But Margaret did not live long enough to carry out this interesting negotiation which would have worthily crowned her political career. As it was, the Peace of Cambray was her last great diplomatic triumph, but she lived just long enough to see her nephew Charles attain the zenith of his power, and receive the double crowns of Lombardy and the empire from the hands of the Pope, an honour for which her father, Maximilian, had sighed in vain.
CHAPTER XIV
THE MISSION ENDED
Before Charles left Spain for Italy he had concluded a separate treaty with the Pope at Barcelona, the terms of which were more advantageous to the Holy See than Clement VII. could have expected, considering the emperor's recent successes. But Charles was anxious to atone for the insults and outrages committed during the siege of Rome, and if possible win the Pope as an ally, and get him to oppose his aunt Katharine's divorce. Amongst other articles he promised to restore all property belonging to the ecclesiastical state, reestablish the Medici in Florence, and marry his natural daughter, Margaret, to the head of that powerful house; allow the Pope to decide the fate of the Sforza and the possession of the Milanese. In return Clement was to grant the emperor the investiture of Naples, absolve all who had been implicated in the plundering of Rome, and allow Charles and his brother to levy a fourth of the ecclesiastical revenues throughout their dominions.
On October the 2nd, 1529, Margaret wrote a long letter to the emperor from Brussels, in which she plainly expressed her opinion of the Treaty of Barcelona and its probable results:—'I do not pretend to say,' she says, 'that the alliance with the Pope is not a good and desirable thing; but your Majesty must bear in mind the character of his Holiness, his inconstant humour and fickle disposition; and that he must be greatly changed in temper and general condition if he does not try now, as he did last time, to expel you from Italy after he has got all he wants from you.... Respecting Milan, my opinion is that, considering the expense hitherto incurred, your Majesty ought by all means to endeavour to remain master of it by investing your son with it, and treating with Massimiliano Sforza.... The king, your brother, in the meanwhile, must be fully provided with the means of defence, and money procured for him to carry on a good enterprise against the Turk....
'Your Majesty might attend to your own affairs in Italy, and everything being settled there, depart for Germany at the head of all your forces, leaving only in Italy those strictly required for the defence of Milan and Naples. This would naturally result in great honour and reputation to your army, which might be paid out of the money collected for the intended expedition, and then you could not only succour your brother, repulse the Turk, and perhaps also follow him up to his own dominions, but also increase our faith, which will be a far greater honour and merit than losing your precious time in the recovery of a few towns in Italy....'[142]
At last the long-looked-for day came when Charles, after a triumphal progress through Italy, entered Bologna, on November the 5th, for his coronation, at the head of twenty thousand veteran soldiers, and, in token of his humility as an obedient son of the Church, kneeled down to kiss the feet of that very Pope whom he had but recently retained a prisoner. On St. Peter's Day, February the 22nd, 1530, he received the iron crown of Lombardy, and two days later (St. Matthew's Day), the thirtieth anniversary of his birth, he was crowned by Clement VII., in the cathedral of San Petronio, with the imperial crown of Charlemagne, amid all the gorgeous display and ceremonial befitting so great an occasion.
In the grand procession at the emperor's coronation at Bologna, Antonio da Leyva, the veteran hero of Pavia, crippled with gout, was borne in a chair by the emperor's command, next to Andrea Doria, before the archbishops and bishops, and his horse led by two noblemen. Brantôme gives the following account of the procession:—'Four thousand Spanish soldiers, veterans who had served in the late wars, marched at the head of it under the command of Antonio da Leyva, richly dressed, borne in a sort of chair covered with crimson velvet. Afterwards came eighteen pieces of heavy artillery, with their ammunition waggons and all their accompaniments, followed by a thousand men-at-arms of the old equipment of Burgundy, all well mounted and cased in armour, over which hung their beautiful and rich mantles, with lances at the thigh. Then came the pages of the emperor, about four-and-twenty in number, superbly clothed in yellow, grey, and violet velvet, mounted on beautiful horses. These were followed by the Grand Ecuyer in steel armour, bearing in his right hand his imperial Majesty's sword of state. After him rode the emperor, mounted on the most beautiful Spanish genet, a dark bay, clad in the richest armour, inlaid with gold, over which was a mantle of cloth of gold, leaving one side and the right arm exposed; on his head he wore a bonnet of black velvet without ornament or plume. The cardinals came next, with their large hats on. They were followed by some of the principal nobles of the Court heading a troop of four or five hundred gentlemen. To these again succeeded fifteen hundred light horse and men-at-arms all accoutred with helmets. Three thousand men on foot, Spaniards, Italians and Landsknechts, formed the rear-guard.'
This, adds Brantôme, was a procession 'fit for a great emperor, enough to make the earth tremble, as well as the Heaven itself, when the artillery began to roar with the devil of a noise, which Don Antonio knew well how to play off, with discharges of the arquebusades re-echoing from the whole line of soldiers.'