The attempts of Francis to procure allies were not very successful. Henry VIII., at this moment engaged in the war with James V. which ended in the defeat of the Scots at Solway Moss (December),Attempts of Francis to obtain allies. was in no humour to support the French, their allies.[53] Moreover, the old cause of quarrel between the English King and the Emperor, arising out of the divorce of Catherine of Aragon, had been in part removed by her death, and all idea of an English alliance with the Protestants had been abandoned with the divorce of Anne of Cleves and the fall of Cromwell in 1540. Henry therefore declined the offers of Francis, and renewed his alliance with Charles. The Protestants of Germany, satisfied with the concessions of the Emperor, remained quiet. The Pope, Paul III., adhered to his policy of neutrality. Solyman, the Kings of Denmark and of Sweden, and the Duke of Cleves, were therefore the only allies of France. Of these, Christian III. of Denmark was irritated by the support which Charles had given to the claims of the Palatinate branch of the Wittelsbach family on his throne; Gustavus Vasa, of Sweden, by the favour Charles had shown to a revolt of his peasants; while the Duke of Cleves disputed the claim of the Emperor to the reversion of Gueldres, in virtue of the will of Charles of Gueldres, who died without children in 1538.
Francis, contrary to his usual strategy, refrained from directly attacking the Milanese, and, while he acted on the defensive in Piedmont, devoted his chief attention to the Netherlands and Rousillon.Campaign of 1542. The results of the first campaign, 1542, were not important. Luxembourg was gained, only to be lost, and the invasion of Rousillon was foiled by the resistance of Perpignan. Nevertheless, at the beginning of the year 1543, the position of Charles was serious enough. Solyman was master of most of Hungary and was preparing for a decisive stroke; Barbarossa was on the point of joining the French in an attack on Piedmont; the Pope, angry at the refusal of Charles to invest his grandson, Ottavio Farnese, with Milan, at his concessions to the Protestants, and at the demand for a General Council, was leaning towards France; Denmark had closed the Sound to German ships; moreover, it was very doubtful whether Philip of Hesse, and John Frederick of Saxony would allow the Duke of Cleves to be overthrown, more especially as the Duke was the brother-in-law of John Frederick, and was known to have strong Protestant sympathies.
The Emperor, however, succeeded in his negotiations with England. On the death of James V. of Scotland, in 1542, the regent, Mary of Guise, had rejected all the advances of the English King,Henry allies himself with Charles. Feb., 1543. and continued the French alliance. Henry accordingly turned again to Charles. By the treaty of February 11, 1543, Emperor and King agreed to demand that Francis should give up his alliance with the Turk, indemnify the Empire for the sums it had incurred in the Turkish war, and, as security for the debts he owed the King of England, hand over Boulogne and other towns. If Francis refused these terms, the allies engaged themselves to pursue the war till Burgundy should be restored to Charles, and England had made good her ancient claim to Normandy and Guienne, and to the crown of France.
In May, Charles hastily left Spain, and arrived in Germany. He secured the neutrality of John Frederick of Saxony, entered the territories of the Duke of Cleves, and forced him to resign his pretensions to Gueldres (August).The military events of 1543. In September the joint attack of Barbarossa and the Count of Enghien, at the head of the French troops, on Nice, was foiled by the approach of Doria with the Spanish fleet and the army of Milan. Francis had not even the consolation of success to requite him for the odium he incurred by his alliance with the infidel. In Hungary, indeed, the advance of Solyman was unchecked, and by the end of August nearly the whole of that country had been conquered. But even this success cost Francis dear.Diet of Spires, Feb. 1544. Charles gains assistance of the Empire against France. At the Diet of Spires, held in February 1544, Charles denounced the King of France as an enemy to Christendom. He informed the Protestants of the offers which Francis had made in 1539 to assist him against them if he would cede Milan, and therewith made further concessions with regard to the religious question. He promised that a general free and Christian Council should be summoned, and that, if the Pope delayed, he would next year call a Diet for the final settlement of the religious question. The Protestants expressed their horror at the unholy alliance with the Turk, and once more the Emperor secured the aid of the Empire in his struggle with the French. At the same time, Denmark abandoned the French alliance. Francis was now threatened by a serious combination. In Piedmont, indeed, the Count of Enghien won a decisive victory over the Marquis de Guasto and the army of Milan at Cerisoles (April 11).Success of the Imperialists. But in June, the Imperialists, after reducing Luxembourg, invaded Champagne and advanced as far as the Marne, while the English landed on the coast. Had Henry kept his engagement and co-operated with Charles in a combined attack on Paris, the capital might have fallen. Intent, however, on his own schemes, he delayed to lay siege to Boulogne, which did not surrender till September. Indignant at this breach of faith, anxious to break the dangerous alliance between Francis and the Turk, and to have a free hand to deal with the Protestants in Germany, Charles, who was, moreover, in serious want of money, now offered peace.
Francis, largely owing to his intemperate mode of life, was seriously ill. His mistress, Madame d’Estampes, feared that on his death all influence would pass to her hated rival, Diana of Poictiers, once the mistress of the King, now all powerful with the Dauphin. She was therefore anxious to secure for Orleans, the second son, an independent sovereignty. He was at enmity with his brother, and might be of service to her in the future. She therefore urged the King to accept the Emperor’s terms. Francis listened; and on September 18, 1544, the Treaty of Crespi ended the last war between the two rivals. All conquests made since the truce of Nice were to be abandoned. The Emperor renounced his claims on Burgundy, and Francis gave up his own upon Naples,Treaty of Crespi. Sept. 18, 1544. as well as the suzerainty of Flanders and Artois. The Emperor further promised to the Duke of Orleans, either the hand of his daughter, with the Netherlands and Franche-Comté, or that of his niece, the daughter of Ferdinand, with the duchy of Milan. Charles retained the right of deciding which of these two marriages should be carried out; and, on the completion of the compact, Savoy and Piedmont were to be restored to the Duke Charles III. Finally, the rivals engaged themselves to unite in defending Christendom against the Turk, and in restoring peace and unity to the Church.
Henry, complaining bitterly of the Emperor’s desertion, continued his war with Francis till the summer of 1546.Treaty of Ardres, June 7, 1546. He then promised to restore Boulogne to Francis within eight years on the payment of a sum of money, and of the perpetual pension already promised in 1525 and 1527.
The marriage of Orleans, from which the French King hoped so much, was prevented by the death of the Duke (September 1545). Francis was, indeed, no longer bound to surrender his conquests in Piedmont and Savoy, but these were poor compensation for four exhausting wars, which cost France, it is said, 200,000 men.
Francis survived the Peace of Crespi two years and a half, but these years are only noticeable for the persecution of the Huguenots in France, which will be treated of hereafter.Death of Francis I. March 31, 1547. On March 31, 1547, he succumbed to a disease which was the result of his careless life, just when he was preparing to intervene once more in the affairs of Germany. Few kings of France were so popular during their lives, or have retained such a place in history; yet it may be doubted whether Francis deserved his reputation. His character, though not wanting in some superficial attractiveness, was shallow and utterly wanting in high principle. His generosity led him into gross extravagance. His gallantry was spoilt by an entire absence of refinement and morality. His chivalry and his love of manly sports and of the chase, even his literary and artistic tastes, though praiseworthy in themselves, he shares with many a worthless character. Nor is it easy to see how he benefited his country, except by his patronage of art and literature, and by founding the College of France for the study of languages and science. No doubt his reign is marked by a great outburst of Renaissance architecture, of which the Louvre and some of the ‘châteaux’ on the Loire are the best examples. In literature, Rabelais; in painting, the two Clouets; in sculpture, Jean Goujon, have earned a European reputation; while of foreigners, the painters, Leonardo da Vinci and Andrea del Sarto, and Benvenuto Cellini, the metal-worker and sculptor, were welcomed at the court. It may, however, be questioned whether this artistic revival was due to royal patronage, and at least in the more serious business of government and administration, the name of Francis is associated with no important measure of reform. During his reign, the sale of offices became the custom, the corruption of royal officers increased, and the taxes grew. The independence of the Gallican Church was destroyed by the Concordat. The Estates-general were only twice summoned, and gained no further privileges. The nobles, it is true, were kept in check and amused in the foreign wars, or at the court; they lost much of their power, which was transferred to the bureaucracy; but in losing this they lost also their usefulness; they retained their privileges, they swelled the factions of the court, and formed a turbulent class which was to disturb France for many a year. The lower classes rose, indeed, to some prominence in the service of the State; but they were only powerful as servants of the King, and as members of a bureaucracy which strangled all local life and constitutional liberty. In short, during the reign of Francis the absolutism of the crown increased, without that beneficial administration which alone can justify it. Nor is his foreign policy any more worthy of praise. It may be true that he foiled the attempt of Charles to establish the universal supremacy of the Spanish Hapsburg monarchy in Europe, yet we can scarce forgive him for his alliance with the Porte. When we recall his cruel persecutions of the Huguenots at home, it is difficult to justify his support of the Lutherans in Germany. Jealous of the ascendency of Charles, he plunged his country into war as carelessly as a knight of old entered the lists, and, in spite of the lessons of the past, he grasped after the bauble of a kingdom beyond the Alps, and neglected to strengthen or extend the true frontiers of his country. A good captain of a division, rather than a general: a pleasant, clever, but wicked man, and a bad King, ‘Le roi galant homme’ left behind him an absolute monarchy, unchecked and unsupported by any constitutional system, an encumbered revenue, a heavy debt, a corrupt government, an immoral court, a factious nobility, and a nation flushed with the lust of war, and disturbed by religious discord. The troubles which came on France after the King’s death are in part at least attributable to his policy, and yet it is these very troubles which, by contrast, have led historians to judge more favourably of his reign than it deserves.
[46] On the question of Pescara’s motives, cf. Baumgarten, Geschichte Karl V., ii. 453.