give greater solemnity to these engagements, bound CHAPTER himself to observe them by an oath on the sacra On the 1st of March, 1502, the Spanish army took possession, according to agreement, of the city of Tarento; and the duke of Calabria with his suite was permitted to leave it, in order to rejoin his father in France. In the mean time, advices were received from Ferdinand the Catholic, instructing Gonsalvo on no account to suffer the young prince to escape from his hands, as he was a pledge of too great importance for the Spanish government to relinquish. The general in consequence sent after the duke, who had proceeded in company with the count of Potenza as far as Bitonto, on his way to the north, and commanded him to be arrested and brought back to Tarento. Not long after, he caused him to be conveyed on board one of the men-of-war in the harbour, and, in contempt of his solemn engagements, sent a prisoner to Spain. 43 X. PART Perjury of The national writers have made many awkward attempts to varnish over this atrocious act of perfidy in their favorite hero. Zurita vindicates it by a letter from the Neapolitan prince to Gonsalvo, requesting the latter to take this step, since he preferred a residence in Spain to one in France, but could not with decency appear to act in opposition to his father's wishes on the subject. If such a letter, however, were really obtained from the prince, his tender years would entitle it to little weight, and of course it would afford no substantial ground for justification. Another explanation is offered by Paolo Giovio, who states that the Great prediction of his friend Sannazaro; Parthenopes, fractosque tuâ sub cuspide reges Opera Latina, Ecloga 4. 44 Zurita, Hist. del Rey Hernando, lib. 4, cap. 58. Giovio, Vitæ Illust. Virorum, lib. 1, p. 234. Mariana coolly disposes of Gonsalvo's treachery with the remark, nian asentado. En la guerra quien "No parece se le guardo lo que tehay que de todo punto lo guarde?" (Hist. de España, tom. ii. p. 675.) "Dolus an virtus, quis in hoste requirat?" X. it could not reasonably have excited surprise. But CHAPTER coming from one of a noble, magnanimous nature, like Gonsalvo, exemplary in his private life, and unstained with any of the grosser vices of the age, it excited general astonishment and reprobation, even among his contemporaries. It has left a reproach on his name, which the historian may regret, but cannot wipe away. CHAPTER XI. ITALIAN WARS. - RUPTURE WITH FRANCE. SIEGED IN BARLETA. - GONSALVO BE PART Mutual dis trust of the French and Spaniards. 1502, 1503. Rupture between the French and Spaniards. - Gonsalvo retires to -- It was hardly to be expected that the partition treaty between France and Spain, made so manifestly in contempt of all good faith, would be maintained any longer than suited the convenience of the respective parties. The French monarch, indeed, seems to have prepared, from the first, to dispense with it, so soon as he had secured his own moiety of the kingdom;1 and sagacious men at the Spanish court inferred, that King Ferdinand would 1 Peter Martyr, in a letter written from Venice, while detained there on his way to Alexandria, speaks of the efforts made by the French emissaries to induce the republic to break with Spain, and support their master in his designs on Naples. "Adsunt namque a Ludovico rege Gallorum oratores, qui omni nixu conantur a vobis Venetorum animos avertere. Fremere dentibus aiunt oratorem primarium Gallum, quia nequeat per Venetorum suffragia consequi, ut aperte vobis hostilitatem edicant, utque velint Gallis regno Parthenopeo contra vestra præsidia ferre suppetias." The letter is dated October 1st, 1501. Opus Epist., epist. 231. do as much, when he should be in a situation to CHAPTER assert his claims with success. 2 It was altogether improbable, whatever might be the good faith of the parties, that an arrangement could long subsist, which so rudely rent asunder the members of this ancient monarchy; or that a thousand points of collision should not arise between rival hosts, lying as it were on their arms within bowshot of each other, and in view of the rich spoil which each regarded as its own. Such grounds for rupture did occur, sooner probably than either party had foreseen, and certainly before the king of Aragon was prepared to meet it. XI. rupture The immediate cause was the extremely loose Cause of language of the partition treaty, which assumed such a geographical division of the kingdom into four provinces, as did not correspond with any ancient division, and still less with the modern, by which the number was multiplied to twelve. The central portion, comprehending the Capitanate, the Basilicate, and the Principality, became debatable ground between the parties, each of whom insisted 2 Martyr, after noticing the grounds of the partition treaty, comments with his usual shrewd ness on the politic views of the Spanish sovereigns. "Facilius namque se sperant, eam partem, quam sibi Galli sortiti sunt, habituros aliquando, quam si universum regnum occuparint." Opus Epist., epist. 218. 3 The Italian historians, who have investigated the subject with some parade of erudition, treat it so vaguely, as to leave it after all nearly as perplexed as they found it. Giovio includes the Capitanate |