[Sidenote: The Italian Wars of Charles V and Francis I]
Italy was the main theater of the combat. In the first stage, the imperial forces, with the aid of a papal army, speedily drove the French garrison out of Milan. The Sforza family was duly invested with the duchy as a fief of the Empire, and the pope was compensated by the addition of Parma and Piacenza to the Patrimony of Saint Peter. The victorious Imperialists then pressed across the Alps and besieged Marseilles. Francis, who had been detained by domestic troubles in France, [Footnote: These troubles related to the disposition of the important landed estates of the Bourbon family. The duke of Bourbon, who was constable of France, felt himself injured by the king and accordingly deserted to the emperor.] now succeeded in raising the siege and pursued the retreating enemy to Milan. Instead of following up his advantage by promptly attacking the main army of the Imperialists, the French king dispatched a part of his force to Naples, and with the other turned aside to blockade the city of Pavia. This blunder enabled the Imperialists to reform their ranks and to march towards Pavia in order to join the besieged. Here on 24 February, 1525,—the emperor's twenty-fifth birthday,—the army of Charles won an overwhelming victory. Eight thousand French soldiers fell on the field that day, and Francis, who had been in the thick of the fight, was compelled to surrender. "No thing in the world is left me save my honor and my life," wrote the king to his mother. Everything seemed auspicious for the cause of Charles. Francis, after a brief captivity in Spain, was released on condition that he would surrender all claims to Burgundy, the Netherlands, and Italy, and would marry the emperor's sister.
[Sidenote: The Sack of Rome, 1527]
Francis swore upon the Gospels and upon his knightly word that he would fulfill these conditions, but in his own and contemporary opinion the compulsion exercised upon him absolved him from his oath. No sooner was he back in France than he declared the treaty null and void and proceeded to form alliances with all the Italian powers that had become alarmed by the sudden strengthening of the emperor's position in the peninsula,—the pope, Venice, Florence, and even the Sforza who owed everything to Charles. Upon the resumption of hostilities the league displayed the same want of agreement and energy which characterized every coalition of Italian city-states; and soon the Imperialists were able to possess themselves of much of the country. In 1527 occurred a famous episode—the sack of Rome. It was not displeasing to the emperor that the pope should be punished for giving aid to France, although Charles cannot be held altogether responsible for what befell. His army in Italy, composed largely of Spaniards and Germans, being short of food and money, and without orders, mutinied and marched upon the Eternal City, which was soon at their mercy. About four thousand people perished in the capture. The pillage lasted nine months, and the brigands were halted only by a frightful pestilence which decimated their numbers. Convents were forced, altars stripped, tombs profaned, the library of the Vatican sacked, and works of art torn down as monuments of idolatry. Pope Clement VII (1523-1534), a nephew of the other Medici pope, Leo X, had taken refuge in the impregnable castle of St. Angelo and was now obliged to make peace with the emperor.
[Sidenote: Peace of Cambrai, 1529]
The sack of Rome aroused bitter feelings throughout Catholic Europe, and Henry VIII of England, at that time still loyal to the pope, ostentatiously sent aid to Francis. But although the emperor made little headway against Francis, the French king, on account of strategic blunders and the disunion of the league, was unable to maintain a sure foothold in Italy. The peace of Cambrai (1529) provided that Francis should abandon Naples, Milan, and the Netherlands, but the cession of Burgundy was no longer insisted upon. Francis proceeded to celebrate his marriage with the emperor's sister.
[Sidenote: Habsburg Predominance in Italy]
Eight years of warfare had left Charles V and the Habsburg family unquestionable masters of Italy. Naples was under Charles's direct government. For Milan he received the homage of Sforza. The Medici pope, whose family he had restored in Florence, was now his ally. Charles visited Italy for the first time in 1529 to view his territories, and at Bologna (1530) received from the pope's hands the ancient iron crown of Lombard Italy and the imperial crown of Rome. It was the last papal coronation of a ruler of the Holy Roman Empire.
The peace of Cambrai proved but a truce, and war between Charles and Francis repeatedly blazed forth. Francis made strange alliances in order to create all possible trouble for the emperor,—Scotland, Sweden, Denmark, the Ottoman Turks, even the rebellious Protestant princes within the empire. There were spasmodic campaigns between 1536 and 1538 and between 1542 and 1544, and after the death of Francis and the abdication of Charles, the former's son, Henry II (1547-1559), continued the conflict, newly begun in 1552, until the conclusion of the treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559, by which the Habsburgs retained their hold upon Italy, while France, by the occupation of the important bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, extended her northeastern frontier, at the expense of the empire, toward the Rhine River. [Footnote: It was during this war that in 1558 the French captured Calais from the English, and thus put an end to English territorial holdings on the Continent. The English Queen Mary was the wife of Philip II of Spain.]
[Sidenote: Results of the Wars between Charles V and Francis I]