[9]. Louis, Duke of Orleans, afterwards Louis XII. of France, was grandson of Valentina Visconti, sister of Duke Filippo Maria.
Ludovico, in terror for his duchy, was now as eager to drive out the invaders as formerly to welcome them, and soon persuaded Venice and the Papacy to join him in an alliance for this purpose. Outside Italy, Maximilian, who had been elected Holy Roman Emperor on the death of his father in 1493, was also alarmed at the signal triumph of the House of Valois; but since his promises usually outran their fulfilment the real organization of an effective opposition devolved on Spain.
Ferdinand, in spite of the outward amity signed and sealed at Barcelona, had worked secretly from the first to prevent the success of Charles VIII.’s ambitions. Roussillon and Cerdagne once secured, he had no inducement to keep his bargain; and, when the French King on the eve of the invasion sent to remind him of his promise to help in the crusade, the elder statesman, though apparently enthusiastic, proceeded craftily to withdraw his support. Charles had placed the idea of ultimate war against the Turks well in the foreground of his public programme, with merely a casual allusion to his designs on Italy; and this enabled Ferdinand, while acclaiming war on the Infidel as the one ambition of his life, to denounce the rest of the proposal with mingled surprise and horror.
His ambassador, Don Alonso de Silva, begged the French King in moving terms to desist from an expedition that could only prove the scandal of Christianity; but still more forcible was his argument that, since Naples was a fief of the Church, any attack made on that kingdom would at once absolve his master from his alliance with France. The allegiance of Ferdinand to the Holy See had been an item of too frequent recurrence in the Treaty of Barcelona for Charles to miss the point; and, as he turned from De Silva in fury, he realized that he had been badly duped.
One of the greatest strokes of good fortune for a man [says Guicciardini] is to have an opportunity of showing that in the things he does for his own interest he is moved by the thought of the public good. This is what shed glory on the enterprises of the Catholic King. What he did for his own security and aggrandizement often looked as if it were done for the advancement of the Christian Faith or the defence of the Church.
Ferdinand may appear a consummate scoundrel to modern minds, but in his own day it can be seen that he was not without admirers.
From grief at an injury offered to a Papal fief, his opposition to France on the Pope’s behalf grew so rapidly that Alexander VI. was induced in 1494, not only to grant to him and his Queen, as we have already noticed, the title of “Catholic Kings,” but to concede to them as part of their revenue two-ninths of the Spanish tithes and rights of sovereignty over most of the North African coast. Nor was this cordial relationship affected by the peace with France, into which Alexander was temporarily driven when Charles VIII. hammered at the gates of Rome; for hardly had this second Charlemagne and his army vanished southwards than the plots for his undoing were redoubled.
In March, 1495, the “League of Venice” made it patent to Europe that the Empire, Spain, Rome, Milan, and Venice had pledged themselves to unite for the mutual preservation of their dominions. Secret stipulations explained that this end would be secured by Ferdinand dispatching an army to Sicily to help Ferrante II. in recovering his kingdom, the Venetian fleet meanwhile, attacking the Neapolitan coast-towns in French hands. Spanish and Imperial forces would also assault France on her southern and eastern boundaries; while Ludovico Sforza employed the mercenary levies of Milan in holding the passes of the Alps against any further inroad of “Barbarians.”
To Charles, idling at Naples, the menace of the League came like a thunderclap. As timid now as formerly self-confident, he cast Jerusalem from his thoughts, and in May, 1495, turned his face homewards at the head of some ten thousand men. The rest of his army remained to guard his newly acquired kingdom, with the Count of Montpensier as Viceroy and Stuart d’Aubigny, a Scotch soldier of repute, as Governor-General of Calabria.
At Fornovo, in Milanese territory, the retreating invaders were attacked by Ludovico’s troops in combination with the Venetians, but succeeded in repulsing them and making their way safely across the frontier. Much of their baggage, however, fell into Italian hands, and the Allies loudly proclaimed their victory. Fortune, hitherto so indulgent, was tired of her incapable protégé, and at her frown his dominion quickly crumbled away. As he quitted Neapolitan territory Ferrante II., supported by a Spanish army under Gonsalvo de Cordova, left Sicily for the mainland, and though at first held at bay by D’Aubigny, had regained the greater part of his inheritance before a year had passed. In July, 1496, Naples “the fickle” opened her gates to him; while later in the same month the Viceroy, Montpensier, whose frantic appeals to his master for reinforcements had been ignored, was driven to capitulate at Atella.