Henri II: His Court and Times (11 page)

Antonio de Leyva, who commanded the Imperialists left in
Northern Italy, was quite unable to make head against such a
force. Alessandria capitulated; Pavia was taken by assault
and ruthlessly sacked, in revenge for the disaster of 1525, and
before the end of the year practically the whole of the
Milanese, with the exception of the capital, was lost to the
Emperor; while Genoa, which had refused to join the League,
also surrendered, after being closely blockaded, both by land
and sea, and Ferrara, Florence, Savoy, and Mantua deserted
the Imperial cause.

On December 9, Clement VII, after paying a portion of
the 250,000 ducats demanded as his ransom, escaped from
Rome, "disguised as a merchant," and fled to his palace at
Orvieto, where the advance of Lautrec's army, which early in
January began to march southwards, protected him from
further molestation.

On the 22nd of the same month, the heralds of England
and France brought to the Emperor at Burgos a formal
declaration of war. Charles replied in very moderate terms to
the English herald, but said to the other: "The King, your
master, has done a sorry, dastard deed in breaking his
plighted word to me in regard to the Treaty of Madrid; and
this I am ready to maintain, my person against his." François
replied by a violent cartel, in which he informed the Emperor
that "if he had wished or wished to charge him with having
done anything unworthy of a gentleman of honour, he lied
in his throat;" and begged him to fix a time and place where
they might meet in mortal combat. The Emperor thereupon
sent the herald-at-arms "Burgundy," with a letter in which
he ironically suggested a meeting on the Bidassoa, between
Fontarabia and Andaye. This letter he was instructed to read
to François before his Court. But when, on September 9,
after being kept waiting seven weeks on the frontier, he
reached Paris and was admitted to the royal presence,
François demanded the safe-conduct he had asked for, and,
as "Burgundy" refused to deliver it before he had done his
office in the form prescribed, and his Majesty refused to hear
him otherwise, he eventually retired with the cartel still in his
hand.
¹²
Perhaps, François was reluctant to allow his Court to
hear the exceedingly candid opinion which the Emperor
expressed of his conduct; perhaps, he was glad of a pretext to
evade the proposed meeting. Anyway, he refused to accord
the herald a second audience, and Wolsey's hope that "these
yong corragious passions should finally be converted into
fume" was realised.

While this quarrel, which did little honour to the two
rivals, was engaging the attention of their respective Courts,
the fate of Italy was trembling in the balance. Lautrec
advanced southwards without encountering anything but the
feeblest opposition, for disease had so terribly avenged the
Romans of the brigands who had despoiled them that they
were now a mere wreck of an army, and, on the approach
of the French, they evacuated the city and the surrounding
country and fell back on Naples. If Lautrec had showed a
little more activity, he might have destroyed them, in which
case Naples must have fallen, but he allowed them to escape
him. However, by the end of April he was besieging the
town, while the French and Genoese fleets blockaded the port.
The plight of the garrison was desperate, for neither supplies
nor reinforcements could reach them; and when, in the last
days of May, the viceroy's fleet was annihilated in a desperate
attempt to break the blockade, and Moncada himself killed,
¹³
their last hope seemed extinguished.

Had Naples fallen, the loss of Milan must have soon
followed, for with Genoa, the water-gate of Italy, in the hands
of the French, it was impossible for Spanish troops to reach
Lombardy; and then not a foot of the peninsula would have
remained to the Emperor.

However, the apathy and folly of François ruined everything. He sent scarcely any reinforcements or money to
Lautrec; he alienated the Genoese by depriving them of their
free constitution and converting Savona into a rival port; and,
by these measures and the haughtiness and injustice with
which he treated him, he mortally offended their compatriot
Andrea Doria, who had long served France with a squadron
organised and equipped by himself. At the beginning of
July, Doria withdrew the Genoese fleet from the Bay of
Naples, upon which troops and supplies from Spain and
Sicily were at once thrown into the city. A few weeks later,
the French, amongst whom pestilence had been making the
most terrible ravages,
¹⁴
Lautrec himself being amongst the
victims, raised the siege and evacuated the whole kingdom
of Naples; but they were followed by the Imperialists and
compelled to capitulate.

The catastrophe of Naples was followed by other reverses.
About the middle of September, Andrea Doria, who had now
gone over with his ships to the Emperor, appeared off Genoa,
incited the city to revolt, drove out the French garrison, and
re-established the republic, under Imperial protection; while,
in June 1529, a second French army under the Comte de
Saint-Pol, which had been sent into Lombardy, was totally
defeated by Antonio de Leyva at Landriano, and, almost
immediately afterwards, the Pope deserted the League and
made an "Eternal Peace" with Charles.

Although his Italian allies were for continuing the war,
François now decided to make peace. He had already lost
two armies, and to raise a third was impossible. Moreover,
he was becoming alarmed about his sons, who had been now
more than three years in captivity, and whose health and
character, he feared, might be seriously affected if they were
not soon set at liberty.

Fortunately for France, the resources of the Emperor were
almost as exhausted as those of his rival; while the religious
dissensions in Germany, which were threatening to develop
into civil war, and the advance of the Turks made peace
an urgent necessity.

Louise of Savoy and Margaret of Austria were called upon
to arbitrate between the monarchs. The two princesses met
at Cambrai on July 7, 1529, and in less than a month drew up
a treaty, known as "
la Paix des Dames
," which was in the
main a recapitulation of the Madrid treaty, save that Burgundy
remained a French province
¹⁵
and that the young princes were
to be restored to their father on payment of the 2,000,000
crowns already offered. The Italian allies of France were
abandoned to their fate; indeed, François even engaged to
assist the Emperor to drive the Venetians from the Adriatic
ports which they had occupied.

The usher Bodin despatched to Spain to visit the young princes — His journey
to Pedraza, where he finds them deprived of their French attendants and subjected to the most rigorous confinement — His interview with them — Extraordinary precautions taken by the Spaniards to guard against the escape of
their prisoners — A copy of Bodin's report is sent to Margaret of Austria, thanks
to whose intercession the boys' captivity is rendered more tolerable — François
marries Eleanor of Austria by procuration at Toledo — Arrival of Anne de
Montmorency and the Cardinal de Tournon at Bayonne to make the final
arrangements for the release of the princes — The counting and weighing of the
ransom — Montmorency and the Constable of Castile — Release of the Dauphin
and the Duc d'Orléans — Arrival of the Queen and the princes at Bayonne —
Meeting of François and Eleanor at the Convent of Veyrières, near Mont-de-Marsan

A
S
in the exhausted condition of France the immense
sum required for the ransom of the young princes
must take some months to raise, and as both François
and his mother were anxious to learn how they were being
treated, immediately on the conclusion of the Peace of
Cambrai, an usher of Louise of Savoy's Household named Bodin, who enjoyed his Majesty's confidence and was well
acquainted with Spanish, was despatched to Spain to visit
them.

The poor boys had paid dearly for the paternal breach of
faith, and had been treated neither with the respect which
their rank exacted nor with the kindness due to their tender
years. On François's refusal to fulfil the terms of the Treaty
of Madrid, they had been withdrawn from the care of Queen
Eleanor, and confined first in the fortress of Ampudia, and
afterwards in that of Villalpando. Until the beginning of 1528,
when France had declared war against Charles V, they had
been allowed to retain the suite which had accompanied them
to Spain, and which consisted of some seventy persons; but
since that time they had been separated from all their French
attendants, not excepting their tutor and physician, who were
imprisoned in various fortresses.
⁰¹
The princes themselves
were removed to the citadel of Pedraza, in the midst of the
mountains of Castile, where they were surrounded entirely by
Spaniards, for the most part rough soldiers. Don Inigo de
Tovaros, Marquis of Verlana, the governor of the citadel, had
them kept under the closest surveillance; no person from the
outside world was allowed to have access to them, and all
attempts made to obtain news of them only served to increase
the rigour of their confinement.

Bodin has left an interesting account of his mission, which
shows that, notwithstanding the peace which had just been
concluded between them, and the fact that François was about
to become the Emperor's brother-in-law, the French King's
every action still inspired the cautious Charles with the deepest
suspicion, and that his Imperial Majesty no more scrupled to
exploit the paternal sentiments of his rival than he had his
sufferings as a captive.

To begin with, Bodin was compelled to remain more than
a month at Narbonne, awaiting a safe-conduct from the
Emperor, who was then at Barcelona. The safe-conduct
eventually arrived, and he set out at once, hoping that, by
travelling night and day, he might be able to make up for
lost time; but at the frontier he was stopped by a Spanish
officer, who conducted him to Perpignan, where he was kept
for four days under the closest surveillance, his guards having
received orders that he was not to be allowed to speak to any
one, save in their presence. A gentleman of the Emperor's
Household then arrived, and escorted him to Barcelona, where
he was obliged to remain for a week. At Saragossa, to which
he was next taken, still strictly guarded, the officials of the
Customs took an inventory of all his belongings and insisted
on his paying duty, though his safe-conduct franked him.
Finally, after further delays, he reached Pedraza, but experienced
great difficulty in obtaining permission to enter
the town. When it was eventually accorded him, he was
taken to an inn, over which a number of soldiers immediately
mounted guard.