VII. BOOK took; and as it was his nature never to abandon any enter prise in which he had once engaged, he persisted in it with an inconsiderate obstinacy. 1544. Henry VIII. in THE King of England's preparations for the campaign vests Bou- were complete long before the Emperor's; but as he did not logne. choose, on the one hand, to encounter alone the whole power of France, and was unwilling, on the other, that his troops should remain inactive, he took that opportunity of chastising the Scots, by sending his fleet, together with a considerable part of his infantry, under the Earl of Hertford, to invade their country. Hertford executed his commission with vigour, plundered and burnt Edinburgh and Leith, laid waste the adjacent country, and reimbarked his men with such dispatch that they joined their sovereign soon after his landing July 14. in France *. When Henry arrived in that kingdom, he found the Emperor engaged in the siege of St. Disier; an ambassador, however, whom he sent to congratulate the English Monarch on his safe arrival on the continent, solicited him to march, in terms of the treaty, directly to Paris. But Charles had set his ally such an ill example of fulfilling the conditions of their confederacy with exactness, that Henry, observing him employ his time and forces in taking towns for his own behoof, saw no reason why he should not attempt the reduction of some places that lay conveniently for himself. Without paying any regard to the Emperor's remonstrances, he immediately invested Boulogne, and commanded the Duke of Norfolk to press the siege of Montreuil, which had been begun before his arrival, by a body of Flemings, in conjunction with some English troops. While Charles and Henry showed such attention each to his own interest, they both neglected the common cause. Instead of the union and confidence requisite towards conducting the great plan that they had formed, they early discovered a mutual jealousy of each other, which, by degrees, begot distrust, and ended in open hatred. Gallant de By this time, Francis had, with unwearied industry, St. Disier. drawn together an army, capable, as well from the number fence of VII. 1544. as from the valour of the troops, of making head against the BOOK enemy. But the Dauphin, who still acted as general, prudently déclining a battle, the loss of which would have endangered the kingdom, satisfied himself with harassing the Emperor with his light troops, cutting off his convoys, and laying waste the country around him. Though extremely distressed by these operations, Charles still pressed the siege of St. Disier, which Sancerre defended with astonishing fortitude and conduct. He stood repeated assaults, repulsing the enemy in them all; and undismayed even by the death of his brave associate De la Lande, who was killed by a cannon-ball, he continued to show the same bold countenance and obstinate resolution. At the end of five weeks, he was still in a condition to hold out some time longer, when an artifice of Granvelle's induced him to surrender. That crafty politician, having intercepted the key to the cypher which the Duke of Guise used in communicating intelligence to Sancerre, forged a letter in his name, authorizing Sancerre to capitulate, as the King, though highly satisfied with his behaviour, thought it imprudent to hazard a battle for his relief. This letter he conveyed into the town in a manner which could raise no suspicion, and the governor fell into the snare. Even then, he obtained such honourable conditions as his gallant defence merited, and among others; a cessation of hostilities for eight days, at the expiration of which he bound himself to open the gates, if Francis, during that time, did not attack the Imperial army, and throw fresh troops into the town. Thus Sancerre, by detaining the Emperor so long before an inconsiderable place, afforded his sovereign full time to assemble all his forces, and what rarely falls to the lot of an officer in such an inferior command, acquired the glory of having saved his country. The empe ror pene trates into As soon as St. Disier surrendered, the Emperor advanc- August 17. ed into the heart of Champagne, but Sancerre's obstinate resistance had damped his sanguine hopes of penetrating to Paris, and led him seriously to reflect on what he might expect before towns of greater strength, and defended by more f Brantome, tom. vi. 489. the heart of France. VII. 1544. At BOOK numerous garrisons. At the same time, the procuring subsistence for his army was attended with great difficulty, which increased in proportion as he withdrew farther from his own frontier. He had lost a great number of his best troops in the siege of St. Disier, and many fell daily in skirmishes, which it was not in his power to avoid, though they wasted his army insensibly, without leading to any decisive action. The season advanced apace, and he had not yet the command either of a sufficient extent of territory, or of any such considerable town as rendered it safe to winter in the enemy's country. Great arrears too were now due to his soldiers, who were upon the point of mutinying for their pay, while he knew not from what funds to satisfy them. All these considerations induced him to listen to the overtures of peace, which a Spanish Dominican, the confessor of his sister the Queen of France, had secretly made to his confessor, a monk of the same order. In consequence of this, plenipotentiaries were named on both sides, and began their conferences in Chaussè, a small village near Chalons. the same time, Charles, either from a desire of making one great final effort against France, or merely to gain a pretext for deserting his ally, and concluding a separate peace, sent an ambassador formally to require Henry, according to the stipulation in their treaty, to advance towards Paris. While he expected a return from him, and waited the issue of the conferences at Chaussè, he continued to march forward, though in the utmost distress from scarcity of provisions. But at last, by a fortunate motion on his part, or through some neglect or treachery on that of the French, he surprised first Esperney and then Chateau Thierry, in both which were considerable magazines. No sooner was it known that these towns, the latter of which is not two days march from Paris, were in the hands of the enemy, than that great capital, defenceless, and susceptible of any violent alarm in proportion to its greatness, was filled with consternation. The inhabitants, as if the Emperor had been already at their gates, fled in the wildest confusion and despair, many sending their wives and children down the Seine to Rouen, others to Orleans, and the towns upon the Loire. Francis himself, more afflicted with this than with any other event VII. 1544. during his reign, and sensible as well of the triumph that his BOOK rival would enjoy in insulting his capital, as of the danger to which the kingdom was exposed, could not refrain from crying out, in the first emotion of his surprise and sorrow, "How dear, O my God, do I pay for this crown, which I thought thou hadst granted me freely & !" But recovering in a moment from this sudden sally of peevishness and impatience, he devoutly added, "Thy will, however, be done;" and proceeded to issue the necessary orders for opposing the enemy with his usual activity and presence of mind. The Dauphin detached eight thousand men to Paris, which revived the courage of the affrighted citizens; he threw a strong garrison into Meaux, and by a forced march got into Fertè, between the Imperialists and the capital. retire. UPON this, the Emperor, who began again to feel the Obliged to want of provisions, perceiving that the Dauphin still prudently declined a battle, and not daring to attack his camp with forces so much shattered and reduced by hard service, turned suddenly to the right, and began to fall back towards Soissons. Having about this time received Henry's answer, whereby he refused to abandon the sieges of Boulogne and Montreuil, of both which he expected every moment to get possession, he thought himself absolved from all obligations of adhering to the treaty with him, and at full liberty to consult his own interest in what manner soever he pleased. He consented, therefore, to renew the conference, which the surprise of Esperney had broken off. To conclude a peace be- Peace between two Princes, one of whom greatly desired, and the tween him other greatly needed it, did not require a long negociation. cis conIt was signed at Crespy, a small town near Meaux, on the cluded at eighteenth of September. The chief articles of it were, That all the conquests which either party had made since the truce of Nice shall be restored; That the Emperor shall. give in marriage to the Duke of Orleans, either his own eldest daughter, or the second daughter of his brother Ferdinand; That if he chose to bestow on him his own daughter, he shall settle on her all the provinces of the Low g Brantome, tom. vi. 381. and Fran Crespy. VII. 1544. BOOK Countries, to be erected into an independent state, which shall descend to the male issue of the marriage; That if he determined to give him his niece, he shall, with her, grant him the investiture of Milan and its dependencies; That he shall within four months declare which of these two Princesses he had pitched upon, and fulfil the respective conditions upon the consummation of the marriage, which shall take place within a year from the date of the treaty; That as soon as the Duke of Orleans is put in possession either of the Low-Countries or of Milan, Francis shall restore to the Duke of Savoy all that he now possesses of his territories, except Pignerol and Montmilian; That Francis shall renounce all pretensions to the kingdom of Naples, or to the sovereignty of Flanders and Artois, and Charles shall give up his claim to the duchy of Burgundy and county of Charolois; That Francis shall give no aid to the exiled King of Navarre; That both Monarchs shall join in making war upon the Turk, towards which the King shall furnish, when required by the Emperor and Empire, six hundred men at arms, and ten thousand foot h. Motives of concluding it. BESIDES the immediate motives to this peace, arising from the distress of his army through want of provisions; from the difficulty of retreating out of France, and the impossibility of securing winter-quarters there; the Emperor was influenced by other considerations, more distant indeed, but not less weighty. The Pope was offended to a great degree, as well at his concessions to the Protestants in the late diet, as at his consenting to call a council, and to admit of public disputations in Germany with a view of determining the doctrines in controversy. Paul considering both these steps as sacrilegious encroachments on the jurisdiction as well as privileges of the Holy See, had addressed to the Emperor a remonstrance rather than a letter on this subject, written with such acrimony of language, and in a style of such high authority, as discovered more of an intention to draw on a quarrel than of a desire to reclaim him. This ill humour was not a little inflamed by the Emperor's league h Recueil des Traitez, tom. i. 227. Belius de Causis Pacis Crepiac. in Actis Erudit. Lips. 1763. |