VII. 1543. _assistance, could come up, the Duke himself was obliged to B O O K make his submission to Charles in the most abject manner. Being admitted into the Imperial presence, he kneeled, together with eight of his principal subjects, and implored mercy. The Emperor allowed him to remain in that ignominious posture, and eyeing him with a haughty and severe look, without deigning to answer a single word, remitted him to his ministers. The conditions, however, which they prescribed were not so rigorous as he had reason to have expected after such a reception. He was obliged to re- Sept. 7. nounce his alliance with France and Denmark; to resign all his pretensions to the dutchy of Gueldres; to enter into perpetual amity with the Emperor and King of the Romans. In return for which, all his hereditary dominions were restored, except two towns which the Emperor kept as pledges of the Duke's fidelity during the continuance of the war; and he was reinstated in his privileges as a Prince of the Empire. Not long after, Charles, as a proof of the sincerity of his reconcilement, gave him in marriage one of the daughters of his brother Ferdinand ". Landrecy. HAVING thus chastised the presumption of the Duke of Besieges Cleves, detached one of his allies from Francis, and annexed to his own dominions in the Low-Countries a considerable province which lay contiguous to them, Charles advanced towards Hainault, and laid siege to Landrecy. There, as the first fruits of his alliance with Henry, he was joined by six thousand English under Sir John Wallop. The garrison, consisting of veteran troops commanded by De la Lande and Dessé, two officers of reputation, made a vigorous resistance. Francis approached with all his forces to relieve that place; Charles covered the siege; both were determined to hazard an engagement; and all Europe expected to see this contest, which had continued so long, decided at last by a battle between two great armies, led by their respective Monarchs in person. But the ground which separated their two camps was such, as put the disadvantage manifestly on his side who should venture to attack, and neither of them n Harai Annal. Brabant. tom i, 628. Recueil des Traitez, tom. ii. 226. VII. 1543. BOOK chose to run that risk. Amidst a variety of movements, in order to draw the enemy into the snare, or to avoid it themselves, Francis, with admirable conduct and equal good fortune, threw first a supply of fresh troops, and then a convoy of provisions, into the town, so that the Emperor, despairing of success, withdrew into winter-quarters, in order to preserve his army from being entirely ruined by the rigour of the season. Solyman sa's de scent on DURING this campaign, Solyman fulfilled his engagements invades to the French King with great punctuality. He himself Hungary. November. marched into Hungary with a numerous army; and as the Princes of the Empire made no great effort to save a country which Charles, by employing his own force against Francis, seemed willing to sacrifice, there was no appearance of any body of troops to oppose his progress. He besieged, one after another, Quinque Ecclesiæ, Alba, and Gran, the three most considerable towns in the kingdom, of which Ferdinand had kept possession. The first was taken by storm; the other two surrendered; and the whole kingdom, a small corner excepted, was subjected to the Turkish yoke. Barbaros About the same time, Barbarossa sailed with a fleet of an hundred and ten gallies, and coasting along the shore of Calabria, made a descent at Rheggio, which he plundered and burnt; and advancing from thence to the mouth of the Tiber, he stopt there to water. The citizens of Rome, ignorant of his destination, and filled with terror, began to fly with such general precipitation, that the city would have been totally deserted, if they had not resumed courage upon letters from Paulin the French envoy, assuring them that no violence or injury would be offered by the Turks to any state in alliance with the King his master 9. From Ostia, Barbarossa sailed to Marseilles, and being joined by the French fleet with a body of land-forces on board, under the Count d'Enguien, a gallant young prince of the house of Bourbon, they directed their course towards Nice, the sole retreat of the unfortunate Duke of Savoy. There, to the astonish Italy. o Bellay, 405, &c. p Istuanhaff. Histor. Hung. lib. xv. 167. q Jovii Hist. lib. xliii. 304, &c. Pallavic. 160. VII. 1543. ment and scandal of all Christendom, the Lilies of France BOOK and Crescent of Mahomet appeared in conjunction against a fortress on which the Cross of Savoy was displayed. The town, however, was bravely defended against their combined August 10. force by Montfort a Savoyard gentleman, who stood a general assault, and repulsed the enemy with great loss, before he retired into the castle. That fort, situated upon a rock, on which the artillery made no impression, and which could not be undermined, he held out so long, that Doria had time to approach with his fleet, and the Marquis del Guasto to march with a body of troops from Milan. Upon intelligence of this, the French and Turks raised the siege; and Sept. 8. Francis had not even the consolation of success, to render the infamy which he drew on himself by calling in such an auxiliary, more pardonable. tions for a new cam FROM the small progress of either party during this cam- Preparapaign, it was obvious to what a length the war might be drawn out between two Princes, whose power was so paign. equally balanced, and who, by their own talents or activity, could so vary and multiply their resources. The trial which they had now made of each other's strength might have taught them the imprudence of persisting in a war, wherein there was greater appearance of their distressing their own dominions than of conquering those of their adversary, and should have disposed both to wish for peace. If Charles and Francis had been influenced by considera tions of interest or prudence alone, this, without doubt, must have been the manner in which they would have reasoned. But the personal animosity, which mingled itself in all their quarrels, had grown to be so violent and implacable, that, for the pleasure of gratifying it, they disregarded every thing else; and were infinitely more solicitous how to hurt each other, than how to secure what would be of advantage to themselves. No sooner then did the season force them to suspend hostilities, than, without paying any attention to the Pope's repeated endeavours or paternal exhortations to re-establish peace, they began to provide for the operations r Guichenon Histoire de Savoye, tom. i. p. 651. Bellay, 425, &c. 1543. Affairs of BOOK of the next year with new vigour, and an activity increasing VII. with their hatred. Charles turned his chief attention towards gaining the Princes of the Empire, and endeavoured to rouse the formidable but unwieldy strength of the GerGermany. manic body against Francis. In order to understand the propriety of the steps which he took for that purpose, it is necessary to review the chief transactions in that country since the diet of Ratisbon in the year one thousand five hundred and forty-one. succeeds Maurice of MUCH about the time that assembly broke up, Maurice Saxony succeeded his father Henry in the government of that part his father. of Saxony which belonged to the Albertine branch of the Saxon family. This young prince, then only in his twentieth year, had, even at that early period, begun to discover the great talents which qualified him for acting such a distinguished part in the affairs of Germany. As soon as he entered upon the administration, he struck out into such a new and singular path, as showed that he aimed, from the beThe views ginning, at something great and uncommon. Though zealduct of this ously attached to the Protestant opinions, both from educa and con young prince. tion and principle, he refused to accede to the league of Smalkalde, being determined, as he said, to maintain the purity of religion, which was the original object of that confederacy, but not to entangle himself in the political interests or combinations to which it had given rise. At the same time, foreseeing a rupture between Charles and the confederates of Smalkalde, and perceiving which of them was most likely to prevail in the contest, instead of that jealousy and distrust which the other Protestants expressed of all the Emperor's designs, he affected to place in him an unbounded confidence; and courted his favour with the utmost assiduity. When the other Protestants, in the year fifteen hundred and forty-two, either declined assisting Ferdinand in Hungary, or afforded him reluctant and feeble aid, Maurice marched thither in person, and rendered himself conspicuous by his zeal and courage. From the same motive, he had led to the Emperor's assistance, during the last campaign, a body of his own troops; and the gracefulness of his person, his dexterity in all military exercises, VII. 1543. together with his intrepidity, which courted and delighted B O O K in danger, did not distinguish him more in the field, than his great abilities and insinuating address won upon the Emperor's confidence and favour. While by this conduct, which appeared extraordinary to those who held the same opinions with him concerning religion, Maurice endeavoured to pay court to the Emperor, he began to discover some degree of jealousy of his cousin the Elector of Saxony. This, which proved in the sequel so fatal to the Elector, had almost occasioned an open rupture between them; and soon after Maurice's accession to the government, they both took arms with equal rage, upon account of a dispute about the right of jurisdiction over a paltry town situated on the Moldaw. They were prevented, however, from proceeding to action by the mediation of the Landgrave of Hesse, whose daughter Maurice had married, as well as by the powerful and authoritative admonitions of Luther *. The Pope proposes to hold a general coun cil at Trent, AMIDST these transactions, the Pope, though extremely irritated at the Emperor's concessions to the Protestants at the diet of Ratisbon, was so warmly solicited on all hands, by such as were most devoutly attached to the See of Rome, no less than by those whose fidelity or designs he suspected, to summon a general council, that he found it impossible to avoid any longer calling that assembly. The impatience for its meeting, and the expectations of great effects from its decisions, seemed to grow in proportion to the difficulty of ob taining it. He still adhered, however, to his original reso lution of holding it in some town of Italy, where, by the number of ecclesiastics, retainers to his court, and depend ing on his favour, who could repair to it without difficulty or expense, he might influence and even direct all its proceedings. This proposition, though often rejected by the Ger mans, he instructed his nuncio to the diet held at Spires, in March 3 the year one thousand five hundred and forty-two, to renew once more; and if he found it gave no greater satisfaction than formerly, he empowered him, as a last concession, to propose for the place of meeting, Trent, a city in the Tyrol, |