James Dennistoun

New league against Charles V.—The Duke’s campaign in Lombardy—His quarrels with Guicciardini—Rome pillaged by the Colonna—The Constable Bourbon advances into Central Italy—The Duke quells an insurrection at Florence.

THE papal policy since the accession of Julius had been directed to two leading objects. The first was to prevent any ultramontane power from attaining a decided preponderance in Europe; the second, to recover Italy from the barbarians, and restore its Neapolitan and Milanese states to native dynasties.[*301] The only effective check upon the unprecedented dominion of the Emperor having been annihilated by the overthrow and imprisonment of his sole rival, it became necessary for the Pontiff, in conformity with the former of these purposes, to support the cause of France. The other object was more than ever important, now that Milan was virtually at the conqueror's mercy; and a proposition for confirming the sovereignty of Sforza in that duchy, and placing the Marquis of Pescara on the throne of Naples, appeared to His Holiness happily to meet the exigencies of the case. Clement, possessing neither the discernment of Julius nor the finesse of Leo, saw no difficulty in effecting this convenient scheme, by simply uniting the independent states in a conspiracy to expel Charles beyond the Alps. But he reckoned without his host. The Marquis of Pescara, who was high in the imperial service, betrayed the plot in time to frustrate its execution. His death occurred soon after, from wounds received at Pavia, or possibly from poison, and the year was spent in intrigues and counterplots, which concern our present subject only as giving occasion to this letter, addressed by Francesco Maria to Cardinal Wolsey:—

"Most illustrious and most worshipful Lord,

"Having learned that his serene Majesty [Henry VIII.] has named me his adherent in the league lately made with his most Christian Majesty, it becomes a duty, which I by these letters discharge, to tender my respects, and humbly to kiss his hand, having no other proof at present to offer of the extreme obligation which, in addition to numberless others, I owe to his Majesty, for this affectionate and honourable recollection of me. And knowing the love which your most illustrious and reverend Lordship has ever exhibited towards my house, and especially for myself, I am satisfied (as, indeed, I have heard from the reverend Lord Protonotary Casale) that you have always borne in mind the services towards that crown of my most famous progenitors and myself. Whence, in addition to the boundless obligation I lie under to his most serene Majesty for naming me his adherent, I hold myself therein indebted to your most reverend and illustrious Lordship, considering it in a great measure owing to you. I have therefore written these presents, not as mere thanks, for I would not so commence what I cannot complete by words alone, but that you may know the great obligation I feel and have expressed, and how intensely I desire an opportunity of effectively demonstrating my natural and deserved anxiety to do you service; the which will be clearly made patent to your most reverend and illustrious Lordship, so often as I have it in my power to act upon my intentions. And, recommending myself to your good favour, I pray that you still keep in mind my services to his majesty. From Verona the 14th February, 1526.

"Servitor,

"El Duca d’Urbino."[302]

At length, in May 1526, a new confederacy was announced, in which the Pope, Francis I. (who had regained his liberty in March), Henry VIII., Venice, and Florence, were marshalled against Charles V., nominally to wrest from him the Milanese, which remained in his hands after the battle of Pavia. The citadel of Milan, however, was still held by Francesco Sforza; and the Duke of Urbino, by the senate's orders, led the Venetian troops from Verona to his relief, but under protest that he considered them unequal to the service. On his march, he received offers from an adherent of the Sforza to admit him into Lodi, and immediately detaching Malatesta Baglione to avail himself of the proposal, hastened onwards with the army to his support. The attempt was completely successful, and after a gallant resistance the imperialists evacuated the place on the 24th of June. This acquisition was of the utmost importance to the allies. It secured them command of the Adda, and gave them a strong position in the enemy's country, from whence they could operate with equal facility against Milan, Cremona, or Pavia.

The army of the League which now mustered at Lodi is estimated by Guicciardini and Muratori at sixteen thousand foot and four thousand horse. The Duke of Urbino was commander-in-chief of the Venetians; Count Guido Rangone held the same rank in the ecclesiastical forces, which included, however, the papal and Florentine contingents, led by their respective captains-general, Giovanni de' Medici and Vitello Vitelli. The embarrassment occasioned by so many commanders, under no common head, was especially felt by Francesco Maria, who, although admitted by Guicciardini to have been pre-eminent in rank, authority, and reputation, as well as actually leader of the combined army, was controlled by Pesaro, the Venetian Proveditore, and thwarted by the Pope's anomalous appointment of that historian himself as lieutenant-general, with ample indeed almost absolute powers in the army and throughout the states of the Church.

Francesco Guicciardini was a Florentine gentleman, born in 1482, and educated for the law, who, profiting by the partiality of Leo X. for his fellow-citizens, had held several important civil appointments, and had been successively named governor of Modena, Reggio, and Parma, to which Clement added, in 1523, a jurisdiction over all pontifical Romagna. He was gifted with considerable talents and great command of language, but these promotions had rendered him vain and overbearing. The accounts given us by the Urbino writers, of one whom they had good reason to regard with prejudice, should be received with caution; yet some anecdotes have come down which confirm the allegation of Leoni, that his dogmatical pretensions were neither authorised by etiquette, nor supported by his judgment or military experience.[303] No defect of character was less likely to meet with toleration from the blunt and hasty Francesco Maria, and in consequence of their being opposed to each other at the council-board, alike in momentous and trifling matters, scenes of insult and violence ripened aversion into rancour. In this contest the Florentine had the worst, but he amply availed himself of his pen as a means of vengeance; and in his History, which has become a standard authority, he studiously and throughout misrepresented the Duke of Urbino. Lipsius, while bearing strong testimony to his general truth and impartiality, admits that he on no occasion concealed his detestation of that prince. Later writers, especially Sismondi, have adopted his strictures with little modification, and an ingenious defence of the Duke, prepared by Baldi after his death, having never seen the light, the portraits of him hitherto passing current in history are exaggerations of a malevolent pencil. Yet it appears beyond question that an over-dilatory and cautious system increased upon Francesco Maria, and, in conjunction with other circumstances, greatly hampered his tactics and impaired their success, during his service under the lion of St. Mark.

The allied forces very considerably outnumbered those of Charles, who were scattered among several garrisons and detached positions. The moment, therefore, seemed propitious for following up their recent success, and effecting the main object of the campaign by a decided blow against Milan. That capital was occupied by about nine thousand imperialist troops, who blockaded Sforza in the citadel, and who, in letters casually intercepted, represented the citizens, though disarmed by their conquerors, as mature for a rising. A prompt movement for the relief of the hard-pressed fortress was therefore urged by Guicciardini, and seconded by the Proveditore, whose ear he had gained. The reasons by which Francesco Maria combated this proposal savoured unquestionably, even by Leoni's admission, rather of hollow excuses than of sound judgment, for whilst he awaited the Swiss auxiliaries, he allowed reinforcements to reach the imperial garrison.

Some light is, however, thrown upon this seeming inconsistency by an argument in his Discorsi Militari, wherein the Duke illustrates, from this very passage in his life, two axioms he broadly lays down,—that to rely mainly for the success of a war upon the support of a people, however gallant, is a great risk, if not inevitable ruin; and that no popular rising ever succeeded of itself, or without an overpowering force to second it. Considering that his uncle and himself had thrice regained their state by a popular emeute, this doctrine may seem ungracious from his mouth. Without, however, entering upon a question which the recent experience of Europe has greatly affected, or examining instances adduced by the Duke in support of his views, it seems likely that his reasoning was adopted to cloak some unavowed motive. Perhaps the alternative suggestion which he offered may afford some clue to the truth, keeping in view the relationship and confidential intercourse which had ever been maintained between the princes of Urbino and Ottaviano Fregoso. His proposition was that, instead of opposing their new and ill-disciplined levies to the veteran and lately victorious occupants of Milan, the allies should draw off towards Genoa, and there restore the supremacy of the Fregosi, thus giving time for the arrival of Swiss subsidies, and enabling them perhaps to intercept the reinforcements which Bourbon was bringing by sea from Spain. The motive alleged by Sismondi for this policy rests upon the broader ground of the Duke's desire to humble Clement, in revenge for all he had suffered, rather from the Pontiff's family than from himself; and it must be admitted that much of his conduct during this lamentable and inglorious war, until it ended in the sack of Rome, could scarcely have been different if actuated by that ungenerous calculation. Yet in the instance now under our consideration, it is but fair to notice Leoni's assertion, that his opinions were supported by Giovanni de' Medici delle Bande Nere, whilst those of Guicciardini, obtaining the suffrages of the other leaders, carried the day.

With such diversity of opinion prevailing among commanders of nearly equal authority, it is not surprising that the advance upon Milan should have been most sluggish. After spending nine days in marching about twenty miles, the army, on the 6th of July, drew round that city, which the enemy, notwithstanding Bourbon's arrival the preceding night with the Spanish succours, are supposed by Sismondi to have been on the point of evacuating. The artillery having next morning begun to play upon the walls, a sally was made, and the allied troops, finding themselves under fire, behaved most scandalously, so that, had not Francesco Maria with the cavalry promptly supported the panic-stricken infantry of his own and the papal brigades, they must have suffered a total rout. Alarmed at these symptoms of unsteadiness, and unseconded by the expected insurrection within, the Venetian Proveditore and Guicciardini insisted upon a general retreat, as the only means by which their forces could escape destruction. In despair, they besought the Duke to take the retiring army under his command, a charge which he did not accept without taunting them on a result that so fully bore out his predictions, and proved their rashness in exposing an unorganised host of raw Italians to fight the veterans of Germany and Spain. But the moment was too critical for recrimination. Two hours before dawn the camp was silently raised, and the army withdrew in good order about twelve miles to Marignano. Their rear was effectually guarded by Giovanni de' Medici against any sally of the imperialists, but no less than four thousand of the foot were missing, having ignominiously deserted their colours.

Such is the account of Leoni and Baldi. Guicciardini, on the other hand, takes to himself credit for using every argument with the Duke against a retreat, which he designates as uncalled for and infamous. Upon his despatches were, no doubt, formed the opinions expressed in the following letter of the Bishop of Worcester to Cardinal Wolsey:—

"Most Illustrious and Reverend Lord," &c.

"I have hitherto daily informed you of what was going on, by longer or shorter letters, as time permitted. At present nothing new has transpired, except that, on the night of the 7th inst., the Duke of Urbino, captain-general of the ecclesiastical and Venetian forces, after most strenuous and gallant operations against the enemy, from which a successful issue was expected, suddenly changing his intention, notwithstanding numerous protests, drew off his army to Marignano, a town ten miles from Milan. Which, though the Duke, as usual, entangles it with numerous reasons, has exposed him to no slight disparagement from the public. I have only further humbly to commend myself to your most illustrious Lordship. From Rome, 11th July, 1526.

"Your most illustrious and reverend Lordship's
Humillimum manicipium,

"Hic. EpŠ. WigornieÑ."[304]

The prejudices of Guicciardini are admitted by the Venetian Paruta, who tells us that the Signory were satisfied with their general's explanations, but cautioned him for the future, to communicate his views more frankly to the papal commissioner. It is a passage of history hard to clear up, and in every view redounding little to the credit of its actors, whether we most blame the Duke's policy or the unsteadiness of his troops. Exposures so disgraceful well merited the sneer, that the swords in that army had no edge; and Sismondi admits that its spiritless conduct goes far to justify its leader's dispiriting tactics.[*305]

On the 22nd of July, the confederates, having been joined by five thousand Swiss levies, again approached the city, and were met by about three hundred women and children, whom Sforza had dismissed as embarrassing his defence. Shamed by their representations, the leaders, in a council of war, decided upon a new attempt to relieve the citadel, which, however, Giovanni de' Medici, after inspecting the works of the besiegers, opposed as too perilous. Whilst they lost time in these discussions, Sforza was fairly starved out, and surrendered the fortress on the 24th. Leoni and Baldi agree in charging these dilatory and unsatisfactory proceedings upon the other generals, and the total inefficiency of the army, rather than upon Francesco Maria's tactics. They may be considered as biased, but the following anecdotes will show how far the Florentine historian had reason to be impartial.

At one of the war councils held in the Certosa of Pavia, Guicciardini having cast some doubt upon an opinion expressed by the Duke, was thus answered: "Your business is to confer with pedants." These rude words were accompanied by a knock-down blow on the face, followed by an order to get up and begone! Leonardi, who preserves this incident, adds, "Such pugilistic sport was habitual to my Lord Duke; and it was well for those who could command their temper in reasoning with him, as he was ever ready to strike any one who argued against his views with disrespect." The historian's original prepossession against Francesco Maria, is ascribed by Baldi to a vain ambition of precedence. While lieutenant-general of the papal forces he displayed it towards Guido Rangone, his superior officer, and insisted on taking rank at the council-board of the Marquis of Saluzzo, when he arrived in command of the French contingents. These absurd pretensions were at first treated with indifference, but finally brought him into a wrangle with the Duke, over whom he also claimed a similar right, from the fact of being in the papal service, waiving it only out of consideration for his sovereign rank. In that instance, also, he is said to have been struck by the choleric prince; at all events he was expelled from the council-chamber, and a strong representation of his misconduct was made to the Pope, who consequently cancelled his anomalous commission, and appointed him governor of Modena.

Sismondi, embodying Guicciardini's one-sided narrative,[*306] has thrown upon Francesco Maria the entire odium of the ludicrously slow movements of the army, averaging about four miles on each alternate day, and of their double miscarriage before Milan. The fatal tendency of such measures, however they might have originated, admits of no question, and the responsibility of their failure must fall upon the most influential leader. It is always difficult in a heterogeneous confederacy to maintain that unity of purpose which may compensate for diversity of interests, and which can only be insured by prompt action and brilliant success. But the sentiment "that reputation was neither to be gained by risks nor lost by delays," which Bernardo Tasso puts into the Duke's mouth, in describing a council of war whereat he assisted,[307] not only advocates quite a different policy, but too well confirms the charge brought against him as one of those

"Generals who will not conquer when they may."

When, however, he perceived victory to be hopeless, in an army distracted by the jealousies of rival leaders, he had proposed the nomination of a commander-in-chief, avowing himself ready to accord him implicit obedience. In this he was again thwarted by Guicciardini, who represented his suggestion to the allied powers as dictated by personal ambition of the post. The plan fell to the ground, and its author, fretted by the difficulties of his position, was attacked by severe illness. Of this the Proveditore availed himself to lead Malatesta Baglione, with three thousand troops, to Cremona. Like Milan, it was occupied by an imperialist brigade, who besieged in the citadel a handful of Sforza's adherents. The Duke's warnings as to its military difficulties having been received with indifference, this enterprise was on the point of miscarriage, on learning which he rose from a sick bed, and hurried with fresh forces to the scene of action. His presence infused new energy into the operations, and on the 23rd of September the town was evacuated by the imperialists upon capitulation.

This success was scarcely within his grasp when a courier arrived from Rome, with tidings which gave a new aspect to affairs. Clement, who had succeeded to the turbulence of his predecessors, without the energy of Julius, or the address of Leo, made himself a dangerous domestic foe in the Colonna,—broken, but not crushed by the rancour of Alexander VI. Cardinal Pompeo Colonna, a man indifferent to religion, whose unbounded ambition aimed directly at the tiara, and whose brows better became a condottiere's casque than a mitre, forgetting his duty as one of the Sacred College, entered into treasonable correspondence with the imperialist leaders; and his brother Marcello, having been driven from his fiefs by the Pope, threw himself at the feet of Charles V., offering to support his views upon Italy if reponed by his assistance. They also used their influence at Venice in preventing his Holiness from raising a loan to recruit his crippled resources, and, in concert with Don Ugo Moncada, commander of the Neapolitan army, strove to alienate him from the League. Don Ugo, a Spaniard by birth, was the worthy pupil of Cesare Borgia, without his reputation for success. In every important engagement his sword had been tarnished by defeat; his character and personal adventures combined each brutal attribute of a condottiere, with scarcely a redeeming trait of honour. The plan of these confederates was by a coup-de-main to dictate terms to the Pontiff; or, failing success in this, to give occupation at home for the contingent he then maintained with the allied army of Lombardy. Accordingly, the Colonna troops, who had assumed a threatening attitude in the Campagna, were suddenly withdrawn beyond the frontier; and a son of Prospero Colonna hastened to the capital to throw himself at Clement's feet, assuring him of the pacific disposition of his house, and that their levies were destined for the imperial service at Naples. The Pope, being deceived into a belief so conformable to his wishes, turned a deaf ear to the warning of more clear-sighted men, and, disappointed of his loan, thought only of reducing a war establishment he could no longer pay. But so soon as his soldiery were dismissed, the Colonna recalled their army of two thousand men, which, led by Pompeo with equal celerity and success, reached the Lateran gate ere treachery was suspected. Resistance being hopeless, they, on the 20th of September, marched through the city into the Trastevere, where they were welcomed to refreshments provided by the Cardinal's order. Thence they passed into the Borgo S. Spirito, where are situated the Vatican, St. Peter's, and the castle of St. Angelo, and within three hours had pillaged that rich quarter, sparing neither the palace nor the metropolitan church. The Pope, who had at first resolved to await death in his pontifical chair, scarcely escaped with a few valuables into the fortress, which, from unpardonable negligence, was entirely unprovisioned. To arrest these horrors, the Pontiff next day made a hasty four-months' truce, stipulating for the immediate evacuation of Rome, as the condition on which he should recall Guicciardini with the ecclesiastical troops from Upper Italy; three days, however, elapsed ere the troops withdrew, laden with a booty estimated at 300,000 ducats.[308]

Upon the capitulation of Cremona, Francesco Maria stole a few days for the society of his Duchess, and the affairs of his state, but was speedily recalled to his post by the unsatisfactory aspect of matters in Lombardy. The papal troops had been withdrawn; the garrison of Cremona, whose services the Venetians would not retain at his suggestion, had entered into new engagements with the enemy; fourteen thousand lanznechts, alias lansquenet infantry, under Georg v. FrÜndesberg, were marching from Germany by the Val di Sabbia to support the imperial cause. His first care was to check the pillage of Cremona, a service which the citizens acknowledged by presenting to him a golden vase weighing twenty pounds, and beautifully chased with appropriate devices. He found the Marquis of Saluzzo arrived with about five thousand levies from France, and that the bande nere, amounting to almost as many, had been engaged by that power, on Guicciardini's departure, whose absence proved a vast relief to him. The army is now estimated at twenty-five thousand men by Sismondi, who, echoing the charges of that writer, severely blames the Duke for not supporting the naval attack made by the French upon Genoa, a scheme for which we have seen him contending at an earlier period. But a passage in his own Discorsi Militari expressly states the Venetian force at four thousand infantry and five thousand cavalry, to keep in check both FrÜndesberg's lansquenets and ten thousand men at Milan; and it explains his tactics to consist in making Cremona the centre of a line of defence, embracing Bergamo on the right, and Genoa on the left, which, being vastly too extended for his force, necessitated his keeping his men together, in order to move upon any exposed point. Accordingly, considering it most incumbent to intercept the battalions of FrÜndesberg, he, after throwing garrisons into some important places on his right flank, pushed towards Mantua with about ten thousand men. Although sadly impeded by dreadful weather, and by difficulties of transport, the Proveditore having secured all the cattle to carry his own baggage to Venice, he came up with the enemy at Borgoforte, on the Po, and, interrupting their passage, drove their main body down the course of that river. Deep snow and mud embarrassing his evolutions, he could only hang upon their rear as far as the Mincio, where they were met by a reinforcement with artillery from Ferrara. Thereupon the Duke recalled his skirmishers, and left the Germans to pass the Po unobstructed, on the 30th of November.

In this affair fell Giovanni de' Medici, whose birth we have formerly noticed.[309] His name is consecrated to military renown by a halo which his lion-heart well merited, and which has gained no additional brilliancy from the attempts of some writers to elevate his fame at Francesco Maria's expense. In this unworthy effort—as on too many like occasions—Guicciardini has been followed by the historian of the Italian republics. The charges of misconduct adduced against the Duke of Urbino, in his movement against FrÜndesberg, are by no means borne out by the more detailed accounts supplied by Leoni and Baldi. He seems to have done everything that the state of the elements would allow; and even accused himself of occasioning the death of his faithful captain Benedetto Giraldi of Mondolfo, by answering his plea, that his charger was completely knocked up, with the sarcasm,—"What! you to whom I give a hundred scudi of yearly pay, have not a fresh pair of horses at such a moment!" Stung by this reproach, the gallant officer urged his steed to new efforts, and shared the fate of Giovanni de' Medici. The brigade of the latter, out of respect for their leader, assumed those mourning scarfs which procured them the name delle bande nere; and most of them soon after passed to Rome in the papal service.

The German lansquenets, whom FrÜndesberg had brought into Italy, were in fact a free company, levied by himself on a mere plundering adventure, without the pretext of pay. Alarmed at a reinforcement of so obnoxious a character, the confederates bethought themselves of renewed efforts. But disgusted with a drawling campaign, wherein no party had exhibited either good heart or doughty deeds, they had recourse to diplomacy, which, ever fluctuating between an inactive war and a solid peace, failed to create any general interest. The truce with Moncada being expired they had no difficulty in enrolling the unstable Pontiff once more on their side; but intent on his private quarrel with the Colonna, and burning to avenge the outrage lately received at their hands, he gave no co-operation to the League. His tortuous and feeble policy preferred rousing, by small intrigues, the old Angevine party at Naples against the imperial government, and sought the more sympathetic attractions of a petty strife with his refractory vassals. Having engaged the bande nere, he let them loose to carry fire and sword into the Colonna holdings, depriving, at the same time, Cardinal Pompeo of his hat, and thundering excommunication against his whole race. As the spring advanced, he extended this inglorious warfare, with "a worse than Turkish" virulence, into the Neapolitan territory. Meanwhile, the Viceroy Lanoy, after narrowly escaping the fleet of Andrea Doria, landed ten thousand fresh troops at Gaeta, and advanced upon Rome, supported by Moncada and the Colonna. But the vengeance of God against the Holy City was reserved for other hands. After a slight check from the bande nere, at Frosinone, the Viceroy most opportunely received letters from his master, disavowing the Colonna, and breathing affectionate duty to the Pontiff. He thereupon made overtures of reconciliation, and after various demurs, prompted by the Pontiff's vacillating hopes and fears, but which, in the exhausted state of his treasury, appear the dictates of insanity, an eight months' truce was signed on the 15th of March, between the Pope and the Emperor. It provided for a mutual restitution of all conquests in Lower Italy, a restoration of the Colonna to their estates and honours, and a payment by his Holiness of 60,000 ducats towards the costs of the war. Should the French and Venetians accept of this truce, the lansquenets were to be withdrawn from Italy; at all events they and the Constable Bourbon's army were forthwith to quit the ecclesiastical and Florentine territories. Whilst intimating this arrangement to the Duke of Urbino, by a brief of the 16th of March, Clement represents it as dictated by stern necessity, the whole weight of the war having fallen upon himself, and as the sole means of saving his own existence, and preserving "all Italy from destruction."

Whilst these events were in progress in Lower Italy, the negotiations for a general peace had produced no fruits, conducted, as they were, with little good faith or honesty of purpose. The only one really interested in prolonging the struggle was Francis I., whose children were still in his rival's hands. The Italian states, weary of a bootless contest, and disgusted by the feeble egotism of Clement, fell into inertness akin, perhaps, to the fascination under which the feathered tribes are said to become victims of their reptile-foe.

That foe was Charles Duke of Bourbon, son of Gilbert Count de Montpensier, who died at Pozzuoli, in 1495, by Chiara Gonzaga, sister of Elisabetta Duchess of Urbino. He was next heir to the crown of France, after Francis Duke of AngoulÊme, who succeeded to it as Francis I., and Charles Duke d'AlenÇon, whose blood had been attainted for treason. Louis XII., having removed this attainder, and restored the d'AlenÇon branch to their rights, incurred the deep displeasure of Bourbon, who was, however, pacified by receiving, at the age of twenty-six, the office of grand constable,—the highest dignity of the realm. He greatly distinguished himself in Francis's early Italian campaigns, but was recalled from the command at Milan in 1516, in consequence of his overbearing conduct and ambitious views. By Anna, sister of Charles VIII., whom he married in spite of a hideously deformed person, he had the dukedom of Bourbon, with an immense fortune; but his extravagant prodigality plunged him into great embarrassments, and a suit brought after his wife's death by the mother of Francis I.—whose love he was alleged to have slighted—threatened him with utter ruin, by evicting him from his wife's estates. In these circumstances, his jealous and fiery temper was ready to seize upon any pretext for entering into treasonable correspondence with the Emperor and King of England; and, on a promise of the crown of Provence, he undertook to head an insurrection in France as soon as Francis should cross the Alps. That monarch having discovered the plot, at once sought the Constable in one of his own castles, and frankly told him what he had learned. The hypocrite had recourse to abject asseverations of innocence and fidelity, and was ordered to attend his sovereign into Italy; but, perceiving that his protestations had not removed suspicion, he fled in disguise to the territory of Charles, and was declared rebel. His perfidy and rancour now knew no bounds; he was ever after prominent and indefatigable in the wars against his country, and mainly instigated the descent upon Provence in 1524. He next entertained a hope of the dukedom of Milan, by Clement's sanction; but he had played away his honour in a losing game: despised by himself and his employers, the prestige of success passed from his arms. Yet his peculiar talent for courting popularity ensured him the zealous support of his troops, who knew also that a bankrupt in character and purse was the best leader for men intent upon pillage. To the single merit of a winning manner, he united many odious qualities. His unmeasured ambition was restrained by no principle, either as to its objects, or the means of attaining them. His pride was vain-glory, venting itself in capricious and ill-directed schemes, and stimulating into fury a wayward and sanguinary temper, which, when exasperated by exile and outlawry, became ungovernable.

During the war of Lombardy, the imperial generals were in a great measure left to their own resources, both as to its conduct and its supplies. Bourbon had for about a year maintained his army in Milan without pay, by merciless plunder of the townspeople, upon whom insult and outrage were unsparingly heaped. But their patience and their means were nearly exhausted, and the difficulty of recruiting his commissariat was greatly aggravated by judicious dispositions of the allied army, directed by the Duke of Urbino. A forward movement was therefore resolved upon, and as occupation and pillage were the only chances of keeping together such disorganised troops, he led them in search of both. Indifferent whether the spoils of Florence or Romagna should prove the more convenient prey, he effected a junction with FrÜndesberg's new levies, whose circumstances and objects exactly corresponded with those of his own forces, and on the 30th of January their united divisions passed the Po.

Our authorities are in many respects contradictory regarding these operations, and especially as to the part which Francesco Maria took in them. He seems to have been laid up at Parma, with an attack of gout and fever, from the 3rd to the 14th of January, and to have spent most of the next two months with his Duchess at Gazzuolo in the Mantuese, for recovery of his health. It is insinuated by Sismondi that this was but an excuse for abandoning the field, at a moment when it would have been scarcely possible to pursue the policy, which that author ascribes to him, of never risking in a general action the prestige of invincibility. On the other hand, Leoni asserts that, at a council of war held in Parma on the 11th of February, plans for the campaign were proposed in writing by the different confederate leaders, when that sent by the Duke was treacherously suppressed by Guicciardini. Judging from the results of the campaign, there can be no doubt that the imperialists ought to have been attacked at this juncture; and if a general onset had been ordered on the 13th of March, when they broke out into open mutiny, Bourbon being obliged to fly for his life, or, a few days after, when FrÜndesberg, a monster of sacrilege and blasphemy, according to the Italian historians, died of apoplexy, they would in all probability have been totally exterminated. But they were the reserved instrument of divine judgments; and it signifies little now to speculate whether the immediate motives which paralysed the League were the Duke's ill-timed caution, his anticipation that the starving band would ere long of itself dissolve, or his personal enmity to the Pope. It is, however, important to keep in view the cold and selfish character of Venetian policy, and the hampering influence which their system of proveditori necessarily had upon the measures of their generals.

When Francesco Maria returned to the camp, the imperialists, who had passed the Trebbia on the 20th of February, were slowly advancing through the ecclesiastical state of Modena upon Bologna. His tactic was to place them between two hostile armies; so the Marquis of Saluzzo, with the French, ecclesiastical, and Swiss troops, preceded them, leaving garrisons in the principal places, the Duke following with the Venetians, some thirty miles in their rear. Against this plan, which Guicciardini designates a strange proceeding, and which even Baldi most justly criticises, the other leaders vainly protested, alleging, among other reasons, that whilst the army in advance must be speedily weakened by detaching garrisons, the Venetians would probably hang back when their own frontier was freed from danger. News of the truce between the Pope and the Viceroy now arrived, and the Duke, disgusted at this new proof of Clement's fickleness, and indifference to his allies' interests, withdrew his army across the Po. But the courier who brought the treaty to Bourbon at Ponte-Reno, with an order to obey its provisions, was nearly cut to pieces by his troops, infuriated at this interference with their hopes of booty, and the Constable refused to abide by it. The fresh jealousy of their unstable ally, thus suggested to the Venetians, afforded their leader a new apology for not exposing their troops in a general action for the preservation of Bologna. But when Bourbon had passed by that city towards Romagna and Urbino, somewhat more spirit was infused into his movements, as the danger seemed to approach his own frontier. He immediately sent forward two thousand men to protect the duchy, and desired his family to be removed for safety to Venice. On the 5th of March he had struck his camp at Casal-Maggiore, and proceeded in pursuit of the enemy. On that day they passed under Imola, which, with the other cities, was garrisoned by detachments of Saluzzo, in accordance with tactics already explained. Bourbon now scoured the plains of Romagna in search of plunder, skirmishing occasionally with the French division. When at Meldola on the 14th he bethought him of a descent upon Siena, whose old Ghibelline and anti-Florentine preferences promised him a welcome. He, therefore, penetrated the Apennines by forced marches up the passes of the Bidente, and on the 18th reached S. Pietro in Bagno, burning and pillaging as he went.

When the Constable's refusal to accept the treaty was known at Rome, Clement, more perplexed than ever, besought Lanoy to hurry on and induce him to a halt, or at all events to withdraw the Spaniards and men-at-arms from his command. To this the Viceroy with much apparent zeal consented; but doubts have been thrown on his sincerity, for both he and Moncada, whilst professing cordial co-operation with the Pope, are suspected of having secretly stimulated Bourbon's advance upon Rome, as the only means of appeasing the troops, trusting that the grandeur of the enterprise would, in their master's eyes, readily excuse its criminality. It seems doubtful whether Lanoy actually met the Constable; and his mission was understood to have exposed him to great personal risk from the lawless and ungovernable troops. He at all events conveyed to Bourbon a proposition for the immediate payment to his army of 80,000 ducats, with 60,000 more during May, on condition of their retreat within five days; these sums to be advanced by Florence, on the Viceroy's guarantee for repayment of one-half by the Emperor. The direct object of this proposal was to divert the impending storm from Tuscany; and it was fully sanctioned by Clement, true to the policy of Medicean pontiffs, who ever regarded Florence as their patrimony, Rome as their life-interest. In the negotiations to which it gave rise there was a double difficulty. Whilst the demands of a mutinous and starving army were paramount to all other considerations, each party of the confederates struggled to throw upon another the burden of meeting them. The same selfishness sought individual security against the future movements of the general foe, by turning him upon some friendly frontier. The wealthy Florentines lavished their gold to send him back upon Upper Italy, which the timely distribution of a few thousand men in the Apennine gorges might have prevented him from ever quitting. The game of the Proveditore Pisani was to leave no obstacle in the way of his advance in any direction save that of the Venetian terra-firma domain, and to detain the Duke of Urbino with his army of observation as long as possible near that frontier. The French strove at all hazards to keep him clear of their Lombard conquests. The Pontiff, little dreaming of an attack upon his capital, was distracted between the care of Romagna and Tuscany, whilst his fickle imbecility deprived him of all sympathy at his allies' hands; indeed, in this conflict of interests, his pusillanimous tergiversations rendered him the weaker vessel, and he consequently became the chief sufferer. Nor did the Duke of Urbino escape suspicions of bad faith, for he is accused of a secret understanding not to impede Bourbon's descent upon Tuscany, which would naturally liberate his own duchy from danger. Guicciardini, indeed, not only considers revenge for former injuries of the Medici as the key to Francesco Maria's dilatory and inefficient proceedings against the imperialists, but regards his conduct as justified by the provocations received. These sentiments were at all events cherished by the soldiery of Urbino, who wrote "FOR VENGEANCE" upon the houses which they fired on their march through the Florentine territory. Nor were these provocations light, for the grudge which Leo had bequeathed was aggravated by a continued retention of the fortresses in Montefeltro, and still more by an investiture of the entire duchy, granted in 1525 by Clement, in total defiance of the della Rovere rights, to Ascanio Colonna, whose claims we have already considered.[310] This grant, though virtually annulled by the same Pope's subsequent confirmation of the reinvestiture given to Francesco Maria by Adrian VI., gave rise to renewed anxieties on his part about two years later, and it was not until 1530 that we shall see them finally extinguished by the Duke's generous hospitality to his rival.

On the 22nd of April the Constable, finding the mountain peasantry exasperated to a dangerous pitch by the merciless rigours of his lawless soldiery, and his own sanguinary nature being goaded by their ribald taunts, cut short these miserable intrigues by advancing into Tuscany.[*311] The confederate leaders, having at length decided on saving Florence, united their divisions, and on the 25th passed the Apennines near the present Bologna road. The Duke now received an offer of his fortresses of S. Leo and Maiuolo, which still remained pledged to that commonwealth. This he answered by general professions, and next day, sending on the army to Incisa to intercept the approach of Bourbon, he proceeded with a band of faithful followers to the Tuscan capital. The republican faction, calculating upon his support, flew to arms and seized the Palazzo Vecchio, while once more the unpopular sway of the Medici trembled in the balance. But the Duke, with a nobility of purpose that goes far to absolve him from suspicion as to his good faith with the Pope throughout this campaign, rejected the temptation of avenging his many wrongs, and, by extraordinary personal exertions, succeeded in quelling the insurrection, and maintaining the established government. Thus, for the first time, the city saw its Palazzo taken without a revolution following. In gratitude for this service his fortresses were immediately given up to Francesco Maria, who in due time received also the thanks of his Holiness. The act for their restitution was signed on the 1st of May, and on the 14th S. Leo was surrendered to his lieutenant Orazio Florido.

Bourbon's head-quarters were meanwhile at Montevarchi, near Arezzo, where, seeing his approach to Florence foiled, and the dissatisfaction of his followers on the increase, he decided upon making a dash at Rome; his only alternative being to lead them to pillage, or perish at their hands. As a blind to the Pope, he sent forward a courier to demand free passage to Naples; and, after receiving some supplies from Siena, he abandoned his artillery and heavy baggage in order to lighten his march. He began it on the 26th, and, notwithstanding incessant rains and an entirely disorganised commissariat, he passed without halt or question by Acquapendente and Viterbo to Rome.[312]