IV. 1527. tent only on plunder, pushed the siege with little vigour, he в O OK did not despair of holding out until the duke d'Urbino could come to his relief. That general advanced at the head of an army composed of Venetians, Florentines, and Swiss, in the pay of France, of sufficient strength to have delivered Clement from the present danger. But d'Urbino, preferring the indulgence of his hatred against the family of Medici to the glory of delivering the capital of Christendom, and the head of the church, pronounced the enterprise to be too hazardous; and, from an exquisite refinement in revenge, having marched forward so far, that his army being seen from the ramparts of St. Angelo, flattered the Pope with the prospect of certain relief, he immediately wheeled about and retired. Clement, deprived of every resource, and reduced to such extremity of famine as to feed on asses flesh b, was obliged to capitulate on such conditions as the conquerors were pleased to prescribe. He agreed to pay four hundred thousand ducats to the army; to surrender to the emperor all the places of strength belonging to the prisoner. church; and, besides giving hostages, to remain a prisoner himself until the chief articles were performed. He was committed to the care of Alarcon, who, by his severe vigilance in guarding Francis, had given full proof of his being qualified for that office; and thus, by a singular accident, the same man had the custody of the two most illustrious personages who had been made prisoners in Europe during several ages. June 6. himself a Surrenders viour at ture. THE account of this extraordinary and unexpected event The empe was no less surprising than agreeable to the emperor. But ror's beha in order to conceal his joy from his subjects, who were fil- this junc led with horror at the success and crimes of their countrymen, and to lessen the indignation of the rest of Europe, he declared that Rome had been assaulted without any order from him. He wrote to all the princes with whom he was in alliance, disclaiming his having had any knowledge of Bourbon's intention ". He put himself and court into mourning; commanded the rejoicings which had been orb Jov. Vit. Colon. 167. c Ruscelli Lettere di Principi, ii. 234. a Guic. 1. xviii. 450. IV. BOOK dered for the birth of his son Philip to be stopped; and employing an artifice no less hypocritical than gross, he appointed prayers and processions throughout all Spain for the recovery of the Pope's liberty, which, by an order to his generals, he could have immediately granted him. 1527. Solyman invades 1526. Defeat of the Hun THE good fortune of the house of Austria was no less Hungary. conspicuous in another part of Europe. Solyman having invaded Hungary with an army of three hundred thousand men, Lewis II. King of that country, and of Bohemia, a weak and unexperienced prince, advanced rashly to meet him with a body of men which did not amount to thirty thousand. With an imprudence still more unpardonable, he gave the command of these troops to Paul Tomorri, a Franciscan monk, archbishop of Golocza. This awkward general, in the dress of his order, girt with its cord, marched at the head of the troops; and, hurried on by his own presumption, as well as by the impetuosity of nobles who despised danger, but were impatient of long service, he fought Aug. 29, the fatal battle of Mohacz, in which the King, the flower of the Hungarian nobility, and upwards of twenty thousand men, fell the victims of his folly and ill conduct. Solyman, after his victory, seized and kept possession of several towns of the greatest strength in the southern provinces of Hungary, and over-running the rest of the country, carried near two hundred thousand persons into captivity. As Lewis was the last male of the royal family of Jagellon, the Archduke Ferdinand claimed both his crowns. This claim was founded on a double title; the one derived from the ancient pretensions of the house of Austria to both kingdoms; the other from the right of his wife, the only sister of the deceased monarch. The feudal institutions, however, subsisted both in Hungary and Bohemia in such vigour, and the nobles possessed such extensive power, that the crowns were still elective, and Ferdinand's rights, if they had not been powerfully supported, would have met with little regard. But his own personal merit; the respect due to the brother of the greatest Monarch in Christendom; the ne garians, and death of their King. d Sleid. 109. Sandov. i. 822. Mauroc Hist. Veneta, lib. iii. 220, IV. 1527. elected cessity of choosing a prince able to afford his subjects some B O OK additional protection against the Turkish arms, which, as they had recently felt their power, they greatly dreaded; together with the intrigues of his sister, who had been mar- Ferdinaud ried to the late King, overcame the prejudices which the King. Hungarians had conceived against the Archduke as a foreigner; and though a considerable party voted for the Vaywode of Transilvania, at length secured Ferdinand the throne of that kingdom. The states of Bohemia imitated the example of their neighbour kingdom; but in order to ascertain and secure their own privileges, they obliged Ferdinand, before his coronation, to subscribe a deed which they term a Reverse, declaring that he held that crown not by any previous right, but by their gratuitous and voluntary election. By such a vast accession of territories, the hereditary possession of which they secured in process of time to their family, the princes of the house of Austria attained that pre-eminence in power which hath rendered them so formidable to the rest of Germany. formation. June 25, 1526. THE dissentions between the Pope and Emperor prov- Progress of ed extremely favourable to the progress of Lutheranism. the ReCharles, exasperated by Clement's conduct, and fully employed in opposing the league which he had formed against him, had little inclination, and less leisure, to take any measures for suppressing the new opinions in Germany. In a diet of the Empire held at Spires, the state of religion came to be considered, and all that the Emperor required of the princes was, that they would wait patiently, and without encouraging innovations, for the meeting of a general council which he had demanded of the Pope. They, in return, acknowledged the convocation of a council to be the proper and regular step towards reforming abuses in the church; but contended, that a national council held in Germany would be more effectual for that purpose than what he had proposed. To his advice, concerning the discouragement of innovations, they paid so little regard, that even during e Steph. Broderick Procancelarii Hungar. Clades in Campo Mohacz, ap. Scardium, ii. 218. P. Barre Hist. d' Allemagne, tom. viii. part i. p. 198.. IV. 1527. BOOK the meeting of the diet at Spires, the divines who attended the Elector of Saxony and Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel thither, preached publicly, and administered the sacraments according to the rites of the Reformed Church. The Emperor's own example emboldened the Germans to treat the Papal authority with little reverence. During the heat of his resentment against Clement, he had published a long reply to an angry brief which the Pope had intended as an apology for his own conduct. In this manifesto, the emperor, after having enumerated many instances of that pontiff's ingratitude, deceit, and ambition, all which he painted in the strongest and most aggravated colours, appealed from him to a general council. At the same time he wrote to the college of Cardinals, complaining of Clement's partiality and injustice; and requiring them, if he refused or delayed to call a council, to show their concern for the peace of the Christian church, so shamefully neglected by its chief pastor, by summoning that assembly in their own name %. This manifesto, little inferior in virulence to the invectives of Luther himself, was dispersed over Germany with great industry, and being eagerly read by persons of every rank, did much more than counterbalance the effect of all Charles's declarations against the new opinions. f Sleid. 103. g Goldast. Polit. Imper. p. 984. V. Emperor. THE account of the cruel manner in which the Pope had B OO K been treated, filled all Europe with astonishment or horror. To see a Christian Emperor, who, by possessing that 1527. dignity, ought to have been the protector and advocate of General indignation the holy see, lay violent hands on him who represented excited Christ on earth, and detain his sacred person in a rigorous against the captivity, was considered as an impiety that merited the severest vengeance, and which called for the immediate interposition of every dutiful son of the church. Francis and Henry, alarmed at the progress of the Imperial arms in Italy, had, even before the taking of Rome, entered into a closer alliance; and, in order to give some check to the Emperor's ambition, had agreed to make a vigorous diversion in the Low-Countries. The force of every motive, which had influenced them at that time, was now increased; and to these were added the desire of rescuing the Pope out of the Emperor's hands, a measure no less politic, than it appeared to be pious. This, however, rendered it necessary to abandon their hostile intentions against the LowCountries, and to make Italy the seat of war, as it was by vigorous operations there they might contribute most effectually towards delivering Rome, and setting Clement at liberty. Francis being now sensible, that, in his system with regard to the affairs of Italy, the spirit of refinement had |