The noble prisoner does not seek the salvation of God for himself alone; he earnestly desires that the Gospel may be brought to that Italy where he is a captive—one of the earliest aspirations for Italian reformation.
Can you tell why from your home—
Home so peaceful—you were torn?
’Twas that over stream and mountain
The precious treasure should be borne
By thee, in thy vessel frail,
To God’s elect[490] ....
On a sudden the prisoner remembers his friend; he believes in his tender commiseration and thus invokes him:
O Francis, my king, of my soul the best part,
Thou model of friendship, so dear to my heart,
A Jonathan, Orestes, and Pollux in one,
As thou seest me in sorrow and anguish cast down,
My Achates, my brother, oh! what sayest thou?[491]
But Henry d’Albret called Francis I. his Jonathan to no purpose; Jonathan would not give him his sister. The king had other thoughts. During his captivity the emperor had demanded Margaret’s hand of the regent.[492] But Francis, whom they were going to unite, contrary to his wishes, to Charles’s sister, thought that one marriage with the house of Austria was enough, and hoping that Henry VIII. might aid him in taking vengeance on Charles, was seized with a strong liking for him. ‘If my body is the emperor’s prisoner,’ he said, ‘my heart is a prisoner to the King of England!’[493] He gained over Cardinal Wolsey, who told his master that there was not in all Europe a woman worthier of the crown of England than Margaret of France.[494] But the christian heart of the Duchess of Alençon revolted at the idea of taking the place of Catherine of Arragon, whose virtues she honoured;[495] and Henry VIII. himself soon entered on a different course. It was necessary to give up the design of placing Margaret on the throne of England by the side of Henry Tudor ... a fortunate thing for the princess, but a misfortune perhaps for the kingdom over which she would have reigned.
Yet the Duchess of Alençon did not see all her prayers refused. On leaving his prison, the sight of Francis I. was confused. By degrees he saw more clearly into the state of things in Europe, and took a few steps towards that religious liberty which Margaret had so ardently desired of him. It would even seem that, guided by his sister, he rose to considerations of a loftier range.
CHAPTER V.
DELIVERY OF THE CAPTIVES AND RETURN OF THE EXILES.
(1526.)
There was an instinctive feeling in christendom that up to this time its society had been but fragmentary, a great disorder, an immense chaos.[496] It felt an earnest want of that social unity, of that supreme order, and of that all-ruling idea which the papacy had not been able to give. By proclaiming a new creation, the Reformation was about to accomplish this task. The isolation of nations was to cease; all would touch each other; reciprocal influences would multiply from generation to generation.... The Reformation prepared the way for the great unity in the midst of the world.
Evangelical christians felt a consciousness, indistinct perhaps, though deep, of this new movement in human affairs, and many would have wished that France should not yield to Germany or England the privilege of marching in the van of the new order of things. They said that since the emperor had put himself at the head of the enemies of the Reformation, the king ought to place himself in the front rank of its defenders. The Duchess of Alençon in particular was constantly soliciting the king, and praying him to recall to France the men who would bring into it the true light. But Francis received her proposals coldly, sometimes rudely, and cut short every attempt to answer; still the duchess was indefatigable, and when the king shut the door against her, ‘she got in through the keyhole.’ At last Francis, who loved his sister, esteemed learning, and despised the monks, yielded to her pressing entreaties, and above all to the new ideas and the exigencies of his political plans. The gates of the prisons were opened.
Berquin was still a prisoner, sorrowful but comforted by his faith, unable to see clearly into the future, but immovable in his loyalty to the Gospel. The king determined to save him from ‘the claws of Beda’s faction.’ ‘I will not suffer the person or the goods of this gentleman to be injured,’ he said to the parliament on the 1st of April; ‘I will inquire into the matter myself.’ The officers sent by the king took the christian captive from his prison, and, though still keeping watch over him, placed him in a commodious chamber. Berquin immediately set about forming plans for the triumph of truth.