CRISTO RAUL.ORG

READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM

CHAPTER V.

Adrian's Efforts to restore Peace and promote the Crusade. — The Fall of Rhodes and the Support of Hungary.

Adrian’s attitude towards the complicated politics of the European States, then involved in a dangerous crisis, through the rivalry between Francis I and Charles V and the renewed aggressiveness of the Ottoman power, was inspired by that lofty earnestness and magnanimity which had directed his treatment of ecclesiastical affairs. As Vicar of the eternal Prince of Peace the lofty-minded Pope had felt most bitterly the protracted state of war, with its menace to the future of Christendom. Since the greatest danger came from without, from the side of the infidel, he deemed it a twofold duty, towards God and his own conscience, to leave nothing undone to procure the reconciliation of the two monarchs who confronted one another in deadly enmity.

The pacification and union of the Christian powers in presence of the onslaught of Islam, the reform of the Church, and the restoration of ecclesiastical unity, so especially threatened in Germany, were the three great ideas dominating his Pontificate.

From the first Adrian had shown a firm determination, in contrast to his predecessors, not to attach himself to any of the contending parties, but by all the means in his power to bring about a peace, or at least a truce, so that all the united forces of Europe might be turned against the hereditary foe of Christendom. In this sense he had already written to the Emperor on the 25th of March 1522, urging him to conclude peace or an armistice with the French King; for identical reasons he despatched Gabriele Merino, Archbishop of Bari, from Spain to Paris, and Alvaro Osorio, Bishop of Astorga, to England, to confer with the Emperor and Henry VIII.

Immediate help was necessary, for it was no longer doubtful that the Sultan Suleiman I, following up the capture of Belgrade in August 1521, was preparing to deal another deadly blow by an attack on Rhodes, the last bulwark of Christendom in the south. Held by the Knights of St. John, this island, on account of its situation and exceptional strength, was as great a hindrance to the development of the Turkish sea power as it was for Christendom a position of incalculable value.3 Suleiman was determined to capture it at all costs. On the 1st of June 1522 he sent his declaration of war to the Grand Master; at the same time he moved against Rhodes a powerful fleet conveying an armament of 10,000 men and all the requisites for a siege. The Sultan at the head of 100,000 men proceeded through Asia Minor along the coast of Caria. Although the Grand Master had little over 600 knights and 5000 soldiers, he was yet determined to resist to the last. The preparations for holding the strongly fortified and well-provisioned fortress were so thorough, the heroism of the defenders so great, that, at first, all the assaults of the Osmanli were repulsed, but in spite of serious losses the enemy held on. Everything depended on the arrival of relief for the besieged, and for this the conditions of Western Europe were as unfavourable as possible. The spread of the religious upheaval in the German Empire was the precursor of a social revolution, so that men feared the overthrow of established order. Things were no better in Hungary, torn by party strife; while Venice, the mistress of the seas, seemed now, as always, occupied only in safeguarding her own possessions. The great powers of central Europe were embroiled in internecine strife; only an immediate cessation of their quarrels could justify the hope that they would take part in a defensive movement against the Turk. No one worked for this more zealously than Adrian VI, for the danger besetting Rhodes occupied him as a personal concern. Although there was little prospect of his efforts to reconcile the contending Christian powers being successful, he tenaciously adhered to his purpose; in spite of all failures he stood firm.

The Pope’s position as the intermediary of peace was from the first exceptionally difficult. He had to try and convince Francis I that he was not a partisan of his former pupil, sovereign, and friend, Charles. From the latter he had, at the same time, to remove the suspicion that he was too favourably inclined towards Francis. A further difficulty arose from the decisive turn of affairs on the scene of war in Italy, when the French, defeated at Bicocca on the 27th of April 1522, soon after (May 30th) lost Genoa also. The alliance between the Emperor and Henry VIII was drawn even closer than before; on his journey into Spain, Charles paid Henry a visit, during which a joint expedition into France was agreed upon both monarchs confidently hoped to win the Pope as the third confederate against Francis. While Adrian’s proposals of mediation fell upon deaf ears at the English as well as at the Imperial Court, Francis, in his humiliation, assumed a conciliatory mien. This induced Adrian to make a fresh appeal to the Emperor but Charles, in a letter of the 7th of September 1522, declared himself unable to make peace without the King of England; he observed that the French terms of agreement did not admit of acceptance. Adrian called the Emperor’s attention to the danger of Rhode; adjured him in the most impressive terms to help the island, to put his private interests in the background, and to consent to a truce. If Charles were in Rome, Adrian wrote, and were to hear the appeals from Rhodes and Hungary, he would not be able to keep back his tears. He, the Pope, was doing what he could; the money he had sent he had been forced to borrow. He did not ask Charles to conclude a peace without the concurrence of the English King, but thought that he might at least induce the latter to consent to an armistice.

The Pope sent to England Bernardo Bertolotti, who, as well as the Spanish Nuncio, was to work for peace. Besides this, in respect of the Turkish war, Tommaso Negri, Bishop of Scardona, had already, in August, been entrusted with a comprehensive mission to the Princes of Christendom. He first of all betook himself to Venice.

In a letter to Charles V, written in French, on the 30th of September 1522—an admirable memorial of Adrian’s lofty and truly Christian disposition—the Pope quiets the Emperor with regard to the report that he had a greater partiality for Francis than for himself; he then declares that it is utterly impossible for him to take part in the war as a confederate of Charles, since he is totally without the material means for so doing. Since his accession to the Holy See ce siège plein de misère—he has not had enough money to meet the current expenses of government; but even had the means been his, let the Emperor himself say whether it would become him to sacrifice his exertions for the welfare of Christendom in order to hand it over to greater turmoil and danger. In a second letter of the same date he beseeches the Emperor to come to the help of Rhodes; willingly would he shed his own blood to rescue this bulwark of Christendom. On the anniversary of his coronation and on the 1st of September respectively he had earnestly exhorted the Ambassadors and the Cardinals in Consistory to raise funds for the support of Rhodes and Hungary, and on the 4th of September a commission of Cardinals was appointed to attend exclusively to this matter.

By means of rigid economy Adrian collected a sufficient sum to provide the equipment of a few ships. He did not disguise from himself how little this amounted to; but it was impossible for him to do more. A thousand men, who were landed at Naples in October, deserted because they had received no pay. To the Imperialists the defence of Lombardy against the French seemed a much more urgent necessity than the relief of Rhodes. The Pope, writes the Venetian Ambassador, is in despair, since he sees no possibility of forwarding to Rhodes the troops he has collected. To crown all, there was a fresh outbreak of the plague in Rome, and the solemn occupation of the Lateran, hitherto deferred for want of money, had once more to be postponed; in the subsequent course of events it did not take place at all.

Together with the Turkish danger, the quieting of the States of the Church claimed the Pope’s attention at the beginning of his reign. All recognition is due to the promptitude with which he met the difficult situation and resolutely carried out what seemed to him the necessary measures for saving what there was to save.

Since grave charges were made against the governors appointed by Leo X, a general change in every city of the Papal States was already under consideration in September 1522. While Adrian was disposed to leniency towards the Dukes of Ferrara and Urbino, and even suffered the return of the Baglioni to Perugia, he had determined from the first not to recognize the usurpation (hitherto vainly opposed by the College of Cardinals) of Sigismondo Malatesta in Rimini. In December 1522 he ordered Sigismondo’s son to be arrested in Ancona, and at the same time despatched the Spanish soldiers who had accompanied him into Italy against Rimini. The undertaking, which had at first appeared difficult proved all the easier as Malatesta had brought upon himself the bitter hatred of those who had submitted to him.

As vassals of the Church both Alfonso of Ferrara and Francesco Maria della Rovere of Urbino, now fully reconciled to the Holy See, gave Adrian their loyal support. As early as the 15th of September 1522 Alfonso’s son had come to Rome, where negotiations had at once been opened for his father’s absolution and reinvestiture. They proceeded with astonishing expedition, and by the 17th of October everything was arranged. In the investiture with the Dukedom of Ferrara the fiefs of San Felice and Finale were also included, and Adrian even showed an inclination to reinstate the Duke in the possession of Modena and Reggio ; but this did not take effect owing to the opposition of the Cardinals. According to Contarini, it was also the Pope’s fixed intention to restore Ravenna and Cervia to the Venetians; in favour of the credibility of this statement is the circumstance that Adrian detested the excessive eagerness of the clergy to acquire wealth and property; from the standpoint of his high ideals an overgrowth of the States of the Church was an evil likely to divert the Papacy from its true vocation.

The transactions with Francesco Maria della Rovere lasted longer. He had already, on the 11th of May 1 522, on the recommendation of the Sacred College, been absolved from all censures, but not until he reached Rome in person, on the 18th of March 1523, was the definite treaty of peace concluded with him. He was reinstated in the Dukedom of Urbino, with the exception, however, of Montefeltro; this fief remained in the hands of the Florentines, to whom it had been ceded in payment of debts incurred by the Apostolic Chamber.

Adrian’s success in restoring order to the Papal States could not compensate him for the insurmountable obstacles which stood between him and his efforts for the union of the chief powers of Christendom against the Turks. True to his original plan of undertaking the office of peacemaker, he steadily refused to enter into the league for offensive purposes, which was the object of the Imperial diplomacy. This led to a difference with Charles's repre­sentative in Rome and to strained relations with Charles himself, between whom and Adrian in other matters (e.g. with regard to the retention of Naples as an appanage of the Empire) there had always been a good understanding.

Seldom was an Ambassador placed in such an unsuitable position as that of Manuel at the Court of Adrian VI. This unscrupulous and masterful Spaniard was a man of such one-sided political understanding that he was quite incapable of comprehending a character such as Adrian’s, who approached everything from the point of view of his religious ideals. In Manuel’s estimation the Pope owed everything to the Emperor, and was therefore under the self-evident obligation to subordinate himself in all respects to the wishes of Charles. The more he perceived that Adrian was pursuing his own policy, the greater grew his displeasure. Before Manuel came really to know the Pope, he had convinced himself that he was a weak and  incompetent personality, and Adrian’s part of peacemaker filled him with anger and mistrust. In his reports he described the Pope as miserly, ignorant of all the affairs of the world, and weak and irresponsible as a child he even denounced him, entirely without grounds, to the Emperor, as carrying on secret intrigues with France.

Adrian, who had at first received Manuel with friendliness, and indeed with confidence, could not disarm his hostile feelings. Their mutual relations, already rendered acute by disputes concerning the appointment to bishoprics in the Milanese, became in a very short time so strained that Manuel saw how untenable his position had become and applied for his recall. Half in despair he left Rome on the 13th of October 1522, with the firm resolve to bring about a breach between the Emperor and the Pope. He at once advised Charles to pay no obediential, hoping thus to force the Pope to relinquish his position of neutrality. His place was taken in October 1522 by Luis de Corduba, Duke of Sessa, who, although he had no hope of success, nevertheless, in his very first audience, invited the Pope to enter into alliance with the Emperor. The Pope replied that he had neither the money nor the wish to wage war; all his energies were directed to procuring an armistice and later on a peace. As Adrian stood firm in his conviction that, as Father of universal Christendom, it was his paramount duty to restore peace in Europe, Sessa soon became of the same mind as Manuel. In addition, disputes arose over territorial claims. The French in their dealings with the Pope showed themselves cleverer diplomatists than the Imperialists. While the latter incessantly repeated that Adrian’s love of peace only made the French more stubborn, and that his one hope of safety lay in the league with Charles, Francis sent the Cardinal Castelnau de Clermont to Rome with instructions to praise the Pope’s love of peace and to assure him that the French King was ani­mated by the same dispositions.

Adrian, who had shown great patience towards the Emperor’s Ambassadors and the Emperor himself, was, however, at last put upon his mettle; this is discernible in his two Briefs of the 21st and 22nd of November 1522. In these he once more urgently calls on Charles to give help to Rhodes, and complains bitterly of the excesses of the Imperial forces in the Papal States; the favour shown to him by Charles consists in words and not in deeds. Under these circumstances he felt it strange that the Imperial Ambassador should continue to bring forward an inexhaustible series of fresh wishes and suggestions touching ecclesiastical policy and finance; many of these requests Adrian was obliged to refuse from a sense of duty. The Spanish Ambassador now had recourse to bribery in order to gain the ear of the Papal entourage. He succeeded in learning a good many secrets from the Secretary, Zisterer, but concerning the principal point he learned nothing, and his surmise that Adrian was a puppet in the hands of his confidential servants proved to be quite beside the mark.

The general opinion formed of the new Pope at the Imperial Court was entirely erroneous. There he was looked upon exclusively as the former subject of Charles, to whom he owed everything, and to whom he was expected to give unconditional support in fulfilment of his dutiful allegiance. Gattinara presumed to remind the Head of the Church of these obligations in the arrogant language of his Court.

The tactless pressure of the Spaniards confirmed Adrian more than ever in his previous policy of a firm neutrality: not until Francis I attacked Italy, he declared, would he take a hostile part against him. About this time the unscrupulous Manuel intervened in a way which was sure to touch Adrian to the quick. Cardinal Castelnau de Clermont had provided himself, for his journey to Rome, which he reached on the 6th of December 1522, with a safe­conduct from the Spanish Government as security against the Imperial troops. In spite of this Manuel allowed the Cardinal’s servants to be made prisoners and their property to be seized. He thus fell under the penalty of excommunication to which those who put hindrances in the way of persons travelling to Rome were liable. Moreover, Castelnau was not only the Ambassador of the French King, but a Cardinal and Legate of Avignon. Thus a direct challenge was offered to the Pope. As an amicable settlement proved futile, Adrian pronounced the sentence of excommunication against Manuel, and requested the Emperor to repudiate the conduct of his Ambassador. The transactions over this matter added considerably to the Emperor’s irritation.

Notwithstanding these occurrences, Adrian persisted in his hopes of a change of mind on the part of his former pupil. That he might propitiate his interest in the common cause of Christendom, the Pope had determined to present him with the sword, consecrated on Christmas Day, which the Popes were accustomed to send to the defenders of the Faith. This solemnity was disturbed by an unlucky accident; the architrave of the doorway of the Sixtine Chapel fell down and crushed one of the Swiss guards standing close to the Pope. Already, on the 10th of December 1522, Adrian had once more called the attention of the Doge to the urgency of the Turkish danger and had instructed the Nuncio Altobello to exhort him to levy subsidies for the war.

On the 1st of January 1523 Adrian VI informed the Emperor that Francis I had given his Ambassador full powers to conclude a peace. Before this came to pass an armistice was to be entered into for three years, and the Pope hoped that Charles would be a consenting party; on account of the Turks the necessity for such a course was greater than ever. The letter had hardly been despatched before news arrived that the Imperialists had plundered the town of San Giovanni in the Papal States and had made prisoner the resident Papal Commissary. Adrian, usually so mild-tempered, was now roused to an indescribable pitch of excitement. He summoned at once to his presence Lope Hurtado de Mendoza, and informed him that nothing but his great regard for the Emperor held him back from an immediate alliance with Francis the authors of this deed of violence, Juan Manuel and Prospero Colonna, he would lay under the ban of the Church.

The Imperialists saw that some steps must be taken to appease the Pope. Accordingly, Sessa invited the Viceroy of Naples, Charles de Lannoy, who had formerly been a friend of Adrian’s in the Netherlands, to come to Rome. There was meanwhile another reason for bringing the Viceroy thither. For some time the most disquieting reports of the fate of Rhodes had been coming in, and Lannoy brought the announcement that, according to credible information from private sources, Rhodes had capitulated. On hearing this Adrian burst into tears. “Still”, he exclaimed, “I cannot believe it”. Henceforward, so he informed the Cardinals, he could make no more payments whatsoever; his whole income must be spent on the defence of Christendom, even if he had to content himself with a linen mitre.

On the 28th of January 1523 a Consistory was held which the Pope opened with a speech about Rhodes; he declared himself ready to sell all his valuables for the funds of the Turkish war. It was decided to appoint a Commission of Cardinals to take measures for the restoration of peace in Christendom and the collection of money for the prosecution of the war against the Turks. The Commission met on the following day. The alarm caused by Lannoy’s intelligence was all the greater as it coincided with news from Germany announcing a further advance of the Lutheran errors.

Subsequently different reports came in, affirming that Rhodes still held out, and even Adrian seems for a long time to have been loath to believe that the island had fallen. On the 3rd of February 1523 he still wrote, in a most affectionate letter to the Emperor, “As long as Rhodes was in such great danger he could not under any consideration join the league, as Lannoy had requested”. But the allocution which Adrian addressed to the Consistory on the 11th of February shows that he then looked upon the bulwark of Christendom as lost. In this assembly the Pope informed the Cardinals that he had determined to enjoin on the Christian Princes a truce of three or four years’ duration, to levy a tithe on them, and to send Legates, especially to Hungary. A few days before, King Ferdinand’s embassy to do homage had laid before the Pope in most urgent terms the danger to which the country was exposed and had appealed for help against the Turks.

On the 23rd of February another Consistory was held. The Pope announced that Francis had declared his readiness to make peace, but that the answers of Charles V and Henry VIII were not yet forthcoming; he therefore proposed that the Sacred College should again invite both these princes to agree to a peace or at least to a truce. The nomination of the Legates to the Christian princes was entrusted to the Pope, and on the 27th of February the first appointment followed, that of Colonna to Hungary.

Adrian was justified in now concentrating his attention on the defence of Hungary. The fall of Rhodes had long been disbelieved in Rome; for the most contradictory accounts—even such as the repulse of the Turks with great loss—had been received. Up to the last it had been hoped that the island would hold out. All the more overwhelming was the effect when the truth became known that on the 21st of December 1522 the Grand Master had been forced to capitulate. The Knights had withstood the enemy with exemplary valour; twenty times they had victoriously driven back their assailants, and only when their last ammunition was expended were the defenders, deserted in their extremity by the rest of Western Christendom, driven, in spite of Adrian’s most earnest exhortations to consent to a capitulation, the terms of which, on the whole, were entirely honourable.

When the Venetian envoy was relating fuller details of the fall of Rhodes, the Pope exclaimed, with tears in his eyes : “Alas for Christendom! I should have died happy if I had united the Christian princes to withstand our enemy”.

The Pope saw clearly the far-reaching significance of the fall of Rhodes and its dependent islands. The passage between Constantinople and Alexandria, hitherto barred, was now opened to the Ottoman navy and a wedge driven in between the islands of Cyprus and Crete, still in the possession of Venice. As the Turks were preparing to seize the mastery of the Eastern Mediterranean, they had also taken one important step towards the conquest of Italy. Rumours had already spread of their intention to attempt a landing in Apulia. The Pope, reported one of Wolsey’s agents, was in mortal anguish, and so were all men. When Hannibal stood before the gates of ancient Rome the terror was not half so great, for now men knew that they had to do with the greatest ruler in the world. Many persons of note made preparations to leave the city. It was believed that the Pope would retire to Bologna, the plague having again broken out in Rome, and the dread increased when several Turkish spies were arrested in the city.

The notable loss which had befallen Christendom formed a heavy indictment of the negligence of the Western Powers, and a proportionately weighty justification of Adrian’s policy. As to leaving Rome, the Pope had no such thoughts. In spite of the dangers from the plague and the enemy, he remained steadfast at his post, anxiously endeavouring to save from destruction what could be saved. In the first place, he took a step of which the secret was so well kept that—as the Imperial Ambassador, with a watchful eye on everything, reports—neither the Secretary, Zisterer nor anyone else had the slightest knowledge of it. After Adrian, in a letter of the 2nd of March 1523, had declined to enter into the proposed special league with Charles V, and had complained of the misdemeanours of Charles’s servants and of those of Manuel in particular, he addressed, on the following day, another letter to his former pupil and sovereign, not less candid in expression. In it he recalled his hitherto fruitless efforts to bring the Emperor and the other princes to terms of peace and to take active measures against the Turks. There was no doubt that the Sultan, being in possession of Belgrade and Rhodes, would prosecute his war of conquest in Hungary, as well as on the Mediterranean. This danger could only be averted by the conclusion of peace among the princes. He had been deceived in his hope that the Emperor would have been the first to do this. If Charles and the Kings of England and France were still unwilling at least to arrange a truce for three years and to begin a general war against the Turks, the Emperor was in danger of being driven out of his hereditary dominions, and this danger was all the greater because not a few Christian princes ruled their subjects more oppressively than the Sultan. He, the Pope, in virtue of his office, was compelled to call upon the contending princes to make a peace or, at least, a truce.

On the same day letters of similar import were sent to the Kings of France, England, and Portugal, and soon afterwards to other Christian princes, such as Sigismund of Poland. The Pope reminded Francis I of the fate of those Asiatic rulers who had been vanquished by the Turks because they had lulled themselves into a false security. In the name of that obedience due to Christ’s representative on earth, he adjured him by the vengeance of God, before whose tribunal he must one day stand, to give his consent forthwith, on the receipt of the letter, to a truce, and then to take his part with vigour in war against the Turks. The letter to the King of Portugal also was couched in most earnest language. “Woe to princes”, so it ran, “who do not employ the sovereignty conferred upon them by God in promoting His glory and defending the people of His election, but abuse it in internecine strife”. The Sacred College was invited to exhort by special letters the Christian Kings to do their duty. To Cardinal Wolsey Adrian pointed out that Rome would be the most suitable place for the truce negotiations. Bernardo Bertolotti was also sent back to England as Nuncio, with instructions to sound Francis on his journey through France. With tears in his eyes Adrian addressed to the envoys resident in Rome the most urgent representations. He already saw the Turks in Italy, for they had, it was believed, on their entrance into Rhodes and Constantinople, shouted “To Rome, to Rome”.

Along with these earnest remonstrances to the Christian powers Adrian took decisive measures for the collection of the funds necessary for the crusade. Owing to the emptiness of his exchequer the Pope was forced, against his will, to find means of supply by a levy of tithes and taxes. Before the end of January these measures had been discussed, and Adrian then told the Cardinals that he was ready to sell his silver plate. Before taxing other countries for the Turkish war he wished to make a beginning in his own dominions. His measures were at once put into execution. A Bull of the 11th of March 1523 laid upon the whole body of the clergy and on all officials of the Papal States the payment of a Turkish tithe for the next two years, Cardinal Fieschi being entrusted with its collection. Adrian justified this ordinance by the danger then menacing Rome and all Christendom. The immediate publication of this Bull was expected, but the Cardinals, it seems, still raised objections. They did not give their consent until the 16th of March, in a Consistory at which the Ban of Croatia appealed to them for help. On the 18th of March a second Bull was agreed to in which a hearth-tax was levied at the rate of half a ducat throughout the Papal States.

By these taxes it was hoped to raise a sum sufficient to equip a force of 50,000 men for the Turkish war; the chief command was given to the Duke of Urbino. It was an indication of the Pope’s zeal that, contrary to his usual principles, he accepted payments for offices and dignities he pleaded the needs of Christendom, which made such methods permissible. “Adrian”, writes one, “is so beaten down by anxiety that he almost repents having accepted the tiara”. But he never relaxed his efforts for the protection of Christendom and, before all, of the kingdom of Hungary, then exposed to the greatest danger; this formed the subject of lengthy deliberation in the Consistory held on the 23rd of March. The point of chief importance was the means of raising the money to be supplied to the Legate appointed to Hungary. Full power was also given him—but under secret instruction and only to be used in case of necessity—to alienate church property for the defence of that kingdom against the Turks. In a Bull of the 11th of March 1523 Adrian, having the same object in view, granted King Ferdinand I a third of the year's income of the whole clergy of the Tyrol, secular and regular.

The Portuguese Ambassador, Miguel da Silva, in a despatch to his sovereign, advances, together with other reasons why he should contribute ships and money for the war, the eminently holy life of the Pope, which must arouse in every good Christian feelings of love and the wish to give him practical help. More impression was made on the princes by the concessions which Adrian determined to make. Thus he bestowed on the Portuguese King for life the command of the Order of Christ; to this were afterwards added other marks of favour.

In order to secure the English King’s support of the crusade, Adrian made exceptional use of dispensations, thus gratifying, in various ways connected with the bestowal of benefices, the wishes of Henry’s all-powerful minister, Cardinal Wolsey; and even at last conferred on the latter Legatine power in England for life. Wolsey thereupon succeeded in obtaining from the King the appointment of a special envoy, Dr. Clerk, to attend to the negotiations with regard to the peace and armistice. Francis I continued the line of action that he had hitherto employed in his dealings with Adrian. His attitude was apparently most conciliatory, and he gave verbal assurances of his inclination to peace and his sympathy with the crusade, but, at the same time, declared frankly that, as a first step, his rightful inheritance, the Milanese, must be re­stored to him. After his receipt of the urgent Brief of the 3rd of March, it was rumoured that Francis had given carte blanche for the terms of peace. But at the end of that month a letter came from the King again demanding, in haughty language, the aforesaid restoration of Milan. This was all the more painful to Adrian since Francis I, on the previous 5th of February, had expressed his desire in the humblest terms that the Pope would use his authority in taking in hand the peace negotiations. The Pope lost all self-control when Cardinal Castelnau de Clermont tried to justify the proceedings of Francis. The King, said Adrian to the Cardinal, was the cause of the obstruction of this indispensable peace. The Cardinal, who deplored his master’s obstinacy to the Pope, kept saying that no tree was ever felled at one stroke; Adrian must address him in another Brief. This advice the Pope followed, always hoping to bring about a change of mind in the French King.

The Emperor showed more statesmanship. Adrian’s determination and the circumstance that in Picardy as well as in the Pyrenees the war with Francis had not been successful, had inclined Charles, before the middle of February, somewhat to reconsider his position. He then instructed Sessa to make known the conditions under which he would be ready to accept an armistice or peace, but without letting this come to the knowledge of the French or English Ambassadors. By means of this understanding Charles sought especially to secure the grant of the “Cruzada” hitherto asked for in vain, and the assignment to his own use of a fourth of the ecclesiastical revenues in his dominions. The fall of Rhodes had unquestionably made a deep impression on Charles, but his courtiers were of a different mind, and Gattinara advised him to send no answer to the Brief of the 3rd of March. Charles, however, determined to give Sessa full powers to conclude an armistice subject to the clauses agreed to by Adrian. At the same time he sent a memorandum to Rome intended to justify his previous conduct and to bring the Pope round to his views. Most of the proposals in this document were simply nothing else than a list of conditions laid down with a view to Charles's personal advantage. Simultaneously a wholesale system of bribery was set in motion amongst those who were in the Pope's immediate confidence. Affairs having gone thus far an event occurred to change at one blow the whole situation in Rome.