time, that his measures, though not altogether ripe for execution, were in great forwardness. The pope, by his proceedings against the elector of Cologne, as well as by the decree of the council, had precipitated matters into such a situation, as rendered a breach between the emperor and the protestants almost unavoidable. Charles had, therefore, no choice left him, but either to take part with them in overturning what the see of Rome had determined, or to support the authority of the church openly by force of arms. Nor did the pope think it enough to have brought the emperor under a necessity of acting; he pressed him to begin his operations immediately, and to carry them on with such vigour as could not fail of securing success. Transported by his zeal against heresy, Paul forgot all the prudent and cautious maxims of the papal see, with regard to the danger of extending the Imperial authority beyond due bounds; and, in order to crush the Lutherans, he was willing to contribute towards raising up a master that might one day prove formidable to himself as well as to the rest of Italy.

But, besides the certain expectation of assistance from the pope, Charles was now secure from any danger of interruption to his designs by the Turkish arms. His negotiations at the Porte, which he had carried on with great assiduity since the peace of Crespy, were on the point of being terminated in such a manner as he desired. Solyman, partly in compliance with the French king, who, in order to avoid the disagreeable obligation of joining the emperor against his ancient ally, labored with great zeal to bring about an accommodation between them, and partly from its being necessary to turn his arms towards the east, where the Persians threatened to invade his dominions, consented without difficulty to a truce for five years. The chief article of it was, that each should retain possession of what he now held in Hungary; and Ferdinand, as a sacrifice to the pride of the sultan, submitted to pay an annual tribute of fifty thousand crowns.

But it was upon the aid and concurrence of the Germans themselves that the emperor relied with the greatest confidence. The Germanic body, he knew, was of such vast strength, as to be invincible if it were united, and that it was only by employing its own force that he could hope to subdue it. Happily for him, the union of the several members of this great system was so feeble, the whole frame was so loosely compacted, and its different parts tended so violently towards separation from each other, that it was almost impossible for it, on any important emergence, to join in a general or vigorous effort. In the present juncture, the sources of discord were as many, and as various, as had been known on any occasion. The Roman catholics, animated with zeal in defence of their religion proportional to the fierceness with which it had been attacked, were eager to second any attempt to humble those innovators, who had overturned it in many provinces, and endangered it in more. John and Albert of Brandenburg, as well as several other princes, incensed at the haughtiness and rigor with which the duke of Brunswick had been treated by the confederates of Smalkalde, were impatient to rescue him, and to be revenged on them. Charles observed, with satisfaction, the working of those passions in their minds, and counting on them as sure auxiliaries whenever he should think it proper to act, he found it, in the meantime, more necessary to moderate than to inflame their rage.

Such was the situation of affairs, such the discernment with which the emperor foresaw and provided for every event, when the diet of the empire met at Ratisbon. Many of the Roman catholic members appeared there in person, but most of the confederates of Smalkalde, under pretence of being unable to hear the expense occasioned by the late unnecessary frequency of such assemblies, sent only deputies. Their jealousy of the emperor, together with an apprehension that violence might perhaps be employed, in order to force their approbation of what he should propose in the diet, was the true cause of their absence. The speech with which the emperor opened the diet was extremely artful. After professing, in common form, his regard for the prosperity of the Germanic body, and declaring, that, in order to bestow his whole attention upon the reestablishment of its order and tranquility, he had at present abandoned all other cares, rejected the most pressing solicitations of his other subjects to reside among them, and postponed affairs of the greatest importance; he took notice, with some disapprobation, that his disinterested example had not been imitated; many members of chief consideration having neglected to attend an assembly to which he had repaired with such manifest inconvenience to himself. He then mentioned their unhappy dissensions about religion; lamented the ill success of his past endeavors to compose them; complained of the abrupt dissolution of the late conference, and craved their advice with regard to the best and most effectual method of restoring union to the churches of Germany, together with that happy agreement in articles of faith, which their ancestors had found to be of no less advantage to their civil interest, than becoming their Christian profession.

By this gracious and popular method of consulting the members of the diet, rather than of obtruding upon them any opinion of his own, besides the appearance of great moderation, and the merit of paying much respect to their judgment, the emperor dexterously avoided discovering his own sentiments, and reserved to himself, as his only part, that of carrying into execution what they should recommend. Nor was he less secure of such a decision as he wished to obtain, by referring it wholly to themselves.

 

THE ANTI-PROTESTANT LEAGUE ON THE ROAD

 

The Roman Catholic members, prompted by their own zeal, or prepared by his intrigues, joined immediately in representing that the authority of the council now met at Trent ought to be supreme in all matters of controversy; that all Christians should submit to its decrees as the infallible rule of their faith; and therefore they besought him to exert the power, with which he was invested by the Almighty, in protecting that assembly, and in compelling the protestants to acquiesce in its determinations. The protestants, on the other hand, presented a memorial, in which, after repeating their objections to the council of Trent, they proposed, as the only effectual method of deciding the points in dispute, that either a free general council should be assembled in Germany, or a national council of the empire should be called, or a select number of divines should be appointed out of each party to examine and define articles of faith.

They mentioned the recesses of several diets favorable to this proposition, and which had afforded them the prospect of terminating all their differences in this amicable manner; they now conjured the emperor not to depart from his former plan, and by offering violence to their consciences, to bring calamities upon Germany, the very thought of which must fill every lover of his country with horror. The emperor receiving this paper with a contemptuous smile, paid no farther regard to it. Having already taken his final resolution, and perceiving that nothing but force could compel them to acquiesce in it, he despatched the cardinal of Trent to Rome [June 9], in order to conclude an alliance with the pope, the terms of which were already agreed on; he commanded a body of troops, levied on purpose in the Low-Countries, to advance towards Germany; he gave commissions to several officers for raising men in different parts of the empire; he warned John and Albert of Brandenburg, that now was the proper time of exerting themselves, in order to rescue their ally, Henry of Brunswick, from captivity.

All these things could not be transacted without the observation and knowledge of the protestants. The secret was now in many hands; under whatever veil the emperor still affected to conceal his designs, his officers kept no such mysterious reserve; and his allies and subjects spoke out his intentions plainly. Alarmed with reports of this kind from every quarter, as well as with the preparations for war which they could not but observe, the deputies of the confederates demanded audience of the emperor, and, in the name of their masters, required to know whether these military preparations were carried on by his command, and for what end, and against what enemy? To a question put in such a tone, and at a time when facts were become too notorious to be denied, it was necessary to give an explicit answer. Charles owned the orders which he had issued, and professing his purpose not to molest on account of religion those who should act as dutiful subjects; declared, that he had nothing in view but to maintain the rights and prerogatives of the Imperial dignity, and by punishing some factious members, to preserve the ancient constitution of the empire from being impaired or dissolved by their irregular and licentious conduct. Though the emperor did not name the persons whom he charged with such high crimes, and destined to be the objects of his vengeance, it was obvious that he had the elector of Saxony and landgrave of Hesse in view. Their deputies considering what he had said, as a plain declaration of his hostile intentions, immediately retired from Ratisbon.

The cardinal of Trent found it no difficult matter to treat with the pope, who, having at length brought the emperor to adopt that plan which he had long-recommended, assented with eagerness to every article that he proposed. The league was signed [July 26] a few days after the cardinal's arrival at Rome. The pernicious heresies which abounded in Germany, the obstinacy of the protestants in rejecting the holy council assembled at Trent, and the necessity of maintaining sound doctrine, together with good order in the church, are mentioned as the motives of this union between the contracting parties. In order to check the growth of these evils, and to punish such as had impiously contributed to spread them, the emperor, having long and without success made trial of gentler remedies, engaged instantly to take the field with a sufficient army, that he might compel all who disowned the council, or had apostatized from the religion of their forefathers, to return into the bosom of the church, and submit with due obedience to the holy see.

He likewise bound himself not to conclude a peace with them during six months without the pope's consent, nor without assigning him his share in any conquests which should be made upon them; and that even after this period he should not agree to any accommodation which might be detrimental to the church, or to the interest of religion. On his part, the pope stipulated to deposite a large sum in the bank of Venice towards defraying the expense of the war; to maintain, at his own charge, during the space of six months, twelve thousand foot, and five hundred horse; to grant the emperor, for one year, half of the ecclesiastical revenues throughout Spain; to authorize him, by a bull, to alienate as much of the lands, belonging, to religious houses in that country, as would amount to the sum of five hundred thousand crowns; and to employ not only spiritual censures, but military force, against any prince who should attempt to interrupt or defeat the execution of this treaty.

Notwithstanding the explicit terms in which the extirpation of heresy was declared to be the object of the war which was to follow upon this treaty, Charles still endeavored to persuade the Germans that he had no design to abridge their religious liberty, but that he aimed only at vindicating his own authority, and repressing the insolence of such as had encroached upon it. With this view, he wrote circular letters in the same strain with his answer to the deputies at Ratisbon, to most of the free cities, and to several of the princes who had embraced the protestant doctrines. In these he complained loudly, but in general terms, of the contempt into which the Imperial dignity had fallen, and of the presumptuous as well as disorderly behavior of some members of the empire. He declared that he now took arms, not in a religious, but in a civil quarrel; not to oppress any who continued to behave as quiet and dutiful subjects, but to humble the arrogance of such as had thrown off all sense of that subordination in which they were placed under him as head of the Germanic body.

Gross as this deception was, and manifest as it might have appeared to all who considered the emperor's conduct with attention, it became necessary for him to make trial of its effect; and such was the confidence and dexterity with which he employed it, that he derived the most solid advantages from this artifice. If he had avowed at once an intention of overturning the protestant church, and of reducing alt Germany under its former state of subjection to the papal see, none of the cities or princes who had embraced the new opinions could have remained neutral after such a declaration, far less could they have ventured to assist the emperor in such an enterprise. Whereas by concealing, and even disclaiming any intention of that kind, he not only saved himself from the danger of being overwhelmed by a general confederacy of all the protestant states, but he furnished the timid with an excuse for continuing inactive, and the designing or interested with a pretext for joining him, without exposing themselves to the infamy of abandoning their own principles, or taking part openly in suppressing them. At the same time the emperor well knew, that if, by their assistance, he were enabled to break the power of the elector of Saxony and the landgrave, he might afterwards prescribe what terms he pleased to the feeble remains of a party without union, and destitute of leaders, who would then regret, too late, their mistaken confidence in him, and their inconsiderate desertion of their associates.

The pope, by a sudden and unforeseen display of his zeal, had well-nigh disconcerted this plan which the emperor had formed with so much care and art. Proud of having been the author of such a formidable league against the Lutheran heresy, and happy in thinking that the glory of extirpating it was reserved for his pontificate, he published the articles of his treaty with the emperor, in order to demonstrate the pious intention of their confederacy, as well as to display his own zeal, which prompted him to make such extraordinary efforts for maintaining the faith in its purity.

Not satisfied with this, he soon after issued a bull, containing most liberal promises of indulgence to all who should engage in this holy enterprise, together with warm exhortations to such as could not bear a part in it themselves, to increase the fervor of their prayers, and the severity of their mortifications, that they might draw down the blessing of Heaven upon those who undertook it. Nor was it zeal alone which pushed the pope to make declarations so inconsistent with the account which the emperor himself gave of his motives for taking arms. He was much scandalized at Charles's dissimulation in such a cause; at his seeming to be ashamed of owning his zeal for the church, and at his endeavors to make that pass for a political contest, which he ought to have gloried in as a war which had no other object than the defence of religion. With as much solicitude, therefore, as the emperor labored to disguise the purpose of the confederacy, did the pope endeavor to publish their real plan, in order that they might come at once to an open rupture with the protestants, that all hope of reconcilement might be cut off, and that Charles might be under fewer temptations, and have it less in his power than at present, to betray the interest of the church by any accommodation beneficial to himself.

The emperor, though not a little offended at the pope's indiscretion or malice in making this discovery, continued boldly to pursue his own plan, and to assert his intentions to be no other than what he had originally avowed. Several of the protestant states, whom he had previously gained, thought themselves justified, in some measure, by his declarations, for abandoning their associates, and even for giving assistance to him.

But these artifices did not impose on the greater and sounder part of the protestant confederates. They clearly perceived it to be against the reformed religion that the emperor had taken arms, and that not only the suppression of it, but the extinction of the German liberties, would be the certain consequence of his obtaining such an entire superiority as would enable him to execute his schemes in their full extent. They determined, therefore, to prepare for their own defence, and neither to renounce those religious truths, to the knowledge of which they had attained by means so wonderful, nor to abandon those civil rights which had been transmitted to them by their ancestors. In order to give the necessary directions for this purpose, their deputies met at Ulm, soon after their abrupt departure from Ratisbon. Their deliberations were now conducted with such vigor and unanimity, as the imminent danger which threatened them required. The contingent of troops, which each of the confederates was to furnish, having been fixed by the original treaty of union, orders were given for bringing them immediately into the field. Being sensible, at last, that through the narrow prejudices of some of their members, and the imprudent security of others, they had neglected too long to strengthen themselves by foreign alliances, they now applied with great earnestness to the Venetians and Swiss.

To the Venetians they represented the emperor's intention of overturning the present system of Germany, and of raising himself to absolute power in that country by means of foreign force furnished by the pope; they warned them how fatal this event would prove to the liberties of Italy, and that by suffering Charles to acquire unlimited authority in the one country, they would soon feel his dominion to be no less despotic in the other; they besought them, therefore, not to grant a passage through their territories to those troops, which ought to be treated as common enemies, because by subduing Germany they prepared chains for the rest of Europe. These reflections had not escaped the sagacity of those wise republicans.

They had communicated their sentiments to the pope, and had endeavored to divert him from an alliance, which tended to render irresistible the power of a potentate, whose ambition he already knew to be boundless. But they had found Paul so eager in the prosecution of his own plan, that he disregarded all their remonstrances. This attempt to alarm the pope having proved unsuccessful, they declined doing anything more towards preventing the dangers which they foresaw; and in return to the application from the confederates of Smalkalde, they informed them, that they could not obstruct the march of the pope's troops through an open country, but by levying an army strong enough to face them in the field; and that this would draw upon themselves the whole weight of his as well as of the emperor's indignation. For the same reason they declined lending a sum of money, which the elector of Saxony and landgrave proposed to borrow of them, towards carrying on the want

The demands of the confederates upon the Swiss were not confined to the obstructing of the entrance of foreigners into Germany; they required of them, as the nearest neighbors and closest allies of the empire, to interpose with their wonted vigour for the preservation of its liberties, and not to stand as inactive spectators, while their brethren were oppressed and enslaved. But with whatever zeal some of the cantons might have been disposed to act when the cause of the reformation was in danger, the Helvetic body was so divided with regard to religion, as to render it unsafe for the protestants to take any step without consulting their catholic associates; and among them the emissaries of the pope and emperor had such influence, that a resolution of maintaining an exact neutrality between the contending parties was the utmost which could be procured.

Being disappointed in both these applications, the protestants, not long after, had recourse to the kings of France and England; the approach of danger either overcoming the elector of Saxony's scruples, or obliging him to yield to the importunities of his associates. The situation of the two monarchs flattered them with hopes of success. Though hostilities between them had continued for some time after the peace of Crespy, they became weary at last of a war, attended with no glory or advantage to either, and had lately terminated all their differences by a peace concluded at Campe near Ardres. Francis having with great difficulty procured his allies, the Scots, to be included in the treaty, in return for that concession he engaged to pay a great sum which Henry demanded as due to him on several accounts, and he left Boulogne in the hands of the English as a pledge for his faithful performance of that article. But though the reestablishment of peace seemed to leave the two monarchs at liberty to turn their attention towards Germany, so unfortunate were the protestants, that they derived no immediate advantage from this circumstance. Henry appeared unwilling to enter into any alliance with them, but on such conditions as would render him not only the head, but the supreme director of their league; a pre-eminence which, as the bonds of union or interest between them were but feeble, and as he differed from them so widely in his religious sentiments, they had no inclination to admit. Francis, more powerfully inclined by political considerations to afford them assistance, found his kingdom so much exhausted by a long war, and was so much afraid of irritating the pope, by entering into close union with excommunicated heretics, that he durst not undertake the protection of the Smalkaldic league. By this ill-timed caution, or by a superstitious deference to scruples, to which at other times he was not much addicted, he lost the most promising opportunity of mortifying and distressing his rival, which presented itself during his whole reign.

But, notwithstanding their ill success in their negotiations with foreign courts, the confederates found no difficulty at home, in bringing a sufficient force into the field. Germany abounded at that time with inhabitants; the feudal institutions, which subsisted in full force, enabled the nobles to call out their numerous vassals, and to put them in motion on the shortest warning; the martial spirit of the Germans, not broken or enervated by the introduction of commerce and arts, had acquired additional vigour during the continual wars in which they had been employed, for half a century, either in the pay of the emperors or the kings of France. Upon every opportunity of entering into service, they were accustomed to run eagerly to arms; and to every standard that was erected, volunteers flocked from all quarters. Zeal seconded, on this occasion, their native ardor. Men on whom the doctrines of the reformation had made that deep impression which accompanies truth when first discovered, prepared to maintain it with proportional vigor; and among a warlike people it appeared infamous to remain inactive, when the defence of religion was the motive for taking arms. Accident combined with all these circumstances in facilitating the levy of soldiers among the confederates. A considerable number of Germans in the pay of France, being dismissed by the king on the prospect of peace with England, joined in a body the standard of the protestants. By such a concurrence of causes, they were enabled to assemble in a few weeks an army composed of seventy thousand foot and fifteen thousand horse, provided with a train of a hundred and twenty cannon, eight hundred ammunition wagons, eight thousand beasts of burden, and six thousand pioneers.

This army, one of the most numerous, and undoubtedly the best appointed, of any which had been levied in Europe during that century, did not require the united effort of the whole protestant body to raise it. The elector of Saxony, the landgrave of Hesse, the duke of Württemberg, the princes of Anhalt, and the Imperial cities of Augsburg, Ulm, and Strasburg, were the only powers which contributed towards this great armament: the electors of Cologne, of Brandenburg, and the count Palatine, overawed by the emperor's threats, or deceived by his professions, remained neuter. John marquis of Brandenburg, Bareith, and Albert of Brandenburg Anspach, though both early converts to Lutheranism, entered openly into the emperor's service, under pretext of having obtained his promise for the security of the protestant religion; and Maurice of Saxony soon followed their example.

The number of their troops, as well as the amazing rapidity wherewith they had assembled them, astonished the emperor, and filled him with the most disquieting apprehensions. He was, indeed, in no condition to resist such a mighty force. Shut up in Ratisbon, a town of no great strength, whose inhabitants, being mostly Lutherans, would have been more ready to betray than to assist him, with only three thousand Spanish foot, who had served in Hungary, and about five thousand Germans who had joined him from different parts of the empire, he must have been overwhelmed by the approach of such a formidable army, which he could not fight, nor could he even hope to retreat from it in safety. The pope's troops, though in full march to his relief, had hardly reached the frontiers of Germany; the forces which he expected from the Low-Countries had not yet begun to move, and were even far from being complete. His situation, however, called for more immediate succor, nor did it seem practicable for him to wait for such distant auxiliaries, with whom his junction was so precarious.

But it happened fortunately for Charles, that the confederates did not avail themselves of the advantage which lay so full in their view. In civil wars, the first steps are commonly taken with much timidity and hesitation. Men are solicitous, at that time, to put on the semblance of moderation and equity; they strive to gain partisans by seeming to adhere strictly to known forms; nor can they be brought, at once, to violate those established institutions, which in times of tranquility they have been accustomed to reverence; hence their proceedings are often feeble or dilatory, when they ought to be most vigorous and decisive. Influenced by those considerations, which, happily for the peace of society, operate powerfully on the human mind, the confederates could not think of throwing off that allegiance which they owed to the head of the empire, or of turning their arms against him without one solemn appeal more to his candor, and to the impartial judgment of their fellow-subjects. For this purpose, they addressed a letter to the emperor [July 15], and a manifesto to all the inhabitants of Germany. The tenor of both was the same. They represented their own conduct with regard to civil affairs as dutiful and submissive; they mentioned the inviolable union in which they had lived with the emperor, as well as the many and recent marks of his good-will and gratitude where­withal they had been honored; they asserted religion to be the sole cause of the violence which the emperor now meditated against them; and in proof of this produced many arguments to convince those who were so weak as to be deceived by those artifices with which he endeavored to cover his real intentions; they declared their own resolution to risk everything in maintenance of their religious rights, and foretold the dissolution of the German constitution, if the emperor should finally prevail against them.

Charles, though in such a perilous situation as might have inspired him with moderate sentiments, appeared as inflexible and haughty as if his affairs had been in the most prosperous state. His only reply to the address and manifesto of the protestants, was to publish the ban of the empire [July 201], against the elector of Saxony and landgrave of Hesse, their leaders, and against all who should dare to assist them. By this sentence, the ultimate and most rigorous one which the German jurisprudence has provided for the punishment of traitors, or enemies to their country, they were declared rebels and outlaws, and deprived of every privilege which they enjoyed as members of the Germanic body; their goods were confiscated; their subjects absolved from their oath of allegiance; and it became not only lawful but meritorious to invade their territories. The nobles, and free cities, who framed or perfected the constitution of the German government, had not been so negligent of their own safety and privileges as to trust the emperor with this formidable jurisdiction. The authority of a diet of the empire ought to have been interposed before any of its members could be put under the ban. But Charles overlooked that formality, well knowing that, if his arms were crowned with success, there would remain none who would have either power or courage to call in question what he had done. The emperor, however, did not found his sentence against the elector and landgrave on their revolt from the established church, or their conduct with regard to religion; he affected to assign for it reasons purely civil, and those too expressed in such general and ambiguous terms, without specifying the nature or circumstances of their guilt, as rendered it more like an act of despotic power than of a legal and limited jurisdiction. Nor was it altogether from choice, or to conceal his intentions, that Charles had recourse to the ambiguity of general expressions; but he durst not mention too particularly the causes of his sentence, as every action which he could have charged upon the elector and landgrave as a crime, might have been employed with equal justice to condemn many of the protestants whom he still pretended to consider as faithful subjects, and whom it would have been extremely imprudent to alarm or disgust.

The confederates, now perceiving all hopes of accommodation to be at an end, had only to choose whether they would submit without reserve to the emperor's will, or proceed to open hostilities. They were not destitute either of public spirit, or of resolution to make the proper choice. A few days after the ban of the empire was published, they, according to the custom of that age, sent a herald to the Imperial camp, with a solemn declaration of war against Charles, to whom they no longer gave any other title than that of pretended emperor, and renounced all allegiance, homage, or duty which he might claim, or which they had hitherto yielded to him. But previous to this formality, part of their troops had begun to act. The command of a considerable body of men raised by the city of Augsburg having been given to Sebastian Schertel, a soldier of fortune, who, by the booty that he had got when the Imperialists plundered Rome, together with the merit of long service, had acquired wealth and authority which placed him on a level with the chief of the German nobles: that gallant veteran resolved, before he joined the main body of the confederates, to attempt something suitable to his former fame, and to the expectation of his countrymen. As the pope's forces were hastening towards Tyrol, in order to penetrate into Germany by the narrow passes through the mountains which run across that country, he advanced thither with the utmost rapidity, and seized Ehrenberg and Cuffstein, two strong castles which commanded the principal defiles. Without stopping a moment, he continued his march towards Innsbruck, by getting possession of which he would have obliged the Italians to stop short, and with a small body of men could have resisted all the efforts of the greatest armies. Castlealto, the governor of Trent, knowing what a fatal blow this would be to the emperor, all whose designs must have proved abortive if his Italian auxiliaries had been intercepted, raised a few troops with the utmost dispatch, and threw himself into the town. Schertel, however, did not abandon the enterprise, and was preparing to attack the place, when the intelligence of the approach of the Italians, and an order from the elector and landgrave, obliged him to desist. By his retreat the passes were left open, and the Italians entered Germany without any opposition, but from the gar­risons which Schertel had placed in Ehrenberg and Cuffstein, and these, having no hopes of being relieved, surrendered, after a short resistance.

Nor was the recalling of Schertel the only error of which the confederates were guilty. As the supreme command of their army was committed, in terms of the league of Smalkalde, to the elector of Saxony and landgrave of Hesse with equal power, all the inconveniences arising from a divided and co-ordinate authority, which is always of fatal consequence in the operations of war, were immediately felt. The elector, though intrepid in his own person to excess, and most ardently zealous in the cause, was slow in deliberating, uncertain as well as irresolute in his determinations, and constantly preferred measures which were cautious and safe, to such as were bold or decisive. The landgrave, of a more active and enterprising nature, formed all his resolutions with promptitude, wished to execute them with spirit, and uniformly preferred such measures as tended to bring the contest to a speedy issue. Thus their maxims, with regard to the conduct of the war, differed as widely as those by which they were influenced in preparing for it. Such perpetual contrariety in their sentiments gave rise, imperceptibly, to jealousy and the spirit of contention. These multiplied the dissensions flowing from the incompatibility of their natural tempers, and rendered them more violent. The other members of the league considering themselves as independent, and subject to the elector and landgrave, only in consequence of the articles of a voluntary confederacy, did not long retain a proper veneration for commanders who proceeded with so little concord; and the numerous army of the protestants, like a vast machine whose parts are ill compacted, and which is destitute of any power sufficient to move and regulate the whole, acted with no consistency, vigour, or effect.

 

1547. THE VICTORY OF THE IMPERIAL FORCES

 

The emperor, who was afraid that, by remaining at Ratisbon, he might render it impossible for the pope's forces to join him, having boldly advanced to Landshut on the Iser, the confederates lost some days in deliberating whether it was proper to follow him into the territories of the duke of Bavaria, a neutral prince.

When at last they surmounted that scruple, and began to move towards his camp, they suddenly abandoned the design, and hastened to attack Ratisbon, in which town Charles could leave only a small garrison. By this time the papal troops, amounting fully to that number which Paul had stipulated to furnish, had reached Landshut, and were soon followed by six thousand Spaniards of the veteran band stationed in Naples. The confederates, after Schertel’s spirited but fruitless expedition, seem to have permitted these forces to advance unmolested to the place of rendezvous, without any attempt to attack either them or the emperor separately, or to prevent their junction.

The Imperial army amounted now to thirty-six thousand men, and was still more formidable by the discipline and valor of the troops, than by their number. Avila, a commendator of Alcantara, who had been present in all the wars carried on by Charles, and had served in the armies which gained the memorable victory at Pavia, which conquered Tunis, and invaded France, gives this the preference to any military force he had ever seen assembled. Octavio Farnese, the pope’s grandson, assisted by the ablest officers formed in the long wars between Charles and Francis, commanded the Italian auxiliaries. His brother, the cardinal Farnese, accompanied him as a papal legate; and in order to give the war the appearance of a religious enterprise, he proposed to march at the head of the army, with a cross carried before him, and to publish indulgences wherever he came, to all who should give them any assistance, as had anciently been the practice in the crusades against the infidels. But this the emperor strictly prohibited, as inconsistent with all the declarations which he had made to the Germans of his own party; and the legate perceiving, to his astonishment, that the exercise of the protestant religion, the extirpation of which be considered as the sole object of the war, was publicly permitted in the Imperial camp, soon returned in disgust to Italy.

The arrival of these troops enabled the emperor to send such a reinforcement to the garrison at Ratisbon, that the confederates, relinquishing all hopes of reducing that town, marched towards Ingoldstadt on the Danube, near to which Charles was now encamped. They exclaimed loudly against the emperor's notorious violation of the laws and constitution of the empire, in having called in foreigners to lay waste Germany, and to oppress its liberties. As, in that age, the dominion of the Roman see was so odious to the protestants, that the name of the pope alone was sufficient to inspire them with horror at any enterprise which he countenanced, and to raise in their minds the blackest suspicions, it came to be universally believed among them, that Paul, not satisfied with attacking them openly by force of arms, had dispersed his emissaries all over Germany, to set on fire their towns and magazines, and to poison the wells and fountains of water. Nor did this rumor, which was extravagant and frightful enough to make a deep impression on the credulity of the vulgar, spread among them only; even the leaders of the party, blinded by their prejudices, published a declaration, in which they accused the pope of having employed such antichristian and diabolical arts against them. These sentiments of the confederates were confirmed, in some measure, by the behavior of the papal troops, who, thinking nothing too rigorous towards heretics anathematized by the church, were guilty of great excesses in the territories of the Lutheran states, and aggravated the calamities of war, by mingling with it all the cruelty of bigoted zeal.

The first operations in the field, however, did not correspond with the violence of those passions which animated individuals. The emperor had prudently taken the resolution of avoiding an action with an army so far superior in number, especially as he foresaw that nothing could keep a body composed of so many and such dissimilar members from falling to pieces, but the pressing to attack it with an inconsiderate precipitancy. The confederates, though it was no less evident that to them every moment’s delay was pernicious, were still prevented by the weakness or division of their leaders from exerting that vigour, with which their situation, as well as the ardor of their soldiers, ought to have inspired them. On their arrival at Ingoldstadt [Aug. 29], they found the emperor in a camp not remarkable for strength, and surrounded only by a slight entrenchment. Before the camp lay a plain of such extent, as afforded sufficient space for drawing out the whole army, and bringing it to act at once. Every consideration should have determined them to have seized this opportunity of attacking the emperor; and their great superiority in numbers, the eagerness of their troops, together with the stability of the German infantry in pitched battles, afforded them the most probable expectation of victory. The land have urged this with great warmth, declaring that if the sole command were vested in him, he would terminate the war on that occasion, and decide by one general action the fate of the two parties. But the elector, reflecting on the valor and discipline of the enemy’s forces, animated by the presence of the emperor, and conducted by the best officers of the age, would not venture upon an action, which he thought to be so doubtful, as the attacking such a body of veterans on ground which they themselves had chosen, and while covered by fortifications which, though imperfect, would afford them no small advantage in the combat.

Notwithstanding his hesitation and remonstrances, it was agreed to advance towards the enemy’s camp in battle array, in order to make a trial whether by that insult, and by a furious cannonade which they began, they could draw the Imperialists out of their works. But the emperor had too much sagacity to fall into this snare. He adhered to his own system with inflexible constancy; and drawing up his soldiers behind their trenches, that they might be ready to receive the confederates if they should venture upon an assault, calmly waited their approach, and carefully restrained his own men from any excursions or skirmishes which might bring on a general engagement.

Meanwhile he rode along the lines, and addressing the troops of the different nations in their own language, encouraged them not only by his words, but by the cheerfulness of his voice and countenance; he exposed himself in places of the greatest danger, and amidst the warmest fire of the enemy's artillery, the most numerous that had hitherto been brought into the field by any army. Roused by his example, not a man quitted his ranks; it was thought infamous to discover any symptom of fear when the emperor appeared so intrepid; and the meanest soldier plainly perceived, that their declining the combat at present was not the effect of timidity in their general, but the result of a well-grounded caution.

The confederates, after firing several hours on the Imperialists, with more noise and terror than execution, seeing no prospect of alluring them to fight on equal terms, retired to their own camp. The emperor employed the night with such diligence in strengthening his works, that the confederates, returning to the cannonade next day, found that, though they had now been willing to venture upon such a bold experiment, the opportunity of making an attack with advantage was lost.

After such a discovery of the feebleness or irresolution of their leaders, and the prudence as well as firmness of the emperor’s conduct, the confederates turned their whole attention towards preventing the arrival of a powerful reinforcement of ten thousand foot, and four thousand horse, which the count de Buren was bringing to the emperor from the Low-Countries. But though that general had to traverse such an extent of country; though his route lay through the territories of several states warmly disposed to favor the confederates; though they were apprised of his approach, and by their superiority in numbers might easily have detached a force sufficient to overpower him, he advanced with such rapidity, and by such well concerted movements, while they opposed him with such remissness, and so little military skill, that he conducted this body to the Imperial camp without any loss. [Sept. 10.]

Upon the arrival of the Flemings, in whom he placed great confidence, the emperor altered, in some degree, his plan of operations, and began to act more upon the offensive, though he still avoided a battle with the utmost industry. He made himself master of Neuburg, Dillingen, and Donawert on the Danube; of Nordlingen, and several other towns, situated on the most considerable streams which fall into that mighty river. By this he got the command of a great extent of country, though not without being obliged to engage in several sharp encounters, of which the success was various, nor without being exposed oftener than once, to the danger of being drawn into a battle. In this manner the whole autumn was spent neither party gained any remarkable superiority over the other, and nothing was yet done towards bringing the war to a period.

The emperor had often foretold, with confidence, that discord and the want of money would compel the confederates to disperse that unwieldy body, which they had neither abilities to guide, nor funds to support. Though he waited with impatience for the accomplishment of his prediction, there was no prospect of that event being at hand. But he himself began to suffer from the want of forage and provisions; even the catholic provinces being so much incensed at the introduction of foreigners into the empire, that they furnished them with reluctance, while the camp of the confederates abounded with a profusion of all necessaries, which the zeal of their friends in the adjacent countries poured in with the utmost liberality and good-will. Great numbers of the Italians and Spaniards, unaccustomed to the food or climate of Germany, were become unfit for service through sickness. Considerable arrears were now due to the troops, who had scarcely received any money since the beginning of the campaign; the emperor, experiencing on this, as well as on former occasions, that his jurisdiction was more extensive than his revenues, and that the former enabled him to assemble a greater number of soldiers, than the latter were sufficient to support. Upon all these accounts, he found it difficult to keep his army in the field; some of his ablest generals, and even the duke of Alva himself, persevering and obstinate as he usually was in the prosecution of every measure, advising him to disperse his troops into winter quarters.

But as the arguments against any plan which he had adopted, rarely made much impression upon the emperor, he paid no regard to their opinion, and determined to continue his efforts in order to weary out the confederates; being well assured that if he could once oblige them to separate, there was little probability of their uniting again in a body. Still, however, it remained a doubtful point, whether his steadiness was most likely to fail, or their zeal to be exhausted. It was still uncertain which party, by first dividing its forces, would give the superiority to the other; when an unexpected event decided the contest, and occasioned a fatal reverse in the affairs of the confederates.

Maurice of Saxony having insinuated himself into the emperor's confidence, by the arts which have already been described, no sooner saw hostilities ready to break out between the confederates of Smalkalde and that monarch, than vast prospects of ambition began to open upon him. That portion of Saxony, which descended to him by his ancestors, was far from satisfying his aspiring mind; and he perceived with pleasure the approach of civil war, as, amidst the revolutions and convulsions occasioned by it, opportunities of acquiring additional power or dignity, which at other times are sought in vain, present themselves to an enterprising spirit.

As he was thoroughly acquainted with the state of the two contending parties, and the qualities of their leaders, he did not hesitate long in determining on which side the greatest advantages were to be expected. Having revolved all these things in his own breast, and having taken his final resolution of joining the emperor, he prudently determined to declare early in his favor; that by the merit of this, he might acquire a title to a proportional recompense. With this view, he had repaired to Ratisbon in the month of May, under pretext of attending the diet; and after many conferences with Charles or his ministers, he, with the most mysterious secrecy, concluded a treaty, in which he engaged to concur in assisting the emperor, as a faithful subject; and Charles, in return, stipulated to bestow on him all the spoils of the elector of Saxony, his dignities as well as territories.

History hardly records any treaty that can be considered as a more manifest violation of the most powerful principles which ought to influence human actions. Maurice, a professed protestant, at a time when the belief of religion, as well as zeal for its interests, took strong possession of every mind, binds himself to contribute his assistance towards carrying on a war which had manifestly no other object than the extirpation of the protestant doctrines. He engages to take arms against his father-in-law, and to strip his nearest relation of his honors and dominions. He joins a dubious friend against a known benefactor, to whom his obligations were both great and recent. Nor was the prince who ventured upon all this, one of those audacious politicians, who, provided they can accomplish their ends, and secure their interest, avowedly disregard the most sacred obligations, and glory in contemning whatever is honorable or decent. Maurice’s conduct, if the whole must be ascribed to policy, was more artful and masterly; be executed his plan in all its parts, and yet endeavored to preserve, in every step which he took, the appearance of what was fair, and virtuous, and laudable. It is probable, from his subsequent behavior, that, with regard to the protestant religion at least, his intentions were upright, that he fondly trusted to the emperor’s promises for its security, but that, according to the fate of all who refine too much in policy, and who tread in dark and crooked paths in attempting to deceive others, he himself was, in some degree, deceived.

His first care, however, was to keep the engagements into which he had entered with the emperor closely concealed: and so perfect a master was he in the art of dissimulation, that the confederates, notwithstanding his declining all connections with them, and his remarkable assiduity in paying court to the emperor, seemed to have entertained no suspicion of his designs. Even the elector of Saxony, when he marched at the beginning of the campaign to join his associates, committed his dominions to Maurice’s protection, which he, with an insidious appearance of friendship, readily undertook. But scarcely had the elector taken the field, when Maurice began to consult privately with the king of the Romans how to invade those very territories, with the defence of which he was entrusted. Soon after, the emperor sent him a copy of the Imperial ban denounced against the elector and landgrave. As he was next heir to the former, and particularly interested in preventing strangers from getting his dominions into their possession, Charles required him, not only for his own sake, but upon the allegiance and duty which he owed to the head of the empire, instantly to seize and detain in his hands the forfeited estates of the elector; warning him, at the same time, that if he neglected to obey these commands, he should be held as accessary to the crimes of his kins­man, and be liable to the same punishment.

This artifice, which it is probable Maurice himself suggested, was employed by him in order that his conduct towards the elector might seem a matter of necessity but riot of choice, an act of obedience to his superior, rather than a voluntary invasion of the rights of his kinsman and ally. But in order to give some more specious appearance to this thin veil with which he endeavored to cover his ambition, he, soon after his return from Ratisbon, had called together the states of his country; and representing to them that a civil war between the emperor and confederates of Smalkalde was now become unavoidable, desired their advice with regard to the part which he should act in that event. They having been prepared, no doubt, and tutored beforehand, and being desirous of gratifying their prince, whom they esteemed as well as loved, gave such counsel as they knew would be most agreeable; advising him to offer his mediation towards reconciling the contending parties; but if that were rejected, and he could obtain proper security for the protestant religion, they delivered it as their opinion, that, in all other points, he ought to yield obedience to the emperor. Upon receiving the Imperial rescript, together with the ban against the elector and landgrave, Maurice summoned the states of his country a second time; he laid before them the orders which he had received, and mentioned the punishment with which he was threatened in case of disobedience; he acquainted them, that the confederates had refused to admit of his mediation, and that the emperor had given him the most satisfactory declarations with regard to religion; he pointed out his own interest in securing possession of the electoral dominions, as well as the danger of allowing strangers to obtain an establishment in Saxony; and upon the whole, as the point under deliberation respected his subjects no less than himself, he desired to know their sentiments, how he should steer in that difficult and arduous conjuncture.

The states, no less obsequious and complaisant than formerly, professing their own reliance on the emperor's promises as a perfect security for their religion, proposed that, before he had recourse to more violent methods, they would write to the elector, exhorting him, as the best means, not only of appeasing the emperor, but of preventing his dominions from being seized by foreign or hostile powers, to give his consent that Maurice should take possession of them quietly and without opposition. Maurice himself seconded their arguments in a letter to the landgrave, his father-in-law. Such an extravagant proposition was rejected with the scorn and indignation which it deserved. The landgrave, in return to Maurice, taxed him with his treachery and ingratitude towards a kinsman to whom he was so deeply indebted; he treated with contempt his affectation of executing the Imperial ban, which he could not but know to be altogether void by the unconstitutional and arbitrary manner in which it had been issued; he besought him, not to suffer himself to he so far blinded by ambition, as to forget the obligations of honor and friendship, or to betray the protestant religion, the extirpation of which out of Germany, even by the acknowledgment of the pope himself, was the great object of the present war.

But Maurice had proceeded too far to be diverted from pursuing his plan by reproaches or arguments. Nothing now remained but to execute with vigor, what he hitherto carried on by artifice and dissimulation. Nor was his boldness in action inferior to his subtlety in contrivance. Having assembled about twelve thousand men, he suddenly invaded one part of the electoral provinces, while Ferdinand, with an army composed of Bohemians and Hungarians, overran the other. Maurice, in two sharp encounters, defeated the troops which the elector had left to guard his country; and improving these advantages to the utmost, made himself master of all the electorate, except Wittenberg, Gotha, and Eisenach, which being places of considerable strength, and defended by sufficient garrisons, refused to open their gates. The news of these rapid conquests soon reached the Imperial and confederate camps. In the former, satisfaction with an event, which it was foreseen would be productive of the most important consequences, was expressed by every possible demonstration of joy. The latter was filled with astonishment and terror. The name of Maurice was mentioned with execration, as an apostate from religion, a betrayer of the German liberty, and a contemner of the most sacred and natural ties. Everything that the rage or invention of the party could suggest, in order to blacken and render him odious, invectives, satires, and lampoons, the furious declamations of their preachers, together with the rude wit of their authors, were all employed against him. While he, confiding in the arts which he had so long practised, as if his actions could have admitted of any serious justification, published a manifesto, containing the same frivolous reasons for his conduct, which he had formerly alleged in the meeting of his states, and in his letter to the land­grave.

The elector, upon the first intelligence of Maurice’s motions, proposed to return home with his troops for the defence of Saxony. But the deputies of the league, assembled at Ulm, prevailed on him, at that time, to remain with the army, and to prefer the success of the common cause before the security of his own dominions. At length the sufferings and complaints of his subjects increased so much, that he discovered the utmost impatience to set out, in order to rescue them from the oppression of Maurice, and from the cruelty of the Hungarians, who, having been accustomed to that licentious and merciless species of war which was thought lawful against the Turks, committed, wherever they came, the wildest acts of rapine and violence. This desire of the elector was so natural and so warmly urged, that the deputies at Ulm, though fully sensible of the unhappy consequences of dividing their army, durst not refuse their consent, how unwilling soever to grant it. In this perplexity, they repaired to the camp of the confederates at Giengen, on the Brenz, in order to consult their constituents. Nor were they less at a loss what to determine in this pressing emergence. But, after having considered seriously the open desertion of some of their allies; the scandalous lukewarmness of others, who had hitherto contributed nothing towards the war; the intolerable load which had fallen of consequence upon such members as were most zealous for the cause, or most faithful to their engagements; the ill success of all their endeavors to obtain foreign aid; the unusual length of the campaign; the rigor of the season; together with the great number of soldiers, and even officers, who had quitted the service on that account; they concluded that nothing could save them, but either the bringing the contest to the immediate decision of a battle, by attacking the Imperial army, or an accommodation of all their differences with Charles by a treaty. Such was the despondency and dejection which now oppressed the party, that of these two they chose what was most feeble and unmanly, empowering a minister of the elector of Brandenburg to propound overtures of peace in their name to the emperor.

No sooner did Charles perceive this haughty confederacy which had so lately threatened to drive him out of Germany, condescending to make the first advances towards an agreement, than concluding their spirit to be gone, or their union to be broken, he immediately assumed the tone of a conqueror; and, as if they had been already at his mercy, would not hear of a negotiation, but upon condition that the elector of Saxony should previously give up himself and his dominions absolutely to his disposal. As nothing more intolerable or ignominious could have been prescribed, even in the worst situation of their affairs, it is no wonder that this proposition should be rejected by a party, which was rather humbled and his concerted than subdued. But though they refused to submit tamely to the emperor's will, they wanted spirit to pursue the only plan which could have preserved their independence; and forgetting that it was the union of their troops in one body which had hitherto rendered the confederacy formidable, and had more than once obliged the Imperialists to think of quitting the field, they inconsiderately abandoned their advantage, which, in spite of the diversion in Saxony, would still have kept the emperor in awe; and yielding to the elector’s entreaties, consented to his proposal of dividing the army. Nine thousand men were left in the duchy of Württemberg, in order to protect that province, as well as the free cities of Upper Germany; a considerable body marched with the elector towards Saxony; but the greater part returned with their respective leaders into their own countries, and were dispersed there.

The moment that the troops separated, the confederacy ceased to be the object of terror; and the members of it, who, while they composed part of a great body, had felt but little anxiety about their own security, began to tremble when they reflected that they now stood exposed singly to the whole weight of the emperor's vengeance. Charles did not allow them leisure to recover from their consternation, or to form any new schemes of union. As soon as the confederates began to retire, he put his army in motion, and though it was now in the depth of winter, he resolved to keep the field, in order to make the most of that favorable juncture for which he had waited so long. Some small towns in which the protestants had left garrisons, immediately opened their gates. Norlingen, Rotenberg, and Hall, Imperial cities, submitted soon after. Though Charles could not prevent the elector from levying, as he retreated, large contributions upon the archbishop of Mentz, the abbot of Fulda, and other ecclesiastics, this was more than balanced by the submission of Ulm, one of the chief cities of Swabia, highly distinguished by its zeal for the Smalkaldic league. As soon as an example was set of deserting the com­mon cause, the rest of the members became instantly impatient to follow it, and seemed afraid lest others, by getting the start of them in returning to their duty, should, on that account, obtain more favorable terms.

The elector Palatine, a weak prince, who, notwithstanding his professions of neutrality, had, very preposterously, sent to the confederates four hundred horse, a body so inconsiderable as to be scarcely any addition to their strength, but great enough to render him guilty in the eyes of the emperor, made his acknowledgments in the most abject manner. The inhabitants of Augsburg, shaken by so many instances of apostasy, expelled the brave Schertel out of their city, and accepted such conditions as the em­peror was pleased to grant them.

The duke of Württemberg, though among the first who had offered to submit, was obliged to sue for pardon on his knees; and even after this mortifying humiliation, obtained it with difficulty; Memmingen, and other free cities in Swabia, being now abandoned by all their former associates, found it necessary to provide for their own safety, by throwing themselves on the emperor’s mercy. Strasburg and Frankfort on the Maine, cities far remote from the seat of danger, discovered no greater steadiness than those which lay more exposed. Thus a confederacy, lately so powerful as to shake the Imperial throne, fell to pieces, and was dissolved in the space of a few weeks; hardly any member of that formidable combination now remaining in arms, but the elector and landgrave, whom the emperor, having from the beginning marked out as the victims of his vengeance, was at no pains to offer terms of reconciliation. Nor did he grant those who submitted to him a generous and unconditional pardon. Conscious of his own superiority, he treated them both with haughtiness and rigor. All the princes in person, and the cities by their deputies, were compelled to implore mercy in the humble posture of supplicants. As the emperor labored under great difficulties from the want of money, he imposed heavy fines upon them, which he levied with most rapacious exactness. The duke of Württemberg paid three hundred thousand crowns; the city of Augsburg a hundred and fifty thousand; Ulm a hundred thousand; Frankfort eighty thousand; Memmingen fifty thousand; and the rest in proportion to their abilities, or their different degrees of guilt. They were obliged, besides, to renounce the league of Smalkalde; to furnish assistance, if required, towards executing the Imperial ban against the elector and landgrave; to give up their artillery and war­like stores to the emperor; to admit garrisons into their principal cities and places of strength; and, in this disarmed and dependent situation, to expect the final award which the emperor should think proper to pronounce when the war came to an issue. But amidst the great variety of articles dictated by Charles on this occasion, he in conformity to his original plan, took care that nothing relating to religion should be inserted; and to such a degree were the confederates humbled or overawed, that forgetting the zeal which had so long animated them, they were solicitous only about their own safety, without venturing to insist on a point, the mention of which they saw the emperor avoiding with so much industry. The inhabitants of Memmingen alone made some feeble efforts to procure a promise of protection in the exercise of their religion, but were checked so severely by the Imperial ministers, that they instantly fell from their demand.

The elector of Cologne, whom, notwithstanding the sentence of excommunication issued against him by the pope, Charles had hitherto allowed to remain in possession of the archiepiscopal see, being now required by the emperor to submit to the censures of the church, this virtuous and disinterested prelate, unwilling to expose his subjects to the miseries of war on his own account, voluntarily resigned that high dignity [Jan. 25]. With a moderation becoming his age and character, he chose to enjoy truth, together with the exercise of his religion, in the retirement of a private life, rather than to disturb society by engaging in a doubtful and violent struggle in order to retain his office.

During these transactions, the elector of Saxony reached the frontiers of his country unmolested. As Maurice could assemble no force equal to the army which accompanied him, he in a short time, not only recovered possession of his own territories, but overran Misnia, and stripped his rival of all that belonged to him, except Dresden and Leipzig, which, being towns of some strength, could not be suddenly reduced. Maurice, obliged to quit the field, and to shut himself up in his capital, despatched courier after courier to the emperor, representing his dangerous situation, and soliciting him with the most earnest importunity to march immediately to his relict. But Charles, busy at that time in prescribing terms to such members of the league as were daily returning to their allegiance, thought it sufficient to detach Albert marquis of Brandenburg-Anspach with three thousand men to his assistance. Albert, though an enterprising and active officer, was unexpectedly surprised by the elector, who killed many of his troops, dispersed the remainder, and took him prisoner. Maurice continued as much exposed as formerly; and if his enemy had known how to improve the opportunity which presented itself, his ruin must have been immediate and unavoidable. But the elector, no less slow and dilatory when invested with the sole command, than he had been formerly when joined in authority with a partner, never gave any proof of military activity but in this enterprise against Albert. Instead of marching directly towards Maurice, whom the defeat of his ally had greatly alarmed, he inconsiderately listened to overtures of accommodation, which his artful antagonist proposed with no other intention than to amuse him, and to slacken the vigor of his operations.

 

 

GENOA. STORY OF THE INSURRECTION OF FIESCO

 

Such, indeed, was the posture of the emperor’s affairs, that he could not march instantly to the relief of is ally. Soon after the separation of the confederate army, he, in order to ease himself of the burden of maintaining a superfluous number of troops, had dismissed the count of Buren with his Flemings, imagining that the Spaniards and Germans, together with the papal forces, would be fully sufficient to crush any degree of vigor that yet remained among the members of the league. But Paul, growing wise too late, began now to discern the imprudence of that measure from which the more sagacious Venetians had endeavored in vain to dissuade him. The rapid progress of the Imperial arms, and the ease with which they had broken a combination that appeared no less firm than powerful, opened his eyes at length, and made him not only forget at once all the advantages which he had expected from such a complete triumph over heresy, but placed, in the strongest light, his own impolitic conduct, in having contributed towards acquiring for Charles such an immense increase of power, as would enable him, after oppressing the liberties of Germany, to give law with absolute authority to all the states of Italy.

The moment that he perceived his error, he endeavored to correct it. Without giving the emperor any warning of his intention, he ordered Farnese, his grandson, to return instantly to Italy with all the troops under his command, and at the same time recalled the license which he had granted Charles, of appropriating to his own use a large share of the church lands in Spain. He was not destitute of pretences to justify this abrupt desertion of his ally. The term of six months, during which the stipulations in their treaty were to continue in force, was now expired; the league, in opposition to which their alliance had been framed, seemed to be entirely dissipated; Charles, in all his negotiations with the princes and cities which had submitted to his will, had neither consulted the pope, nor had allotted him any part of the conquests which he had made, nor had allowed him any share in the vast contributions which he had raised. He had not even made any provision for the suppression of heresy, or the re-establishment of the catholic religion, which were Paul's chief inducements to bestow the treasures of the church so liberally in carrying on the war. These colors, however specious, did not conceal from the emperor that secret jealousy which was the true motive of the pope's conduct. But as Paul's orders with regard to the march of his troops were no less peremptory than unexpected, it was impossible to prevent their retreat. Charles exclaimed loudly against his treachery, in abandoning him so unseasonably, while he was prosecuting a war undertaken in obedience to the papal injunctions, and from which, if successful, so much honor and advantage would redound to the church. To complaints he added threats and expostulations. But Paul remained inflexible; his troops continued their march towards the ecclesiastical state, and in an elaborate memorial, intended as an apology for his conduct, he discovered new and more manifest symptoms of alienation from the emperor, together with a deep rooted dread of his power. Charles, weakened by the withdrawing of so great a body from his army, which was already much diminished by the number of garrisons that he had been obliged to throw into the towns which had capitulated, found it necessary to recruit his forces by new levies, before he could venture to march in person towards Saxony.

The fame and splendor of his success could not have failed of attracting such multitudes of soldiers into his service from all the extensive territories now subject to his authority, as must soon have put him in a condition of taking the field against the elector; but the sudden and violent eruption of a conspiracy at Genoa, as well as the great revolutions which that event, extremely mysterious in its first appearances, seemed to portend, obliged him to avoid entangling himself in new operations in Germany, until he had fully discovered its source and tendency.

The form of government which had been established in Genoa, at the time when Andrew Doria restored liberty to his country, though calculated to obliterate the memory of former dissensions, and received at first with eager approbation, did not after a trial of near twenty years, give universal satisfaction to those turbulent and factious republicans. As the entire administration of affairs was now lodged in a certain number of noble families, many, envying them that pre-eminence, wished for the restitution of a popular government, to which they had been accustomed; and though all reverenced the disinterested virtue of Doria, and admired his talents, not a few were jealous of that ascendant which he had acquired in the councils of the commonwealth. His age, however, his moderation, and his love of liberty, afforded ample security to his countrymen that he would not abuse his power, nor stain the close of his days by attempting to overturn that fabric, which it had been the labor and pride of his life to erect. But the authority and influence which in his hands were innocent, they easily saw would prove destructive, if usurped by any citizen of greater ambition, or less virtue.

A citizen of this dangerous character had actually formed such pretensions, and with some prospect of success. Giannetino Doria, whom his grand uncle Andrew destined to be the heir of his private fortune, aimed likewise at being his successor in power. His temper, haughty, insolent, and over­bearing to such a degree as would hardly have been tolerated in one born to reign, was altogether unsupportable in the citizen of a free state. The more sagacious among the Genoese already feared and hated him as the enemy of those liberties for which they were indebted to his uncle. While Andrew himself, blinded by that violent and undiscerning affection which persons in advanced age often contract for the younger members of their family, set no bounds to the indulgence with which he treated him; seeming less solicitous to secure and perpetuate the freedom of the commonwealth, than to aggrandize that undeserving kinsman.

But whatever suspicion of Doria’s designs, or whatever dissatisfaction with the system of administration in the commonwealth, these circumstances might have occasioned, they would have ended, it is probable, in nothing more than murmurings and complaints, if John Lewis Fiesco count of Lavagna, observing this growing disgust, had not been encouraged by it to attempt one of the boldest actions recorded in history. That young nobleman, the richest and most illustrious subject in the republic, possessed in an eminent degree all the qualities which win upon the human heart, which command respect, or secure attachment. He was graceful and majestic in his person; magnificent even to profusion; of a generosity that anticipated the wishes of his friends, and exceeded the expectations of strangers; of an insinuating address, gentle manners, and a flowing affability. But under the appearance of these virtues, which seemed to form him for enjoying and adorning social life, he concealed all the dispositions which mark men out for taking the lead in the most dangerous and dark conspiracies; an insatiable and restless ambition, a courage unacquainted with fear, and a mind that disdained subordination. Such a temper could ill brook that station of inferiority, wherein he was placed in the republic; and as he envied the power which the elder Doria had acquired, he was filled with indignation at the thoughts of its descending, like an hereditary possession, to Giannetino. These various passions, preying with violence on his turbulent and aspiring mind, determined him to attempt overturning that domination to which he could not submit.

As the most effectual method of accomplishing this, he thought at first of forming a connection with Francis, and even proposed it to tie French ambassador at Rome; and after expelling Doria, together with the Imperial faction, by his assistance, he offered to put the republic once more under the protection of that monarch, hoping in return for that service to be entrusted with the principal share in the administration of government. But having communicated his scheme to a few chosen confidants, from whom he kept nothing secret, Verrina, the chief of them, a man of desperate fortune, capable alike of advising and executing the most audacious deeds, remonstrated with earnestness against the folly of exposing himself to the most imminent danger, while he allowed another to reap all the fruits of his success; and exhorted him warmly to aim himself at that pre­eminence in his country, to which he was destined by his illustrious birth, was called by the voice of his fellow-citizens, and would be raised by the zeal of his friends. This discourse opened such great prospects to Fiesco, and so suitable to his genius, that abandoning his own plan, he eagerly adopted that of Verrina. The other persons present, though sensible of the hazardous nature of the undertaking, did not choose to condemn what their patron had so warmly approved. It was instantly resolved, in this dark cabal, to assassinate the two Dorias, as well as the principal persons of their party, to overturn the established system of government, and to place Fiesco on the ducal throne of Genoa. Time, however, and preparations were requisite to ripen such a design for execution; and while he was employed in carrying on these, Fiesco made it his chief care to guard against everything that might betray his secret, or create suspicion. The disguise he assumed, was of all others the most impenetrable.

He seemed to be abandoned entirely to pleasure and dissipation. A perpetual gayety, diversified by the pursuit of all the amusements in which persons of his age and rank are apt to delight, engrossed, in appearance, the whole of his time and thoughts. But amidst this hurry of dissipation, he prosecuted his plan with the most cool attention, neither retarding the design by a timid hesitation, nor precipitating the execution by an excess of impatience. He continued his correspondence with the French ambassador at Rome, though without communicating to him his real intentions, that by his means he might secure the protection of the French arms, if hereafter he should find it necessary to call them in to his aid. He entered into a close confederacy with Farnese duke of Parma, who, being disgusted with the emperor for refusing to grant him the investiture of that duchy, was eager to promote any measure that tended to diminish his influence in Italy, or to ruin a family so implicitly devoted to him as that of Doria. Being sensible that, in a maritime state, the acquisition of naval power was what he ought chiefly to aim at, he purchased four galleys from the pope, who probably was not unacquainted with the design which he had formed, and did not disapprove of it. Under color of fitting up one of these galleys to sail on a cruise against the Turks, he not only assembled a good number of his own vassals, but engaged in his service many bold adventurers, whom the truce between the emperor and Solyman had deprived of their usual occu­pation and subsistence.

While Fiesco was taking these important steps, he preserved so admirably his usual appearance of being devoted entirely to pleasure and amusement, and paid court with such artful address to the two Dorias, as imposed not only on the generous and unsuspicious mind of Andrew, but deceived Giannetino, who, conscious of his own criminal intentions, was more apt to distrust the designs of others. So many instruments being now prepared, nothing now remained but to strike the blow. Various consultations were held by Fiesco with his confidants, in order to settle the manner of doing it with the greatest certainty and effect. At first, they proposed to murder the Dorias and their chief adherents, during the celebration of high mass in the principal church; but, as Andrew was often absent from religious solemnities on account of his great age, that design was laid aside. It was then concerted that Fiesco should invite the uncle and nephew, with all their friends whom he had marked out as victims, to his house; where it would be easy to cut them off at once without danger or resistance; but as Giannetino was obliged to leave the town on the day which they had chosen, it became necessary likewise to alter this plan. They at last determined to attempt by open force, what they found difficult to effect by stratagem, and fixed on the night between the second and third of January, for the execution of their enterprise. The time was chosen with great propriety; for as the doge of the former year was to quit his office, according to custom, on the first of the month, and his successor could not be elected sooner than the fourth, the republic remained during that interval in a sort of anarchy, and Fiesco might with less violence take possession of the vacant dignity.

The morning of that day Fiesco employed in visiting his friends, passing some hours among them with a spirit as gay and unembarrassed as at other times. Towards evening, he paid court to the Dorias with his usual marks of respect, and surveying their countenance and behavior with the attention natural in his situation, was happy to observe the perfect security in which they remained, without the least foresight or dread of that storm which had been so long a gathering, and was now ready to burst over their heads. From their palace he hastened to his own, which stood by itself in the middle of a large court, surrounded by a high wall. The gates had been set open in the morning, and all persons, without distinction, were allowed to enter, but strong guards posted within the court suffered no one to return. Verrina, meanwhile, and a few persons trusted with the secret of the conspiracy, after conducting Fiesco’s vassals, as well as the crews of his galleys, into the palace in small bodies, with as little noise as possible, dispersed themselves through the city, and, in the name of their patron, invited to an entertainment the principal citizens whom they knew to be disgusted with the administration of the Dorias, and to have inclination as well as courage to attempt a change in the government. Of the vast number of persons who now filled the palace, a few only knew for what purpose they were assembled; the rest, astonished at finding, instead of the preparations for a feast, a court crowded with armed men, and apartments filled with the instruments of war, gazed on each other with a mixture of curiosity, impatience, and terror.

While their minds were in this state of suspense and agitation, Fiesco appeared. With a look full of alacrity and confidence, he addressed himself to the persons of chief distinction, telling them, that they were not now called to partake of the pleasure of an entertainment, but to join in a deed of valor, which would lead them to liberty and immortal renown. He set before their eyes the exorbitant as well as intolerable authority of the elder Doria, which the ambition of Giannetino, and the partiality of the emperor to a family more devoted to him than to their country, was about to enlarge and to render perpetual. “This unrighteous dominion”, continued he, “You have it now in your power to subvert, and to establish the freedom of your country on a firm basis. The tyrants must be cut off. I have taken the most effectual measures for this purpose. My associates are numerous. I can depend on allies and protectors if necessary. Happily, the tyrants are as secure as I have been provident. Their insolent contempt of their countrymen has banished the suspicion and timidity which usually render the guilty quick-sighted to discern, as well as sagacious to guard against the vengeance which they deserve. They will now feel the blow, before they suspect any hostile hand to be nigh. Let us then sally forth, that we may deliver our country by one generous effort, almost unaccompanied with danger, and certain of success”. These words, uttered with that irresistible fervor which animates the mind when roused by great objects, made the desired impression on the audience. Fiesco’s vassals, ready to execute whatever their master should command, received his discourse with a murmur of applause. To many, whose fortunes were desperate, the license and confusion of an insurrection afforded an agreeable prospect. Those of higher rank and more virtuous sentiments, durst not discover the surprise or horror with which they were struck at the proposal of an enterprise no less unexpected than atrocious; as each of them imagined the other to be in the secret of the conspiracy, and saw himself surrounded by persons who waited only a signal from their leader to per­petrate the greatest crime. With one voice then all applauded, or feigned to applaud, the undertaking.

Fiesco having thus fixed and encouraged his associates, before he gave them his last orders, he hastened for a moment to the apartment of his wife, a lady of the noble house of Cibo, whom he loved with tender affection, and whose beauty and virtue rendered her worthy of his love. The noise of the armed men who crowded the court and palace, having long before this reached her ears, she concluded some hazardous enterprise to be in hand, and she trembled fur her husband. He found her in all the anguish of uncertainty and fear; and, as it was now impossible to keep his design concealed, he informed her of what he had undertaken. The prospect of a scene so full of horror as well as danger, completed her agony; and foreboding immediately in her mind the fatal issue of it, she endeavored, by her tears, her entreaties, and her despair, to divert him from his purpose. Fiesco, after trying in vain to soothe and to inspire her with hope, broke from a situation into which an excess of tenderness had unwarily seduced him, though it could not shake his resolution. “Farewell”, he cried, as he quitted the apartment, “you shall either never see me more, or you shall behold tomorrow everything in Genoa subject to your power”.

As soon as he rejoined his companions, he allotted each his proper station: some were appointed to assault and seize the different gates of the city; some to make themselves masters of the principal streets or places of strength. Fiesco reserved for himself the attack of the harbor, where Doria’s galleys were laid up, as the post of chief importance, and of greatest danger. It was now midnight, and the citizens slept in the security of peace, when this band of conspirators, numerous, desperate, and well-armed, rushed out to execute their plan. They surprised some of the gates, without meeting with any resistance. They got possession of others after a sharp conflict with the soldiers on guard. Verrina, with the galley which had been fitted out against the Turks, blocked up the mouth of the Darsena or little harbor where Doria’s fleet lay. All possibility of escape being cut off by this precaution, when Fiesco attempted to enter the galleys from the shore, to which they were made fast, they were in no condition to make resistance, as they were not only unrigged and disarmed, but had no crew on board, except the slaves chained to the oar. Every quarter of the city was now filled with noise and tumult, all the streets resounding with the cry of Fiesco and Liberty. At that name, so popular and beloved, many of the lower rank took arms and joined the conspirators. The nobles and partisans of the aristocracy, astonished or affrighted, shut the gates of their houses, and thought of nothing but of securing them from pillage. At last the noise excited by this scene or violence and confusion, reached the palace of Doria; Giannetino started immediately from his bed, and, imagining that it was occasioned by some mutiny among the sailors, rushed out with a few attendants, and hurried towards the harbor. The gate of St. Thomas, through which he had to pass, was already in the possession of the who, the moment he appeared, fell upon him with the utmost fury, and murdered him on the spot. The same must have been the fate of the elder Doria, if Jerome de Fiesco had executed his brother’s plan, and had proceeded immediately to attack him in his palace ; but he, from the sordid consideration of preventing its being plundered amidst the confusion, having forbid his followers to advance, Andrew got intelligence of his nephew’s death, as well as of his own danger; and, mounting on horseback, saved himself by flight. Amidst this general consternation, a few senators had the courage to assemble in the palace of the republic. At first, some of the most daring, among them attempted to rally the scattered soldiers, and to attack a body of the conspirators; but being repulsed with loss, all agreed that nothing now remained but to treat with the party which seemed to be irresistible. Deputies were accordingly sent to learn of Fiesco what were the concessions with which he would be satisfied, or rather to submit to whatever terms he should please to prescribe.

But by this time Fiesco, with whom they were empowered to negotiate, was no more. Just as he was about to leave the harbor, where everything had succeeded to his wish, that he might join his victorious companions, he heard some extraordinary uproar on board the admiral galley. Alarmed at the noise, and fearing that the slaves might break their chains, and overpower his associates, he ran thither; but the plank which reached from the shore to the vessel happening to overturn, he fell into the sea, whilst he hurried forward too precipitately. Being loaded with heavy armour, he sunk to the bottom, and perished in the very moment when he must have taken full possession of everything that his ambitious heart could desire. Verrina was the first who discovered this fatal accident, and foreseeing, at once, all its consequences, concealed it with the utmost industry from everyone but a few leaders of the conspiracy. Nor was it difficult, amidst the darkness and confusion of the night, to have kept it secret, until a treaty with the senators should have put the city in the power of the conspirators. All their hopes of this were disconcerted by the imprudence of Jerome Fiesco, who, when the deputies of the senate inquired for his brother, the count of Lavagna, that they might make their proposals to him, replied, with a childish vanity, “I am now the only person to whom that title belongs, and with me you must treat”. These words discovered as well to his friends as to his enemies what had happened, and made the impression which might have been expected upon both. The deputies, encouraged by this event, the only one which could occasion such a sudden revolution as might turn to their advantage, assumed instantly, with admirable presence of mind, a new tone, suitable to the change in their circumstances, and made high demands. While they endeavored to gain time by protracting the negotiation, the rest of the senators were busy in assembling their partisans, and in forming a body capable of defending the palace of the republic. On the other hand, the conspirators, astonished at the death of a man whom they adored and trusted, and placing no confidence in Jerome, a giddy youth, felt their courage die away, and their arms fall from their hands. That profound and amazing secrecy with which the conspiracy had been concerted, and which had contributed hitherto so much to its success, proved now the chief cause of its miscarriage. The leader was gone; the greater part of those who acted under him, knew not his confidants, and were strangers to the object at which he aimed. There was no person among them whose authority or abilities entitled him to assume Fiesco’s place, or to finish his plan; after having lost the spirit which animated it, life and activity deserted the whole body. Many of the conspirators withdrew to their houses, hoping that amidst the darkness of the night they had passed unobserved, and might remain unknown. Others sought for safety by a timely retreat; and, before break of day, most of them fled with precipitation from a city, which but a few hours before, was ready to acknowledge them as masters.

Next morning everything was quiet in Genoa; not an enemy was to be seen; few marks of the violence of the former night appeared, the conspirators having conducted their enterprise with more noise than bloodshed, and gamed all their advantages by surprise, rather than by force of arms. Towards evening, Andrew Doria returned to the city, being met by all the inhabitants, who received him with acclamations of joy. Though the disgrace as well as danger of the preceding night were fresh in his mind, and the mangled body of his kinsman still before his eyes, such was his moderation as well as magnanimity, that the decree issued by the senate against the conspirators, did not exceed that just measure of severity which was requisite for the support of government, and was dictated neither by the violence of resentment, nor the rancor of revenge.

After taking the necessary precautions for preventing the flame which was now so happily extinguished, from breaking out anew, the first care of the senate was to send an ambassador to the emperor, to give him a particular detail of what had happened, and to beg his assistance towards the reduction of Montobbio, a strong fort on the hereditary estate of the Fiesci, in which Jerome had shut himself up. Charles was no less alarmed than astonished at an event so strange and unexpected. He could not believe that Fiesco, how bold or adventurous soever, durst have attempted such an enterprise, but on foreign suggestion, and from the hope of foreign aid. Being informed that the duke of Parma was well acquainted with the plan of the conspirators, he immediately supposed that the pope could not be ignorant of a measure, which his son had countenanced. Proceeding from this to a farther conjecture, which Paul’s cautious maxims of policy in other instances rendered extremely probable, he concluded that the French king must have known and approved of the design; and he began to apprehend that this spark might again kindle the flame of war which had raged so long in Italy. As he had drained his Italian territories of troops on account of the German war, he was altogether unprovided for resisting any hostile attack in that country; and on the first appearance of danger, he must have detached thither the greatest part of his forces for its defence. In this situation of affairs, it would have been altogether imprudent in the emperor to have advanced in person against the elector, until he should learn with some degree of certainty whether such a scene were not about to open in Italy, as might put it out of his power to keep the field with an army sufficient to oppose him.

 

 

BOOK IX.

DEATH OF FRANCIS I