Charles was now threatened by a coalition more formidable than any previous one. Nor was this all. His army was in a mutinous condition from want of pay and food, and in danger from the determined hostility of the Italians. Colonna, and Pescara, two of his best generals, were dead, while Bourbon had quarrelled with Lannoy, the viceroy of Naples. In Hungary, Solyman was on the point of winning the battle of Mohacs (August 28, 1526)—a victory which was to give him the larger part of that country; Francis was negotiating with this enemy of Christendom, and even Venice declared she preferred to be the vassal of the Turk rather than of the Emperor.
Fortunately for Charles, the members of the League were not hearty in the common cause. Francis seemed determined to make up for the dreary days of imprisonment, and spent his time in hunting and other pleasures. He expressed the most admirable sentiments as to the necessity of immediate action, and made use of the League to try and extort easier terms from Charles, yet did nothing. Wolsey had no intention of openly breaking with Charles, and prevailed on Henry VIII. to decline the office of Protector of the League. The Divorce Question had already arisen, and if this influenced Wolsey to prevent a reconciliation between Pope and Emperor, it also gave him strong reasons for not needlessly irritating Charles. Finally, the Duke of Urbino, the commander of the Venetian army, either from incompetence, or from a disinclination unduly to extend the power of the Pope, failed to prosecute the war with vigour. The Imperialists, therefore, were able to concentrate their efforts on the citadel of Milan, and on July 24, Sforza was forced to capitulate.Milan capitulates to the Imperialists. July 24, 1526 The Colonnesi, headed by the Cardinal Pompeio, now rose, and were supported by Don Hugo de Monçada, the successor of Pescara. On August 22, they pretended to come to terms; but no sooner had Clement dismissed his troops, than Monçada and the Cardinal, rivalling the perfidy of Francis, appeared before the walls of Rome with the army of the Colonnesi. The citizens, assured that the Colonnesi only came to deliver them from the tyranny of the Pope, and threatened with destruction if they stirred, offered no resistance; the papal palace, the houses of the cardinals and ambassadors, were sacked; the Church of St. Peter was rifled, and the Host profaned; and Clement, utterly defenceless, was obliged to submit to the terms dictated by the victors (September 21). He promised to recall his troops from Lombardy, to make a four months’ truce with the Emperor, and to pardon the Colonnesi. The news, however, of the taking of Cremona by the army of the League inspired him in an evil moment to break his promises. He sent his troops to ravage the territories of the Colonnesi, and deprived Cardinal Pompeio of his dignities.
Monçada had told the Emperor to disavow his attack on Rome. This Charles did, but at the same time warned the College of Cardinals that if anything befell Christendom, it would be the fault of the Pope who, in thus joining the League, ‘had sought the satisfaction of his own desires rather than the honour of Christ and his people’s good.’ The Emperor also despatched six thousand Spanish troops to Italy, and bade Ferdinand send eight thousand Germans under Frundsberg.The sack of Rome. May 6, 1527. In November, this enemy of the Papacy crossed the Alps with an army, levied mostly from the robber fastnesses of Germany, in which there were many Lutherans. By the end of December, he had reached Piacenza, in spite of the feeble attempts of the forces of the League to check him. At the same time Lannoy landed at St. Stefano, in Tuscany, with the levies from Spain. Clement was now ‘in such a condition that he did not know where he was,’ says an eye-witness. At one moment he haggled over terms of peace with Lannoy, at another he threatened him and his troops with excommunication. Finally, however, on the 15th of March, he made an eight months’ truce. This did not, however, save him. Frundsberg had in February been joined by Bourbon with the troops from Milan. Their first idea had been to attack Florence. Hearing, however, that the city was prepared to resist, and was protected by the army of the League under the Duke of Urbino, Bourbon turned on Rome, declaring that his troops were mutinous and were dragging him there. As he advanced, his army was swelled by Italians bent on plunder. On the 6th of May, after being twice repulsed, the fortifications of the Eternal City were carried, though Bourbon fell, and Rome was for eight days in the hands of the spoiler. She had suffered much from the barbarians of old, but probably never did she suffer such brutality as now at the hands of Christians. The death of Bourbon, and the absence of Frundsberg, who had been left mortally sick at Bologna, removed the only men who might have restrained the fury of the soldiery. The Spaniards excelled in cruelty, the Lutherans in blasphemy and sacrilege. They sacked and plundered without discrimination of friend or foe. ‘There is not,’ says a contemporary, ‘a house in Rome, not a church or monastery, either of Romans or of foreigners, great or small, which has not been sacked.’ ‘Cardinals,’ says another, ‘bishops, friars, priests, old nuns, infants, dames, pages, servants, the very poorest, were tormented with unheard-of cruelties, often three times over: first by the Italians, then by the Spaniards, afterwards by the lance-knights. Lastly, the villainous Colonnesi came, dying of hunger, and ravaged what the other soldiers had not deigned to take.’ The sack of Rome may well be said to close the period of the greatness of Italy. No longer was she to be the leader of the new learning and of art.
Meanwhile, the unfortunate Pope lay besieged in the Castle of St. Angelo. He might have escaped while the city was being sacked; yet he delayed, trusting that the army of the League would hurry to his support. It came, indeed, at last; but the Duke of Urbino, declaring that he was not strong enough to attack, retreated, and, on June 7, Clement was forced to capitulate. He promised to pay the sums of money demanded, surrendered six towns as securities, and consented to remain a prisoner, with his thirteen Cardinals, until the first instalment should be paid. Some now advised the Emperor to take the lands of the Papacy and reduce the Pope to his spiritual functions; or, at least, ‘to keep the see apostolic so low that he might always dispose of it and command it.’ But though Charles declared the sack of Rome to be the judgment of God, he was probably sincere in regretting it,[47] and even had he wished to proceed to extremities, he was in no position to do so. Indeed, the capture of the Pope promised to bring him as little advantage as that of the King of France had done. The news of the sack of Rome had at last aroused the pleasure-seeking Francis, and caused England to change her policy of masterly inactivity. To this, Wolsey was driven by his imperious master.Henry VIII. allies himself with Francis. April–May, 1527. Henry VIII. was now bent on divorcing Queen Catherine, the aunt of Charles; it was therefore of importance, not only to gain the support of Francis, but, if possible, to earn the gratitude of the Pope. Accordingly, by the treaties of April 30, and May 29, Henry abandoned his claim to the French throne in return for a perpetual pension; the infant Princess Mary was betrothed to the second son of the French King; and England promised to furnish Francis with money for his Italian campaign. In the following August, Wolsey held a conference at Amiens with the French King.Conference at Amiens. August, 1527. It was agreed that, during the captivity of the Pope, no Bull derogatory to the interests of either King should be admitted into their territories, that the Churches of France and England should be administered by their bishops, and that the judgments pronounced by Wolsey in his legatine and archiepiscopal courts should be enforced, notwithstanding any papal prohibition. The contracting parties also decided that the Pope, being in captivity, should be asked to intrust his power to another, who should take steps to meet present necessities. Wolsey even suggested that he himself should be appointed papal Vicar. The pretext for these strange proposals was the fear that Charles might use the spiritual powers of his prisoner to their disadvantage, but there is little doubt that Wolsey also hoped in this way to obtain authority for an immediate settlement of the divorce question.
Meanwhile, a new French army under Lautrec had invaded Italy, and shortly secured the whole of Lombardy except Milan itself, which was stoutly defended by Antonio de Leyva.The French again enter Italy. July 30. Had Lautrec concentrated all his efforts on the city, as he was urged to do by Sforza and the Duke of Urbino, it must have fallen; for Leyva had but a handful of men, and was short of money and supplies. Leyva, however, it was known, would fight to the last; and Lautrec, unwilling to weaken his force by so desperate an encounter, turned southward to the relief of Clement (October 1527). The position of the Pope was indeed a pitiable one. Money he had none, and, without the payment of his ransom, he could not regain his freedom. Rome, meanwhile, continued to be the victim of the merciless soldiers. The Duke of Ferrara had seized Reggio and Modena; and even the Venetians, although the allies of the Pope, had occupied Ravenna and Cervia, under the pretext that they did it to save those cities from falling into Ferrarese hands.
Worse than this, the Florentines had in May risen once more against the Medici, driven the Pope’s two cousins, Alessandro and Ippolito, from the city, and re-established a Republic under the veteran Nicolo Capponi.Medici again driven from Florence. May 17, 1527. Clement had sacrificed the interests of the Church in his attempt to strengthen the temporal power and to aggrandise his family, and this was the result. Before Lautrec reached Rome, however, the Pope had at least regained his freedom. Charles realised that he was gaining nothing by keeping Clement in captivity; he earnestly wished to make peace with him, and to proceed to the extirpation of heresy. He had therefore ordered Monçada to try to come to terms, warning him at the same time to beware that he was not tricked, as he himself had been, by Francis.
Accordingly, on November 26, the following agreement was made. The Pope was to pay a certain sum of money at once, and to promise more.Clement comes to terms with Charles, Nov. 26. But flies to Orvieto, Dec. 6. He undertook not to oppose the Emperor’s designs on Italy; he granted him a ‘cruzada’ from the ecclesiastical revenues of Spain, and half of the ecclesiastical tithes of Naples; Ostia, Civita-Vecchia, and Civita Castellana were to be left in Charles’ hands as guarantees, as well as five of the cardinals; the Pope was to be freed on the 7th of the following month. On the preceding night, afraid lest he might even yet be kept a prisoner, he fled in disguise to the papal stronghold of Orvieto.
Even so, the affairs of Charles were going ill. Florence, although she had expelled the Medici, did not abandon the League. Leyva still held Milan, but warned Charles that ‘God did not work miracles every day,’Critical condition of the Imperialists in Italy. and that, if not speedily relieved, his troops, though they would not surrender, would be starved. Genoa had been once more won for the French by Andrea Doria. Lannoy, the viceroy of Naples, had just died of the plague, and the imperial army, which had marched, under the Prince of Orange, to the relief of Naples, was surrounded by the French army under Lautrec. Naples seemed doomed, and Francis was jubilant.
Yet, as had been the case at every important crisis of this long struggle, the French, when most confident, were nearest defeat. Although the troops of the Emperor were ill paid and ill fed, and, on that account, insubordinate and ready for plunder, they were decidedly superior to those of Francis, both in powers of endurance and on the battlefield. They had hitherto been outnumbered, but their endurance had been wearing out their enemies, and they were soon to be in a position to meet them in the field. The fate of Naples depended on the command of the sea, and this was now in the hands of Andrea Doria and his nephew Filippino.Francis quarrels with Doria. Andrea Doria had taken the lead in the revolution which had recently restored Genoa to the French. He soon repented of his deed. Not only did Francis personally affront him by refusing to pay him properly for the use of his galleys, and by denying him the ransom of the prisoners he had taken, but he also touched his patriotism by neglecting Genoa, and attempting to set up Savona, which the French had lately gained, as her commercial rival. On Doria’s remonstrance, Francis sent a Breton to take command of the French fleet in the Mediterranean, and even thought of having the Doge arrested. Doria accordingly listened to the tempting offers of the Prince of Orange, and, on the 4th of July, ordered his nephew to sail from Naples. His departure at once enabled the city to provision itself from Sicily, and the danger of famine was removed. At this critical moment, the French army, which had also suffered from want of supplies, was attacked by a severe outbreak of the plague. To this Lautrec, with several of his officers, fell a victim, and the army was so decimated that the Marquis of Saluzzo, who succeeded him in command, determined to retreat to Aversa (August 28).
As the French attempted to execute this movement, the rear-guard, under Pedro Navarra, was overtaken by the enemy, and forced to surrender.Battle of Aversa, Aug. 28. The French evacuate Naples. The Prince of Orange, following up his success, pursued the retreating foe, and forced them to capitulate at discretion. The Marquis of Saluzzo remained a prisoner in his hands with Pedro Navarra, both to die shortly afterwards. The rest of the army were allowed to return to their homes under promise not to serve for the present against the Emperor. Doria now sailed to Genoa, and raised the city against the French. On the 28th of October, the governor Trivulzio was forced to capitulate,The French finally driven from Genoa. Oct. 28. and Doria was successful in establishing a government which, if somewhat oligarchical, at least protected the city from those violent party factions which had torn it for years, and secured its independence until the year 1796. Doria then reduced Savona, and the French were driven from the Ligurian coast. In Lombardy the struggle continued for a while. Here Leyva, who still held Milan, was opposed by the troops of the League, commanded by Sforza, the Duke of Urbino with the Venetian troops, and the Count de St. Pol with the new levies from France. The armies of the League, after retaking Pavia, had surrounded Milan, but hesitated to attack the formidable Leyva.Battle of Landriano. June 20. In the following June, the Count de St. Pol, as he rashly attempted to make a diversion on Genoa, was surprised by Leyva, who had received information of his movements, and was completely routed at Landriano (June 20). The besieging armies retreated, and Milan was saved.