CHARlEftTHE JIliF 
 
 ENGRAVED BY CHARLES COOK 
 
 LOfTim GE6R<'< &SOHS,BEQADWA!( 1 1CDGATE BUI
 
 HISTORY OF THE REIGN 
 
 OF 
 
 CHARLES THE FIFTH 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM ROBEETSON, D.D. 
 
 WITH AN ACCOUNT OF 
 
 THE EMPEROR'S LIFE AFTER HIS ABDICATION 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES VOLUME I. 
 
 FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 1905
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 THE life of Charles the Fifth subsequently to his abdi- 
 cation is disposed of by Dr. Kobertson in some six or seven 
 pages. It did not, in truth, come strictly within the 
 author's plan, which proposed only a history of the reign of 
 the emperor. But, unfortunately, these few pages contain 
 many inaccuracies, and, among others, a very erroneous 
 view of the interest which Charles, in his retirement, 
 took in the concerns of the government. Yet it would 
 be unjust to impute these inaccuracies to want of care in 
 the historian, since he had no access to such authentic 
 sources of information as would have enabled him to 
 correct them. Such information was to be derived from 
 documents in the archives of Simancas, consisting, among 
 other things, of the original correspondence of the 
 emperor and his household, and showing conclusively 
 that the monarch, instead of remaining dead to the world 
 in his retreat, took not merely an interest, but a decided 
 
 20981 43
 
 iv ADVEETISEMENT. 
 
 part, in the management of affairs. But in Kobertson's 
 day Simancas was closed against the native as well as the 
 foreigner ; and it is not until within a few years that the 
 scholar has been permitted to enter its dusty recesses and 
 draw thence materials to illustrate the national history. 
 It is particularly rich in materials for the illustration of 
 Charles the Fifth's life after his abdication. Availing 
 themselves of the opportunities thus afforded, several emi- 
 nent writers, both in England and on the Continent, have 
 bestowed much pains in investigating a passage of history 
 hitherto so little understood. The results of their labours 
 they have given to the world in a series of elaborate 
 works, which, however varying in details, all exhibit 
 Charles's character and conduct in his retirement in a 
 very different point of view from that in which it has 
 been usual to regard them. It was the knowlege of this 
 fact which led the publishers of the present edition of 
 Robertson's "Charles the Fifth," to request me to prepare " 
 such an account of his monastic life as might place before 
 the reader the results of the recent researches in Simancas, 
 and that in a more concise form as better suited to the 
 purpose for which it was designed than had been 
 adopted by preceding writers. I was the more willing to 
 undertake the task, that my previous studies had made
 
 ADVEBTTSEMENT. V 
 
 me familiar with the subject, and that I was possessed of 
 a large body of authentic documents relating to it, copied 
 from the originals in Simancas. These documents, indeed, 
 form fie basis of a chapter on the monastic life of Charles 
 at the close of the first Book of the History of Philip the 
 Second, written, I may add, in the summer of 1851, 
 more than a year previous to the publication of Mr. 
 Stirling's admirable work, which led the way in the 
 series of brilliant productions relating to the cloister life 
 of Charles. 
 
 In complying with the request of the publishers, I 
 have made the authentic records which I have received 
 from Simancas the foundation of my narrative, freely 
 availing myself, at the same time, of the labours of my 
 predecessors, especially those of Mr. Stirling and M. 
 Mignet, wherever they have thrown light on the path 
 from sources not within my reach. 
 
 In the performance of the task I have been insensibly 
 led into a much greater length than I had originally 
 intended, or than, I fear, will be altogether palatable to 
 those who have become already familiar with the narrative 
 in the writings of those who have preceded me. To such 
 readers I cannot, indeed, flatter myself that I have given
 
 vi ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 any information of importance beyond what they may 
 have acquired from these more extended and elaborate 
 works. But by far the larger part of readers in our 
 community have probably had no access to these works ; 
 and I may express the hope that I have executed the task 
 in such a manner as to satisfy any curiosity which, after 
 perusing the narrative of the illustrious Sottish historian, 
 they may naturally feel respecting the closing scenes in 
 the life of the great emperor. 
 
 WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT. 
 
 BOSTOH, November 10, 1866
 
 TO 
 
 THE KING. 
 
 SIR, 
 
 I PRESUME to lay before your Majesty the history of a period 
 vrhich, if the abilities of the writer were equal to the dignity of 
 the subject, would not be unworthy the attention of a monarch 
 who is no less a judge than a patron of literary merit. 
 
 History claims it as her prerogative to offer instruction to 
 kings, as well as to their people. What reflections the reign 
 of the Emperor Charles the Fifth may suggest to your Majesty, 
 it becomes not me to conjecture. But your subjects cannot 
 observe the various calamities which that monarch's ambition 
 to be distinguished as a conqueror brought upon his domi- 
 nions, without recollecting the felicity of their own times, and 
 looking up with gratitude to their sovereign, who, during the 
 fervour of youth, and amidst the career of victory, possessed 
 such self-command, and maturity of judgment, as to set bounds 
 to his own triumphs, and prefer the blessings of peace to the 
 splendour of military glory. 
 
 Posterity will not only celebrate the wisdom of your 
 Majesty's choice, but will enumerate the many virtues which
 
 yiii DEDICATION. 
 
 render your reign conspicuous for a sacred regard to all the 
 duties incumbent on the sovereign of a free people. 
 
 It is our happiness to feel the influence of these virtues, and 
 to live under the dominion of a prince who delights more in 
 promoting the public welfare than in receiving the just praise 
 of his royal beneficence. 
 
 I am, Sir, 
 
 Your Majesty's most faithful subject, 
 And dutiful servant, 
 
 WILLIAM ROBERTSON.
 
 PEEFACE. 
 
 No period in the history of one's own country can be 
 considered as altogether uninteresting. Such transac- 
 tions as tend to illustrate the progress of its constitution, 
 laws, or manners, merit the utmost attention. Even re- 
 mote and minute events are objects of a curiosity, which 
 being natural to the human mind, the gratification of 
 it is attended with pleasure. 
 
 But with respect to the history of foreign states, we 
 must set other bounds to our desire of information. The 
 universal progress of science during the last two centuries, 
 the art of printing, and other obvious causes, have filled 
 Europe with such a multiplicity of histories, and with 
 such vast collections of historical materials, that the term 
 of human life is too short for the study or even the 
 perusal of them. It is necessary, then, not only for those 
 who are called to conduct the affairs of nations, but for 
 such as inquire and reason concerning them, to remain 
 satisfied with a general knowledge of distant events, and 
 to confine their study of history in detail chiefly to that 
 period in which, the several states of Europe having 
 become intimately connected, the operations of one power 
 are so felt by all as to influence their councils and to 
 regulate their measures. 
 
 Some boundary, then, ought to be fixed, in order to 
 separate these periods. An era should be pointed out, 
 prior to which each country, little connected with those 
 around it, may trace its own history apart ; after which,
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 the transactions of every considerable nation in Europo, 
 become interesting and instructive to all. With this 
 intention I undertook to write the History of the Emperor 
 Charles the Fifth. It was during his administration that 
 the powers of Europe were formed into one great politi- 
 cal system, in which each took a station, wherein it has 
 since remained with less variation than could have been 
 expected after the shocks occasioned by so many internal 
 revolutions and so many foreign wars. The great events 
 which happened then have not hitherto spent their force. 
 The political principles and maxims then established still 
 continue to operate. The ideas concerning the balance of 
 power then introduced, or rendered general, still influence 
 the councils of nations. 
 
 The age of Charles the Fifth may therefore be con- 
 sidered as the period at which the political state of Europe 
 began to assume a new form. I have endeavoured to 
 render my account of it an introduction to the history of 
 Europe subsequent to his reign. While his numerous 
 biographers describe his personal qualities and actions, 
 while the historians of different countries relate occur- 
 rences the consequences of which were local or transient, 
 it hath been my purpose to record only those great trans- 
 actions in his reign, the effects of which were universal 
 or continue to be permanent. 
 
 As my readers could derive little instruction from such 
 a history of the reign of Charles the Fifth without some 
 information concerning the state of Europe previous to 
 the sixteenth century, my desire of supplying this has 
 produced a preliminary volume,* in which I have 
 attempted to point out and to explain the great causes 
 
 * These passages in the text re- a somewhat different arrangement 
 
 fear to the original edition : the in respect to the division of the 
 
 additional matter incorporated in volumes, 
 the present edition has required
 
 PREFACE. XI 
 
 and events to whose operation all the improvements in 
 the political state of Europe, from the subversion of the 
 Roman empire to the beginning of the sixteenth century, 
 must be ascribed. I have exhibited a view of the pro- 
 gress of society in Europe, not only with respect to interior 
 government, laws, and manners, but with respect to 
 the command of the national force requisite in foreign 
 operations ; and I have described the political consti- 
 tution of the principal states in Europe at the time when 
 Charles the Fifth began his reign. 
 
 In this part of my work I have been led into several 
 critical disquisitions, which belong more properly to the 
 province of the lawyer or antiquary than to that of the 
 historian. These I have placed at the end of the first 
 volume, under the title of Proofs and Illustrations.* 
 Many of my readers will, probably, give little attention 
 to such researches. To some, they may perhaps appear 
 the most curious and interesting part of the work. I 
 have carefully pointed out the sources from which I have 
 derived information, and have cited the writers on whose 
 authority I rely with a minute exactness, which might 
 appear to border upon ostentation, if it were possible to 
 be vain of having read books, many of which nothing but 
 the duty of examining with accuracy whatever I laid 
 before the public could have induced me to open. As 
 my inquiries conducted me often into paths which were 
 obscure or little frequented, such constant references to 
 the authors who have been my guides were not only 
 necessary for authenticating the facts which are the 
 foundations of my reasonings, but may be useful in 
 pointing out the way to such as shall hereafter hold the 
 same course, and in enabling them to carry on their 
 researches with greater facility and success. 
 
 * See note on p. z.
 
 Xll PREFACE. 
 
 Every intelligent reader will observe ont< omission in 
 my work, the reason of which it is necessaiy to explain. 
 I have given no account of the conquests of Mexico and 
 Peru, or of the establishment of the Spanish colonies in 
 the continent and islands of America. The history of 
 these events I originally intended to have related at con- 
 siderable length. But upon a nearer and more attentive 
 consideration of this part of my plan, I found that the 
 discovery of the New World, the state of society among 
 its ancient inhabitants, their character, manners, and arts, 
 the genius of the European settlements in its various 
 provinces, together with the influence of these upon the 
 systems of policy or commerce in Europe, were subjects 
 so splendid and important that a superficial view of them 
 could afford little satisfaction ; and, on the other hand, to 
 treat of them as extensively as they merited must produce 
 an episode disproportionate to the principal work. I have 
 therefore reserved these for a separate history ; which, if 
 the performance now offered to the public shall receive its 
 approbation, I purpose to undertake. 
 
 Though, by omitting such considerable but detached 
 articles in the reign of Charles the Fifth, I have circum- 
 scribed my narration within more narrow limits, I am yet 
 persuaded, from this view of the intention and nature of 
 the work which I thought it necessary to lay before my 
 readers, that the plan must still appear to them too 
 extensive, and the undertaking too arduous. I have often 
 felt them to be so. But my conviction of the utility of 
 such a history prompted me to persevere. With what 
 success I have executed it, the public must now judge. 
 I wait, not without solicitude, for its decision, to which 
 I shall submit with a respectful silence.
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 A VIEW OF THE PROGRESS OF SOCIETY 
 IN EUROPE. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 VIEW OF THE PROGRESS OF SOCIETY IN EUROPE WITH RESPECT TO 
 INTERIOR GOVERNMENT, LAWS, AND MANNERS. 
 
 I'AQB 
 
 The Effects of the Roman Power on the Shite of Europe. The Irruption 
 of the Barbarous Nations. Their Settlements in the Countries they 
 had conquered. Decay of the Roman Empire. Desolation occasioned 
 by the Barbarians. Origin of the present Political System of Europe. 
 The Feudal System. Its Effects upon the Arts, Literature, and 
 Religion. The Crusades, and their Effects upon Society. Growth of 
 Municipal Institutions. Emancipation of the Peasantry. Beginning 
 of a regular Administration of Justice. Trial by Combat. Appeals. 
 Ecclesiastical Courts. Discovery of the Code of Justinian. Chivalry. 
 Revival of Learning. Influence of Commerce. Italians the First 
 Merchants and Bankers. Rise of Trade and Manufactures among the 
 Cities of the Hanseatic League. In the Netherlands. In England . 1 79 
 
 SECTION H. 
 
 VIEW OF THE PROGRESS OP SOCIETY IN EUROPE WITH RESPECT TO 
 THE COMMAND OP THE NATIONAL FORCE REQUISITE IN FOREIGN 
 OPERATIONS. 
 
 Improved State of Society at the Beginning of the Fifteenth Century. 
 The Concentration of Resources in European States. The Power of 
 Monarchs ; their Revenues and Armies. Affairs of Different States at 
 first entirely Distinct. Progress of Combination. Loss of Continen- 
 tal Territory by the English. Effects upon the French Monarchy. 
 Growth of Standing Armies, and of the Royal Prerogative under Louis 
 XL His Example imitated in England and in Spain. The heiress of 
 Burgundy. Perfidious Conduct of Louis XL towards her. Her Mar- 
 riage with Maximilian, Archduke of Austria. Invasion of Italy by 
 Charles VIII. The Balance of Power. Use of Infantry in Armies. 
 League of Cambray against Venice 80116 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 VIEW OP THE POLITICAL CONSTITUTION OP THE PRINCIPAL STATES IN 
 EUROPE, AT THE COMMENCEMENT OP THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Ftaly at the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century. The Papal Power. 
 Alexander VI. and Julius II. Defects in Ecclesiastical Governments.
 
 XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 Venice ; its Rise and Progress ; its Naval Power and its Commerce ; 
 Florence. Naples and Sicily. Contest for its Crown. Duchy of 
 Milan. Ludovico Sforza. Spain ; conquered by the Vandals and by 
 the Moors ; gradually re-conquered by the Christians. Marriage of 
 Ferdinand and Isabella. The Eoyal Prerogative. Constitution of 
 Aragon and of Castile. Internal Disorders. " The Holy Brother- 
 hood." France ; its Constitution and Government. The Power of 
 its Early Kings. Government becomes purely Monarchical, though 
 restrained by the Nobles and the Parliaments. The German Empire. 
 
 Power of the Nobles and of the Clergy. Contests between the Popes 
 and the Emperors. Decline of Imperial Authority. Total Change of 
 Government. Maximilian. The Real Power and Revenues of the 
 Emperors, contrasted with their Pretensions. Complication of Diffi- 
 culties. Origin of the Turkish Empire ; its Character. The Janizaries. 
 Solyman ........... 116181 
 
 PBOOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS ..... . 183 290 
 
 HISTOKY OF CHAELES V. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 Birth of Charles V. His Hereditary Dominions. Philip and Joanna, his 
 Parents. Birth of Ferdinand, his Brother. Death of Isabella. 
 Philip's Attempts to obtain the Government of Castile. The Regent 
 Ferdinand marries a Niece of the French King to exclude Philip and 
 his Daughter. The Castilian Nobility declare for Philip. Philip and 
 Joanna proclaimed. Death of Philip. Incapacity of Joanna. Ferdi- 
 nand made Regent. His Acquisition of Territory. His Death. 
 Education of Charles V. Cardinals Ximenes and Adrian. Charles 
 acknowledged King. Ximenes strengthens the Royal Power ; is 
 opposed by the Nobles. War in Navarre and in Africa. Peace with 
 France. Charles visits Spain. His Ingratitude towards Ximenes. 
 Death of the Latter. Discontent of the Castilians. Corruption of the 
 King's Flemish Favourites. Reception of Charles in Aragon. Death 
 of the Emperor Maximilian. Charles and Francis I. Competitors for 
 the Empire. Views of the other Reigning Potentates. Assembly of 
 the Electors. The Crown offered to Frederic of Saxony. He declines 
 in Favour of Charles, who is chosen. Discontent of the Spaniards. 
 Insurrection in Valencia. The Cortes of Castile summoned to meet in 
 Galicia. Charles appoints Regents, and embarks for the Low Coun- 
 tries .... . 293 .-558 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 Rivalry between Charles and Francis 1." for the Empire. They negotiate 
 with the Pope, the Venetians, and Henry VIII. of England. Character 
 of the latter. Cardinal Wolsey. Charles visits England. Meeting 
 between Henry VIII. and Francis I. Coronation of Charles. Soly- 
 man the Magnificent. The Diet convoked at Worms. The Reforma- 
 tion. Sale of Indulgences by Leo X. Tetzel. Luther. Progress of 
 his Opinions. Is summoned to Rome. His Appearance before the 
 Legate. His Appeals to a General Council. Luther questions the
 
 CONTENTS. XV 
 
 MM 
 
 Papal Authority. Reformation in Switzerland. Excommunication of 
 Luther. Reformation in Germany. Causes of the Progress of the 
 Reformation. The Corruption in the Roman Church. Power and HI 
 Conduct of the Clergy. Venality of the Roman Court. Effects of the 
 Invention of Printing.-- Erasmus. The Diet at Worms. Edict against 
 Luther. He is seized and confined at Wartburg. His Doctrines con- 
 demned by the University of Paris, and controverted by Henry VIII. of 
 England.- Henry VIII. favours the Emperor Charles against Francis L 
 Leo X. makes a Treaty with Charles. Death of Chievres. - Hostilities 
 in Navarre and in the Low Countries. Siege of Mezieres. Congress 
 at Calais. League against France. Hostilities in Italy. Death of 
 Leo X. Defeat of the French. Henry VIII. declares War against 
 France. Charles visits England. Conquest of Rhodes by Solyman 359 445 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 Insurrections. Attempts of the Regent, Adrian, to suppress them. Con- 
 federacy in Castile against him. Measures taken by the Emperor. 
 Remonstrance of the Junta. They take up Arms. Their Negotiations 
 with the Nobles. The Junta under Padilla defeated in Battle. 
 Defence of Toledo by his Widow. The War in Valencia and in Ma- 
 jorca. Generosity of the Emperor. Reception of Adrian at Rome. 
 His Pacific Policy. A New League against France. Treachery of the 
 Duke of Bourbon. Francis attacks Milan. Death of Adrian, and 
 Election of Clement VII. Disappointment of Wolsey. Progress of 
 the War with France. Pope Clement unable to bring about Peace. 
 The French abandon the Milanese. Death of Bayard. The Reforma- 
 tion in Germany. Luther translates the Bible. The Diet at Nurem- 
 berg proposes a General Council. The Diet presents a List of Griev- 
 ances to the Pope. Opinion at Rome concerning the Policy of Adrian. 
 Clement's Measures against Luther 446 502 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 Views of the Italian States respecting Charles and Francis. Charles invades 
 France without Success. Francis invades the Milanese. He besieges 
 Pavia. Neutrality of the Pope. Francis attacks Naples. Movements 
 of the Imperial Generals. Battle of Pavia. Francis taken Prisoner. 
 Schemes of the Emperor. Prudence of Louise the Regent. Conduct 
 of Henry VIII. and of the Italian Powers. The Emperor's rigorous 
 Terms to Francis. Francis carried to Spain. Henry makes a Treaty 
 with the Regent Louise. Intrigues of Morone in Milan. He is be- 
 trayed by Pescara, Treatment of Francis. Bourbon made General 
 and Duke of Milan. Treaty of Madrid. Liberation of Francis. 
 Charles marries Isabella of Portugal. Affairs in Germany. Insurrec- 
 tions. Conduct of Luther. Prussia wrested from the Teutonic Knights. 
 Measures of Francis upon reaching his Kingdom. A League against 
 the Emperor. Preparations for War. The Colonnas Masters of Rome. 
 The Pope detached from the Holy League. Position of the Emperor. 
 Bourbon marches towards the Pope's Territories. Negotiations. 
 Assault of Rome. Bourbon slain. The City taken and plundered. 
 The Pope a Prisoner. Hypocrisy of the Emperor. Solyman invades 
 Hungary. Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, becomes King of Hungary. 
 Progress of the Reformation 503 576 
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 General Indignation and Confederacy against the Emperor. The Floren- 
 tines. The French Army in Italy. The Emperor sets the Pope at
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Liberty, and makes Pacific Overtures. A Royal Challenge. Retreat 
 of the Imperial Army from Rome. The French besiege Naples-- 
 Revolt of Andrew Doria. Freedom of Genoa. Operations in the 
 Milanese. Treaty between the Pope and the Emperor, and between 
 Charles and Francis. Henry VIII. seeks a Divorce from his Queen, 
 Catharine of Aragon. Charles visits Italy and re-establishes the Power 
 of the Medici. Returns to Germany. The Diet of Spires. The Protest. 
 The Diet of Augsburg. Decree against the Protestants. Charles 
 makes his Brother Ferdinand King of the Romans. Negotiations of 
 the Protestants. The Campaign in Hungary. Conference between 
 the Emperor and the Pope. Movements of the French King. Henry 
 divorced from Queen Catharine by the Archbishop, and excommuni- 
 cated by the Pope. Papal Authority abolished in England. Death of 
 Clement VII. Pope Paul III. Insurrection of the Anabaptists in 
 Germany. They become Masters of Munster. John of Leyden crowned 
 King. Confederacy against him. Munster besieged and taken. The 
 League of Smalkalde. Expedition of the Emperor to Africa. The 
 Barbary States. The Barbarossas. Conquest of Tunis. The Emperor 
 besieges Goletta, defeats Barbarossa. and restores the King of Tunis. 
 
 577- -668
 
 A VIEW 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PROGRESS OF SOCIETY IN EUROPE, 
 
 FBOH THE 
 
 SUBVERSION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 
 TO THE BEGINNING OF THE SIXTEENTH UENTUBY. 
 
 YOU t.
 
 A VIEW 
 
 or THE 
 
 PROGRESS OF SOCIETY IN EUROPE, 
 
 FROM THE SUBVERSION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE TO 
 THE BEGINNING OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 VIEW OF THE PROGRESS OF SOCIETY IN EUROPE WITH 
 RESPECT TO INTERIOR GOVERNMENT, LAWS, AND 
 MANNERS. 
 
 The Effects of the Roman Power on the State of Europe. The Irruption 
 of the Barbarous Nations. Their Settlements in the Countries they 
 had conquered. Decay of the Roman Empire. Desolation occasioned 
 by the Barbarians. Origin of the present Political System of Europe. 
 The Feudal System. Its Effects upon the Arts, Literature, and 
 Religion. The Crusades, and their Effects upon Society. Growth of 
 Municipal Institutions. Emancipation of the Peasantry. Beginning 
 of a regular Administration of Justice. Trial by Combat Appeals. 
 Ecclesiastical Courts. Discovery of the Code of Justinian. 
 Chivalry. Revival of Learning. Influence of Commerce. Italians 
 the first Merchants and Bankers. Rise of Trade and Manufactures 
 among the Cities of the Hanseatic League, in the Netherlands, in 
 England. 
 
 Two great revolutions have happened in the political 
 slate and in the manners of the European nations. The 
 first was occasioned by the progress of the Eoman 
 power ; the second by the subversion of it. When 
 the spirit of conquest led the armies of Eome beyond 
 the Alps, they found all the countries which they in- 
 vaded inhabited by people whom they denominated 
 
 B 2
 
 * A VIEW OF THE [SECTION i. 
 
 barbarians, but who were nevertheless brave and inde- 
 pendent. These defended their ancient possessions 
 with obstinate valour. It was by the superiority of their 
 discipline, rather than that of their courage, that the 
 Romans gained any advantage over them. A single 
 battle did not, as among the effeminate inhabitants 
 of Asia, decide the fate of a state. The vanquished 
 people resumed their arms with fresh spirit, and their 
 undisciplined valour, animated by the love of liberty, 
 supplied the want of conduct as well as of union. 
 During those long and fierce struggles for dominion 
 or independence, the countries of Europe were suc- 
 cessively laid waste, a great part of their inhabitants 
 perished in the field, many were carried into slavery, 
 and a feeble remnant, incapable of farther resistance, 
 submitted to the Eoman power. 
 
 The Eomans, having thus desolated Europe, set them- 
 selves to civilize it. The form of government which 
 they established in the conquered provinces, though 
 severe, was regular, and preserved public tranquillity. 
 As a consolation for the loss of liberty, they commu- 
 nicated their arts, sciences, language, and manners to 
 their new subjects. Europe began to breathe, and to 
 recover strength after the calamities which it had un- 
 dergone ; agriculture was encouraged ; population in- 
 creased ; the ruined cities were rebuilt ; new towns 
 were founded; an appearance of prosperity succeeded, 
 and repaired in some degree, the havoc of war. 
 
 This state, however, was far from being happy or 
 favourable to the improvement of the human mind. 
 The vanquished nations were disarmed by their con- 
 querors and overawed by soldiers kept in pay to restrain 
 them. They were given up as a prey to rapacious 
 governors, who plundered them with impunity, and were 
 drained of their wealth by exorbitant taxes, levied with 
 so little attention to the situation of the provinces that
 
 SECTION i.] STATE OF EUROPE. 5 
 
 the impositions were often increased in proportion to 
 their inability to support them. They were deprived 
 of their most enterprising citizens, who resorted to a 
 distant capitel in quest of preferment or of riches ; and 
 were accustomed in all their actions to look up to a 
 superior and tamely to receive his commands. Under 
 so many depressing circumstances, it was hardly pos- 
 sible that they could retain vigour or generosity of mind. 
 The martial and independent spirit which had distin- 
 guished their ancestors became in a great measure ex- 
 tinct among all the people subjected to the Eoman 
 yoke ; they lost not only the habit but even the capa- 
 city of deciding for themselves or of acting from the 
 impulse of their own minds ; and the dominion of the 
 Eomans, like that of all great empires, degraded and 
 debased the human species. 1 
 
 A society in such a state could not subsist long. 
 There were defects in the Eoman government, even in 
 its most perfect form, which threatened its dissolution. 
 Time ripened these original seeds of corruption, and 
 gave birth to many new disorders. A constitution un- 
 sound and worn out must have fallen into pieces of 
 itself, without any external shock. The violent irrup- 
 tion of the Goths, Yandals, Huns, and other barbarians 
 hastened this event, and precipitated the downfall of 
 the empire. New nations seemed to arise, and to rush 
 from unknown regions, in order to take vengeance on 
 the Eomans for the calamities which they had inflicted 
 on mankind. These fierce tribes either inhabited the 
 various provinces in Germany which had never been 
 subdued by the Eomans, or were scattered over those 
 vast countries in the north of Europe and northwest of 
 Asia which are now occupied by the Danes, the Swedes, 
 the Poles, the subjects of the Eussian empire, and the 
 Tartars. Their condition and transactions previous to 
 
 1 NoteL
 
 6 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION I. 
 
 their invasion of the empire are but little known. 
 Almost all our information with respect to these is 
 derived from the Eomans ; and, as they did not pene- 
 trate far into countries which were at that time uncul- 
 tivated and uninviting, the accounts of their original 
 state given by the Roman historians are extremely im- 
 perfect. The rude inhabitants themselves, destitute of 
 science as well as of records, and without leisure or 
 curiosity to inquire into remote events, retained, per- 
 haps, some indistinct memory of recent occurrences, 
 but beyond these all was buried in oblivion or involved 
 in darkness and in fable. 2 
 
 The prodigious swarms which poured in upon the 
 empire from the beginning of the fourth century to 
 the final extinction of the Roman power have given 
 rise to an opinion that the countries whence they issued 
 were crowded with inhabitants ; and various theories 
 have been formed to account for such an extraordinary 
 degree of population as hath procured these countries 
 the appellation of " the storehouse of nations." But if 
 we consider that the countries possessed by the people 
 who invaded the empire were of vast extent, that a 
 great part of these was covered with woods and marshes, 
 that some of the most considerable of the barbarous 
 nations subsisted entirely by hunting or pasturage, in 
 both which states of society large tracts of land are 
 required for maintaining a few inhabitants, and that all 
 of them were strangers to the arts and industry, without 
 which population cannot increase to any great degree, 
 we must conclude that these countries could not be so 
 populous in ancient times as they are in the present, 
 when they still continue to be less peopled than any 
 other part of Europe or of Asia. 
 
 But the same circumstances that prevented the bar- 
 barous nations from becoming populous contributed to 
 
 8 Note II.
 
 N i.] STATE Otf EUEOPE. 7 
 
 inspire, or to strengthen, the martial spirit by which 
 they were distinguished. Inured by the rigour of their 
 climate, or the poverty of their soil, to hardships which 
 rendered their bodies firm and their minds vigorous, 
 accustomed to a course of life which was a continual 
 preparation for action, and disdaining every occupation 
 but that of war or of hunting, they undertook and prose- 
 cuted their military enterprises with an ardour and 
 impetuosity of which men softened by the refinements 
 of more polished times can scarcely form any idea. 3 
 
 Their first inroads into the empire proceeded rather 
 from the love of plunder than from the desire of new 
 settlements. Eoused to arms by some enterprising or 
 popular leader, they sallied out of their forests, broke 
 in upon the frontier provinces with irresistible violence, 
 put all who opposed them to the sword, carried off the 
 most valuable effects of the inhabitants, dragged along 
 multitudes of captives in chains, wasted all before them 
 with fire or sword, and returned in triumph to their 
 wilds and fastnesses. Their success, together with the 
 accounts which they gave of the unknown conveniences 
 and luxuries that abounded in countries better culti- 
 vated or blessed with a milder climate than their own, 
 excited new adventurers and exposed the frontier to new 
 devastations. 
 
 When nothing was left to plunder in the adjacent 
 provinces, ravaged by frequent excursions, they marched 
 farther from home, and, finding it difficult or dangerous 
 to return, they began to settle in the countries which 
 they had subdued. The sudden and short excursions 
 in quest of booty, which had alarmed and disquieted 
 the empire, ceased; a more dreadful calamity im- 
 pended. Great bodies of armed men, with their wives 
 and children and slaves and flocks, issued forth, like 
 regular colonies, in quest of new settlements. People 
 
 3 No*e III.
 
 8 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION i. 
 
 who had no cities, and seldom any fixed habitation, 
 were so little attached to their native soil that they 
 migrated without reluctance from one place to another. 
 New adventurers followed them. The lands which they 
 deserted were occupied by more remote tribes of bar- 
 barians. These, in their turn, pushed forward into 
 more fertile countries, and, like a torrent continually 
 increasing, rolled on, and swept every thing before 
 them. In less than two centuries from their first irrup- 
 tion, barbarians of various names and lineage plundered 
 and took possession of Thrace, Pannonia, Gaul, Spain, 
 Africa, and at last of Italy, and Rome itself. The vast 
 fabric of the Roman power, which it had been the work 
 of ages to perfect, was in that short period overturned 
 from the foundation. 
 
 Many concurring causes prepared the way for this 
 great revolution, and insured success to the nations 
 which invaded the empire. The Roman commonwealth 
 had conquered the world by the wisdom of its civil 
 maxims and the rigour of its military discipline. But 
 under the emperors the former were forgotten or de- 
 spised, and the latter was gradually relaxed. The 
 armies of the empire in the fourth and fifth centuries 
 bore scarcely any resemblance to those invincible legions 
 which had been victorious wherever they marched. In- 
 stead of freemen who voluntarily took arms from the 
 love of glory or of their country, provincials and bar- 
 barians were bribed or forced into service. These were 
 too feeble, or too proud, to submit to the fatigue of 
 military duty. They even complained of the weight of 
 their defensive armour as intolerable, and laid it aside. 
 Infantry, from which the armies of ancient Rome de- 
 rived their vigour and stability, fell into contempt ; the 
 effeminate and undisciplined soldiers of later times could 
 hardly be brought to venture into the field but on horse- 
 back. These wretched troops, however, were the only.
 
 SUCTION i.J STATE OF EUROPE. 9 
 
 guardians of the empire. The jealousy of despotism had 
 deprived the people of the use of arms ; and subjects 
 oppressed and rendered incapable of defending them- 
 selves had neither spirit nor inclination to resist their 
 invaders, from whom they had little to fear, because 
 their condition could hardly be rendered more unhappy. 
 At the same time that the martial spirit became extinct, 
 the revenues of the empire gradually diminished. The 
 taste for the luxuries of the East increased to such a 
 pitch in the imperial court that great sums were carried 
 into India, from which, in the channel of commerce, 
 money never returns. By the large subsidies paid to 
 the barbarous nations, a still greater quantity of specie 
 was withdrawn from circulation. The frontier provinces, 
 wasted by frequent incursions, became unable to pay the 
 customary tribute ; and the wealth of the world, which 
 had long centred in the capital of the empire, ceased to 
 flow thither in the same abundance, or was diverted into 
 other channels. The limits of the empire continued to 
 be as extensive as ever, while the spirit requisite for its 
 defence declined, and its resources were exhausted. A 
 vast body, languid and almost unanimated, became in- 
 capable of any effort to save itself, and was easily over- 
 powered. The emperors, who had the absolute direction 
 of this disordered system, sunk in the softness of Eastern 
 luxury, shut up within the walls of a palace, ignorant of 
 war, unacquainted with affairs, and governed entirely 
 by women and eunuchs, or by ministers equally effemi- 
 nate, trembled at the approach of danger, and, under 
 circumstances which called for the utmost vigour in 
 council as well as in action, discovered all the impotent 
 irresolution of fear and of folly. 
 
 In every respect the condition of the barbarous nations 
 was the reverse of that of the Romans. Among the 
 former the martial spirit was in full vigour; their 
 leaders were hardy and enterprising ; the arts which
 
 10 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION i. 
 
 had enervated the Romans were unknown; and such 
 was the nature of their military institutions that they 
 brought forces into the field without any trouble, and 
 supported them at little expense. The mercenary and 
 effeminate troops stationed on the frontier, astonished at 
 their fierceness, either fled at their approach or were 
 routed on the first onset. The feeble expedient to 
 which the emperors had recourse, of taking large bodies 
 of the barbarians into pay and of employing them to 
 repel new invaders, instead of retarding, hastened the de- 
 struction of the empire. These mercenaries soon turned 
 their arms against their masters, and with greater advan- 
 tage than ever ; for by serving in the Eoman armies they 
 had acquired all the discipline, or skill in war, which the 
 Romans still retained ; and upon adding these to their 
 native ferocity they became altogether irresistible. 
 
 But though, from these and many other causes, the 
 progress and conquests of the nations which overran 
 the empire became so extremely rapid, they were accom- 
 panied with horrible devastations and an incredible 
 destruction of the human species. Civilized nations, 
 which take arms upon cool reflection, from motives of 
 policy or prudence, with a view to guard against some 
 distant danger or to prevent some remote contingency, 
 carry on their hostilities with so little rancour or animo- 
 sity that war among them is disarmed of half its terrors. 
 Barbarians are strangers to such refinements. They 
 rush into war with impetuosity and prosecute it with 
 violence. Their sole object is to make their enemies 
 feel the weight of their vengeance ; nor does their rage 
 subside until it be satiated with inflicting on them every 
 possible calamity. It is with such a spirit that the 
 savage tribes in America carry on their petty wars. It 
 was with the same spirit that the more powerful and no 
 less fierce barbarians in the north of Europe and of Asia 
 fell upon the Roman empire.
 
 SECTION i.] STATE OF EUROPE. 11 
 
 Wherever they marched, their route was marked with 
 blood. They ravaged or destroyed all around them. 
 They made no distinction between what was sacred and 
 what was profane. They respected no age, or sex, or 
 rank. What escaped the fury of the first inundation 
 perished in those which followed it. The most fertile 
 and populous provinces were converted into deserts, in 
 which were scattered the ruins of villages and cities that 
 afforded shelter to a few miserable inhabitants whom 
 chance had preserved, or the sword of the enemy, 
 wearied with destroying, had spared. The conquerors 
 who first settled in the countries which they had wasted 
 were expelled or exterminated by new invaders, who, 
 coming from regions farther removed from the civilized 
 parts of the world, were still more fierce and rapacious. 
 This brought fresh calamities upon mankind, which did 
 not cease until the North, by pouring forth successive 
 swarms, was drained of people and could no longer 
 furnish instruments of destruction. Famine and pesti- 
 lence, which always march in the train of war when it 
 ravages with such inconsiderate cruelty, raged in every 
 part of Europe and completed its sufferings. If a man 
 were called to fix upon the period in the history of the 
 world during which the condition of the human race 
 was most calamitous and afflicted, he would without 
 hesitation name that which elapsed from the death of 
 Theodosius the Great to the establishment of the Lom- 
 bards in Italy. 4 The contemporary authors who beheld 
 that scene of desolation labour and are at a loss for ex- 
 pressions to describe the horror of it. The scourge of 
 God, The destroyer of nations, are the dreadful epithets 
 by which they distinguish the most noted of the bar- 
 barous leaders ; and they compare the ruin which they 
 
 4 Theodosius died A.D. 395 ; the was one hundred and seventy-six 
 reign of Alboinus in Lombardy be- years, 
 gan A.D. 571 : so that this period
 
 1*2 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION f. 
 
 had brought on the world to the havoc occasioned by 
 earthquakes, conflagrations, or deluges, the most formid- 
 able and fatal calamities which the imagination of man 
 can conceive. 
 
 But no expressions can convey so perfect an idea of 
 the destructive progress of the barbarians as that which 
 must strike an attentive observer when he contemplates 
 the total change which he will discover in the state of 
 Europe after it began to recover some degree of tran- 
 quillity, towards the close of the sixth century. The 
 Saxons were by that time masters of the southern and 
 more fertile provinces of Britain ; the Franks, of Gaul ; 
 the Huns, of Pannonia ; the Goths, of Spain ; the 
 Goths and Lombards, of Italy and the adjacent pro- 
 vinces. Very faint vestiges of the Eoman policy, juris- 
 prudence, arts, or literature remained. New forms of 
 government, new laws, new manners, new dresses, new 
 languages, and new names of men and countries were 
 everywhere introduced. To make a great or sudden 
 alteration with respect to any of these, unless where 
 the ancient inhabitants of a country have been almost 
 totally exterminated, has proved an undertaking beyond 
 the power of the greatest conquerors. 5 The great change 
 which the settlement of the barbarous nations occa- 
 sioned in the state of Europe may, therefore, be con- 
 sidered as a more decisive proof, than even the testi- 
 mony of contemporary historians, of the destructive 
 violence with which these invaders carried on their 
 conquests, and of the havoc which they had made 
 from one extremity of this quarter of the globe to the 
 other. 6 
 
 In the obscurity of the chaos occasioned by this 
 
 general wreck of nations, we must search for the seeds 
 
 of order, and endeavour to discover the first rudiments 
 
 of the policy and laws now established in Europe. To 
 
 6 Note IV. 6 Note V.
 
 SECTION I.] STATE OP EUEOPE. 13 
 
 this source the historians of its different kingdoms have 
 attempted, though with less attention and industry than 
 the importance of the inquiry merits, to trace back the 
 institutions and customs peculiar to their countrymen. 
 It is not my province to give a minute detail of the 
 progress of government and manners in each particular 
 nation whose transactions are the object of the follow- 
 ing history. But in order to exhibit a just view of the 
 state of Europe at the opening of the sixteenth century 
 it is necessary to look back, and to contemplate the 
 condition of the Northern nations upon their first settle- 
 ment in those countries which they occupied. It is 
 necessary to mark the great steps by which they ad- 
 vanced from barbarism to refinement, and to point out 
 those general principles and events which, by their 
 uniform as well as extensive operation, conducted all 
 of them to that degree of improvement in policy and 
 in manners -which they had attained at the period when 
 Charles Y. began his reign. 
 
 When nations subject to despotic government make 
 conquests, these serve only to extend the dominion and 
 the power of their master. But armies composed of 
 freemen conquer for themselves, not for their leaders. 
 The people who overturned the Eoman empire and 
 settled in its various provinces were of the latter class. 
 Not only the different nations that issued from the north 
 of Europe, which has always been considered as the 
 seat of liberty, but the Huns and Alans, who inhabited 
 part of those countries which have been marked out 
 as the peculiar region of servitude, 7 enjoyed freedom 
 and independence in such a high degree as seems to 
 be scarcely compatible with a state of social union or 
 with the subordination necessary to maintain it. They 
 followed the chieftain who led them forth in quest of 
 new settlements, not by constraint, but from choice j 
 
 ? De 1'Esprit des Loix, liv. xvii. ch. 3.
 
 14 A VIEW OP THE [SECTION i. 
 
 not as soldiers whom he could order to march, but as 
 volunteers who offered to accompany him. 8 They con- 
 sidered their conquests as a common property, in which 
 all had a title to share, as all had contributed to acquire 
 them. 9 In what manner or by what principles they 
 divided among them the lands which they seized, we 
 cannot now determine with any certainty. There is no 
 nation in Europe whose records reach back to this remote 
 period ; and there is little information to be got from 
 uninstructive and meagre chronicles, compiled by writers 
 ignorant of the true end and unacquainted with the 
 proper objects of history. 
 
 This new division of property, however, together with 
 the maxims and manners to which it gave rise, gradually 
 introduced a species of government formerly unknown. 
 This singular institution is now distinguished by the 
 name of the feudal system ; and though the barbarous 
 nations which framed it settled in their new territories 
 at different times, came from different countries, spoke 
 various languages, and were under the command of 
 separate leaders, the feudal policy and laws were estab- 
 lished, with little variation, in every kingdom of Europe. 
 This amazing uniformity hath induced some authors 10 
 to believe that all these nations, notwithstanding so 
 many apparent circumstances of distinction, were ori- 
 ginally the same people. But it may be ascribed with 
 greater probability to the similar state of society and 
 of manners to which they were accustomed in their 
 native countries, and to the similar situation in which 
 they found themselves on taking possession of their new 
 domains. 
 
 As the conquerors of Europe had their acquisitions to 
 maintain, not only against such of the ancient inhabit- 
 
 8 Note VI. Script. Byz., edit. Ven., voL i 
 
 9 Note VII. p. 345. 
 " Procop. de Bello Vandal., ap.
 
 SECTION i.l STATE OF EUROPE. 15 
 
 ants as they had spared, but against the more formidable 
 inroads of new invaders, self-defence was their chief 
 care, and seems to have been the chief object of their 
 first institutions and policy. Instead of those loose 
 associations which, though they scarcely diminished 
 their personal independence, had been sufficient for their 
 security while they remained in their original countries, 
 they saw the necessity of uniting . in more close con- 
 federacy, and of relinquishing some of their private 
 rights in order to attain public safety. Every freeman, 
 upon receiving a portion of the lands which were divided, 
 bound himself to appear in arms against the enemies of 
 the community. This military service was the condition 
 upon which he received and held his lands ; and, as they 
 were exempted from every other burden, that tenure, 
 among a warlike people, was deemed both easy and 
 honourable. The king 01 general who led them to con- 
 quest, continuing still to Le the head of the colony, had, 
 of course, the largest portion allotted to him. Having 
 thus acquired the meaLo of rewarding past services, as 
 well as of gaining new adherents, he parcelled out his 
 lands with this view, binding those on whom they were 
 bestowed to resort to his standard with a number of men 
 in proportion to the extent of the territory which they 
 received, and to bear arms in his defence. His chief 
 officers imitated the example of the sovereign, and, in 
 distributing portions of their lands among their depend- 
 ants, annexed the same condition to the grant. Thus 
 a feudal kingdom resembled a military establishment 
 rather than a civil institution. The victorious army, 
 cantoned out in the country which it had seized, con- 
 tinued ranged under its proper officers and subordinate 
 to military command. The names of a soldier and of a 
 freeman were synonymous. 11 Every proprietor of land, 
 girt with a sword, was ready to march at the summons 
 
 11 Du Cange, Glossar., voc. Miles.
 
 16 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION i. 
 
 of his superior and to take the field against the common 
 enemy. 
 
 But though the feudal policy seems to be so admirably 
 calculated for defence against the assaults of any foreign 
 power, its provisions for the interior order and tran- 
 quillity of society were extremely defective. The prin- 
 ciples of disorder and corruption are discernible in that 
 constitution under its best and most perfect form. They 
 soon unfolded themselves, and, spreading with rapidity 
 through every part of the system, produced the most 
 fatal effects. The bond of political union was extremely 
 feeble ; the sources of anarchy were innumerable. The 
 monarchical and aristocratieal parts of the constitution, 
 having no intermediate power to balance them, were 
 perpetually at variance and justling with each other. 
 The powerful vassals of the crown soon extorted a con- 
 firmation for life of those grants of land which, being 
 at first purely gratuitous, had been bestowed only during 
 pleasure. Not satisfied with this, they prevailed to have 
 them converted into hereditary possessions. One step 
 more completed their usurpations, and rendered them 
 unalienable. 12 With an ambition no less enterprising, 
 and more preposterous, they appropriated to themselves 
 titles of honour, as well as offices of power or trust. 
 These personal marks of distinction, which the public 
 admiration bestows on illustrious merit, or which the 
 public confidence confers on extraordinary abilities, were 
 annexed to certain families, and transmitted like fiefs, 
 from father to son, by hereditary right. The crown 
 vassals having thus secured the possession of their lands 
 and dignities, the nature of the feudal institutions, which, 
 though founded on subordination, verged to independ- 
 ence, led them to new and still more dangerous encroach- 
 ments on the prerogatives of the sovereign. They 
 obtained the power of supreme jurisdiction, both civil 
 
 2 Note VIII.
 
 i.j STATE OF EUEOPE. 17 
 
 and criminal, within their own territories ; the right of 
 coining money ; together with the privilege of carrying 
 on war against their private enemies in their own name 
 and by their own authority. The ideas of political sub- 
 jection were almost entirely lost, and frequently scarce 
 any appearance of feudal subordination remained. Nobles 
 who had acquired such enormous power scorned to con- 
 sider themselves as subjects. They aspired openly at 
 being independent; the bonds which connected the 
 principal members of the constitution with the crown 
 were dissolved. A kingdom considerable in name and 
 in extent was broken into as many separate principalities 
 as it contained powerful barons. A thousand causes of 
 jealousy and discord subsisted among them, and gave rise 
 to as many wars. Every country in Europe, wasted or 
 kept in continual alarm during these endless contests, 
 was filled with castles and places of strength erected for 
 the security of the inhabitants, not against foreign force, 
 but against internal hostilities. A universal anarchy, 
 destructive in a great measure of all the advantages 
 which men expect to derive from society, prevailed. 
 The people, the most numerous as well as the most 
 useful part of the community, were either reduced to 
 a state of actual servitude, or treated with the same 
 insolence and rigour as if they had been degraded into 
 that wretched condition. 13 The king, stripped f almost 
 every prerogative, and without authority to enact or to 
 execute salutary laws, could neither protect the inno- 
 cent nor punish the guilty. The nobles, superior to all 
 restraint, harassed each other with perpetual wars, op- 
 pressed their fellow-subjects, and humbled or insulted 
 their sovereign. To crown all, time gradually fixed 
 and rendered venerable this pernicious system, which 
 violence had established. 
 
 Such was the state of Europe with respect to the 
 
 u Note IX. 
 vui. L O
 
 18 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION T. 
 
 interior administration of government from the seventh 
 to the eleventh century. All the external operations 
 of its various states during this period were, of course, 
 extremely feeble. A kingdom dismembered, and torn 
 with dissension, without any common interest to rouse 
 or any common head to conduct its force, was incapable 
 of acting with vigour. Almost all the wars in Europe 
 during the ages which I have mentioned were trifling, 
 indecisive, and productive of no considerable event. 
 They resembled the short incursions of pirates or ban- 
 ditti, rather than the steady operations of a regular 
 army. Every baron, at the head of his vassals, carried 
 on some petty enterprise to which he was prompted by 
 his own ambition or revenge. The state itself, destitute 
 of u'rion, either remained altogether inactive, or, if it 
 attempted to make any effort, that served only to dis- 
 cover its impotence. The superior genius of Charle- 
 magne, it is true, united all these disjointed and dis- 
 cordant members, and formed them again into one body, 
 restored to government that degree of activity which 
 distinguishes his reign and renders the transactions of 
 it objects not only of attention, but of admiration, to 
 more enlightened times. But this state of union and 
 vigour, not being natural to the feudal government, 
 was of short duration. Immediately upon his death, 
 the spirit which animated and sustained the vast system 
 which he had established being withdrawn, it broke 
 into pieces. All the calamities which flow from anarchy 
 and discord, returning with additional force, afflicted 
 the different kingdoms into which his empire was split. 
 From that time to the eleventh century, a succession 
 of uninteresting events, a series of wars the motives 
 as well as the consequences of which were unimportant, 
 fill and deform the annals of all the nations in Europe. 
 
 To these pernicious effects of the feudal anarchy may 
 be added its fatal influence on the character and im-
 
 SECTION i.J STATE OF EUBOPE. 19 
 
 provement of the human mind. If men do not enjoy 
 the protection of regular government, together with the 
 expectation of personal security, which naturally flows 
 from it, they never attempt to make progress in science, 
 nor aim at attaining refinement in taste or in manners. 
 That period of turbulence, oppression, and rapine which 
 I have described was ill suited to favour improvement 
 in any of these. In less than a century after the bar- 
 barous nations settled in their new conquests, almost all 
 the effects of the knowledge and civility which the 
 Romans had spread through Europe disappeared. 
 Not only the arts of elegance, which minister to luxury 
 and are supported by it, but many of the useful arts, 
 without which life can scarcely be considered as com- 
 fortable, were neglected or lost. Literature, science, 
 taste, were words little in use during the ages which 
 we are contemplating ; or, if they occur at any time, 
 eminence in them is ascribed to persons and productions 
 so contemptible that it appears their true import was 
 little understood. Persons of the highest rank and in 
 the most eminent stations could not read or write. 
 Many of the clergy did not understand the breviary 
 which they were obliged daily to recite ; some of them 
 could scarcely read it. 14 The memory of past transac- 
 tions was in a great degree lost, or preserved in annals 
 filled with trifling events or legendary tales. Even the 
 codes of laws published by the several nations which 
 established themselves in the different countries of 
 Europe fell into disuse, while in their place customs 
 vague and capricious were substituted. The human 
 mind, neglected, uncultivated, and depressed, continued 
 in the most profound ignorance. Europe, during four 
 centuries, produced few authors who merit to be read, 
 either on account of the elegance of their composition 
 or the justness and novelty of their sentiments. There 
 
 14 Note X. 
 
 o a
 
 20 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION I. 
 
 are few inventions useful or ornamental to society of 
 which that long period can boast. 
 
 Even the Christian religion, though its precepts are 
 delivered, and its institutions are fixed in Scripture, 
 with a precision which should have exempted them 
 from being misinterpreted or corrupted, degenerated, 
 during those ages of darkness, into an illiberal super- 
 stition. The barbarous nations, when converted to 
 Christianity, changed the object, not the spirit, of their 
 religious worship. They endeavoured to conciliate the 
 favour of the true God by means not unlike to those 
 which they had employed in order to appease their 
 false deities. Instead of aspiring to sanctity and virtue, 
 which alone can render men acceptable to the great 
 Author of order and of excellence, they imagined that 
 they satisfied every obligation of duty by a scrupulous 
 observance of external ceremonies. 15 Religion, accord- 
 ing to their conceptions of it, comprehended nothing 
 else-; and the rites by which they persuaded themselves 
 that they could gain the favour of Heaven were of such 
 a nature as might have been expected from the rude 
 ideas of the ages which devised and introduced them. 
 They were either so unmeaning as to be altogether 
 unworthy of the Being to whose honour they were 
 consecrated, or so absurd as to be a disgrace to reason 
 and humanity. 16 Charlemagne in France, and Alfred 
 the Great in England, endeavoured to dispel this dark- 
 ness, and gave their subjects a short glimpse of light 
 and knowledge. But the ignorance of the age was too 
 powerful for their efforts and institutions. The darkness 
 returned, and settled over Europe more thick and heavy 
 than before. 
 
 As the inhabitants of Europe during these centuries 
 were strangers to the arts which embellish a polished 
 age, they were destitute of the virtues which abound 
 " Note XL 16 Note XIL
 
 SECTION i.] STATE OF EUROPE. 21 
 
 among people who continue in a simple state. Force 
 of mind, a sense of personal dignity, gallantry in enter- 
 prise, invincible perseverance in execution, contempt of 
 danger and of death, are the characteristic virtues of 
 uncivilized nations. But these are all the offspring of 
 equality and independence, both which the feudal 
 institutions had destroyed. The spirit of domination 
 corrupted the nobles, the yoke of servitude depressed 
 the people, the generous sentiments inspired by a sense 
 of equality were extinguished, and hardly any thing 
 remained to be a check on ferocity and violence. 
 Human society is in its most corrupted state at that 
 period when men have lost their original independence 
 and simplicity of manners, but have not attained that 
 degree of refinement which introduces a sense of de- 
 corum and of propriety in conduct, as a restraint on 
 those passions which lead to heinous crimes. Accord- 
 ingly, a greater number of those atrocious actions 
 which fill the mind of man with astonishment and 
 horror occur in the history of the centuries under 
 review than in that of any period of the same extent 
 in the annals of Europe. If we open the history of 
 Gregory of Tours, or of any contemporary author, 
 we meet with a series of deeds of cruelty, perfidy, and 
 revenge so wild and enormous as almost to exceed 
 belief. 
 
 But, according to the observation of an elegant and 
 profound historian, 17 there is an ultimate point of de- 
 pression, as well as of exaltation, from which human 
 affairs naturally return in a contrary progress, and 
 beyond which they never pass either in their advance- 
 ment or decline. When defects either in the form or 
 
 
 
 in the administration of government occasion such 
 disorders in society as are excessive and intolerable, it 
 becomes the common interest to discover and to apply 
 
 17 Hume's History of England, vol. ii. p. 441.
 
 22 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION I. 
 
 such remedies as will most effectually remove them. 
 Slight inconveniences may be long overlooked or en- 
 dured; but when abuses grow to a certain pitch the 
 society must go to ruin or must attempt to reform 
 them. The disorders in the feudal system, together 
 with the corruption of taste and manners consequent 
 upon these, which had gone on increasing during a 
 long course of years, seemed to have attained their 
 utmost point of excess towards the close of the eleventh 
 century. From that era we may date the return of 
 government and manners in a contrary direction, and 
 can trace a succession of causes and events which con- 
 tributed, some with a nearer and more conspicuous, 
 others with a more remote and less perceptible influence, 
 to abolish confusion and barbarism, and to introduce 
 order, regularity, and refinement. 
 
 In pointing out and explaining these causes and 
 events, it is not necessary to observe the order of time 
 with a chronological accuracy : it is of more import- 
 ance to keep in view their mutual connection and 
 dependence, and to show how the operation of one 
 event or one cause prepared the way for another and 
 augmented its influence. We have hitherto been con- 
 templating the progress of that darkness which spread 
 over Europe, from its first approach, to the period of 
 greatest obscuration : a more pleasant exercise begins 
 here ; to observe the first dawnings of returning light, 
 to mark the various accessions by which it gradually 
 increased and advanced towards the full splendour of 
 day. 
 
 I. The crusades, or expeditions in order to rescue 
 the Holy Land out of the hands of infidels, seemejl to 
 be the first event that roused Europe from the lethargy 
 in which it had been long sunk, and that tended to 
 introduce any considerable change in government or in 
 manners. It is natural to the human mind to view
 
 SECTION i.] STATE OF EUROPE. 23 
 
 those places which have been distinguished by being 
 the residence of any illustrious personage, or the scene 
 of any great transaction, with some degree of delight 
 and veneration. To this principle must be ascribed 
 the superstitious devotion with which Christians, from 
 the earliest ages of the Church, were' accustomed to 
 visit that country which the Almighty had selected as 
 the inheritance of his favourite people, and in which 
 the Son of God had accomplished the redemption of 
 mankind. As this distant pilgrimage could not be 
 performed without considerable expense, fatigue, and 
 danger, it appeared the more meritorious, and came to 
 be considered as an expiation for almost every crime. 
 An opinion which spread with rapidity over Europe 
 about the close of the tenth and beginning of the 
 eleventh century, and which gained universal credit, 
 wonderfully augmented the number of credulous pil- 
 grims, and increased the ardour with which they under- 
 took this useless voyage. The thousand years mentioned 
 by St. John 18 were supposed to be accomplished, and 
 the end of the world to be at hand. A general con- 
 sternation seized mankind ; many relinquished their 
 possessions, and, abandoning their friends and families, 
 ] lurried with precipitation to the Holy Land, where 
 they imagined that Christ would quickly appear to 
 judge the world. 19 While Palestine continued subject 
 to the Caliphs, they had encouraged the resort of pil- 
 grims to Jerusalem, and considered this as a beneficial 
 species of commerce, which brought into their domi- 
 nions gold and silver and carried out of them but relics 
 and consecrated trinkets. But the Turks having con- 
 quered Syria about the middle of the eleventh century, 
 
 1S Rev. xx. 2, 3, 4. Abonis, ibid., p. 332. Chronic. S. 
 
 19 Chronic. Will. Godelli, ap. Pantaleonis, ap. Eccard. Corp. Scrip. 
 
 Bouquet, llecueil des Historiens de Medii JEvi, vol. i. p. 909. Anna- 
 
 France, torn. x. p. 262. Vita. lista Saxo, ibid., p. 576.
 
 24 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION i. 
 
 pilgrims were exposed to outrages of every kind from 
 these fierce barbarians. 20 This change, happening pre- 
 cisely at the juncture when the panic terror which I 
 have mentioned rendered pilgrimages most frequent, 
 filled Europe with alarm and indignation. Every per- 
 son who returned from Palestine related the dangers 
 which he had encountered in visiting the holy city, and 
 described with exaggeration the cruelty and vexations 
 of the Turks. 
 
 When the minds of men were thus prepared, the 
 zeal of a fanatical monk, who conceived the idea of 
 leading all the forces of Christendom against the in- 
 fidels, and of driving them out of the Holy Land by 
 violence, was sufficient to give a beginning to that wild 
 enterprise. Peter the Hermit, for that was the name 
 of this martial apostle, ran from province to province 
 with a crucifix in his hand, exciting princes and people 
 to this holy war, and wherever he came kindled the 
 same enthusiastic ardour for it with which he himself 
 was animated. The Council of Placentia, where up- 
 wards of thirty thousand persons were assembled, pro- 
 nounced the scheme to have been suggested by the 
 immediate inspiration of Heaven. In the Council of 
 Clermont, still more numerous, as soon as the measure 
 was proposed, all cried out with one voice, "It is the 
 will of God." Persons of all ranks catched the con- 
 tagion ; not only the gallant nobles of that age, with 
 their martial followers, whom we may suppose apt to 
 be allured by the boldness of a romantic enterprise, 
 but men in the more humble and pacific stations of 
 life, ecclesiastics of every order, and even women and 
 children, engaged with emulation in an undertaking 
 which was deemed sacred and meritorious. If we may 
 believe the concurring testimony of contemporary 
 
 i0 Jo. Dan. Schoepflini de sacris tionibus, p. 4, Argent., 1726, 4to. 
 Gallorum in Orientem Expedi-
 
 SECTION i.l STATE OF EUEOPB. 25 
 
 authors, six millions of persons assumed the cross, 21 
 which was the badge that distinguished such as devoted 
 themselves to this holy warfare. All Europe, says the 
 princess Anna Comnena, torn up from the foundation, 
 seemed ready to precipitate itself in one united body 
 upon Asia. 22 Nor did the fumes of this enthusiastic 
 zeal evaporate at once ; the frenzy was as lasting as it 
 was extravagant. During two centuries Europe seems 
 to have had no object but to recover, or keep possession 
 of, the Holy Land ; and through that period vast armies 
 continued to march thither. 23 
 
 The first efforts of valour, animated by enthusiasm, 
 were irresistible : part of the lesser Asia, all Syria, and 
 Palestine, were wrested from the infidels; the banner 
 of the cross was displayed on Mount Sion; Constanti- 
 nople, the capital of the Christian empire in the East, 
 was afterwards seized by a body of those adventurers 
 who had taken arms against the Mahometans ; and an 
 earl of Flanders and his descendants kept possession 
 of the imperial throne during half a century. But 
 though the first impression of the crusaders was so 
 unexpected that they made their conquests with great 
 ease, they found infinite difficulty in preserving them. 
 Establishments so distant from Europe, surrounded by 
 warlike nations animated with fanatical zeal scarcely 
 inferior to that of the crusaders themselves, were per- 
 petually in danger of being overturned. Before the 
 expiration of the thirteenth century, the Christians 
 were driven out of all their Asiatic possessions, in ac- 
 quiring of which incredible numbers of men had per- 
 ished and immense sums of money had been wasted. 
 The only common enterprise in which the European 
 nations ever engaged, and which they all undertook 
 
 21 Fulcherius Carnotensis, ap. w Alexias, lib. x., ap. Byz. Script, 
 
 Bcmgarsii Gesta Dei per Francos, vol. xi. p. 224. 
 vol. i p. 387, edit. Han., 1611. a Note XIII.
 
 26 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION i. 
 
 with equal ardour, remains a singular monument of 
 human folly. 
 
 But from these expeditions, extravagant as they were, 
 beneficial consequences followed which had neither 
 been foreseen nor expected. In their progress towards 
 the Holy Land the followers of the cross marched 
 through countries better cultivated and more civilized 
 than their own. Their first rendezvous was commonly 
 in Italy, in which Venice, Genoa, Pisa, and other cities 
 had begun to apply themselves to commerce, and had 
 made considerable advances towards wealth as well as 
 refinement. They embarked there, and, landing in 
 Dalmatia, pursued their route by land to Constantinople. 
 Though the military spirit had been long extinct in the 
 Eastern empire, and a despotism of the worst species 
 had annihilated almost every public virtue, yet Con- 
 stantinople, having never felt the destructive rage of the 
 barbarous nations, was the greatest as well as the most 
 beautiful city in Europe, and the only one in which there 
 remained any image of the ancient elegance in manners 
 and arts. The naval power of the Eastern empire was 
 considerable. Manufactures of the most curious fabric 
 were carried on in its dominions. Constantinople was 
 the chief mart in Europe for the commodities of the 
 East Indies. Although the Saracens and Turks had torn 
 from the empire many of its richest provinces and had 
 reduced it within very narrow bounds, yet great wealth 
 flowed into the capital from these various sources, which 
 not only cherished such a taste for magnificence, but 
 kept alive such a relish for the sciences, as appears con- 
 siderable when compared with what was known in other 
 parts of Europe. Even in Asia, the Europeans who 
 had assumed the cross found the remains of the know- 
 ledge and arts which .the example and encouragement 
 of the Caliphs had diffused through their empire. Al- 
 though the attention of the historians of the crusades
 
 SECTION i.] STATE OF EUEOPE. 27 
 
 was fixed on other objects than the state of society and 
 manners among the nations which they invaded, al- 
 though most of them had neither taste nor discernment 
 enough to describe these, they relate, however, such 
 signal acts of humanity and generosity in the conduct 
 of Saladin, as well as some other leaders of the Maho- 
 metans, as give us a very high idea of their manners. 
 It was not possible for the crusaders to travel through so 
 many countries, and to behold their various customs and 
 institutions, without acquiring information and improve- 
 ment. Their views enlarged ; their prejudices wore off ; 
 new ideas crowded into their minds ; and they must 
 have been sensible, on many occasions, of the rusticity 
 of their own manners when compared with those of a ' 
 more polished people. These impressions were not so 
 slight as to bo effaced upon their return to their native 
 countries. A close intercourse subsisted between the 
 East and West during two centuries ; new armies were 
 continually marching from Europe to Asia, while former 
 adventurers returned home, and imported many of the 
 customs to which they had been familiarized by a long 
 residence abroad. Accordingly, we discover, soon after 
 the commencement of the crusades, greater splendour in 
 the courts of princes, greater pomp in public ceremonies, 
 a more refined taste in pleasure and amusements, together 
 with a more romantic spirit of enterprise, spreading 
 gradually over Europe ; and to these wild expeditions, 
 the effect of superstition or folly, we owe the first 
 gleams of light which tended to dispel barbarism and 
 ignorance. 
 
 But these beneficial consequences of the crusades 
 took place slowly ; their influence upon the state of 
 property, and consequently of power, in the different 
 kingdoms of Europe, was more immediate, as well as 
 discernible. The nobles who assumed the cross and 
 bound themselves to march to the Holy Land soon
 
 28 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION I. 
 
 perceived that great sums were necessary towards de- 
 fraying the expense of such a distant expedition and 
 enabling them to appear with suitable dignity at the 
 head of their vassals. But the genius of the feudal 
 system was averse to the imposition of extraordinary 
 taxes ; and subjects in that age were unaccustomed to 
 pay them. No expedient remained for levying the 
 sums requisite, but the sale of their possessions. As 
 men were inflamed with romantic expectations of the 
 splendid conquests which they hoped to make in Asia, 
 and possessed with such zeal for recovering the Holy 
 Land as swallowed up every other passion, they relin- 
 quished their ancient inheritances without any reluc- 
 tance, and for prices far below their value, that they 
 might sally forth as adventurers in quest of new settle- 
 ments in unknown countries. The monarchs of the 
 great kingdoms in the "West, none of whom had en- 
 gaged in the first crusade, eagerly seized this oppor- 
 tunity of annexing considerable territories to their 
 crowns at small expense. 24 Besides this, several great 
 barons who perished in the holy war having left no 
 heirs, their fiefs reverted of course to their respective 
 sovereigns ; and by these accessions of property, as 
 well as power taken from the one scale and thrown 
 into the other, the regal authority rose in proportion 
 as that of the aristocracy declined. The absence, too. 
 of many potent vassals, accustomed to control and 
 give law to their sovereigns, afforded them an oppor- 
 tunity of extending their prerogative, and of acquiring 
 a degree of weight in the constitution which they did 
 not formerly possess. To these circumstances we may 
 add that, as all who assumed the cross were taken under 
 the immediate protection of the Church, and its heaviest 
 anathemas were denounced against such as should dis- 
 quiet or annoy those who had devoted themselves to 
 
 24 Wilhelm. Malmsbnr. Guibert. Abbas, ap. Bongars., vol. i. p. 481.
 
 SECTION i.] STATE OF EUROPE. 29 
 
 this sorvi.ee, the private quarrels and hostilities which 
 banished tranquillity from a feudal kingdom were sus- 
 pended or extinguished; a more general and steady 
 administration of justice began to be introduced, and 
 some advances were made towards the establishment of 
 regular government in the several kingdoms of Europe. 25 
 The commercial effects of the crusades were not less 
 considerable than those which I have already mentioned. 
 The first armies under the standard of the cross, which 
 Peter the Hermit and Godfrey of Bouillon led through 
 Germany and Hungary to Constantinople, suffered so 
 much by the length of the march, as well as by the 
 fierceness of the barbarous people who inhabited those 
 countries, that it deterred others from taking the same 
 route ; and, rather than encounter so many dangers, 
 they chose to go by sea. Yenice, Genoa, and Pisa fur- 
 nished the transports on which they embarked. The 
 sum which these cities received merely for freight from 
 such numerous armies was immense. 26 This, however, 
 was but a small part of what they gained by the expe- 
 ditions to the Holy Land : the crusaders contracted 
 with them for military stores and provisions; their 
 fleets kept on the coast as the armies advanced by land, 
 and, supplying them with whatever was wanting, 
 engrossed all the profits of a branch of commerce 
 which in every age has been extremely lucrative. The 
 success which attended the arms of the crusaders was 
 productive of advantages still more permanent. There 
 are charters yet extant, containing grants to the Vene- 
 tians, Pisans, and Genoese, of the most extensive im- 
 munities in the several settlements which the Christians 
 made in Asia. All the commodities which they imported . 
 or exported are thereby exempted from every imposition; 
 
 55 Du Cange, Glossar., voc. Cruce also Note XIV. 
 
 signatas. Guib. Abbas, ap. Bon- 26 Muratori, Antiquit. Italic, 
 
 gars., vol. i. pp. 480, 482. See Medii vEvi, vol. ii. p. 905.
 
 30 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION 1 
 
 the property of entire suburbs in some of the mari- 
 time towns, and of large streets in others, is vested 
 in them ; and all questions arising among persons set- 
 tled within their precincts or who traded under their 
 protection are appointed to be tried by their own laws 
 and by judges of their own appointment. 27 When the 
 crusaders seized Constantinople and placed one of their 
 own leaders on the imperial throne, the Italian states 
 were likewise gainers by that event. The Venetians, 
 who had planned the enterprise and took a considerable 
 part in carrying it into execution, did not neglect to 
 secure to themselves the chief advantages redounding 
 from its success. They made themselves masters of 
 part of the ancient Peloponnesus in Greece, together 
 with some of the most fertile islands in the Archipelago. 
 Many valuable branches of the commerce which formerly 
 centred in Constantinople were transferred to Venice, 
 Genoa, or Pisa. Thus a succession of events occasioned 
 by the holy war opened various sources from which 
 wealth flowed in such abundance into these cities 28 as 
 enabled them, in concurrence with another institution, 
 which shall be immediately mentioned, to secure their 
 own liberty and independence. 
 
 II. The institution to which I alluded was the form- 
 ing of cities into communities, corporations, or bodies 
 politic, and granting them the privilege of municipal 
 jurisdiction, which contributed more perhaps than any 
 other cause to introduce regular government, police, 
 and arts, and to diffuse them over Europe. The feudal 
 government had degenerated into a system of oppres- 
 sion. The usurpations of the nobles were become un- 
 bounded and intolerable ; they had reduced the great 
 body of the people into a state of actual servitude : the 
 
 27 Muratori, Antiquit. Italic. Constant, sous 1'Empereurs Fran- 
 Medii .<Evi, vol. ii. p. 906, etc. gois, p. 105, etc. 
 
 28 Yillehardouin, Histoire de
 
 SECTION i.] STATE OF EUROPE. &) 
 
 condition of those dignified with the name of freemen 
 was often little preferable to that of the other. Nor 
 was such oppression the portion of those alone who 
 dwelt in the country and were employed in cultivating 
 the estate of their master. Cities and villages found it 
 necessary to hold of some great lord, on whom they 
 might depend for protection and become no less subject 
 to his arbitrary jurisdiction. The inhabitants were 
 deprived of those rights which, in social life, arc 
 deemed most natural and inalienable. They could not 
 dispose of the effects which their own industry had 
 acquired, either by a latter will, or by any deed exe- 
 cuted during their life. 29 They had no right to appoint 
 guardians for their children during their minority. 
 They were not permitted to marry without purchasing 
 the consent of the lord on whom they depended. 30 If 
 once they had commenced a law-suit, they durst not 
 terminate it by an accommodation, because that would 
 have deprived the lord, in whose court they pleaded, of 
 the perquisites due to him on passing sentence. 31 Ser- 
 vices of various kinds, no less disgraceful than oppres- 
 sive, were exacted from them without mercy or modera- 
 tion. The spirit of industry was checked in some cities 
 by absurd regulations, and in others by unreasonable 
 exactions; nor would the narrow and oppressive maxims 
 of a military aristocracy have permitted it ever to rise to 
 any degree of height or vigour. 32 
 
 But as soon as the cities of Italy began to turn their 
 attention towards commerce, and to conceive some idea 
 of the advantages which they might derive from it, 
 
 29 Dacherii Spicileg., torn. xi. vol. iv. p. 20. Dacher., Spicil., 
 
 pp. 374, 375, edit, in 4to. Ordon- vol. ix. pp. 325, 341. 
 nances des Eois de France, tom. iii. 3I Dacher., Spicil., vol. ix. 
 
 p. 204, no. 2, 6. p. 182. 
 
 M] Ordonnances des Kois de 32 M. 1' Abbs' Mably, Observations 
 
 France, tom. i. p. 22, tom. iii. sur 1'Histoire de France, torn, ii., 
 
 p. 203.no. 1. Murat., Antiq. Ital., pp. 2, 96.
 
 52 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION i 
 
 they became impatient to shake off the yoke of their 
 insolent lords, and to establish among themselves such 
 a free and equal government as would render property 
 secure and industry flourishing. The German em- 
 perors, especially those of the Franconian and Suabian 
 lines, as the seat of their government was far distant 
 from Italy, possessed a feeble and imperfect jurisdic- 
 tion in that country. Their perpetual quarrels, either 
 with the popes or with their own turbulent vassals, 
 diverted their attention from the interior police of Italy 
 and gave constant employment to their arms. These 
 circumstances encouraged the inhabitants of some of 
 the Italian cities, towards the beginning of the eleventh 
 century, to assume new privileges, to unite together 
 more closely, and to form themselves into bodies politic 
 under the government of laws established by common 
 consent. 33 The rights which many cities acquired by 
 bold or fortunate usurpations, others purchased from the 
 emperors, who deemed themselves gainers when they 
 received large sums for immunities which they were no 
 longer able to withhold ; and some cities obtained them 
 gratuitously, from the generosity or facility of the 
 princes on whom they depended. The great increase 
 of wealth which the crusades brought into Italy occa- 
 sioned a new kind of fermentation and activity in the 
 minds of the people, and excited such a general passion 
 tor liberty and independence that before the conclusion 
 of the last crusade all the considerable cities in that 
 country had either purchased or had extorted large 
 immunities from the emperors. 34 
 
 This innovation was not long known in Italy before 
 it made its way into France. Louis le Gros, in order 
 to create some power that might counterbalance those 
 potent vassals who controlled or gave law to the crown, 
 first adopted the plan of conferring new privileges on 
 
 83 Murat., Antiq. Ital., vol. iv. p. 6. 34 Note XV.
 
 r.] STATE OF EUROPE. 33 
 
 the towns situated within its own domain. These privi- 
 leges were called charters of community, by which he 
 enfranchised the inhabitants, abolished all marks of 
 servitude, and formed them into corporations or bodies 
 politic, to be governed by a council and magistrates of 
 their own nomination. These magistrates had the right 
 of administering justice within their own precincts, of 
 levying taxes, of embodying and training to arms the 
 militia of the town, which took the field when required 
 by the sovereign, under the command of officers ap- 
 pointed by the community. The great barons imitated 
 the example of their monarch, and granted like immu- 
 nities to the towns within their territories. They had 
 wasted such great sums in their expeditions to the Holy 
 Land that they were eager to lay hold on this new expe- 
 dient for raising money, by the sale of those charters of 
 liberty. Though the institution of communities was 
 as repugnant to their maxims of policy as it was adverse 
 to their power, they disregarded remote consequences 
 in order to obtain present relief. In less than two 
 centuries servitude was abolished in most of the towns 
 in France, and they became free corporations, instead of 
 dependent villages without jurisdiction or privileges. 35 
 Much about the same period the great cities in Germany 
 began to acquire like immunities, and laid the founda- 
 tion of their present liberty and independence. 36 The 
 practice spread quickly over Europe, and was adopted in 
 Spain, England, Scotland, and all the other feudal 
 kingdoms. 37 
 
 The good effects of this new institution were immedi- 
 ately felt, and its influence on government as well as 
 manners was no less extensive than salutary. A great 
 body of the people was released from servitude, and from 
 all the arbitrary and grievous impositions to which that 
 wretched condition had subjected them. Towns, upon 
 
 35 Note XVL 8f) Note XVII. 37 Note XVIII. 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 A VIEW OP THE [SECTION I. 
 
 acquiring the right of community, became so many 
 little republics, governed by known and equal laws. 
 Liberty was deemed such an essential and characteristic- 
 part in their constitution that if any slave took refuge 
 in one of them, and resided there during a year without 
 being claimed, he was instantly declared a freeman and 
 admitted as a member of the community. 38 
 
 As one part of the people owed their liberty to the 
 erection of communities, another was indebted to them 
 for their security. Such had been the state of Europe 
 during several centuries that self-preservation obliged 
 every man to court the patronage of some powerful 
 baron, and in times of danger his castle was the place to 
 which all resorted for safety. But towns surrounded 
 with walls, whose inhabitants were regularly trained to 
 arms, and bound by interest, as well as by the most 
 solemn engagements, reciprocally to defend each other, 
 afforded a more commodious and secure retreat. The 
 nobles began to be considered as of less importance 
 when they ceased to be the sole guardians to whom 
 the people could look up for protection against violence. 
 
 If the nobility suffered some diminution of their 
 credit and power by the privileges granted to the cities, 
 the crown acquired an increase of both. As there were 
 no regular troops kept on foot in any of the feudal 
 kingdoms, the monarch could bring no army into the 
 field but what was composed of soldiers furnished by 
 the crown vassals, always jealous of the regal authority ; 
 nor had he any funds for carrying on the public service 
 but such as they granted him with a very sparing hand. 
 But when the members of communities were permitted 
 to bear arms, and were trained to the use of them, this 
 in some degree supplied the first defect, and gave the 
 crown the command of a body of men independent of 
 
 ^ Statut. Humbert! Bellojoci, 185. Charta Comit. Forens., ibid., 
 Dacher., Spicil., vol. ix. pp. 182, p. 193.
 
 SECTION I.] STATE OF EUROPE. 35 
 
 its great vassals. The attachment of the cities to their 
 sovereigns, whom they respected as the first authors 
 of their liberties, and whom they were obliged to court 
 as the protectors of their immunities against the domi- 
 neering spirit of the nobles, contributed somewhat to- 
 wards removing the second evil, as, on many occasions^ 
 it procured the crown supplies of money, which added 
 new force to government. 39 
 
 The acquisition of liberty made such a happy change 
 in the condition of all the members of communities as 
 roused them from that inaction into which they had 
 been sunk by the wretchedness of their former state. 
 The spirit of industry revived. Commerce became an 
 jbject of attention, and began to nourish. Population 
 increased. Independence was established; and wealth 
 flowed into cities which had long been the seat of 
 poverty and oppression. Wealth was accompanied by 
 its usual attendants, ostentation and luxury ; and though 
 the former was formal and cumbersome, and the latter 
 inelegant, they led gradually to greater refinement in 
 manners and in the habits of life. Together with this 
 improvement in manners, a more regular species of 
 government and police was introduced. As cities grew 
 to be more populous, and the occasions of intercourse 
 among men increased, statutes and regulations multiplied 
 of course, and all became sensible that their common 
 safety depended on observing them with exactness and 
 on punishing such as violated them with promptitude 
 and rigour. Laws and subordination, as well as polished 
 manners, taking their rise in cities, diffused themselves 
 insensibly through the rest of the society. 
 
 III. The inhabitants of cities, having obtained per- 
 sonal freedom and municipal jurisdiction, soon acquired 
 civil liberty and political power. It was a fundamental 
 principle in the feudal system of policy that no free- 
 
 " Ordon. des Rois de France, torn. i. pp. 602, 785; torn. ii. pp. 318, 422.
 
 36 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION i 
 
 man could be subjected to new laws or taxes unless by 
 his own consent. In consequence of this, the vassals 
 of every baron were called to his court, in which they 
 established, by mutual consent, such regulations as they 
 deemed most beneficial to their small society, and 
 granted their superior such supplies of money as were 
 proportioned to their abilities or to his wants. The 
 barons themselves, conformably to the same maxim, 
 were admitted into the supreme assembly of the nation, 
 and concurred with the sovereign in enacting laws or 
 in imposing taxes. As the superior lord, according to 
 the original plan of feudal policy, retained the direct 
 property of those lands which he granted in temporary 
 possession to his vassals, the law, even after fiefs be- 
 came hereditary, still supposed this original practice to 
 subsist. The great council of each nation, whether 
 distinguished by the name of a parliament, a diet, the 
 cortes, or the states- general, was composed entirely of 
 such barons and dignified ecclesiastics as held imme- 
 diately of the crown. Towns, whether situated within 
 the royal domain or on the lands of a subject, de- 
 pended originally for protection on the lord of whom 
 they held. They had no legal name, no political exist- 
 once, which would entitle them to be admitted into the 
 legislative assembly, or could give them any authority 
 there. But as soon as they were enfranchised, and 
 formed into bodies corporate, they became legal and in- 
 dependent members of the constitution, and acquired 
 all the rights essential to freemen. Among these, the 
 most valuable was the privilege of a decisive voice in 
 enacting public laws and granting national subsidies. 
 It was natural for cities, accustomed to a form of 
 municipal government according to which no regula- 
 tion could be established within the community, and 
 no money could be raised, but by their own consent, 
 to claim this privilege. The wealth, the power, and
 
 SECTION L] STATE OF EUROPE. 37 
 
 consideration which they acquired on recovering their 
 liberty added weight to their claim ; and favourable 
 events happened, or fortunate conjunctures occurred, in 
 the different kingdoms of Europe, which facilitated 
 their obtaining possession of this important right. Ill 
 England, one of the first countries in which the repre- 
 sentatives of boroughs were admitted into the great 
 council of the nation, the barons who took arms against 
 Henry III. summoned them to attend parliament, in 
 order to add greater popularity to their party and to 
 strengthen the barrier against the encroachment of regal 
 power. In France, Philip the Fair, a n^onarch no less 
 sagacious than enterprising, considered them as instru- 
 ments which might be employed with equal advantage 
 to extend the royal prerogative, to counterbalance the 
 exorbitant power of the nobles, and to facilitate the im- 
 position of new taxes. With these views, he introduced 
 the deputies of such towns as were formed into com- 
 munities into the states-general of the nation. 40 In the 
 empire, the wealth and immunities of the imperial cities 
 placed them on a level with the most considerable 
 members of the Germanic body. Conscious of their own 
 power and dignity, they pretended to the privilege of 
 forming a separate bench in the diet, and made good 
 their pretensions. 41 [1293.] 
 
 But in what way soever the representatives of cities 
 first gained a place in the legislature, that event had 
 great influence on the form and genius of government. 
 It tempered the rigour of aristocratical oppression with 
 a proper mixture of popular liberty ; it secured to the 
 great body of the people, who had formerly no repre- 
 sentatives, active and powerful guardians of their rights 
 and privileges; it established an intermediate power 
 
 40 Pasquier, Recherches <le la et Droit d'Allemagne, pp. 408, 
 France, ap. 81, edit. Par., 1633. 451. 
 
 41 Pfeft'el, ALre^ de 1'Histoire
 
 38 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION L 
 
 between tlie king and the nobles, to which, each had 
 recourse alternately, and which at some times opposed 
 the usurpations of the former, on other occasions checked 
 the encroachments of the latter. As soon as the repre- 
 sentatives of communities gained any degree of credit 
 and influence in the legislature, the spirit of laws became 
 different from w r hat it had formerly been ; it flowed from 
 new principles; it was directed towards new objects; 
 equality, order, the public good, and the redress of 
 grievances, were phrases and ideas brought into use, and 
 which grew to be familiar in the statutes and juris- 
 prudence of the European nations. Almost all the 
 efforts in favour of liberty in every country of Europe 
 have been made by this new power in the legislature. 
 In proportion as it rose to consideration and influence, 
 the severity of the aristocratical spirit decreased ; and 
 the privileges of the people became gradually more 
 extensive, as the ancient and exorbitant jurisdiction of 
 the nobles was abridged. 42 
 
 IY. The inhabitants of towns having been declared 
 free by the charters of communities, that part of the 
 people which resided in the country and was employed 
 in agriculture began to recover liberty by enfranchise- 
 ment. During the rigour of feudal government, as hath 
 been already observed, the great body of the lower 
 people was reduced to servitude. They were slaves 
 fixed to the soil which they cultivated, and together 
 with it were transferred from one proprietor to another, 
 by sale or by conveyance. The spirit of feudal policy 
 did not favour the enfranchisement of that order of men. 
 It was an established maxim that no vassal could legally 
 diminish the value of a fief, to the detriment of the lord 
 from whom he had received it. In consequence of this, 
 manumission by the authority of the immediate master 
 was not valid j and, unless it was confirmed by the 
 
 12 Note XIX.
 
 SECTION i.] STATE OP EUROPE. 39 
 
 superior lord of whom he held, slaves belonging to the 
 fief did not acquire a complete right to their liberty. 
 Thus it became necessary to ascend through all the 
 gradations of feudal holding to the king, the lord para- 
 mount. 43 A form of procedure so tedious and trouble- 
 some discouraged the practice of manumission. Domestic 
 or personal slaves often obtained liberty from the humanity 
 or beneficence of their masters, to whom they belonged 
 in absolute property. The condition of slaves fixed to 
 the soil was much more unalterable. 
 
 But the freedom and independence which one part of 
 the people had obtained by the institution of communi- 
 ties inspired the other with the most ardent desire of 
 acquiring the same privileges ; and their superiors, 
 sensible of the various advantages which they had de- 
 rived from their former concessions to their dependants, 
 were less unwilling to gratify them by the grant of new 
 immunities. The enfranchisement of slaves became more 
 frequent ; and the monarchs of France, prompted by 
 necessity no less than by their inclination to reduce the 
 power of the nobles, endeavoured to render it general. 
 Louis X. and Philip the Long issued ordinances declar- 
 ing " that as all men were by nature free born, and as 
 their kingdom was called the kingdom of Franks, they 
 determined that it should be so in reality as well as in 
 name : therefore they appointed that enfranchisements 
 should be granted throughout the whole kingdom, upon 
 just and reasonable conditions." 44 These edicts were 
 carried into immediate execution within the royal 
 domain. The example of their sovereigns, together 
 with the expectation of considerable sums which they 
 might raise by this expedient, led many of the nobles fo 
 set their dependants at liberty; and servitude was 
 gradually abolished in almost every province of the 
 
 43 Establissements de St. Louis, p. 283, note (a). 
 liv. ii. ch. 34. Ordon., torn, i 44 Ordon., torn. i. pp. 583, 653.
 
 4() A VIEW OF THE [SECTION i. 
 
 kingdom. 45 In Italy, the establishment of republican 
 government in their great cities, the genius and maxims 
 of which were extremely different from those of the 
 feudal policy, together with the ideas of equality, which 
 the progress of commerce had rendered familiar, gradu- 
 ally introduced the practice of enfranchising the ancient 
 predial slaves. In some provinces of Germany, the 
 persons who had been subject to this species of bondage 
 were released ; in others, the rigour of their state was 
 mitigated. In England, as the spirit of liberty gained 
 ground, the very name and idea of personal servitude, 
 without any formal interposition of the legislature to 
 prohibit it, was totally banished. 
 
 The effects of such a remarkable change in the condi- 
 tion of so great a part of the people could not fail of 
 being considerable and extensive. The husbandman, 
 master of his own industry, and secure of reaping for 
 himself the fruits of his labour, became the farmer of 
 the same fields where he had formerly been compelled 
 to toil for the benefit of another. The odious names 
 of master and of slave, the most mortifying and de- 
 pressing of all distinctions to human nature, were abol- 
 ished. New prospects opened, and new incitements to 
 ingenuity and enterprise presented themselves, to those 
 who were emancipated. The expectation of bettering 
 their fortune, as well as that of raising themselves to a 
 more honourable condition, concurred in calling forth 
 their activity and genius ; and a numerous class of men, 
 who formerly had no political existence and were em- 
 ployed merely as instruments of labour, became useful 
 citizens, and contributed towards augmenting the force 
 or riches of the society which adopted them as members. 
 
 Y. The various expedients which were employed in 
 order to introduce a more regular, equal, and vigorous 
 administration of justice contributed greatly towards 
 
 " Note XX.
 
 SECTION i.] STATE OF EUROPE. 41 
 
 the improvement of society. What were the particular 
 modes of dispensing justice, in their several countries, 
 among the various barbarous nations which overran the 
 Eoman empire and took possession of its different pro- 
 vinces, cannot now be determined with certainty. We 
 may conclude, from the form of government established 
 among them, as well as from their ideas concerning the 
 nature of society, that the authority of the magistrate 
 was extremely limited, and the independence of indi- 
 viduals proportionally great. History and records, as 
 far as these reach back, justify this conclusion, and 
 represent the ideas and exercise of justice in all the 
 countries of Europe as little different from those which 
 must take place in the most simple state of civil life. 
 To maintain the order and tranquillity of society by the 
 regular execution of known laws ; to inflict vengeance 
 011 crimes destructive of the peace and safety of indi- 
 viduals, by a prosecution carried on in the name and by 
 the authority of the community ; to consider the punish- 
 ment of criminals as a public example to deter others 
 from violating the laws, were objects of government 
 little understood in theory, and less regarded in practice. 
 The magistrate could hardly be said to hold the sword 
 of justice; it was left in the hands of private persons. 
 Resentment was almost the sole motive for prosecuting 
 crimes; and to gratify that passion was considered as 
 the chief end in punishing them. He who suffered the 
 wrong was the only person who had a right to pursue 
 the aggressor and to exact or to remit the punishment. 
 From a system of judicial procedure so crude and defec- 
 tive that it seems to be scarcely compatible with the 
 subsistence of civil society, disorder and anarchy flowed. 
 Superstition concurred with this ignorance concerning 
 the nature of government, in obstructing the administra- 
 tion of justice, or in rendering it capricious and unequal. 
 To provide remedies for these evils, so as to give a more
 
 12 A VIEW OP THE [SECTION i. 
 
 regular course to justice, was, during several centuries, 
 one great object of political wisdom. The regulations 
 for this purpose may be reduced to three general heads : 
 to explain these, and to point out the manner in which 
 they operated, is an important article in the history of 
 society among the nations of Europe. 
 
 1. The first considerable step towards establishing 
 an equal administration of justice was the abolishment 
 of the right which individuals claimed of waging war 
 with each other in their own name and by their own 
 authority. To repel injuries, and to revenge wrongs, 
 is no less natural to man than to cultivate friendship ; 
 and while society remains in its most simple state, the 
 former is considered as a personal right, no less im- 
 alicnable than the latter. JS^oi- do men in this situation 
 deem that they have a title to redress their own wrongs 
 alone : they are touched with the injuries done to those 
 with whom they are connected or in whose honour they 
 are interested, and are no less prompt to avenge them. 
 The savage, how imperfectly soever he may compre- 
 hend the principles of political union, feels warmly 
 the sentiments of social affection and the obligations 
 arising from the ties of blood. On the appearance 
 of an injury or affront offered to his family or tribe, he 
 kindles into rage, and pursues the authors of it with 
 the keenest resentment. He considers it as cowardly 
 to expect redress from any arm but his own, and as 
 infamous to give up to another the right of determining 
 what reparation he should accept, or with what ven- 
 geance he should rest satisfied. 
 
 The maxims and practice of all uncivilized nations 
 with respect to the prosecution and punishment of 
 offenders, particularly those of the ancient Germans, 
 and other barbarians who invaded the Eoman empire, 
 are perfectly comformable to these ideas. 46 While they 
 
 46 Tacit, de Mor. German., cap. 21. Veil. Paterc., lib. ii. c. 118.
 
 SECTION i.j STATE OF EUEOPE. 43 
 
 retained their native simplicity of manners, and con- 
 tinued to be divided into small tribes or societies, the 
 defects in this imperfect system of criminal jurispru- 
 dence (if it merits that name) were less sensibly felt. 
 When they came to settle in the extensive provinces 
 which they had conquered, and to form themselves into 
 great monarchies, when new objects of ambition pre- 
 senting themselves increased both the number and the 
 violence of their dissensions, they ought to have adopted 
 new maxims concerning the redress of injuries, and to 
 have regulated by general and equal laws that which 
 they formerly left to be directed by the caprice of 
 private passion. But fierce and haughty chieftains, ac- 
 customed to avenge themselves on such as had injured 
 them, did not think of relinquishing a right which they 
 considered as a privilege of their order and a mark of 
 their independence. Laws enforced by the authority 
 of princes and magistrates who possessed little power 
 commanded no great degree of reverence. The admin- 
 istration of justice among rude, illiterate people was 
 not so accurate, or decisive, or uniform, as to induce 
 men to submit implicitly to its determinations. Every 
 offended baron buckled on his armour and sought re- 
 dress at the head of his vassals. His adversary met 
 him in like hostile array. Neither of them appealed 
 to impotent laws which could afford them no protec- 
 tion; neither of them would submit points, in which 
 their honour and their passions were warmly interested, 
 to the slow determination of a judicial inquiry. Both 
 trusted to their swords for the decision of the contest. 
 The kindred and dependants of the aggressor, as well 
 as the defender, were involved in the quarrel. They 
 had not even the liberty of remaining neutral. Such 
 as refused to act in concert with the party to which 
 they belonged were not only exposed to infamy, but 
 subjected to legal penalties.
 
 44 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION L 
 
 The different kingdoms of Europe were torn and 
 afflicted, during several centuries, by intestine wars, 
 excited by private animosities, and carried on with all 
 the rage natural to men of fierce manners and of violent 
 passions. The estate of every baron was a kind of 
 independent territory, disjoined from those around it, 
 and the hostilities between them seldom ceased. The 
 evil became so inveterate and deep-rooted that the 
 form and laws of private war were ascertained, and 
 regulations concerning it made a part in the system of 
 jurisprudence, 47 in the same manner as if this practice 
 had been founded in some natural right of humanity, or 
 in the original constitution of civil society. 
 
 So great was the disorder, and such the calamities, 
 which these perpetual hostilities occasioned, that vari- 
 ous efforts were made to wrest from the nobles this per- 
 nicious privilege. It was the interest of every sovereign 
 to abolish a practice which almost annihilated his au- 
 thority. Charlemagne prohibited it by an express law, 
 as an invention of the Devil to destroy the order and 
 happiness of society ; 48 but the reign of one monarch, 
 however vigorous and active, was too short to extirpate 
 a custom so firmly established. Instead of enforcing 
 this prohibition, his feeble successors durst venture on 
 nothing more than to apply palliatives. They declared 
 it unlawful for any person to commence war until he 
 had sent a formal defiance to the kindred and depend- 
 ants of his adversary; they ordained that, after the 
 commission of the trespass or crime which gave rise to 
 a private war, forty days must elapse before the person 
 injured should attack the vassals of his adversary ; they 
 enjoined all persons to suspend their private animosi- 
 ties and to cease from hostilities when the king was 
 
 47 Beaumanoir, Coustumes de 4S Capitul. A.D. 801, edit. Baluz., 
 Beauvoisis, ch. 59, et les notes de vol. i. p. 371. 
 TliaumasKiere, p. 447.
 
 SECTION i.] STATE OF EUROPE. 45 
 
 engaged in any Avar against the enemies of the nation. 
 The Church co-operated with the civil magistrate, and 
 interposed its authority, in order to extirpate a practice 
 so repugnant to the spirit of Christianity. Various 
 councils issued decrees prohibiting all private wars, 
 and denounced the heaviest anathemas against such as 
 should disturb the tranquillity of society by claiming or 
 exercising that barbarous right. The aid of religion 
 was called in to combat and subdue the ferocity of the 
 times. The Almighty was said to have manifested, by 
 visions and revelations to different persons, his dis- 
 approbation of that spirit of revenge which armed one 
 part of his creatures against the other. Men were re- 
 quired, in the name of God, to sheathe their swords, 
 and to remember the sacred ties which united them as 
 Christians and as members of the same society. But 
 this junction of civil and ecclesiastical authority, though 
 strengthened by everything most apt to alarm and to 
 overawe the credulous spirit of those ages, produced no 
 other effect than some temporary suspensions of hostili- 
 ties, and a cessation from war on certain days and sea- 
 sons consecrated to the more solemn acts of devotion. 
 The nobles continued to assert this dangerous privilege ; 
 they refused to obey some of the laws calculated to 
 annul or circumscribe it ; they eluded others ; they 
 petitioned, they remonstrated, they struggled for the 
 right of private war, as the highest and most honour- 
 able distinction of their order. Even so late as the 
 fourteenth century we find the nobles in several pro- 
 vinces of France contending for their ancient method 
 of terminating their differences by the sword, in prefer- 
 ence to that of submitting them to the decision of any 
 judge. The final abolition of this practice in that 
 kingdom, and the other countries in which it prevailed, 
 is not to be ascribed so much to the force of statutes 
 and decrees, as to the gradual increase of the royal
 
 40 A VIEW OF THE fsEcnow i. 
 
 authority, and to the imperceptible progress of juster 
 sentiments concerning government, order, and public 
 security. 49 
 
 2. The prohibition of the form of trial by judicial 
 combat was another considerable step towards the 
 introduction of such regular government as secured 
 public order and private tranquillity. As the right of 
 private war left many of the quarrels among individuals 
 to be decided, like those between nations, by arms, the 
 form of trial by judicial combat, which was established 
 in every country of Europe, banished equity from courts 
 of justice, and rendered chance or force the arbiter of 
 their determinations. In civilized nations, all trans- 
 actions of any importance are concluded in writing. 
 The exhibition of the deed or instrument is full evi- 
 dence of the fact, and ascertains with precision what 
 each party has stipulated to perform. But among a rude 
 people, when the arts of reading and writing were such 
 uncommon attainments that to be master of either en- 
 titled a person to the appellation of a clerk or learned 
 man, scarcely anything was committed to writing but 
 treaties between princes, their grants and charters to 
 their subjects, or such transactions between private 
 parties as were of extraordinary consequence or had 
 an extensive effect. The greater part of affairs in 
 common life and business was carried on by verbal 
 contracts or promises. This, in many civil questions, 
 not only made it difficult to bring proof sufficient to 
 establish any claim, but encouraged falsehood and 
 fraud, by rendering them extremely easy. Even in 
 criminal cases, where a particular fact must be ascer- 
 tained or an accusation must be disproved, the nature 
 and effect of legal evidence were little understood by 
 barbarous nations. To define with accuracy that species 
 of evidence which a court had reason to expect, to 
 
 49 Note XXI.
 
 i] STATE OF EUROPE. 47 
 
 determine when it ought to insist on positive proof 
 and when it should be satisfied with a proof from cir- 
 cumstances, to compare the testimony of discordant 
 witnesses, and to fix the degree of credit due to each, 
 were discussions too intricate and subtile for the juris- 
 prudence of ignorant ages. In order to avoid encum- 
 bering themselves with these, a more simple form of 
 procedure was introduced into courts as well civil as 
 criminal. In all cases where the notoriety of the fact 
 did not furnish the clearest and most direct evidence, 
 the person accused, or he against whom an action was 
 brought, was called legally, or offered voluntarily, to 
 purge himself by oath ; and upon his declaring his inno- 
 cence he was instantly acquitted. 50 This absurd prac- 
 tice effectually screened guilt and fraud from detection 
 and punishment, by rendering the temptation to per- 
 jury so powerful that it was not easy to resist it. The 
 pernicious effects of it were sensibly felt ; and, in order 
 to guard against them, the laws ordained that oaths 
 should be administered with great solemnity, and ac- 
 companied with every circumstance which could inspire 
 religious reverence or superstitious terror. 51 This, how- 
 ever, proved a feeble remedy: these ceremonious rites 
 became familiar, and their impression on the imagina- 
 tion gradually diminished; men who could venture to 
 disregard truth were not apt to startle at the solemni- 
 ties of an oath. Their observation of this put legis- 
 lators upon devising a new expedient for rendering the 
 purgation by oath more certain and satisfactory. They 
 required the person accused to appear with a certain 
 number of freemen, his neighbours or relations, who 
 corroborated the oath which he took, by swearing that 
 they believed all that he had uttered to be true. These 
 
 50 Leg. Burgund., tit. 8 et 45. 51 Du Cange, Glossar., voc. Juror 
 
 Leg. Alenian., tit. 89. -- Leg. mentum, vol. iii. p. 1607, edit. 
 Baiwar., tit 8, 5, 2, etc. Benedict.
 
 48 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION I. 
 
 were called compurgators, and their number varied 
 according to the importance of the subject in dispute, 
 or the nature of the crime Avith which a person was 
 charged. 52 In some cases the concurrence of no less 
 than three hundred of these auxiliary witnesses was 
 requisite to acquit the person accused. 53 But even this 
 device was found to be ineffectual. It was a point of 
 honour with every man in Europe, during several ages, 
 not to desert the chief on whom he depended, and to 
 stand by those with whom the ties of blood connected 
 him. Whoever then was bold enough to violate the 
 laws was sure of devoted adherents, willing to abet and 
 eager to serve him in whatever manner he required. 
 The formality of calling eompurgators proved an 
 apparent, not a real, security against falsehood and 
 perjury ; and the sentences of courts, while they con- 
 tinued to refer every point in question to the oath of 
 the defendant, became so flagrantly iniquitous as to 
 excite universal indignation against this method of 
 procedure. 54 
 
 Sensible of these defects, but strangers to the man 
 ner of correcting them or of introducing a more proper 
 form, our ancestors, as an infallible method of discover- 
 ing truth and of guarding against deception, appealed 
 to Heaven, and referred every point in dispute to be 
 determined, as they imagined, by the decisions of 
 unerring wisdom and impartial justice. The person 
 accused, in order to prove his innocence, submitted to 
 trial, in certain cases, either by plunging his arm in 
 boiling water, or by lifting a red-hot iron with his 
 naked hand, or by walking barefoot over burning 
 ploughshares, 01 by other experiments equally perilous 
 
 M Du Cange, Glossar., voc. Jura- c. 9. 
 mentum, vol. iii. p. 1599. 64 Leg. Longobard., lib. ii. tit. 5f 
 
 63 Spelman, Glossar., voc. Assath. 34. 
 Gregor. Turon., Hist., lib. yiij,
 
 SECTION I.] STATE OF EUROPE. 49 
 
 and formidable. On other occasions he challenged 
 his accuser to fight him in single combat. All these 
 various forms of trial were conducted with many devout 
 ceremonies ; the ministers of religion were employed ; 
 the Almighty was called upon to interpose for the 
 manifestation of guilt and for the protection of inno- 
 cence ; and whoever escaped unhurt or came off victo- 
 rious was pronounced to be acquitted by the judgment 
 of God. 55 
 
 Among all the whimsical and absurd institutions 
 which owe their existence to the weakness of human 
 reason, this, which submitted questions that affected 
 the property, the reputation, and the lives of men to 
 the determination of chance or of bodily strength and 
 address, appears to be the most extravagant and pre- 
 posterous. There were circumstances, however, which 
 led the nations of Europe to consider this equivocal 
 mode of deciding any point in contest as a direct 
 appeal to Heaven and a certain method of discovering 
 its will. As men are unable to comprehend the man- 
 ner in which the Almighty carries on the government 
 of the universe, by equal, fixed, and general laws, 
 they are apt to imagine that in every case which their 
 passions or interest render important in their own eyes 
 the Supreme Ruler of all ought visibly to display his 
 power in vindicating innocence and punishing guilt. 
 It requires no inconsiderable degree of science and 
 philosophy to correct this popular error. But the sen- 
 timents prevalent in Europe during the Dark Ages, 
 instead of correcting, strengthened it. Religion, for 
 several centuries, consisted chiefly in believing the 
 legendary history of those saints whose names crowd 
 and disgrace the Romish calendar. The fabulous tales 
 concerning their miracles had been declared authentic 
 by the bulls of popes and the decrees of councils ; they 
 
 '* Murat., Dissertatio de Judiciia Dei, Antiquit. Ital.. vol. iii. p. 612. 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 50 A VIEW OF TSE [SECTION t 
 
 made the groat subjects of the instructions which the 
 clergy offered to the people, and were received by 
 them with implicit credulity and admiration. By 
 attending to these, men were accustomed to believe 
 that the established laws of nature might be violated 
 on the most frivolous occasions, and were taught to 
 look rather for particular and extraordinary acts of 
 power under the divine administration than to con- 
 template the regular progress and execution of a 
 general plan. One superstition prepared the way for 
 another ; and whoever believed that the Supreme Being 
 had interposed miraculously on those trivial occasions 
 mentioned in legends could not but expect his inter- 
 vention in matters of greater importance, when solemnly 
 referred to his decision. 
 
 With this superstitious opinion the martial spirit of 
 Europe, during the Middle Ages, concurred in esta- 
 blishing the mode of trial by judicial combat. To be 
 ready to maintain with his sword whatever his lips had 
 uttered was the first maxim of honour with every gentle- 
 man. To assert their own rights by force of arms, to 
 inflict vengeance on those who had injured or affronted 
 them, were the distinction and pride of high-spirited 
 nobles. The form of trial by combat, coinciding with 
 this maxim, flattered and gratified these passions. 
 Every man was the guardian of his own honour and of 
 his own life ; the justice of his cause, as well as his future 
 reputation, depended on his own courage and prowess. 
 This mode of decision was considered, accordingly, as 
 one of the happiest efforts of wise policy ; and as soon 
 as it was introduced, all the forms of trial, by fire or 
 water, and other superstitious experiments, fell into 
 disuse, or were employed only in controversies between 
 persons of inferior rank. As it was the privilege of a 
 gentleman to claim the trial by combat, it was quickly 
 authorized over all Europe, and received in every
 
 SECTION I.] STATE OF EUEOPE. 51 
 
 country with equal satisfaction. Not only questions 
 concerning uncertain or contested facts, but general 
 and abstract points in law, were determined by the 
 issue of a combat ; and the latter was deemed a method 
 of discovering truth more liberal, as well as more satis- 
 factory, than that by investigation and argument. Not 
 only might parties whose minds were exasperated by 
 the eagerness and the hostility of opposition defy their 
 antagonist and require him to make good his charge or 
 to prove his innocence with his sword, but witnesses 
 who had no interest in the issue of the question, though 
 called to declare the truth by laws which ought to have 
 afforded them protection, were equally exposed to the 
 danger of a challenge, and equally bound to assert the 
 veracity of their evidence by dint of arms. To com- 
 plete the absurdities of this military jurisprudence, 
 even the character of a judge was not sacred from its 
 violence. Any one of the parties might interrupt a 
 judge when about to deliver his opinion ; might accuse 
 him of iniquity and corruption in the most reproachful 
 terms, and, throwing down his gauntlet, might chal- 
 lenge him to defend his integrity in the field ; nor could 
 he, without infamy, refuse to accept the defiance, or 
 decline to enter the lists against such an adversary. 
 
 Thus the form of trial by combat, like other abuses, 
 spread gradually, and extended to all persons, and 
 almost to all cases. Ecclesiastics, women, minors, 
 superannuated and infirm persons, who could not with 
 decency or justice be compelled to take arms or to 
 maintain their own cause, were obliged to produce 
 champions, who offered from affection, or were engaged 
 by rewards, to fight their battles. The solemnities of 
 a judicial combat were such as were natural in an action 
 which was considered both as a formal appeal to God 
 and as the final decision of questions of the highest 
 
 moment. Every circumstance relating to them was 
 
 K 2
 
 52 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION i. 
 
 regulated by the edicts of princes, and explained in the 
 comments of lawyers, with a minute and even supersti- 
 tious accuracy. Skill in these laws and rights was 
 frequently the only science of which warlike nobles 
 boasted, or which they were ambitious to attain. 56 
 
 By this barbarous custom, the natural course of pro- 
 ceeding, both in civil and criminal questions, was 
 entirely perverted. Force usurped the place of equity 
 in courts of judicature, and justice was banished from 
 her proper mansion. Discernment, learning, integrity, 
 were qualities less necessary to a judge than bodily 
 strength and dexterity in the use of arms. Daring 
 courage and superior vigour of address were of more 
 moment towards securing the favourable issue of a suit 
 than the equity of a cause or the clearness .of the 
 evidence. Men, of course, applied themselves to cul- 
 tivate the talents which they found to be of greatest 
 utility. As strength of body and address in arms were 
 no less requisite in those lists which they were obliged 
 to enter in defence of their private rights, than in the 
 field of battle, where they met the enemies of their 
 country, it became the great object of education, as 
 well as the chief employment of life, to acquire these 
 martial accomplishments. The administration of jus- 
 tice, instead of accustoming men to listen to the voice 
 of equity or to reverence the decisions of law, added 
 to the ferocity of their manners, and taught them to 
 consider force as the great arbiter of right and wrong. 
 
 These pernicious effects of the trial by combat were 
 so obvious that they did not altogether escape the view 
 of the unobserving age in which it was introduced. The 
 clergy, from the beginning, remonstrated against it, as 
 repugnant to the spirit of Christianity and subversive 
 
 56 See a curious discourse con- Gloucester, uncle to Richard II., in 
 earning the laws of judicial combat, Spelman's Glossar., voc. Campus. 
 bv Thomas of Woodstock, duke of
 
 SECTION I.] STATE OF EUKOPE. 53 
 
 of justice and order. 67 But the maxims and passions 
 which favoured it had taken such hold of the minds of 
 men that they disregarded admonitions and censures 
 which on other occasions would have struck them with 
 terror. The evil was too great and inveterate to yield 
 to that remedy, and, continuing to increase, the civil 
 power at length found it necessary to interpose. Con- 
 scious, however, of their own limited authority, mon- 
 archs proceeded with caution, and their first attempts 
 to restrain or to set any bounds to this practice were 
 extremely feeble. One of the earliest restrictions of 
 this practice which occurs in the history of Europe is 
 that of Henry I. of England. It extended no farther 
 than to prohibit, the trial by combat in questions con- 
 cerning property of small value. 58 Louis VII. of France 
 imitated his example, and issued an edict to the same 
 effect. 69 St. Louis, whose ideas as a legislator were far 
 superior to those of his age, endeavoured to introduce a 
 more perfect jurisprudence, and to substitute the trial 
 by evidence in place of that by combat ; but his regu- 
 lations with respect to this were confined to his own 
 domains; for the great vassals of the crown possessed 
 such independent authority, and were so fondly attached 
 to the ancient practice, that he had not power to venture 
 to extend it to the whole kingdom. Some barons volun- 
 tarily adopted his regulations. The spirit of courts 
 of justice became averse to the mode of decision by 
 combat, and discouraged it on every occasion. The 
 nobles, nevertheless, thought it so honourable to depend 
 for the security of their lives and fortunes on their own 
 courage alone, and contended with so much vehemence 
 for the preservation of this favourite privilege of their 
 order, that the successors of St. Louis, unable to oppose 
 
 67 Du Gauge, Glossar., voc. Duel- p. 962. 
 
 lum, vol. ii. p. 1675. i<9 Onion., torn. i. p. 16. 
 
 58 Brussel, Usage des Fiefs, vol. ii.
 
 54 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION r 
 
 and afraid of offending such powerful subjects, were 
 obliged not only to tolerate but to authorize the practice 
 which he had attempted to abolish. 60 In other coun- 
 tries of Europe, efforts equally zealous were employed 
 to maintain the established custom, and similar conces- 
 sions were extorted from their respective sovereigns, 
 It continued, however, to be an object of policy with 
 every monarch of abilities or vigour, to explode the 
 trial by combat ; and various edicts were issued for this 
 purpose. But the observation which was made con- 
 cerning the right of private war is equally applicable 
 to the mode of trial under review. No custom, how 
 absurd soever it may be, if it has subsisted long, or 
 derived its source from the manners and prejudices of 
 the age in which it prevails, was ever abolished by the 
 bare promulgation of laws and statutes. The senti- 
 ments of the people must change, or some new power 
 sufficient to counteract the prevalent custom must be 
 introduced. Such a change accordingly took place 
 in Europe, as science gradually increased and society 
 advanced towards more perfect order. In proportion 
 as the prerogative of princes extended and came to 
 acquire new force, a power interested in suppressing 
 every practice favourable to the independence of the 
 nobles was introduced. The struggle, nevertheless, 
 subsisted for several centuries : sometimes the new 
 regulations and ideas seemed to gain ground; some- 
 times ancient habits recurred ; and though, upon the 
 whole, the trial by combat went more and more into 
 disuse, yet instances of it occur as late as the sixteenth 
 century, in the history both of France and of England. 
 In proportion as it declined, the regular administration 
 of justice was restored, the proceedings of courts were 
 directed by known laws, the study of these became an 
 object of attention to judges, and the people of Europe 
 
 " Ordon., torn. i. pp. 328, 390, 435.
 
 SECTION I.] STATE OF EUROPE. 55 
 
 advanced fast towards civility when this great cause of 
 the ferocity of their manners was removed. 61 
 
 3. By authorizing the right of appeal from the courts 
 of the barons to those of the king, and subjecting the 
 decisions of the former to the review of the latter, a 
 new step, not less considerable than those which I have 
 already mentioned, was taken towards establishing the 
 regular, consistent, and vigorous administration' of jus- 
 tice. Among all the encroachments of the feudal nobles 
 on the prerogative of their monarchs, their usurping 
 the administration of justice with supreme authority, 
 both in civil and criminal causes, within the precincts 
 of their own estates, was the most singular. In other 
 nations, subjects have contended with their sovereigns, 
 and have endeavoured to extend their own power and 
 privileges ; but in the history of their struggles and 
 pretensions we discover nothing similar to this right 
 which the feudal barons claimed and obtained. It must 
 have been something peculiar in their genius and man- 
 ners that suggested this idea and prompted them to 
 insist on such a claim. Among the rude people who 
 conquered the various provinces of the Roman empire 
 and established new kingdoms there, the passion of 
 resentment, too impetuous to bear control, was per- 
 mitted to remain almost unrestrained by the authority 
 of laws. The person offended, as has been observed, 
 retained not only the right of prosecuting but of 
 punishing his adversary. To him it belonged to inflict 
 such vengeance as satiated his rage, or to accept of such 
 satisfaction as appeased it. But while fierce barbarians 
 continued to be the sole judges in their own cause, 
 their enmities were implacable and immortal : they set 
 no bounds either to the degree of their vengeance or 
 to the duration of their resentment. The excesses 
 which this occasioned proved so destructive of peace 
 
 XXH,
 
 56 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION i. 
 
 and order in society as to render it necessary to devise 
 some remedy. At first recourse was had to arbitrators, 
 who by persuasion or entreaty prevailed on the party 
 offended to accept of a fine or composition from the 
 aggressor and to drop all farther prosecution. But, as 
 submission to persons who had no legal or magisterial 
 authority was altogether voluntary, it became necessary 
 to establish judges, with power sufficient to enforce 
 their own decisions. The leader whom they were 
 accustomed to follow and to obey, whose courage they 
 respected and in whose integrity they placed confi- 
 dence, was the person to whom a martial people natu- 
 rally committed this important prerogative. Every 
 chieftain was the commander of his tribe in war, and 
 their judge in peace. Every baron led his vassals to 
 the field, and administered justice to them in his hall. 
 The high-spirited dependants- would not have recog- 
 nized any other authority or have submitted to any 
 other jurisdiction. But in times of turbulence and 
 violence the exercise of this new function was attended 
 not only with trouble, but with danger. No person 
 could assume the character of a judge if he did not 
 possess power sufficient to protect the one party from 
 the violence of private revenge and to compel the 
 other to accept of such reparation as he enjoined. In 
 consideration of the extraordinary eiforts which this 
 office required, judges, besides the fine which they 
 appointed to be paid as a compensation to the person or 
 family who had been injured, levied an additional sum 
 as a recompense -for their own labour ; and in all the 
 feudal kingdoms the latter was not only as precisely 
 ascertained, but as regularly exacted, as the former. 
 
 Thus, by the natural operation of circumstances pecu- 
 liar to the manners or political state of the feudal nations, 
 separate and territorial jurisdictions came not only to 
 be established in every kingdom, but were established
 
 SECTION- I.] STATE OF EUROPE. 57 
 
 in such a way that the interest of the barons concurred 
 with their ambition in maintaining and extending them. 
 It was not merely a point of honour with the feudal 
 nobles to dispense justice to their vassals, but from the 
 exercise of that power arose one capital branch of their 
 revenue, and the emoluments of their courts were fre- 
 quently the main support of their dignity. It was with 
 infinite zeal that they asserted and defended this high 
 privilege of their order. By this institution, however, 
 every kingdom in Europe was split into as many separate 
 principalities as it contained powerful barons. Their 
 vassals, whether in peace or in war, were hardly sensible 
 of an authority but that of their immediate superior lord. 
 They felt themselves subject to no other command. They 
 were amenable to no other jurisdiction. The ties which 
 linked together these smaller confederacies became close 
 and firm; the bonds of public union relaxed, or were 
 dissolved. The nobles strained their invention in de- 
 vising regulations which tended to ascertain and per- 
 petuate this distinction. In order to guard against any 
 appearance of subordination in their courts to those of 
 the crown, they frequently constrained their monarchs 
 to prohibit the royal judges from entering their terri- 
 tories or from claiming any jurisdiction there ; and if, 
 either through mistake or from the spirit of encroach- 
 ment, any royal judge ventured to extend his authority 
 to the vassals of a baron, they might plead their right of 
 exemption and the lord of whom they held could not 
 only rescue them out of his hands, but was entitled to 
 legal reparation for the injury and affront offered to 
 him. The jurisdiction of the royal judges scarcely 
 reached beyond the narrow limits of the king's demesnes. 
 Instead of a regular gradation of courts, all acknowledg- 
 ing the authority of the same general laws and looking 
 up to these as the guides of their decisions, there were 
 in every feudal kingdom a number of independent tribu-
 
 58 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION i, 
 
 nal.s, the proceedings of which were directed by local 
 customs and contradictory forms. The collision of juris- 
 diction among these different courts often retarded the 
 execution of justice ; the variety and caprice of their 
 modes of procedure must have forever kept the adminis- 
 tration of it from attaining any degree of uniformity or 
 perfection. 
 
 All the monarchs of Europe perceived these encroach- 
 ments on their jurisdiction, and bore them with im- 
 patience. But the usurpations of the nobles were so 
 firmly established, and the danger of endeavouring to 
 overturn them by open force was so manifest, that kings 
 were obliged to remain satisfied with attempts to under- 
 mine them. Various expedients were employed for this 
 purpose, each of which merits attention, as they mark 
 the progress of law and equity in the several kingdoms 
 of Europe. At first, princes endeavoured to circum- 
 scribe the jurisdiction of the barons, by contending that 
 they ought to take cognizance only of smaller offences, 
 reserving those of greater moment, under the appellation 
 of pleas of the crown and royal causes, to be tried in the 
 king's courts. This, however, affected only the barons 
 of inferior note ; the more powerful nobles scorned such 
 a distinction, and not only claimed unlimited jurisdiction, 
 but obliged their sovereigns to grant them charters con- 
 veying or recognizing this privilege in the most ample 
 form. The attempt, nevertheless, was productive of 
 some good consequences, and paved the way for more. 
 It turned the attention of men towards a jurisdiction 
 distinct from that of the baron whose vassals they were ; 
 it accustomed them to the pretensions of superiority 
 which the crown claimed over territorial judges, and 
 taught them, when oppressed by their own superior 
 lord, to look up to their sovereign as their protector. 
 This facilitated the introduction of appeals, by which 
 princes brought the decisions of the barons' courts under
 
 SECTION i.] STATE OF EUROPE. 59 
 
 the review of the royal judges. While trial by combat 
 subsisted in full vigour, no point decided according to 
 that mode could be brought under the review of another 
 court. It had been referred to the judgment of God ; 
 the issue of battle had declared his will ; and it would 
 have been impious to have called in question the equity 
 of the divine decision. But as soon as that barbarous 
 custom began to fall into disuse, princes encouraged the 
 vassals of the barons to sue for redress by appealing to 
 the royal courts. The progress of this practice, how- 
 ever, was slow and gradual. The first instances of 
 appeals were on account of the delay or the refusal of 
 justice in the barons' court ; and, as these were counte- 
 nanced by the ideas of subordination in the feudal con- 
 stitution, the nobles allowed them to be introduced 
 without much opposition. But when these were followed 
 by appeals on account of the injustice or iniquity of the 
 sentence, the nobles then began to be sensible that if this 
 innovation became general the shadow of power alone 
 would remain in their hands, and all real authority and 
 jurisdiction would centre in those courts which possessed 
 the right of review. They instantly took the alarm, 
 remonstrated against the encroachment, and contended 
 boldly for their ancient privileges. But the monarchs 
 in the different kingdoms of Europe pursued their plan 
 with steadiness and prudence. Though forced to suspend 
 their operations on some occasions, and seemingly to 
 yield when any formidable confederacy of their vassals 
 united against them, they resumed their measures as 
 soon as they observed the nobles to bo remiss or feeble, 
 and pushed them with vigour. They appointed the 
 royal courts, which originally were ambulatory and irre- 
 gular with respect to their times of meeting, to be held 
 in a fixed place and at stated seasons. They were 
 solicitous to name judges of more distinguished abilities 
 than such as usually presided in the court of barons.
 
 60 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION I. 
 
 Thoy added dignity to their character and splendour to 
 their assemblies. They laboured to render their forms 
 regular and their decrees consistent. Such judicatories 
 became, of course, the objects of public confidence as 
 well as veneration. The people, relinquishing the tri- 
 bunals of their lords, were eager to bring every subject 
 of contest under the more equal and discerning eye of 
 those whom their sovereign had chosen to give judg- 
 ment in his name. Thus kings became once more the 
 heads of the community, and the dispensers of justice 
 to their subjects. The barons, in some kingdoms, ceased 
 to exercise their right of jurisdiction, because it sunk 
 into contempt ; in others it was circumscribed by such 
 regulations as rendered it innocent, or it was entirely 
 abolished by express statutes. Thus the administration 
 of justice, taking its rise from one source and following 
 one direction, held its course in every state with more 
 uniformity and with greater force. 62 
 
 VI. The forms and maxims of the canon law, which 
 were become universally respectable, from their authority 
 in the spiritual courts, contributed not a little towards 
 those improvements in jurisprudence which I have 
 enumerated. If we consider the canon law politically, 
 and view it either as a system framed on purpose to 
 assist the clergy in usurping powers and jurisdiction 
 no less repugnant to the nature of their function than 
 inconsistent with the order of government, or as the 
 chief instrument in establishing the dominion of the 
 popes, which shook the throne and endangered the liber- 
 ties of every kingdom in Europe, we must pronounce it 
 one of the most formidable engines ever formed against 
 the happiness of civil society. But if we contemplate 
 it merely as a code of laws respecting the rights and 
 property of individuals, and attend only to the civil 
 effects of its decisions concerning these, it will appear 
 
 "-' Note XXIII.
 
 SECTION i.J STATE OF EUROPE. 61 
 
 ill a different and a much more favourable light. Iii 
 ages of ignorance and credulity the ministers of religion 
 are the objects of superstitious veneration. When the 
 barbarians who overran the Eoman empire first embraced 
 the Christian faith, they found the clergy in possession 
 of considerable power; and they naturally transferred 
 to those new guides the profound submission and rever- 
 ence which they were accustomed to yield to the priests 
 of that religion which they had forsaken. They deemed 
 their persons to be equally sacred with their function, 
 and would have considered it as impious to subject them 
 to the profane jurisdiction of the laity. The clergy 
 were not blind to these advantages which the weakness 
 of mankind afforded them. They established courts, 
 in which every question relating to their own character, 
 their function, or their property, was tried. They 
 pleaded and obtained an almost total exemption from 
 the authority of civil judges. Upon different pretexts 
 and by a multiplicity of artifices, they communicated 
 this privilege to so many persons, and extended their 
 jurisdiction to such a variety of cases, that the greater 
 part of those affairs which give rise to contest and 
 litigation was drawn under the cognizance of the 
 spiritual courts. 
 
 But, in order to dispose the laity to suffer these usur- 
 pations without murmur or opposition, it was necessary 
 to convince them that the administration of justice 
 would be rendered more perfect by the establishment 
 of this new jurisdiction. This was not a difficult under- 
 taking at that period, when ecclesiastics carried on their 
 encroachments with the greatest success. That scanty 
 portion of science which served to guide men in the 
 ages of darkness was almost entirely engrossed by the 
 clergy. They alone were accustomed to read, to inquire, 
 and to reason. Whatever knowledge of ancient juris- 
 prudence had been preserved, either by tradition, or
 
 62 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION i. 
 
 iti such books as had escaped the destructive rage of 
 barbarians, was possessed by them. Upon the maxims 
 of that excellent system they founded a code of laws 
 consonant to the great principles of equity. Being 
 directed by fixed and known rules, the forms of their 
 courts were ascertained, and their decisions beoame 
 uniform and consistent. Nor did they want authority 
 sufficient to enforce their sentences. Excommunication 
 and other ecclesiastical censures were punishments more 
 formidable than any that civil judges could inflict in 
 support of their decrees. 
 
 It is not surprising, then, that ecclesiastical juris- 
 prudence should become such an object of admiration 
 and respect that exemption from civil jurisdiction was 
 courted as a privilege and conferred as a reward. It 
 is not surprising that, even to a rude people, the maxims 
 of the canon law should appear more equal and just than 
 those of the ill-digested jurisprudence which directed 
 all proceedings in civil courts. According to the latter, 
 the differences between contending barons were termi- 
 nated, as in a state of nature, by the sword ; according 
 to the former, every matter was subjected to the decision 
 of laws. The one, by permitting judicial combats, left 
 chance and force to be arbiters of right or wrong, of 
 truth or falsehood ; the other passed judgment with 
 respect to these by the maxims of equity and the tes- 
 timony of witnesses. Any error or iniquity in a sentence 
 pronounced by a baron to whom feudal jurisdiction 
 belonged was irremediable, because originally it was 
 subject to the review of no superior tribunal; the eccle- 
 siastical law established a regular gradation of courts, 
 through all which a cause might be carried by appeal, 
 until it was determined by that authority which was 
 held to be supreme in the Church. Thus the genius and 
 principles of the canon law prepared men for approving 
 those three great alterations in the feudal jurisprudence
 
 ] STATE or EUBOPE. 68 
 
 which I have mentioned. But it was not with respect to 
 these points alone that the canon law suggested improve- 
 ments beneficial to society. Many of the regulations 
 now deemed the barriers of personal security or the 
 safeguards of private property are contrary to the spirit 
 and repugnant to the maxims of the civil jurisprudence 
 known in Europe during several centuries, and were 
 borrowed from the rules and practice of the ecclesiastical 
 courts. By observing the wisdom and equity of the 
 decisions in these courts, men began to perceive the 
 necessity either of deserting the martial tribunals of the 
 barons, or of attempting to reform them. 63 
 
 YTI. The revival of the knowledge and study of the 
 Eoman law co-operated with the causes which I have 
 mentioned in introducing more just and liberal ideas 
 concerning the nature of government and the adminis- 
 tration of justice. Among the calamities which the 
 devastations of the barbarians who broke in upon the 
 empire brought upon mankind, one of the greatest was 
 their overturning the system of Eoman jurisprudence, 
 the noblest monument of the wisdom of that great 
 people, formed to subdue and to govern the world. 
 The laws and regulations of a civilized community 
 were repugnant to the manners and ideas of these 
 fierce invaders. They had respect to objects of which 
 a rude people had no conception, and were adapted to 
 a state of society with which they were entirely un- 
 acquainted. For this reason, wherever they settled, the 
 Eoman jurisprudence soon sunk into oblivion, and lay 
 buried for some centuries under the load of those institu- 
 tions which the inhabitants of Europe dignified with the 
 name of laws. But towards the middle of the twelfth, 
 century a copy of Justinian's Pandects was accidentally 
 discovered in Italy. By that time the state of society 
 was so far advanced, and the ideas of men so much 
 63 Note XXIV.
 
 64 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION i. 
 
 enlarged and improved by the occurrences of several 
 centuries during which they had continued in political 
 union, that they were struck with admiration of a system 
 which their ancestors could not comprehend. Though 
 they had not hitherto attained such a degree of refine- 
 ment as to acquire from the ancients a relish for true 
 philosophy or speculative science, though they were 
 still insensible in a great degree to the beauty and 
 elegance of classical composition, they were sufficiently 
 qualified to judge with respect to the merit of their 
 system of laws, in which all the points most interesting 
 to mankind were settled with discernment, precision, 
 and equity. All men of letters studied this new 
 science with eagerness ; and within a few years after 
 the discovery of the Pandects, professors of civil law 
 were appointed, who taught it publicly in most countries 
 of Europe. 
 
 The effects of having such an excellent model to 
 study and to imitate were immediately perceived. Men, 
 as soon as they were acquainted with fixed and general 
 laws, perceived the advantage of them, and became 
 impatient to ascertain the principles and forms by which 
 judges should regulate their decisions. Such was the 
 ardour with which they carried on an undertaking of so 
 great importance to society that before the close of the 
 twelfth century the feudal law was reduced into a 
 regular system ; the code of canon law was enlarged 
 and methodised ; and the loose, uncertain customs of 
 different provinces or kingdoms were collected and 
 arranged with an order and accuracy acquired from the 
 knowledge of Eoman jurisprudence. In some countries 
 of Europe the Eoman law was adopted as subsidiary 
 to their own municipal law, and all cases to whicb 
 the latter did not extend were decided according to 
 the principles of the former. In others the maxims 
 as well as forms of Eoman jurisprudence mingled
 
 SECTION i.] STATE OF EUROPE. 65 
 
 imperceptibly with the laws of the country, and had a 
 powerful, though less sensible, influence in improving 
 and perfecting them. 64 
 
 These various improvements in the system of juris- 
 prudence and administration of justice occasioned a 
 change in manners, of great importance and of exten- 
 sive effect. They gave rise to a distinction of profes- 
 sions ; they obliged men to cultivate different talents, 
 and to aim at different accomplishments, in order to 
 qualify themselves for the various departments and 
 functions which became necessary in society. 65 Among 
 uncivilised nations there is but one profession honour- 
 able, that of arms. All the ingenuity and vigour of the 
 human mind are exerted in acquiring military skill or 
 address. The functions of peace are few and simple, 
 and require no particular course of education or of 
 study as a preparation for discharging them. This was 
 the state of Europe during several centuries. Every 
 gentleman, born a soldier, scorned any other occupa- 
 tion ; he was taught no science but that of war ; even 
 his exercises and pastimes were feats of martial prowess. 
 Nor did the judicial character, which persons of noble 
 birth were alone entitled to assume, demand any de- 
 gree of knowledge beyond that which such untutored 
 soldiers possessed. To recollect a few traditionary 
 customs which time had confirmed and rendered re- 
 spectable, to mark out the lists of battle with due 
 formality, to observe the issue of the combat, and 
 to pronounce whether it had been conducted accord- 
 ing to the laws of arms, included everything that a 
 baron, who acted as a judge, found it necessary to 
 understand. 
 
 But when the forms of legal proceedings were fixed, 
 
 Note XXV. History of Civil Society, part iv 
 
 ** Dr. Fergusson's Essay on the sect. 1. 
 
 VOL. 1. *
 
 66 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION i. 
 
 when the rules of decision were committed to writing 
 and collected into a body, law became a science, the 
 knowledge of which required a regular course of study, 
 together with long attention to the practice of courts. 
 Martial and illiterate nobles had neither leisure nor 
 inclination to undertake a task so laborious, as well as 
 so foreign from all the occupations which they deemed 
 entertaining, or suitable to their rank. They gradually 
 relinquished their places in courts of justice, where their 
 ignorance exposed them to contempt. They became 
 weary of attending to the discussion of cases which 
 grew too intricate for them to comprehend. Not only 
 the judicial determination of points which were the 
 subject of controversy, but the conduct of all legal 
 business and transactions, was committed to persons 
 trained by previous study and application to the know- 
 ledge of law. An order of men to whom their fellow- 
 citizens had daily recourse for advice, and to whom 
 they looked up for decision in their most important 
 concerns, naturally acquired consideration and influence 
 in society. They were advanced to honours which had 
 been considtj-d hitherto as the peculiar rewards of 
 military virtue. They were intrusted with offices of 
 the highest dignity and most extensive power. Thus 
 another profession than that of arms came to be intro- 
 duced among the laity, and was reputed honourable. 
 The functions of civil life were attended to. The 
 talents requisite for discharging them were cultivated. 
 A new road was opened to wealth and eminence. The 
 arts and virtues of peace were placed in their proper 
 rank and received their due recompense. 66 
 
 VIII. While improvements so important with respect 
 to the state of society and the administration of justice 
 gradually made progress in Europe, sentiments more 
 
 * Note XXVI.
 
 SECTION i.) STATE OF EUKOPE. 67 
 
 liberal and generous had begun to animate the nobles. 
 These were inspired by the spirit of chivalry, which, 
 though considered, commonly, as a wild institution, the 
 effect of caprice and the source of extravagance, arose 
 naturally from the state of society at that period, and 
 had a very serious influence in refining the manners of 
 the European nations. The feudal state was a state of 
 almost perpetual war, rapine, and anarchy, during which 
 the weak and unarmed were exposed to insults or in- 
 juries. The power of the sovereign was too limited to 
 prevent these wrongs, and the administration of justice 
 too feeble to redress them. The most effectual pro- 
 tection against violence and oppression was often found 
 to be that which the valour and generosity of private 
 persons afforded. The same spirit of enterprise which 
 had prompted so many gentlemen to take arms in 
 defence of the oppressed pilgrims in Palestine incited 
 others to declare themselves the patrons and avengers 
 of injured innocence at home. When the final re- 
 duction of the Holy Land under the dominion of 
 infidels put an end to these foreign expeditions, the 
 latter was the only employment left for the activity and 
 courage of adventurers. To check the insolence of 
 overgrown oppressors, to rescue the helpless from 
 captivity, to protect or to avenge women, orphans, 
 and ecclesiastics, who could not bear arms in their 
 own defence, to redress wrongs, and to remove grie- 
 vances, were deemed acts of the highest prowess and 
 merit. Yalour, humanity, courtesy, justice, honour, were 
 the characteristic qualities of chivalry. To these was 
 added religion, which mingled itself with every passion 
 and institution during the Middle Ages, and, by infusing 
 a large proportion of enthusiastic zeal, gave them such 
 force as carried them to romantic excess. Men were 
 trained to knighthood by a long previous discipline; 
 they were admitted into the order by solemnities no 
 
 F 2
 
 68 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION i. 
 
 less devout than pompous ; every person of noble birth 
 courted that honour ; it was deemed a distinction supe- 
 rior to royalty ; and monarchs were proud to receive it 
 from the hands of private gentlemen. 
 
 This singular institution, in which valour, gallantry, 
 and religion were so strangely blended, was wonder 
 fully adapted to the taste and genius of martial nobles ; 
 and its effects were soon visible in their manners. War 
 was carried on with less ferocity, when humanity came 
 to be deemed the ornament of knighthood no less than 
 courage. More gentle and polished manners were intro- 
 duced, when courtesy was recommended as the most 
 amiable of knightly virtues. Violence and oppression 
 decreased, when it was reckoned meritorious to check 
 and to punish them. A scrupulous adherence to truth, 
 with the most religious attention to fulfil every engage- 
 ment, became the distinguishing characteristic of a 
 gentleman, because chivalry was regarded as the school 
 of honour and inculcated the most delicate sensibility 
 with respect to those points. The admiration of these 
 qualities, together with the high distinctions and pre- 
 rogatives conferred on knighthood in every part of 
 Europe, inspired persons of noble birth on some occa- 
 sions with a species of military fanaticism, and led 
 them to extravagant enterprises. But they deeply im- 
 printed on their minds the principles of generosity and 
 honour. These were strengthened by everything that 
 can affect the senses or touch the heart. The wild 
 exploits of those romantic knights who sallied forth in 
 quest of adventures are well known, and have been 
 Ideated with proper ridicule. The political and per- 
 manent effects of the spirit of chivalry have been less 
 observed. Perhaps the humanity which accompanies 
 all the operations of war, the refinements of gallantry, 
 and the point of honour, the three chief circumstances 
 which distinguish modern from ancient manners, may
 
 SECTION i.] STATE OP EUROPE. 69 
 
 be ascribed in a great measure to this institution, which 
 has appeared whimsical to superficial observers, but by 
 its effects has proved of great benefit to mankind. The 
 sentiments which chivalry inspired had a wonderful 
 -influence on manners and conduct during the twelfth, 
 thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. They 
 were so deeply rooted that they continued to operate 
 after the vigour and reputation of the institution itself 
 began to decline. Some considerable transactions 
 recorded in the following history resemble the adven- 
 turous exploits of chivalry rather than the well-regu- 
 lated operations of sound policy. Some of the most 
 eminent personages whose characters will be delineated 
 were strongly tinctured with this romantic spirit. Fran- 
 cis I. was ambitious to distinguish himself by all the 
 qualities of an accomplished knight, and endeavoured 
 to imitate the enterprising genius of chivalry in war, as 
 well as its pomp and courtesy during peace. The fame 
 which the French monarch acquired by these splendid 
 actions so far dazzled his more temperate rival that he 
 departed on some occasions from his usual prudence and 
 moderation, and emulated Francis in deeds of prowess 
 or of gallantry. 67 
 
 IX. The progress of science and the cultivation of 
 literature had considerable effect in changing the 
 manners of the European nations and introducing that 
 civility and refinement by which they are now distin- 
 guished. At the time when their empire was over- 
 turned, the Eomans, though they had lost that correct 
 taste which has rendered the productions of their an- 
 cestors standards of excellence and models of imitation 
 for succeeding ages, still preserved their love of letters 
 and cultivated the arts with great ardour. But rude 
 barbarians were so far from being struck with any 
 
 97 Note XXVII.
 
 70 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION i. 
 
 admiration of these unknown accomplishments that they 
 despised them. They were not arrived at that state of 
 society when those faculties of the human mind which 
 have beauty and elegance for their objects begin to 
 unfold themselves. They were strangers to most of 
 those wants and desires which are the parents of in- 
 genious invention ; and, as they did not comprehend 
 either the merit or utility of the Eoman arts, they de- 
 stroyed the monuments of them, with an industry not 
 inferior to that which their posterity have since studied to 
 preserve or to recover them. The convulsions occasioned 
 by the settlement of so many unpolished tribes in the 
 empire, the frequent as well as violent revolutions in 
 every kingdom which they established, together with the 
 interior defects in the form of government which they 
 introduced, banished security and leisure, prevented the 
 growth of taste or the culture of science, and kept 
 Europe, during several centuries, in that state of ig- 
 norance which has been already described, I?ut the 
 events and institutions which I have enumerated pro- 
 duced great alterations in society. As soon as their 
 operation, in restoring liberty and independence to one 
 part of the community, began to be felt, as soon as they 
 began to communicate to all the members of society some 
 taste of the advantages arising from commerce, from 
 public order, and from personal security, the human mind 
 became conscious of powers which it did not formerly 
 perceive, and fond of occupations or pursuits of which 
 it was formerly incapable. Towards the beginning of 
 the twelfth century we discern the first symptoms of 
 its awakening from that lethargy in which it had been 
 long sunk, and observe it turning with curiosity and 
 attention towards new objects. 
 
 The first literary efforts, however, of the European 
 nations in the Middle Ages were extremely ill directed. 
 Among nations, as well as individuals, the powers of
 
 SECTION i.J STATE OP EUROPE. 71 
 
 imagination attain some degree of vigour before the 
 intellectual faculties are much exercised in speculative 
 or abstract disquisition. Men are poets i-^ore they are 
 philosophers; they feel with sensibility, <*rd describe 
 with force, when they have made but little progress in 
 investigation or reasoning. The age of Homer and of 
 Hcsiod long preceded that of Thales or of Socrates. 
 But, unhappily for literature, our ancestors, deviating 
 from this course which nature points out, plunged at 
 once into the depths of abstruse and metaphysical in- 
 quiry. They had been converted to the Christian faith 
 soon after they settled in their new conquests. But 
 they did not receive it pure ; the presumption of men 
 had added to the simple and instructive doctrines of 
 Christianity the theories of a vain philosophy, that 
 attempted to penetrate into mysteries and to decide 
 questions which the limited faculties of the human mind 
 are unable to comprehend or to resolve. These over- 
 curious speculations were incorporated with the system 
 of religion, and came to be considered as the most es- 
 sential part of it. As soon, then, as curiosity prompted 
 men to inquire and to reason, these were the subjects 
 which first presented themselves and engaged their 
 attention. The scholastic theology, with its infinite 
 train of bold disquisitions, and subtile distinctions 
 concerning points which are not the object of human 
 reason, was the first production of the spirit of inquiry 
 after it began to resume some degree of activity and 
 vigour in Europe. It was not, however, this circum- 
 stance alone that gave such a strong turn to the minds 
 of men, when they began again to exercise talents 
 which they had so long neglected. Most of the persons 
 who attempted to revive literature in the twelfth and 
 thirteenth centuries had received instruction or derived 
 their principles of science from the Greeks in the 
 Eastern empire, or from the Arabians in Spain and
 
 72 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION i. 
 
 Africa. Both these people, acute and inquisitive to 
 excess, had corrupted those sciences which they culti- 
 vated. The former rendered theology a system of 
 speculative refinement or of endless controversy ; the 
 latter communicated to philosophy a spirit of meta- 
 physical and frivolous subtlety. Misled by these guides, 
 the persons who first applied to science were involved 
 in a maze of intricate inquiries. Instead of allowing 
 their fancy to take its natural range, and to produce 
 such works of invention as might have improved their 
 taste and refined their sentiments, instead of cultivating 
 those arts which embellish human life and render it 
 comfortable, they were fettered by authority, they were 
 led astray by example, and wasted the whole force of 
 their genius in speculations as unavailing as they were 
 difficult. 
 
 But, fruitless and ill directed as these speculations 
 were, their novelty roused and their boldness interested 
 the human mind. The ardour with which men pursued 
 these uninviting studies was astonishing. Genuine 
 philosophy was never cultivated, in any enlightened 
 age, with more zeal. Schools, upon the model of those 
 instituted by Charlemagne, were opened in every cathe- 
 dral, and almost in every monastery of note. Colleges 
 and universities were erected and formed into com- 
 munities or corporations, governed by their own laws 
 and invested with separate and extensive jurisdiction 
 over their own members. A regular course of studies 
 was planned ; privileges of great value were conferred 
 on masters and scholars ; academical titles and honours 
 of various kinds were invented as a recompense for both. 
 Nor was it in the schools alone that superiority in science 
 led to reputation and authority : it became an object of 
 respect in life, and advanced such as acquired it to a 
 rank of no inconsiderable eminence. Allured by all these 
 advantages, an incredible number of students resorted to
 
 SECTION I.] STATE OF EUROPE. 73 
 
 those new seats of learning, and crowded with eagerness 
 into that new path which was open to fame and 
 distinction. 
 
 But, how considerable soever these first efforts may 
 appear, there was one circumstance which prevented 
 the effects of them from being as extensive as they 
 naturally ought to have been. All the languages in 
 Europe, during the period under review, were bar- 
 barous ; they were destitute of elegance, of force, and 
 even of perspicuity. No attempt had been hitherto 
 made to improve or to polish them. The Latin tongue 
 was consecrated by the Church to religion; custom, 
 with authority scarcely less sacred, had appropriated it 
 to literature. All the sciences cultivated in the twelfth 
 and thirteenth centuries were taught in Latin; all books 
 with respect to them were written in that language. It 
 would have been deemed a degradation of any impor- 
 tant subject to have treated of it in a modern language. 
 This confined science within a very narrow circle ; the 
 learned alone were admitted into the temple of know- 
 ledge ; the gate was shut against all others, who were 
 suffered to remain involved in their former darkness and 
 ignorance. 
 
 But though science was thus prevented, during 
 several ages, from diffusing itself through society, and 
 its influence was much circumscribed, the progress which 
 it made may be mentioned, nevertheless, among the 
 great causes which contributed to introduce a change 
 of manners into Europe. The ardent though ill-judged 
 spirit of inquiry which I have described occasioned a 
 fermentation of mind that put ingenuity and invention 
 in motion and gave them vigour. It led men to a new 
 employment of their faculties, which they found to be 
 agreeable as well as interesting. It accustomed them 
 to exercises and occupations which tended to soften their 
 manners, and to give them some relish for the gentle
 
 74 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION i. 
 
 virtues peculiar to people among whom science has been 
 cultivated with success. 68 
 
 X. The progress of commerce had considerable in- 
 fluence in polishing the manners of the European 
 nations, and in establishing among them order, equal 
 laws, and humanity. The wants of men in the original 
 and most simple state of society are so few, and their 
 desires so limited, that they rest contented with the 
 natural productions of their climate and soil, or with 
 what they can add to these by their own rude industry. 
 They have no superfluities to dispose of, and few neces- 
 sities that demand a supply. Every little community, 
 subsisting on its own domestic stock and satisfied with 
 it, is either little acquainted with the states around 
 it, or at variance with them. Society and manners 
 must be considerably improved, and many provisions 
 must be made for public order and personal security, 
 before a liberal intercourse can take place between 
 different nations. We find, accordingly, that the first 
 effect of the settlement of the barbarians in the empire 
 was to divide those nations which the Eoman power 
 had united. Europe was broken into many separate 
 communities. The intercourse between these divided 
 states ceased almost entirely during several centuries. 
 Navigation was dangerous in seas infested by pirates ; 
 nor could strangers trust to a friendly reception in the 
 ports of uncivilized nations. Even between distant 
 parts of the same kingdom the communication was rare 
 and difficult. The lawless rapine of banditti, together 
 with the avowed exactions of the nobles, scarcely less 
 formidable and oppressive, rendered a journey of any 
 length a perilous enterprise. Fixed to the spot in 
 which they resided, the greater part of the inhabitants 
 of Europe lost, in a great measure, the knowledge of 
 
 68 Note XXVIII,
 
 SECTION I.] STATE OF EUROPE. 75 
 
 remote regions, and were unacquainted with their 
 names, their situations, their climates, and their com- 
 modities. 69 
 
 Various causes, however, contributed to revive the 
 spirit of commerce, and to renew, in some degree, the 
 intercourse between different nations. The Italians, 
 by their connection with Constantinople and other cities 
 of the Greek empire, had preserved in their own 
 country considerable relish for the precious commodities 
 and curious manufactures of the East. They com- 
 municated some knowledge of these to the countries 
 contiguous to Italy. But this commerce being ex- 
 tremely limited, the intercourse which it occasioned 
 between different nations was not considerable. The 
 crusades, by leading multitudes from every corner of 
 Europe into Asia, opened a more extensive communica- 
 tion between the East and West, which subsisted for 
 two centuries ; and though the object of these expedi- 
 tions was conquest, and not commerce, though the issue 
 of them proved as unfortunate as the motives for under- 
 taking them were wild and enthusiastic, their com- 
 mercial effects, as hath been shown, were both beneficial 
 and permanent. During the continuance of the. crusades, 
 the great cities in Italy, and in other countries of Europe, 
 acquired liberty, and together with it such privileges as 
 rendered them respectable and independent communities. 
 Thus, in every state there was formed a new order of 
 citizens, to whom commerce presented itself as their 
 proper object and opened to them a certain path to 
 wealth and consideration. Soon after the close of the 
 holy war, the mariner's compass was invented, which, 
 by rendering navigation more secure, encouraged it to 
 become more adventurous, facilitated the communica- 
 tion between remote nations, and brought them nearer to 
 each other. 
 
 69 Note XXIX.
 
 76 A VIEW OP THE [sEcriON I. 
 
 The Italian states, during the same period, estab- 
 lished a regular commerce with the East in the ports 
 of Egypt, and drew from thence all the rich products 
 of the Indies. They introduced into their own terri- 
 tories manufactures of various kinds, and carried them 
 on with great ingenuity and vigour. They attempted 
 new arts, and transplanted from warmer climates, to 
 which they had been hitherto deemed peculiar, several 
 natural productions which now furnish the materials 
 of a lucrative and extended commerce. All these 
 commodities, whether imported from Asia or produced 
 by their own skill, they disposed of to great advantage 
 among the other people of Europe, who began to ac- 
 quire some taste for an elegance in living unknown to 
 their ancestors, or despised by them. During the 
 twelfth and thirteenth centuries the commerce of 
 Europe was almost entirely in the hands of the Italians, 
 more commonly known in those ages by the name of 
 Lombards. Companies or societies of Lombard mer- 
 chants settled in every different kingdom. They were 
 taken under the immediate protection of the several 
 governments. They enjoyed extensive privileges and 
 immunities. The operation of the ancient barbarous 
 laws concerning strangers was suspended with respect 
 to them. They became the carriers, the manufacturers, 
 and the bankers of all Europe. 
 
 While the Italians, in the South of Europe, were 
 cultivating trade with such industry and success, the 
 commercial spirit awakened in the North towards the 
 middle of the thirteenth century. As the nations 
 around the Baltic were at that time extremely bar- 
 barous, and infested that sea with their piracies, the 
 cities of Lubec and Hamburg, soon after they began 
 to open some trade with these people, found it neces- 
 sary to enter into a league of mutual defence. They 
 derived such advantages from this union that other
 
 SECTIO.V i.] STATE OF EUROPE. 77 
 
 towns acceded to their confederacy, and in i short time 
 eighty of the most considerable cities scattored through 
 those extensive countries which stretch from the bottom 
 of the Baltic to Cologne on the Ehine joined in the 
 famous Hanseatic league, which became so formidable 
 that its alliance was courted and its enmity was 
 dreaded by the greatest monarchs. The members of 
 this powerful association formed the first systematic 
 plan of commerce known in the Middle Ages, and con- 
 ducted it by common laws enacted in their general 
 assemblies. They supplied the rest of Europe with 
 naval stores, and pitched on different towns, the most 
 eminent of which was at Bruges in Flanders, where 
 they established staples in which their commerce was 
 regularly carried on. Thither the Lombards brought 
 the productions of India, together with the manufactures 
 of Italy, and exchanged them for the more bulky but 
 not less useful commodities of the North. The Han- 
 seatic merchants disposed of the cargoes which they 
 received from the Lombards in the ports of the Baltic, 
 or carried them up the great rivers into the interior 
 parts of Germany. 
 
 This regular intercourse opened between the nations 
 in the North and South of Europe made them sensible 
 of their mutual wants, and created such new and in- 
 creasing demands for commodities of every kind that it 
 excited among the inhabitants of the Netherlands a more 
 vigorous spirit in carrying on the two great manu- 
 factures of wool and flax, which seem to have been 
 considerable in that country as early as the age of 
 Charlemagne. As Bruges became the centre of com- 
 munication between the Lombard and Hanseatic mer- 
 chants, the Flemings traded with both in that city to 
 such extent, as well as advantage, as spread among them 
 a general habit of industry, which long rendered 
 Flanders and the adjacent provinces the most opulent,
 
 78 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION I. 
 
 the most populous, and best cultivated countries in 
 Europe. 
 
 Struck with the flourishing state of these provinces? 
 of which he discerned the true cause, Edward III. of 
 England endeavoured to excite a spirit of industry 
 among his own subjects, who, blind to the advantages 
 of their situation, and ignorant of the source from which 
 opulence was destined to flow into their country, were 
 so little attentive to their commercial interests as hardly 
 to attempt those manufactures, the materials of which 
 they furnished to foreigners. By alluring Flemish 
 artisans to settle in his dominions, as well as by many 
 wise laws for the encouragement and regulation of trade, 
 Edward gave a beginning to the woollen manufactures 
 of England, and first turned the active and enterprising 
 genius of his people towards those arts which have 
 raised the English to the highest rank among commercial 
 nations. 
 
 This increase of commerce and of intercourse between 
 nations, how inconsiderable soever it may appear in 
 respect of their rapid and extensive progress during 
 the last and present age, seems wonderfully great when 
 we compare it with the state of both in Europe previous 
 to the twelfth century. It did not fail of producing 
 great effects. Commerce tends to wear off those pre- 
 judices which maintain distinction and animosity be- 
 tween nations. It softens and polishes the manners of 
 men. It unites them by one of the strongest of all ties, 
 the desire of supplying their mutual wants. It disposes 
 them to peace, by establishing in every state an order of 
 citizens bound by their interests to be the guardians of 
 public tranquillity. As soon as the commercial spirit 
 acquires vigour and begins to gain an ascendant in any 
 society, we discover a new genius in its policy, its 
 alliances, its wars, and its negotiations. Conspicuous 
 proofs of this occur in the history of the Italian states,
 
 SECTION L] STATE OF EUROPE. 79 
 
 of the Hanseatic league, and the cities of the Nether- 
 lands during the period under review. In proportion as 
 commerce made its way into the different countries of 
 Europe, they successively turned their attention to those 
 objects and adopted those manners which occupy and 
 distinguish Dolished nations. 70 
 
 10 Note
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 YiKW OF THE PROGRESS OF 'SOCIETY IN EUROPE WITH 
 RESPECT TO THE COMMAND OF THE NATIONAL 
 FORCE REQUISITE IX FOREIGN OPERATIONS. 
 
 Improved State of Society at the Beginning of the Fifteenth Century. 
 The Concentration of Resources in European States. The Power of 
 Monarchs : their Revenues and Armies. Affairs of Different States 
 at first entirely distinct. Progress of Combination. Loss of Con- 
 tinental Territory by the English. Effects upon the French Monarchy. 
 Growth of Standing Armies, and of the Royal Prerogative under 
 Louis XI. His Example imitated in England and hi Spain. The 
 Heiress of Burgundy. Perfidious Conduct of Louis XI. towards her. 
 Her Marriage with Maximilian, Archduke of Austria. Invasion 
 of Italy by Charles VIII. The Balance of Power. Use of Infantry 
 in Armies. League of Cambray against Venice. 
 
 SUCH are the events and institutions which, by their 
 powerful operation, contributed gradually to introduce 
 regular government and polished manners in the various 
 nations of Europe. When we survey the state of 
 society, or the character of individuals, at the opening 
 of the fifteenth century, and then turn back to view the 
 condition of both at the time when the barbarous tribes 
 which overturned the Roman power completed their 
 settlement in their new conquests the progress which 
 mankind had made towards order and refinement will 
 appear immense. 
 
 Government, however, was still far from having 
 attained that state in which extensive monarchies act 
 with the united vigour of the whole community, or carry 
 on great undertakings with perseverance and success. 
 Small tribes or communities, even in their rudest state, 
 may operate in concert and exert their utmost force. 
 They are excited to act, not by the distant objects or 
 the refined speculations which interest or affect men in
 
 SECTION II. J A VIEW OF THE STATE OF EUROPE. 81 
 
 polished societies, but by their present feelings. The 
 insults of an enemy kindle resentment ; the success of 
 a rival tribe awakens emulation : these passions com- 
 municate from breast to breast, and all the members of 
 the community, with united ardour, rush into the field 
 in order to gratify their revenge or to acquire distinction. 
 But in widely-extended states, such as the great king- 
 doms of Europe at the beginning of the fifteenth cen- 
 tury, where there is little intercourse between the 
 distant members of the community, and where every 
 great enterprise requires previous concert and long pre- 
 paration, nothing can rouse and call forth their united 
 strength but the absolute command of a despot or the 
 powerful influence of regular policy. Of the former, the 
 vast empires in the East are an example : the irresistible 
 mandate of the sovereign reaches the most remote pro- 
 vinces of his dominions, and compels whatever number 
 of his subjects he is pleased to summon to follow his 
 standard. The kingdoms of Europe, in the present age, 
 are an instance of the latter : the prince, by the less 
 violent but no less effectual operation of laws and a well- 
 regulated government, is enabled to avail himself of the 
 whole force of his state, and to employ it in enterprises 
 which require strenuous and persevering efforts. 
 
 But at the opening of the fifteenth century the poli- 
 tical constitution in all the kingdoms of Europe was 
 very different from either of these states of government. 
 The several monarchs, though they had somewhat en- 
 larged the boundaries of prerogative by successful 
 encroachments on the immunities and privileges of the 
 nobility, were possessed of an authority extremely 
 limited. The laws and interior police of kingdoms, 
 though much improved by the various events and regu- 
 lations which I have enumerated, were still feeble and 
 imperfect. In every country, a numerous body of 
 nobles, who continued to be formidable notwithstand- 
 
 VOL. I. O
 
 82 A VIEW OF THE (.SECTION n. 
 
 ing the various expedients employed to depress them, 
 watched all the motions of their sovereign with a jealous 
 attention which set bounds to his ambition, and either 
 prevented his forming schemes of extensive enterprise, 
 or obstructed the execution of them. 
 
 The ordinary revenues of every prince were so ex- 
 tremely small as to be inadequate to any great under- 
 taking. He depended for extraordinary supplies on the 
 good will of his subjects, who granted them often with a 
 reluctant, and always with a sparing, hand. 
 
 As the revenues of princes were inconsiderable, the 
 armies which they could bring into the field were unfit 
 for long and effectual service. Instead of being able 
 to employ troops trained to skill in arms, and to military 
 subordination, by regular discipline, monarchs were 
 obliged to depend on such forces as their vassals con- 
 ducted to their standard in consequence of their military 
 tenures. These, as they were bound to remain under 
 arms only for a short time, could not march far from 
 their usual place of residence, and, being more attached 
 to the lord of whom they held than to the sovereign 
 whom they served, were often as much disposed to 
 counteract as to forward his schemes. Nor were they, 
 even if they had been more subject to the command of 
 the monarch, proper instruments to carry into execution 
 any great and arduous enterprise. The strength of an 
 army, formed either for conquest or defence, lies in 
 infantry. To the stability and discipline of their 
 legions, consisting chiefly of infantry, the Eomans, 
 during the times of the republic, were indebted for their 
 victories; and when their descendants, forgetting the 
 institutions which had led them to universal dominion, 
 so far altered their military system as to place their 
 principal confidence in a numerous cavalry, the undisci- 
 plined impetuosity of the barbarous nations, who f ought, 
 mostly on foot, was sufficient, as I have already ob-
 
 (SECTION n.j STATE OF EUROPE. 83 
 
 served, to overcome them. These nations, soon after 
 they settled in their new conquests, uninstructed by the 
 fatal error of the Romans, relinquished the customs of 
 their ancestors, and converted the chief force of their 
 armies into cavalry. Among the Eomans this change 
 was occasioned by the effeminacy of their troops, who 
 could not endure the fatigues of service which their 
 more virtuous and hardy ancestors had sustained with 
 ease. Among the people who established the new 
 monarchies into which Europe was divided, this innova- 
 tion in military discipline seems to have flowed from the 
 pride of the nobles, who, scorning to mingle with per- 
 sons of inferior rank, aimed at being distinguished from 
 them in the field as well as during peace. The institution 
 of chivalry, and the frequency of tournaments, in which 
 knights, in complete armour, entered the lists on horse- 
 back with extraordinary splendour, displaying amazing 
 address, force, and valour, brought cavalry into still 
 greater esteem. The fondness for that service increased to 
 such a degree that during the thirteenth and fourteenth 
 centuries the armies of Europe were composed almost 
 entirely of cavalry. No gentleman would appear in the 
 field but on horseback. To serve in any other manner 
 he would have deemed derogatory to his rank. The 
 cavalry, by way of distinction, was called the battle, and 
 on it alone depended the fate of every action. The 
 infantry, collected from the dregs and refuse of the 
 people, ill armed and worse disciplined, was almost of no 
 account. 
 
 As these circumstances rendered the operations of 
 particular kingdoms less considerable and less vigorous, 
 so they long kept the princes of Europe from giving 
 such attention to the schemes and transactions of their 
 neighbours as might lead them to form any regular 
 system of public security. They were, of consequence, 
 prevented from uniting in confederacy, or from acting 
 
 G 2
 
 84 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION n. 
 
 with concert, in order to establish such a distribution 
 and balance of power as should hinder any state from 
 rising to a superiority which might endanger the general 
 liberty and independence. During several centuries, 
 the nations of Europe appear to have considered them- 
 selves as separate societies, scarcely connected together 
 by any common interest, and little concerned in each 
 other's affairs or operations. An extensive commerce 
 did not afford them an opportunity of observing and 
 penetrating into the schemes of every different state. 
 They had not ambassadors residing constantly in every 
 court, to watch and give early intelligence of all its 
 motions. The expectation of remote advantages, or 
 the prospect of distant and contingent evils, was not 
 sufficient to excite nations to take arms. Such only as 
 were within the sphere of immediate danger, and un- 
 avoidably exposed to injury or insult, thought them- 
 selves interested in any contest or bound to take pre- 
 cautions for their own safety. 
 
 Whoever records the transactions of any of the more 
 considerable European states during the two last cen- 
 turies must write the history of Europe. Its various 
 kingdoms, throughout that period, have been formed 
 into one great system, so closely united that, each hold- 
 ing a determinate station, the operations of one are so 
 felt by all as to influence their counsels and regulate 
 their measures. But previous to the fifteenth century, 
 unless when vicinity of territory rendered the occasions 
 of discord frequent and unavoidable, or when national 
 emulation fomented or embittered the spirit of hostility, 
 the affairs of different countries are seldom interwoven 
 with each other. In each kingdom of Europe great 
 events and revolutions happened, which the other powers 
 beheld with almost the same indifference as if they had 
 been uninterested spectators, to whom the effect of these 
 transactions could never extend.
 
 SECTION IL] STATE OF EUROPE. 85 
 
 During the violent struggles between France and 
 England, and notwithstanding the alarming progress 
 which was made towards rendering one prince the 
 master of both these kingdoms, hardly one measure 
 which can be considered as the result of a sagacious 
 and prudent policy was formed in order to guard against 
 an event so fatal to Europe. The Dukes of Burgundy 
 and Bretagne, whom their situation would not permit 
 to remain neutral, engaged, it is true, in the contest ; 
 but in taking their part they seem rather to have fol- 
 lowed the impulse of their passions than to have been 
 guided by any just discernment of the danger which 
 threatened themselves and the tranquillity of Europe. 
 The other princes, seemingly unaffected by the alternate 
 successes of the contending parties, left them to decide 
 the quarrel by themselves, or interposed only by feeble 
 and ineffectual negotiations. 
 
 Notwithstanding the perpetual hostilities in which the 
 various kingdoms of Spain were engaged during several 
 centuries, and the successive occurrences which visibly 
 tended to unite that part of the continent into one great 
 monarchy, the princes of Europe hardly took any step 
 from which we may conclude that they gave a proper 
 attention to that important event. They permitted 
 a power to arise imperceptibly, and to acquire strength 
 there, which soon became formidable to all its neigh- 
 bours. 
 
 Amidst the violent convulsions with which the spirit 
 of domination in the see of Eome, and the turbulent 
 ambition of the German nobles, agitated the empire, 
 neither the authority of the popes, seconded by all 
 their artifices and intrigues, nor the solicitations of the 
 emperors, could induce any of the powerful monarchs 
 in Europe to engage in their quarrel, or to avail them- 
 selves of many favourable opportunities of interposing 
 with effect and advantage.
 
 86 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION n. 
 
 This amazing inactivity during transactions so inte- 
 resting is not to be imputed to any incapacity of dis- 
 cerning their political consequences. The power of 
 judging with sagacity, and of acting with vigour, is the 
 portion of men of every age. The monarchs who 
 reigned in the different kingdoms of Europe, during 
 several centuries, were not blind to their particular in- 
 terest, negligent of the public safety, or strangers to 
 the method of securing both. If they did not adopt 
 that salutary system which teaches modern politicians 
 to take the alarm at the prospect of distant dangers, 
 which prompts them to check the first encroachments 
 of any formidable power, and which renders each state 
 the guardian, in some degree, of the rights and inde- 
 pendence of all its neighbours, this was owing entirely 
 to such imperfections and disorders in the civil govern- 
 ment of each country as made it impossible for sove- 
 reigns to act suitably to those ideas which the posture of 
 affairs and their own observation must have suggested. 
 
 But during the course of the fifteenth century various 
 events happened which, by giving princes more entire 
 command of the force in their respective dominions, 
 rendered their operations more vigorous and extensive. 
 In consequence of this, the affairs of different kingdoms 
 becoming more frequently as well as more intimately 
 connected, they were gradually accustomed to act in 
 concert and confederacy, and were insensibly prepared 
 for forming a system of policy in order to establish 
 or to preserve such a balance of power as was most 
 consistent with the general security. It was during 
 the reign of Charles Y. that the ideas on which this 
 sj^stem is founded first came to be fully understood. It 
 was then that the maxims by which it has been uni- 
 formly maintained since that era were universally 
 adopted. On this account, a view of the causes and 
 events which contributed to establish a plan of policy
 
 SECTION ii.] STATE OF EUROPE. 87 
 
 more salutary and extensive than any that has taken 
 place in the conduct of human affairs is not only a 
 necessary introduction to the following work, but is a 
 capital object in the history of Europe. 
 
 The first event that occasioned any considerable 
 alteration in the arrangement of affairs in Europe was 
 the annexation of the extensive territories which Eng- 
 land possessed on the continent to the crown of France. 
 While the English were masters of several of the most 
 fertile and opulent provinces in France, and a great 
 part of its most martial inhabitants was bound to follow 
 their standard, an English monarch considered himself 
 rather as the rival than as the vassal of the sovereign 
 of whom he held. The kings of France, circumscribed 
 and thwarted in their schemes and operations by an 
 adversary no less jealous than formidable, durst not 
 enter upon any enterprise of importance or of difficulty. 
 The English were always at hand, ready to oppose them. 
 They disputed even their right to their crown, and, 
 being able to penetrate with ease into the heart of the 
 kingdom, could arm against them those very hands 
 which ought to have been employed in their defence. 
 Timid counsels and feeble efforts were natural to mon- 
 archs in such a situation. France, dismembered and 
 overawed, could not attain its proper station in the 
 system of Europe. But the death of Henry Y. of 
 England, happily for France, and not unfortunately for 
 his own country, delivered the French from the calamity 
 of having a foreign master seated on their throne. The 
 weakness of a long minority, the dissensions in the 
 English court, together with the unsteady and languid 
 conduct which these occasioned, afforded the French a 
 favourable opportunity of recovering the territories 
 which they had lost. The native valour of the French 
 nobility, heightened to an enthusiastic confidence by 
 a supposed interposition of Heaven in their behalf,
 
 88 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION it. 
 
 conducted in the field by skilful leaders, and directed in 
 the cabinet by a prudent monarch, was exerted with such 
 vigour and success, during this favourable juncture, as 
 not only wrested from the English their new conquests, 
 but stripped them of their ancient possessions in France, 
 and reduced them within the narrow precincts of Calais 
 and its petty territory. 
 
 As soon as so many considerable provinces were re- 
 united to their dominions, the kings of France, con- 
 scious of this acquisition of strength, began to form 
 bolder schemes of interior policy as well as of foreign 
 operations. They immediately became formidable to 
 their neighbours, who began to fix their attention on 
 their measures and motions, the importance of which 
 they fully perceived. From this era, France, possessed 
 of the advantages which it derives from the situation 
 and contiguity of its territories, as well as from the 
 number and valour of its people, rose to new influence 
 in Europe, and was the first power in a condition to give 
 alarm to the jealousy or fears of the states around it. 
 
 Nor was France indebted for this increase of impor- 
 tance merely to the reunion of the provinces which 
 had been torn from it. A circumstance attended the 
 recovery of these which, though less considerable and 
 less observed, contributed not a little to give additional 
 vigour and decision to all the efforts of that monarchy. 
 During the obstinate struggles between France and 
 England, all the defects of the military system under 
 the feudal government were sensibly felt. A war of 
 long continuance languished, when carried on by 
 troops bound and accustomed to keep the field only for 
 a short time. Armies composed chiefly of heavy- 
 armed cavalry were unfit either for the defence or the 
 attack of the many towns and castles which it became 
 necessary to guard or to reduce. In order to obtain 
 such permanent and effective force as became requisite
 
 SECTION ii.] STATE OF EUROPE. 89 
 
 during these lengthened contests, the kings of France 
 took into their pay considerable hands of mercenary 
 soldiers, levied sometimes among their own subjects, 
 and sometimes in foreign countries. But, as the feudal 
 policy provided no sufficient fund for such extraor- 
 dinary service, these adventurers were dismissed at the 
 close of every campaign, or upon any prospect of 
 accommodation ; and, having been little accustomed 
 to the restraints of discipline, they frequently turned 
 their arms against the country which they had been 
 hired to defend, and desolated it with cruelty not 
 inferior to that of its foreign enemies. 
 
 A body of troops kept constantly on foot, and regu- 
 larly trained to military subordination, would have 
 supplied what was wanting in the feudal constitution, 
 and have furnished princes with the means of executing 
 enterprises to which they were then unequal. Such an 
 establishment, however, was so repugnant to the genius 
 of feudal policy, and so incompatible with the privileges 
 and pretensions of the nobility, that during several 
 centuries no monarch was either so bold or so powerful 
 as to venture on any step towards introducing it. At 
 last, Charles VII., availing himself of the reputation 
 which he had acquired by his successes against the 
 English, and taking advantage of the impressions of 
 terror which such a formidable enemy had left upon the 
 minds of his subjects, executed that which his prede- 
 cessors durst not attempt. Under pretence of having 
 ahvays ready a force sufficient to defend the kingdom 
 against any sudden invasion of the English, he, at the 
 time when he disbanded his other troops, retained under 
 arms a body of nine thousand cavalry and of sixteen 
 thousand infantry. He appropriated funds for the 
 regular payment of these ; he stationed them in 
 different places of the kingdom, according to his 
 pleasure, and appointed the officers who commanded
 
 90 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION n. 
 
 and disciplined them. The prime nobility courted 
 this service, in which they were taught to depend on 
 their sovereign, to execute his orders, and to look up 
 to him as the judge and re warder of their merit. The 
 feudal militia, composed of the vassals whom the nobles 
 could call out to follow their standard, as it was in no 
 degree comparable to a body of soldiers regularly trained 
 to war, sunk gradually in reputation. The strength of 
 an army was no longer estimated solely by the number 
 of cavalry which served in it. From the time that 
 gunpowder was invented, and the use of cannon in the 
 field became general, horsemen cased in complete armour 
 lost all the advantages which gave them the pre- 
 eminence over other soldiers. The helmet, the shield, 
 md the breastplate, which resisted the arrow or the 
 spear, no longer afforded them security against these 
 new instruments of destruction. The service of infantry 
 rose again into esteem, and victories were gained, and 
 conquests made, chiefly by their efforts. The nobles 
 and their military tenants, though sometimes summoned 
 to the field, according to ancient form, were "considered 
 as an incumbrance upon the troops with which they 
 acted, and were viewed with contempt by soldiers 
 accustomed to the vigorous and steady operations of 
 regular service. 
 
 Thus the regulations of Charles VII., by establishing 
 the first standing army known in Europe, occasioned 
 an important revolution in its affairs and policy. By 
 taking from the nobles the sole direction of the national 
 military force, which had raised them to such high 
 authority and importance, a deep wound was given to 
 the feudal aristocracy, in that part where its power 
 seemed to be most complete. 
 
 France, by forming this body of regular troops, at a 
 time when there was hardly a squadron or company 
 kept in constant pay in any other part of Europe,
 
 SECTION ii.] STATE OF EUEOPE. 91 
 
 acquired such advantages over its neighbours, either in 
 attack or defence, that self-preservation made it neces- 
 sary for them to imitate its example. Mercenary troops 
 were introduced into all the considerable kingdoms on 
 the continent. They gradually became the only military 
 force that was employed or trusted. It has long been 
 the chief object of policy to increase and to support them. 
 It has long been the great aim of princes and ministers to 
 discredit and to annihilate all other means of national 
 activity or defence. 
 
 As the kings of France got the start of other powers 
 in establishing a military force in their dominions, which 
 enabled them to carry on foreign operations with more 
 vigour and to greater extent, so they were the first who 
 effectually broke the feudal aristocracy and humbled the 
 great vassals of the crown, who by their exorbitant 
 power had long circumscribed the royal prerogative 
 within very narrow limits and had rendered all the 
 efforts of the monarchs of Europe inconsiderable. Many 
 things concurred to undermine, gradually, the power of 
 the feudal aristocracy in France. The wealth and pro- 
 perty of the nobility were greatly impaired during the 
 long wars which the kingdom was obliged to maintain 
 with the English. The extraordinary zeal with which 
 they exerted themselves in defence of their country 
 against its ancient enemies exhausted entirely the for- 
 tunes of some great families. As almost every province 
 in the kingdom was in its turn the seat of war, the 
 lands of others were exposed to the depredations of the 
 enemy, were ravaged by the mercenary troops which 
 their sovereigns hired occasionally but could not pay, or 
 were desolated with rage still more destructive by the 
 peasants, in different insurrections. At the same time, 
 the necessities of government having forced their kings 
 upon the desperate expedient of making great and 
 sudden alterations in the current coin of the kingdom,
 
 92 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION u. 
 
 the fines, quit-rents, and other payments fixed by ancient 
 custom sunk much in value, and the revenues of a fief 
 were reduced far below the sum which it had once 
 yielded. During their contests with the English, in 
 which a generous nobility courted every station where 
 danger appeared or honour could be gained, many 
 families of note became extinct, and their fiefs were 
 reunited to the crown. Other fiefs, in a long course of 
 years, fell to female heirs, and were divided among 
 them, were diminished by profuse donations to the 
 Church, or were broken and split by the succession of 
 remote collateral heirs. 1 
 
 Encouraged by these manifest symptoms of decline 
 in that body which he wished to depress, Charles VII., 
 during the first interval of peace with England, made 
 several efforts towards establishing the regal prerogative 
 on the ruins of the aristocracy. But his obligations to 
 the nobles were so many, as well as recent, and their 
 services in recovering the kingdom so splendid, as 
 rendered it necessary for him to proceed with modera- 
 tion and caution. Such, however, was the authority 
 which the crown had acquired by the progress of its 
 arms against the English, and so much was the power 
 of the nobility diminished, that, without any opposi- 
 tion, he soon made innovations of great consequence 
 in the constitution. He not only established that 
 formidable body of regular troops which has been 
 mentioned, but he was the first monarch of France 
 who by his royal edict, without the concurrence of the 
 states-general of the kingdom, levied an extraordinary 
 subsidy on his people. He prevailed likewise with his 
 subjects to render several taxes perpetual which had 
 formerly been imposed occasionally and exacted during 
 a short time. By means of all these innovations he 
 acquired such an increase of power, and extended his 
 
 1 Boulainvilliers, Histoire clu Gouvernement de France, Lettre xii
 
 SECTION ii.] STATE OF EUROPE. 93 
 
 prerogative so far beyond its ancient limits, that, from 
 being the most dependent prince who had ever sat 
 upon the throne of France, he came to possess, during 
 the latter years of his reigri, a degree of authority which 
 none of his predecessors had enjoyed for several ages. 2 
 
 That plan of humbling the nobility which Charles 
 b.egan to execute, his son Louis XT. carried on with a 
 bolder spirit and with greater success. Louis was 
 formed by nature to be a tyrant; and at whatever 
 period he had been called to ascend the throne, his 
 reign must have abounded with schemes to oppress his 
 people and to render his own power absolute. Subtle, 
 unfeeling, cruel, a stranger to every principle of integ- 
 rity, and regardless of decency, he scorned all the re- 
 straints which a sense of honour or the desire of fame 
 imposes even upon ambitious men. Sagacious, at the 
 same time, to discern what he deemed his true interest, 
 and influenced by that alone, he was capable of pursu- 
 ing it with a persevering industry, and of adhering to 
 it with a systematic spirit, from which no object could 
 divert and no danger could deter him. 
 
 The maxims of his administration were as profound 
 as they were fatal to the privileges of the nobility. He 
 filled all the departments of government with new men, 
 and often with persons whom he called from the lowest 
 as well as the most despised functions in life and raised 
 at pleasure to stations of great power or trust. These 
 were his only confidants, whom he consulted in form- 
 ing his plans, and to whom he committed the execution 
 of them ; while the nobles, accustomed to be the com- 
 panions, the favourites, and the ministers of their sove- 
 reigns, were treated with such studied and mortifying 
 neglect that, if they would not submit. to follow a court 
 
 2 Histoire de France par Velly de la Monarchic Franoise, torn, iii 
 et Viilaret, torn. xv. pp. 331, etc., p. 162. 
 389 ; torn. xvi. p. 324. Variations
 
 94 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION n. 
 
 in which they appeared Avithout any shadow of their 
 ancient power, they were obliged to retire to their 
 castles, where they remained unemployed and forgotten. 
 Kot satisfied with having rendered the nobles of less 
 consideration by taking out of their hands the sole 
 direction of affairs, Louis added insult to neglect, and, 
 by violating their most valuable privileges, endeavoured 
 to degrade the order and to reduce the members of it 
 to the same level with other subjects. Persons of the 
 highest rank among them, if so bold as to oppose his 
 schemes or so unfortunate as to awaken the jealousy of 
 his capricious temper, were persecuted with rigour from 
 which all who belonged to the order of nobility had 
 hitherto been exempt ; they were tried by judges who 
 had no right to take cognizance of their actions, and 
 were subjected to torture, or condemned to an igno- 
 minious death, without regard to their birth or condi- 
 tion. The people, accustomed to see the blood of the' 
 most illustrious personages shed by the hands of the 
 common executioner, to behold them shut up in dun- 
 geons and carried about in cages of iron, began to view 
 the nobility with less reverence than formerly, and 
 looked up with terror to the royal authority, which 
 seemed to have humbled or annihilated every other 
 power in the kingdom. 
 
 At the same time, Louis, being afraid that oppression 
 might rouse the nobles, whom the rigour of his govern- 
 ment had intimidated, or that self-preservation might 
 at last teach them to unite, dexterously scattered among 
 them the seeds of discord, and industriously fomented 
 those ancient animosities between the great families, 
 which the spirit of jealousy and emulation natiiral to 
 the feudal govei-nment had originally kindled and still 
 kept alive. To accomplish this, all the arts of in- 
 trigue, all the mysteries and refinements of his fraudu- 
 lent policy, were employed, and with such success that,
 
 IL] STATE OF EUROPE. 95 
 
 at a juncture which required the most strenuous efforts 
 as well as the most perfect union, the nobles never 
 acted, except during one short sally of resentment at 
 the beginning of his reign, either with vigour or in 
 concert. 
 
 As he stripped the nobility of their privileges, he 
 added to the power and prerogative of the crown. In 
 order to have at command such a body of soldiers as 
 might be sufficient to crush any force that his disaffected 
 subjects could draw together, he not only kept on foot 
 the regular troops which his father had raised, but, be- 
 sides augmenting their number considerably, he took 
 into his pay six thousand Swiss, at that time the best 
 disciplined and most formidable infantry in Europe. 3 
 From the jealousy natural to tyrants, he confided in 
 these foreign mercenaries, as the most devoted instru- 
 ments of oppression, and the most faithful guardians 
 of the power which he had usurped. That they might 
 be ready to act on the shortest warning, he, during the 
 latter years of his reign, kept a considerable body of 
 them encamped in one place. 4 
 
 Great funds were requisite, not only to defray the 
 expense of this additional establishment, but to supply 
 the sums employed in the various enterprises which the 
 restless activity of his genius prompted him to under- 
 take But the prerogative that his father had assumed 
 of levying taxes without the concurrence of the states- 
 general, which he was careful not only to retain, but 
 to extend, enabled him to provide in some measure for 
 the increasing charges of government. 
 
 What his prerogative, enlarged as it was, could not 
 furnish, his address procured. He was the first monarch 
 in Europe who discovered the method of managing those 
 
 3 Mm. de Comines, torn. i. 4 M&n. de Coinines, tou.. i. 
 
 p. 367. Dan., Hist, de la Milice p. 381. 
 Fraii9oi.':e, tom i. p. 182.
 
 96 A VIEW OP THE [SHCTIOX IT. 
 
 great assemblies in which the feudal policy had vested 
 the power of granting subsidies and of imposing taxes. 
 He first taught other princes the fatal art of beginning 
 their attack on public liberty by corrupting the source 
 from which it should flow. By exerting all his power 
 and address in influencing the election of representa- 
 tives, by bribing or overawing the members, and by 
 various changes which he artfully made in the form of 
 their deliberations, Louis acquired such entire direction 
 of these assemblies that, from being the vigilant 
 guardians of the privileges and property of the people, 
 he rendered them tamely subservient towards promoting 
 the most odious measures of his reign. 5 As no power 
 remained to set bounds to his exactions, ho not only 
 continued all the taxes imposed by his father, but he 
 made great additions to them, which amounted to a sum 
 that appeared astonishing to his contemporaries. 6 
 
 Nor was it the power alone or wealth of the crown 
 that Louis increased : he extended its territories by 
 acquisitions of various kinds. He got possession of 
 Eoussillon by purchase ; Provence was conveyed to him 
 by the will of Charles de Anjou ; and upon the death 
 of Charles the Bold he seized with a strong hand Bur- 
 gundy and Artois, which had belonged to that prince. 
 Thus, during the course of a single reign France was 
 formed into one compact kingdom, and the steady, 
 unrelenting policy of Louis XI. not only subdued the 
 haughty spirit of the feudal nobles, but established a 
 species of government scarcely less absolute or less 
 terrible than Eastern despotism. 
 
 But, fatal as his administration was to the liberties 
 
 8 Mem. de Comines, torn. i. Louis XL raised 4,700,000. The 
 
 p. 136. Chronique Scandaleuse, former had in pay 9000 cavalry 
 
 ibid., torn. ii. p. 71. and 16,000 infantry. The latter 
 
 6 Me'm. de Comines, torn. i. augmented the cavalry to 15,000, 
 
 p. 334. Charles VII. levied taxes and the infantry to 25,000. Ibid., 
 
 to the amount, of 1,800,000 francs ; torn. i. p. 384.
 
 SECTION IT/, STATE OF EUROPE. 97 
 
 of his subjects, the authority which he acquired, the 
 resources of which he became master, and his freedom 
 from restraint in concerting his plans as well as in 
 executing them, rendered his reign active and enter- 
 prising. Louis negotiated in all the courts of Europe ; 
 he observed the motions of all his neighbours } he en- 
 gaged, either as principal or as an auxiliary, in every 
 great transaction; his resolutions were prompt, his 
 operations vigorous ; and upon every emergence he 
 could call forth into action the whole force of his 
 kingdom. From the era of his reign, the kings of 
 France, no longer fettered and circumscribed at home 
 by a jealous nobility, have exerted themselves more 
 abroad, have formed more extensive schemes of foreign 
 conquests, and have carried on war with a spirit and 
 vigour long unknown in Europe. 
 
 The example which Louis set was too inviting not 
 to be imitated by other princes. Henry YIL, as soon 
 as he was seated on the throne of England, formed the 
 plan of enlarging his own prerogative by breaking the 
 power of the nobility. The circumstances under which 
 he undertook to execute it were less favourable than 
 those which induced Charles YIL to make the same 
 attempt ; and the spirit with which he conducted it was 
 very different from that of Louis XL Charles, by the 
 success of his arms against the English, by the merit 
 of having expelled them out of so many provinces, 
 had established himself so firmly in the confidence 
 of his people as encouraged him to make bold en- 
 croachments on the ancient constitution. The daring 
 genius of Louis broke through every barrier, and en- 
 deavoured to surmount or to remove every obstacle 
 that stood in his way. But Henry held the sceptre 
 by a disputed title ; a popular faction was ready every 
 moment to take arms against him ; and after long civil 
 wars, during which the nobility had often displayed
 
 08 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION n. 
 
 their power in creating and deposing kings, he felt 
 that the regal authority had been so much relaxed, and 
 that he had entered into possession of a prerogative so 
 much abridged, as rendered it necessary to carry on 
 his measures deliberately and without any violent ex- 
 ertion. He endeavoured to undermine that formidable 
 structure which he durst not attack by open force. 
 His schemes, though cautious and slow in their opera- 
 tion, were well concerted, and productive in the end 
 of great effects. By his laws permitting the barons to 
 break the entails of their estates and expose them to 
 sale; by his regulations to prevent the nobility from 
 keeping in their service those numerous bands of re- 
 tainers, which rendered them formidable and turbu- 
 lent ; by favouring the rising power of the commons ; 
 by encouraging population, agriculture, and commerce ; 
 by securing to his subjects, during a long reign, the 
 enjoyment of the blessings which flow from the arts 
 of peace; by accustoming them to an administration 
 of government under which the laws were executed 
 with steadiness and vigour, he made imperceptibly 
 considerable alterations in the English constitution, 
 and transmitted to his successor authority so extensive 
 as rendered him one of the most absolute monarch s in 
 Europe and capable of the greatest and most vigorous 
 efforts. 
 
 In Spain, the union of all its crowns by the marriage 
 of Ferdinand and Isabella, the glory that they acquired 
 by the conquest of Granada, which brought the odious 
 dominion of the Moors to a period, the command of the 
 great armies which it had been necessary to keep long 
 on foot in order to accomplish this, the wisdom and 
 steadiness of their administration, and the address with 
 which they availed themselves of every incident that 
 occurred to humble the nobility and to extend their 
 own prerogative, conspired in raising these monarchs to
 
 ii.j STATE OF EUEOPE. 99 
 
 such eminence and authority as none of their predeces- 
 sors had ever enjoyed. Though several causes, which 
 shall he explained in another place, prevented their 
 attaining the same powers with the kings of France 
 and England, and preserved the feudal constitution 
 longer entire in Spain, their great abilities supplied the 
 defects of their prerogative, and improved with such 
 dexterity all the advantages which they possessed that 
 Ferdinand carried on his foreign operations, which 
 were very extensive, with extraordinary vigour and 
 effect. 
 
 While these princes were thus enlarging the bound- 
 aries of prerogative, and taking such steps towards 
 rendering their kingdoms capable of acting with union 
 and force, events occurred which called them forth to 
 exert the new powers which they had acquired. These 
 engaged them in such a series of enterprises and nego- 
 tiations that the affairs of all the considerable nations 
 in Europe came to be insensibly interwoven with each 
 other, and a great political system was gradually formed, 
 which grew to be an object of universal attention. 
 
 The first event which merits notice, on account of 
 its influence in producing this change in the state of 
 Europe, was the marriage of the daughter of Charles 
 the Bold, the sole heiress of the house of Burgundy. 
 For some years before her father's death she had been 
 considered as the apparent successor to his territories, 
 and Charles had made proposals of marrying her to several 
 different princes, with a view of alluring them, by that 
 offer, to favour the schemes which his restless ambition 
 was continually forming. 
 
 This rendered the alliance with her an object of 
 general attention ; and all the advantages of acquiring 
 possession of her territories, the most opulent at that 
 time, and the best cultivated, of any on this side of the 
 Alps, were perfectly understood. As soon, then, as
 
 100 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION n. 
 
 the untimely death of Charles opened the succession, 
 the eyes of all the princes in Europe were turned to- 
 wards Mary, and they felt themselves deeply interested 
 in the choice which she was about to make of the person 
 on whom she would bestow that rich inheritance. 
 
 Louis XL, from whose kingdom several of the pro- 
 vinces which she possessed had been dismembered, and 
 whose dominions stretched along the frontier of her 
 territories, had every inducement to court her alliance. 
 He had, likewise, a good title to expect the favourable 
 reception of any reasonable proposition he should make 
 with respect to the disposal of a princess who was the 
 vassal of his crown and descended from the royal blood 
 of France. There were only two propositions, however, 
 which he could make with propriety. The one was the 
 marriage of the dauphin, the other that of the count of 
 Angouleme, a prince of the blood, with the heiress 
 of Burgundy. By the former, he would have annexed 
 all her territories to his crown, and have rendered France 
 at once the most respectable monarchy in Europe. But 
 the great disparity of age between the two parties, Mary 
 being twenty and the dauphin only eight years old, the 
 avowed resolution of the Flemings not to choose a 
 master possessed of such power as might enable him 
 to form schemes dangerous to their liberties, together 
 with their dread of falling under the odious and oppres- 
 sive government of Louis, were obstacles in the way of 
 executing this plan which it was vain to think of sur- 
 mounting. By the latter, the accomplishment of which 
 might have been attained with ease, Mary having dis- 
 covered some inclination to a match with the count of 
 Angouleme, 7 Louis would have prevented the dominions 
 of the house of Burgundy from being conveyed to a 
 rival power, and in return for such a splendid establish- 
 ment for the count of Angouleme he must have obtaioed, 
 
 7 M&n. de Coniines, torn. i. p. 358.
 
 SECTION ii.] STATE OP EUROPE. lUl 
 
 or would have extorted from him, concessions highly 
 beneficial to the crown of France. But Louis had been 
 accustomed so long to the intricacies of a crooked and 
 insidious policy that he could not be satisfied with what 
 was obvious and simple, and was so fond of artifice and 
 refinement that he came to consider these rather as an 
 ultimate object than merely as the means of conducting 
 affairs. From this principle, no less than from his un- 
 willingness to aggrandize any of his own subjects, or 
 from his desire of oppressing the house of Burgundy, 
 which he hated, he neglected the course which a prince 
 less able and artful would have taken, and followed one 
 more suited to his own genius. 
 
 He proposed to render himself, by force of arms, 
 master of those provinces which Mary held of the 
 crown of France, and even to push his conquests into 
 her other territories while he amused her with insist- 
 ing continually on the impracticable match with the 
 dauphin. In prosecuting this plan he displayed won- 
 derful talents and industry, and exhibited such scenes 
 of treachery, falsehood, and cruelty as are amazing even 
 in the history of Louis XI. Immediately upon the 
 death of Charles he put his troops in motion and 
 advanced towards the Netherlands. He corrupted the 
 leading men in the . provinces of Burgundy and Artois, 
 and seduced them to desert their sovereign. He got 
 admission into some of the frontier towns by bribing 
 the governors ; the gates of others were opened to him 
 in consequence of his intrigues with the inhabitants. 
 He negotiated with Mary; and, in order to render her 
 odious to her subjects, he betrayed to them her most 
 important secrets. He carried on a private correspond- 
 ence with the two ministers whom she chiefly trusted, 
 and then communicated the letters which he had re- 
 ceived from them to the states of Flanders, who, enraged 
 at their perfidy, brought them immediately to trial, tor-
 
 1 02 A VIEW Or THE [SECTION n. 
 
 tured them with extreme cruelty, and, unmoved by the 
 tears and entreaties of their sovereign, who knew and 
 approved of all that the ministers had done, they be- 
 headed them in her presence. 8 
 
 While Louis, by his conduct, unworthy of a great 
 monarch, was securing the possession of Burgundy, 
 Artois, and the towns on the Somme, the states of 
 Flanders carried on a negotiation with the emperor 
 Frederic III., and concluded a treaty of marriage 
 between their sovereign and his son Maximilian, arch- 
 duke of Austria. The illustrious birth of that prince, 
 as well as the high dignity of which he had the pros- 
 pect, rendered the alliance honourable for Mary, while, 
 from the distance of his hereditary territories and the 
 scantiness of his revenues, his power was so inconsi- 
 derable as did not excite the jealousy or fear of the 
 Flemings. [1477.] 
 
 Thus Louis, by the caprice of his temper and the 
 excess of his refinements, put the house of Austria in 
 possession of this noble inheritance. By this acquisi- 
 tion the foundation of the future grandeur of Charles 
 Y. was laid, and he became master of those territories 
 which enabled him to carry on his most formidable 
 and decisive operations against France. Thus, too, the 
 same monarch who first united the interior force of 
 France, and established it on such a footing as to render 
 it formidable to the rest of Europe, contributed, far 
 contrary to his intention, to raise up a rival power, 
 which during two centuries has thwarted the measures, 
 opposed the arms, and checked the progress of his 
 successors. 
 
 The next event of consequence in the fifteenth cen- 
 tury was the expedition of Charles YIII. into Italy. 
 This occasioned revolutions no less memorable ; pro- 
 duced alterations, both in the military and political 
 
 8 Mdm. de Comines, liv. v. chap. 15, p. 309, etc.
 
 SECTION ii.] STATE OF EUROPE. 103 
 
 system, which were more immediately perceived ; 
 roused the states of Europe to bolder efforts, and 
 blended their affairs and interests more closely toge- 
 ther. The inild administration of Charles, a weak but 
 generous prince, seems to have revived the spirit and 
 genius of the French nation, which the rigid despotism 
 of Louis XI., his father, had depressed and almost 
 extinguished. The ardour for military service, natural 
 to the French nobility, returned, and their young 
 monarch was impatient to distinguish his reign by 
 some splendid enterprise. While he was uncertain 
 towards what quarter he should turn his arms, the 
 solicitations and intrigues of an Italian politician, no less 
 infamous on account of his crimes than eminent for 
 his abilities, determined his choice. Ludovico Sforza, 
 having formed the design of deposing his nephew, the 
 duke of Milan, and of placing himself on the ducal 
 throne, was so much afraid of a combination of the 
 Italian powers to oppose this measure and to support 
 the injured prince, with whom most of them were con- 
 nected by blood or alliance, that he saw the necessity 
 of securing the aid of some able protector. The king 
 of France was the person to whom he applied ; and, 
 without disclosing his own intentions, he laboured to 
 prevail with him to march into Italy at the head of a 
 powerful army, in order to seize the crown of Naples, 
 to which Charles had pretensions as heir of the house 
 of Anjou. The right to that kingdom, claimed by the 
 Angevin family, had been conveyed to Louis XI. by 
 Charles of Anjou, count of Maine and Provence. But 
 that sagacious monarch, though he took immediate pos- 
 session of those territories of which Charles was really 
 master, totally disregarded his ideal title to a kingdom 
 over which another prince reigned in tranquillity, and 
 uniformly declined involving himself in the labyrinth 
 of Italian politics. His son, more adventurous, or more
 
 104 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION n. 
 
 inconsiderate, embarked eagerly in this enterprise, and, 
 contemning all the remonstrances of his most experienced 
 counsellors, prepared to carry it on with the utmost 
 vigour. [1494.] 
 
 The power which Charles possessed was so great that 
 he reckoned himself equal to this arduous undertaking. 
 His father had transmitted to him such an ample pre- 
 rogative as gave him the entire command of his king- 
 dom. He himself had added considerably to the extent 
 of his dominions by his prudent marriage with the 
 heiress of Bretagne, which rendered him master of that 
 province, the last of the great fiefs that remained to be 
 annexed to the crown. He soon assembled forces which 
 he thought sufficient ; and so impatient was he to enter 
 on his career as a conqueror that, sacrificing what was 
 real for what was chimerical, he restored Eoussillon to 
 Ferdinand and gave up part of his father's acquisitions 
 in Artois to Maximilian, with a view of inducing these 
 princes not to molest France while he was carrying on 
 his operations in Italy. 
 
 But so different were the efforts of the states of 
 Europe in the fifteenth century from those which we 
 shall behold in the course of this history, that the 
 army with which Charles undertook this great enter- 
 prise did not exceed twenty thousand men. The train 
 of artillery, however, the ammunition, and warlike 
 stores of every kind provided for its use, were so con- 
 siderable as to bear some resemblance to the immense 
 apparatus of modern war. 9 
 
 When the French entered Italy, they met with 
 nothing able to resist them. The Italian powers, having 
 remained during a long period undisturbed by the in- 
 vasion of any foreign enemy, had formed a system with 
 respect to their affairs, both in peace and war, peculiar 
 to themselves. In order to adjust the interests and 
 
 9 Mezeray, Hist., torn. ii. p. 777.
 
 SECTION IL] STATE OF EUROPE. 105 
 
 balance the power of the different states into which 
 Italy was divided, they were engaged in perpetual and 
 endless negotiations with each other, which they con- 
 ducted with all the subtlety of a refining and deceitful 
 policy. Their contests in the field, when they had 
 recourse to arms, were decided in mock battles, by 
 innocent and bloodless victories. Upon the first appear- 
 ance of the danger which now impended they had 
 recourse to the arts which they had studied, and em- 
 ployed their utmost skill in intrigue in order to avert it 
 But, this proving ineffectual, their bands of effeminate 
 mercenaries, the only military force that remained in 
 the country, being fit only for the parade of service, 
 were terrified at the aspect of real war and shrunk 
 at its approach. The impetuosity of the French valour 
 appeared to them irresistible. Florence, Pisa, and Eome 
 opened their gates as the French army advanced. The 
 prospect of this dreadful invasion struck one king of 
 Naples with ?>uch panic terror that he died (if we may 
 believe historians) of the fright. Another abdicated his 
 throne from the same pusillanimous spirit. A third fled 
 out of his dominions as soon as the enemy appeared 
 on the Neapolitan frontiers. Charles, after marching 
 thither from the bottom of the Alps with as much rapidity 
 and almost as little opposition as if he had been on a 
 progress through his own dominions, took quiet posses- 
 sion of the throne of Naples, and intimidated or gave 
 law to every power in Italy. 
 
 Such was the conclusion of an expedition that must 
 be considered as the first great exertion of those new 
 powers which the princes of Europe had acquired and 
 now began to exercise. Its effects were no less con- 
 siderable than its success had been astonishing. The 
 Italians, unable to resist the impression of the enemy 
 who broke in upon them, permitted him to hold on his 
 course undisturbed. They quickly perceived I hat no
 
 106 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION 11 
 
 single power which they could rouse to action *vas an 
 equal match for a monarch who ruled over such exten- 
 sive territories and was at the head of such a martial 
 people, but that a confederacy might accomplish what 
 the separate members of it durst not attempt. To this 
 expedient, the only one that remained to deliver or to 
 preserve them from the yoke, they had recourse. While 
 Charles inconsiderately wasted his time at Naples in 
 festivals and triumphs on account of his past successes, 
 or was fondly dreaming of future conquests in the East, 
 to the empire of which he now aspired, they formed 
 against him a powerful combination of almost all the 
 Italian states, supported by the emperor Maximilian, 
 and Ferdinand, King of Aragon. The union of so man}' 
 powers, who suspended or forgot all their particulai 
 animosities that they might act in concert against an 
 enemy who had become formidable to them all, awakened 
 Charles from his thoughtless security. He saw now no 
 prospect of safety but in returning to France. An army of 
 thirty thousand men, assembled by the allies, was ready 
 to obstruct his march ; and though the French, with a 
 daring courage which more than countervailed their 
 inferiority in number, broke through that great body 
 and gained a victory which opened to their monarch 
 a safe passage into his own territories, he was stripped 
 of all his conquests in Italy in as short a time as it had 
 taken to acquire them ; and the political system in that 
 country resumed the same appearance as before his 
 invasion. 
 
 The sudden and decisive effect of this confederacy 
 seems to have instructed the princes and statesmen of 
 Italy as much as the irruption of the French had dis- 
 concerted and alarmed them. They had extended, on 
 this occasion, to the affairs of Europe, the maxims of 
 that political science which had hitherto been applied 
 only to regulate the operations of the petty states in
 
 SECTION ii.] STATE OF EUROPE. 107 
 
 their own country. They had discovered the method 
 of preventing any monarch from rising to such a degree 
 of power as was inconsistent with the general liberty, 
 and had manifested the importance of attending to that 
 great secret in modern policy, the preservation of a 
 proper distribution of power among all the members 
 of the system into which the states of Europe are 
 formed. During all the wars of which Italy from that 
 time was the theatre, and amidst the hostile operations 
 which the imprudence of Louis XII. and the ambition 
 of Ferdinand of Aragon carried on in that country, 
 with little interruption, from the close of the fifteenth 
 century to that period at which the subsequent history 
 commences, the maintaining a proper balance of power 
 between the contending parties became the great object 
 of attention to the statesmen of Italy. Nor was the 
 idea confined to them. Self-preservation taught other 
 powers to adopt it. It grew to be fashionable and uni- 
 versal. From this era we can trace the progress of that 
 intercourse between nations which has linked the 
 powers of Europe so closely together, and can discern 
 the operations of that provident policy which during 
 peace guards against remote and contingent dangers, 
 and in war has prevented rapid and destructive con- 
 quests. 
 
 This was not the only effect of the operations which 
 the great powers of Europe carried on in Italy. They 
 contributed to render general such a change as the 
 French had begun to make in the state of their troops, 
 and obliged all the princes who appeared on this new 
 theatre of action to put the military force of their 
 kingdoms on an establishment similar to that of France. 
 When the seat of war came to be remote from the 
 countries which maintained the contest, the service 
 of the feudal vassals ceased to be of any use, and the 
 necessity of employing soldiers regularly trained to
 
 108 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION n. 
 
 arms and kept in constant pay came at once to be 
 evident. When Charles VIII. marched into Italy, his 
 cavalry was entirely composed of those companies of 
 gendarmes embodied by Charles VII. and continued by 
 Louis XI. ; his infantry consisted partly of Swiss, hired 
 of the Cantons, and partly of Gascons, armed and dis- 
 ciplined after the Swiss model. To these Louis XII. 
 added a body of Germans, well known in the wars of 
 Italy by the name of the black bands. But neither of 
 these monarchs made any account of the feudal militia, 
 or ever had recourse to that military force which they 
 might have commanded in virtue of the ancient institu- 
 tions in their kingdom. Maximilian and Ferdinand, 
 as soon as they began to act in Italy, employed similar 
 instruments, and trusted the execution of their plans 
 entirely to mercenary troops. 
 
 This innovation in the military system was quickly 
 followed by another, which the custom of employing 
 Swiss in the Italian wars was the occasion of intro- 
 ducing. The arms and discipline of the Swiss were 
 different from those of other European nations. During 
 their long and violent struggles in defence of their 
 liberties against the house of Austria, whose armies, 
 like those of other considerable princes, consisted 
 chiefly of heavy-armed cavalry, the Swiss found that 
 their poverty, and the small number of gentlemen 
 residing in their country, at that time barren and ill 
 cultivated, put it out of their power to bring into the 
 field any body of horse capable of facing the enemy. 
 Necessity compelled them to place all their confidence 
 in infantry ; and, in order to render it capable of with- 
 standing the shock of cavalry, they gave the soldiers 
 breastplates and helmets as defensive armour, together 
 with long spears, halberds, and heavy swords as weapons 
 of defence. They formed them into large battalions, 
 ranged in deep and close array, so that they could
 
 SECTION n.] STATE OF EUROPE. 100 
 
 present on every side a formidable front to the enemy. 10 
 The men-at-arms could make no impression on the 
 solid strength of such a body. It repulsed the Aus- 
 trians in all their attempts to conquer Switzerland. It 
 broke the Burgundian gendarmerie, which was scarcely 
 inferior to that of France, either in number or reputa- 
 tion ; and when first called to act in Italy, it bore down, 
 by its irresistible force, every enemy that attempted to 
 oppose it. These repeated proofs of the decisive effect 
 of infantry, exhibited on such conspicuous occasions, 
 restored that service to reputation, and gradually re- 
 established the opinion, which had been long exploded, 
 of its superior importance in the operations of war. But, 
 the glory which the Swiss had acquired having inspired 
 them with such high ideas of their own prowess and 
 consequence as frequently rendered them mutinous 
 and insolent, the princes who employed them became 
 weary of depending on the caprice of foreign mer- 
 cenaries, and began to turn their attention towards the 
 improvement of their national infantry. 
 
 The German powers, having the command of men 
 whom nature has endowed with that steady courage and 
 persevering strength which form them to be soldiers, 
 soon modelled their troops in such a manner that they 
 vied with the Swiss both in discipline and valour. 
 
 The French monarchs, though more slowly and with 
 greater difficulty, accustomed the impetuous spirit of 
 their people to subordination and discipline, and were 
 at such pains to render their national infantry respect- 
 able that as early as the reign of Louis XII. several 
 gentlemen of high rank had so far abandoned their 
 ancient ideas as to condescend to enter into that 
 service. 11 
 
 The Spaniards, whose situation made it difficult to 
 
 lu Machiavel's Art of War, b. ii. " Brant6me, torn. x. p. 18. 
 
 chap. ii. p. 451. M&n. de Fleuranges, p. 143.
 
 110 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION n. 
 
 employ any other than their national troops in the 
 southern parts of Italy, which was the chief scene of 
 their operations in that country, not only adopted the 
 Swiss discipline, but improved upon it, by mingling a 
 proper number of soldiers, armed with heavy muskets, 
 in their battalions, and thus formed that famous body 
 of infantry which during a century and a half was the 
 admiration and terror of all Europe. The Italian states 
 gradually diminished the number of their cavalry and, 
 in imitation of their more powerful neighbours, brought 
 the strength of their armies to consist in foot-soldiers. 
 From this period the nations of Europe have carried on 
 war with forces more adapted to every species of service, 
 more capable of acting in every country, and better 
 fitted both for making conquests and for preserving 
 them. 
 
 As their efforts in Italy led the people of Europe to 
 these improvements in the art of war, they gave them 
 likewise the first idea of the expense with which it is 
 accompanied when extensive or of long continuance, 
 and accustomed every nation to the burden of such 
 impositions as are necessary for supporting it. While 
 the feudal policy subsisted in full vigour, while armies 
 were composed of military vassals called forth to attack 
 some neighbouring power and to perform in a short 
 campaign the services which they owed to their sove- 
 reign, the expense of war was extremely moderate. A 
 small subsidy enabled a prince to begin and to finish 
 his greatest military operations. But when Italy 
 became the theatre on which the powers of Europe 
 contended for superiority, the preparations requisite for 
 such a distant expedition, the pay of armies kept con- 
 stantly on foot, their subsistence in a foreign country, 
 the sieges to be undertaken, and the towns to be de- 
 fended, swelled the charges of war immensely, and, by 
 creating demands unknown in less active times, mul-
 
 SECTION ii.] STATE OF EUROPE. HI 
 
 tiplied taxes in every kingdom. The progress of ambi- 
 tion, however, was so rapid, and princes extended their 
 operations so fast, that it was impossible at first to 
 establish funds proportional to the increase of expense 
 which these occasioned. When Charles YIII. invaded 
 Naples, the sums requisite for carrying on that enterprise 
 so far exceeded those which France had been accustomed 
 to contribute for the support of government that before 
 he reached the frontiers of Italy his treasury was ex- 
 hausted, and the domestic resources of which his exten- 
 sive prerogative gave him the command were at an end. 
 As he durst not venture to lay any imposition on his 
 people, oppressed already with the weight of unusual 
 burdens, the only expedient that remained was to borrow 
 of the Genoese as much money as might enable him to 
 continue his march. But he could not obtain a sufficient 
 sum without consenting to pay annually the exorbitant 
 interest of forty-two livres for every hundred that he 
 received. 12 We may observe the same disproportion 
 between the efforts and revenues of other princes, his 
 contemporaries. From this period taxes went on in- 
 creasing ; and during the reign of Charles Y. such sums 
 were levied in every state as would have appeared enor- 
 mous at the close of the fifteenth century, and gradually 
 prepared the way for the still more exorbitant exactions 
 of modern times. 
 
 The last transaction, previous to the reign of Charles 
 Y., that merits attention on account of its influence upon 
 the state of Europe, is the league of Cambray. To 
 humble the republic of Yenice and to divide its terri- 
 tories was the object of all the powers who united in 
 this confederacy. The civil constitution of Yenice, 
 established on a firm basis, had suffered no considerable 
 alteration for several centuries ; during which the senate 
 conducted its affairs by maxims of policy no less prudent 
 
 12 M&noires de Comines, lib. vii. c. 5, p. 440.
 
 112 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION n. 
 
 than vigorous, and adhered to these with a uniform, 
 consistent spirit which gave that commonwealth great 
 advantage over other states, whose views and measures 
 changed as often as the form of their government, or the 
 persons who administered it. By these unintermitted 
 exertions of wisdom and valour the Venetians enlarged 
 the dominions of their commonwealth until it became 
 the most considerable power in Italy; while their 
 extensive commerce, the useful and curious manufac- 
 tures which they carried on, together with the large 
 share which they had acquired of the lucrative commerce 
 with the East, rendered Yenice the most opulent state in 
 Europe. 
 
 The power of the Venetians was the object of terror 
 to their Italian neighbours. Their wealth was viewed 
 with envy by the greatest monarchs, who could not vie 
 with many of their private citizens in the magnificence 
 of their buildings, in the richness of their dress and 
 furniture, or in splendour and elegance of living. 1 ' 
 Julius II., whose ambition was superior, and his abili- 
 ties equal, to those of any pontiff who ever sat on the 
 papal throne, conceived the idea of this league against 
 the Venetians, and endeavoured, by applying to those 
 passions which I have mentioned, to persuade other 
 princes to join it. By working upon the fears of the 
 Italian powers, and upon the avarice of several monarchs 
 beyond the Alps, he induced them, in concurrence with 
 other causes, which it is not my province to explain, 
 to form one of the most powerful confederacies that 
 Europe had ever beheld, against those haughty repub- 
 licans. 
 
 The emperor, the king of France, the king of Aragon, 
 and the pope, were principals in the league of Cambray, 
 to which almost all the princes of Italy acceded, the 
 least considerable of them hoping for some share in the 
 
 13 Heliani Oratio, apud Goldastum, in Polit, Imperial., p. 980.
 
 SECTION H.] STATE OF EUROPE. 113 
 
 spoils of a state which they deemed to be now devoted 
 to destruction. The Venetians might have diverted this 
 storm, or have broken its force ; but, with a presump- 
 tuous rashness to which there is nothing similar in the 
 course of their history, they waited its approach. The 
 impetuous valour of the French rendered ineffectual all 
 their precautions for the safety of the republic ; and the 
 fatal battle of Ghiarraddada entirely ruined the army on 
 which they relied for defence. Julius seized all the 
 towns which they held in the ecclesiastical territories. 
 Ferdinand re-annexed the towns of which they had got 
 possession on the coast of Calabria to his Neapolitan 
 dominions. Maximilian, at the head of a powerful 
 army, advanced towards Venice on the one side. The 
 French pushed their conquests on the other. The 
 Venetians, surrounded by so many enemies, and left 
 without one ally, sunk from the height of presumption 
 to the depths of despair, abandoned all their territories 
 on the continent, and shut themselves up in their capital, 
 as their last refuge and the only place which they hoped 
 to preserve. 
 
 This rapid success, however, proved fatal to the con- 
 federacy. The members of it, whose union continued 
 while they were engaged in seizing their prey, began to 
 feel their ancient jealousies and animosities revive as 
 soon as they had a prospect of dividing it. When the 
 Venetians observed these symptoms of distrust and 
 alienation, a ray of hope broke in upon them : the spirit 
 natural to their counsels returned ; they resumed such 
 wisdom and firmness as made some atonement for their 
 former imprudence and dejection ; they recovered part 
 of the territory which they had lost ; they appeased the 
 pope and Ferdinand by well-timed concessions in their 
 favour ; and at length dissolved the confederacy which 
 had brought their commonwealth to the brink of ruin. 
 
 Julius, elated with beholding the effects of a league 
 
 VOU I. I
 
 114 A Y1EW OP -THE [SECTION n. 
 
 which he himself had planned, and imagining that 
 nothing was too arduous for him to undertake, conceived 
 the idea of expelling every foreign power out of Italy, 
 and bent all the force of his mind towards executing a 
 scheme so well suited to his enterprising genius. He 
 directed his first attack against the French, who, on 
 many accounts, were more odious to the Italians than 
 any of the foreigners who had acquired dominion in 
 their country. By his activity and address, he pre- 
 vailed on most of the powers who had joined in the 
 league of Cambray to turn their arms against the king 
 of France, their former ally, and engaged Henry VIII., 
 who had lately ascended the throne of England, to 
 favour their operations by invading France. Louis XII. 
 resisted all the efforts of this formidable and unexpected 
 confederacy with undaunted fortitude. Hostilities were 
 
 V 
 
 carried on, during several campaigns, in Italy, on the 
 frontiers of Spain, and in Picardy, with alternate suc- 
 cess. Exhausted, at length, by the variety as well as 
 extent of his operations, unable to withstand a con- 
 federacy which brought against him superior force, con- 
 ducted with wisdom and acting with perseverance, Louis 
 found it necessary to conclude separate treaties of peace 
 with his enemies ; and the war terminated with the loss 
 of everything which the French had acquired in Italy 
 except the castle of Milan and a few inconsiderable 
 towns in that duchy. 
 
 The various negotiations carried on during this busy 
 period, and the different combinations formed among 
 powers hitherto little connected with each other, greatly 
 increased that intercourse among the nations of Europe 
 which I have mentioned as one effect of the events in 
 the fifteenth century ; while the greatness of the objects 
 at which different nations aimed, the distant expeditions 
 which they undertook, as well as the length and obstinacy 
 of the contest in which they engaged, obliged them to
 
 ii.] STATE OF EUROPE. 115 
 
 exert themselves with a vigour and perseverance un- 
 known in the preceding ages. 
 
 Those active scenes which the following history will 
 exhibit, as well as the variety and importance of those 
 transactions which distinguish the period to which it 
 extends, are not to be ascribed solely to the ambition, to 
 the abilities, or to the rivalship of Charles Y. and of 
 Francis I. The kingdoms of Europe had arrived at 
 such a degree of improvement in the internal adminis- 
 tration of government, and princes had acquired such 
 command of the national force which was to be exerted 
 in foreign wars, that they were in a condition to enlarge 
 the sphere of their operations, to multiply their claims 
 and pretensions, and to increase the vigour of their 
 efforts. Accordingly, the sixteenth century opened 
 with the certain prospect of its abounding in great 
 and interesting events.
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 
 
 VIEW OF THE POLITICAL CONSTITUTION OF THE PRIN- 
 CIPAL STATES IN EUEOPE AT THE COMMENCEMENT 
 OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Italy at the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century. The Papal Power. 
 Alexander VI. and Julius II. Defects in Ecclesiastical Govern- 
 ments. Venice : its Rise and Progress ; its Naval Power and its 
 Commerce. Florence. Naples and Sicily. Contest for its Crown. 
 Duchy of Milan. Ludovico Sibrza. Spain; conquered by the 
 Vandals and by the Moors ; gradually reconquered by the Christians. 
 Marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella. The Royal Prerogative. 
 Constitution of Aragon and of Castile. Internal Disorders. " The 
 Holy Brotherhood." France ; its Constitution and Government. 
 The Power of its Early Kings. Government becomes purely 
 Monarchical, though restrained by the Nobles and the Parliaments. 
 The German Empire. Power of the Nobles and of the Clergy. 
 Contests between the Popes and the Emperors. Decline of Imperial 
 Authority. Total Change of Government. Maximilian. The real 
 Power and Revenues of the Emperors, contrasted with their Pre- 
 tensions. Complication of Difficulties. Origin of the Turkish 
 Empire ; its Character. The Janizaries. Solyman. 
 
 HAVING thus enumerated the principal causes and 
 events the influence of which was felt in every part of 
 Europe, and contributed either to improve internal order 
 and police in its various states, or to enlarge the sphere 
 of their activity, by giving them more entire command 
 of the force with which foreign operations are carried 
 on, nothing farther seems requisite for preparing my 
 readers to enter, with full information, upon perusing 
 the history of Charles V., but to give a view of the 
 political constitution and form of civil government in 
 each of the nations which acted any considerable part 
 during that period. For as the institutions and events 
 which I have endeavoured to illustrate formed the people 
 of Europe to resemble each other, and conducted them
 
 SECTION in.] A VIEW OF THE STATE OF EUEOPE. 117 
 
 from barbarism to refinement in the same path and by 
 nearly equal steps, there were other circumstances which 
 occasioned a difference in their political establishments, 
 and gave rise to those peculiar modes of government 
 which have produced such variety in the character and 
 genius of nations. 
 
 It is no less necessary to become acquainted with the 
 latter than to have contemplated the former. Without 
 a distinct knowledge of the peculiar form and genius of 
 civil government in each state, a great part of its trans- 
 actions must appear altogether mysterious and inexpli- 
 cable. The historians of particular countries, as they 
 seldom extended their views farther than to the amuse- 
 ment or instruction of their fellow-citizens, by whom 
 they might presume that all their domestic customs 
 and institutions were perfectly understood, have often 
 neglected to descend into such details with respect to 
 these as are sufficient to convey to foreigners full light 
 and information concerning the occurrences which they 
 relate. But a history which comprehends the transac- 
 tions of so many different countries would be extremely 
 imperfect without a previous survey of the constitution 
 and political state of each. It is from his knowledge of 
 these that the reader must draw those principles which 
 will enable him to judge with discernment and to decide 
 with certainty concerning the conduct of nations. 
 
 A minute detail, however, of the peculiar forms and 
 regulations in every country would lead to deductions 
 of immeasurable length. To sketch out the great lines 
 which distinguish and characterise each government is 
 all that the nature of my present work will admit of, 
 and all that is necessary to illustrate the events which 
 it records. 
 
 At the opening of the sixteenth century the political 
 aspect of Italy was extremely different from that of 
 any other part of E irope. Instead of those extensive
 
 118 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION in. 
 
 monarchies which occupied the rest of the continent, 
 that delightful country was parcelled out among many 
 small states, each of which possessed sovereign and 
 independent jurisdiction. The only monarchy in Italy 
 was that of Naples. The dominion of the popes was of 
 a peculiar species, to which there is nothing similar either 
 in ancient or modern times. In Venice, Florence, and 
 Genoa, a republican form of government was established. 
 Milan was subject to sovereigns, who had assumed no 
 higher title than that of dukes. 
 
 The pope was the first of these powers in dignity, and 
 not the least considerable by the extent of his territories. 
 In the primitive church, the jurisdiction of bishops was 
 equal and co-ordinate. They derived, perhaps, some 
 degree of consideration from the dignity of the see in 
 which they presided. They possessed, however, no real 
 authority or pre-eminence but what they acquired by 
 superior abilities or superior sanctity. As Borne had so 
 long been the seat of empire and the capital of the 
 world, its bishops were on that account entitled to 
 respect ; they received it ; but during several ages they 
 received, and even claimed, nothing more. From these 
 humble beginnings they advanced with such adven- 
 turous and well-directed ambition that they established 
 a spiritual dominion over the minds and sentiments of 
 men, to which all Europe submitted with implicit 
 obedience. Their claim of universal jurisdiction, as 
 heads of the Church, and their pretensions to infalli- 
 bility in their decisions, as successors of St. Peter, are 
 as chimerical as they are repugnant to the genius of the 
 Christian religion. But on these foundations the super- 
 stition and credulity of mankind enabled them to erect 
 an amazing superstructure. In all ecclesiastical con- 
 troversies their decisions were received as the infallible 
 oracles of truth. Nor was the plenitude of their power 
 confined solely to what was spiritual : they dethroned
 
 SECTION in.] STATE OF EUROPE. 119 
 
 monarchs, disposed of 'crowns, absolved subjects from 
 the obedience due to their sovereigns, and laid kingdoms 
 under interdicts. There was not a state in Europe 
 which had not been disquieted by their ambition ; there 
 was not a throne which they had not shaken, nor a 
 prince who did not tremble at their power. 
 
 Nothing was wanting to render this empire absolute, 
 and to establish it on the ruins of all civil authority, 
 but that the popes should have possessed such a degree 
 of temporal power as was sufficient to second and enforce 
 their spiritual decrees. Happily for mankind, at the 
 time when their spiritual jurisdiction was most extensive 
 and most revered, their secular dominion was extremely 
 limited. They were powerful pontiffs, formidable at a 
 distance ; but they were petty princes, without any con- 
 siderable domestic force. They had early endeavoured, 
 indeed, to acquire territory by arts similar to those 
 which they had employed in extending their spiritual 
 jurisdiction. Under pretence of a donation from Con- 
 stuntine, and of another from Charlemagne or his father 
 Pepin, they attempted to take possession of some towns 
 adjacent to Rome. But these donations were fictitious 
 and availed them little. The benefactions for which 
 they were indebted to the credulity of the Norman 
 adventurers who conquered Naples, and to the super- 
 stition of the Countess Matilda, were real, and added 
 ample domains to the holy see. 
 
 But the power of the popes did not increase in pro- 
 portion to the extent of territory which they had 
 acquired. In the dominions annexed to the holy see, 
 as well as in those subject to other princes in Italy, the 
 sovereign of a state was far from having the command 
 of a force which it contained. During the turbulence 
 and confusion of the Middle Ages, the powerful nobility 
 or leaders of popular factions in Italy had seized the 
 government of different towns ; and, after strengthening
 
 120 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION in. 
 
 their fortifications and taking a body of mercenaries 
 into pay, they aspired at independence. The territory 
 which the Church had gained was filled with petty lords 
 of this kind, who left the pope hardly the shadow of 
 dominion. 
 
 As these usurpations almost annihilated the papal 
 power in the greater part of the towns subject to the 
 Church, the Eoman barons frequently disputed the 
 authority of the popes, even in Eome itself. In the 
 twelfth century an opinion began to be propagated, 
 " That as the function of ecclesiastics was purely 
 spiritual, they ought to possess no property, and to 
 claim no temporal jurisdiction, but, according to the 
 laudable example of their predecessors in the primitive 
 church, should subsist wholly upon their tithes, or upon 
 the voluntary oblations of the people." x This doctrine 
 being addressed to men who had beheld the scandalous 
 manner in which the avarice and ambition of the clergy 
 had prompted them to contend for wealth and to exer- 
 cise power, they listened to it with fond attention. The 
 Eoman barons, who had felt most sensibly the rigour of 
 ecclesiastical oppression, adopted these sentiments with 
 such ardour that they set themselves instantly to shake 
 off the yoke. They endeavoured to restore some image 
 of their ancient liberty, by reviving the institution of 
 the Eoman senate, in which they vested supreme autho- 
 rity ; committing the executive power sometimes to one 
 chief senator, sometimes to two, and sometimes to a 
 magistrate dignified with the name of The Patrician. 
 The popes exerted them with vigour, in order to check 
 this dangerous encroachment on their jurisdiction. One 
 of them, finding all his endeavours ineffectual, was so 
 much mortified that extreme grief cut short his days. 
 Another, having ventured to attack the senators at the 
 head of some armed men, was mortally wounded in the 
 
 1 Otto Frisingensis de Gestis Frider. Imp., lib. ii. cap. 10.
 
 SECTION in.] ^TATE OF EUROPE. 121 
 
 fray. 2 During a considerable period, the power of the 
 popes, before which the greatest monarchs in Europe 
 trembled, was circumscribed within such narrow limits 
 in their own capital, that they durst hardly exert any 
 act of authority without the permission and concurrence 
 of the senate. 
 
 Encroachments were made upon the papal sovereignty, 
 not only by the usurpations of the Eoman nobility, but 
 by the mutinous spirit of the people. During seventy 
 years of the fourteenth century the popes fixed their 
 residence in Avignon. The inhabitants of Rome, accus- 
 tomed to consider themselves as the descendants of the 
 people who had conquered the world and had given laws 
 to it, were too high-spirited to submit with patience to 
 the delegated authority of those persons to whom the 
 popes committed the government of the city. On many 
 occasions they opposed the execution of the papal man- 
 dates, and on the slightest appearance of innovation or 
 oppression they were ready to take arms in defence of 
 their own immunities. Towards the middle of the 
 fourteenth century, being instigated by Nicholas Rienzo, 
 a man of low birth and a seditious spirit, but of popular 
 eloquence and an enterprising ambition, they drove all 
 the nobility out of the city, established a democratical 
 form of government, elected Rienzo tribune of the 
 people, and invested him with extensive authority. But 
 though the frantic proceedings of the tribune soon over- 
 turned this new system, though the government of 
 Rome was reinstated in its ancient form, yet every fresh 
 attack contributed to weaken the papal jurisdiction ; and 
 the turbulence of the people concurred with the spirit of 
 independence among the nobility in circumscribing it 
 more and more. 3 Gregory YII. and other domineering 
 
 " Otto Frising., Chron., lib. vii. d'ltalia, vol. ix. pp. 398-404. 
 cap. 27, 31. Id. de Gest. Frid., 3 Histoire Florentine de Giov. 
 
 lib. L c. 27. Muratori, Annali Villani, liv. xii. c. 89, 104, ap
 
 1 22 A VIEW OP THE [SECTION in. 
 
 pontiffs accomplished those great things which rendered 
 them so formidable to the emperors with whom they 
 contended, not by the force of their arms or by the 
 extent of their power, but by the dread of their spiritual 
 censures and by the effect of their intrigues, which ex- 
 cited rivals and called forth enemies against every prince 
 whom they wished to depress or to destroy. 
 
 Many attempts were made by the popes, not only to 
 humble those usurpers who lorded it over the cities in 
 the ecclesiastical state, but to break the turbulent spirit 
 of the Eoman people. These were long unsuccessful. 
 But at last Alexander VI., with a policy no less artful 
 than flagitious, subdued or extirpated most of the great 
 Eoman barons, and rendered the popes masters of their 
 own dominions. The enterprising ambition of Julius 
 II. added conquests of no inconsiderable value to the 
 patrimony of St. Peter. Thus the popes, by degrees, 
 became powerful temporal princes. Their territories, 
 in the age of Charles Y., were of greater extent than at 
 present; their country seems to have been better cul- 
 tivated, as well as more populous ; and, as they drew 
 large contributions from every part of Europe, their 
 revenues far exceeded those of the neighbouring powers, 
 and rendered them capable of more sudden and vigorous 
 efforts. 
 
 The genius of the papal government, however, was 
 better adapted to the exercise of spiritual dominion 
 than of temporal power. With respect to the former, 
 all its maxims were steady and invariable ; every new 
 pontiff adopted the plan of his predecessor. By edu- 
 cation and habit, ecclesiastics were so formed that the 
 character of the individual was sunk in that of the 
 profession, and the passions of the man were sacrificed 
 
 Murat., Script. Rerum Ital., vol. etc. Hist, de Nic. Eienzy, par 
 xiii. Vita di Cola di Rienzo, ap. M. de Boispre'aux, p. 91, etc, 
 -at,, Antiq. Ttal., vol. iii. p. 399,
 
 SECTION in.] STATE OF EUROPE. 123 
 
 to the interest and honour of the order. The hands 
 which held the reins of administration might change, 
 but the spirit which conducted them was always the 
 same. While the measures of other governments fluc- 
 tuated, and the objects at which they aimed varied, the 
 Church kept one end in view ; and to this unrelaxing 
 constancy of pursuit it was indebted for its success in 
 the boldest attempts ever made by human ambition. 
 
 But in their civil administration the popes followed 
 no such uniform or consistent plan. There, as in other 
 governments, the character, the passions, and the in- 
 terest of the person who had the supreme direction 
 of affairs occasioned a variation both in objects and 
 measures. As few prelates reached the summit of 
 ecclesiastical dignity until they were far advanced in 
 life, a change of masters was more frequent in the papal 
 dominions than in other states, and the political system 
 was, of course, less stable and permanent. Every pope 
 was eager to make the most of the short period during 
 which he had the prospect of enjoying power, in order 
 to aggrandize his own family and to attain his private 
 ends ; and it was often the first business of his successor 
 to undo all that he had done, and to overturn what he 
 had established. 
 
 As ecclesiastics were trained to pacific arts, and early 
 initiated in the mysteries of that policy by which the 
 court of Eome extended or supported its spiritual 
 dominion, the popes, in the conduct of their temporal 
 affairs, were apt to follow the same maxims, and in all 
 their measures were more ready to employ the refine- 
 ments of intrigue than the force of arms. It was in 
 the papal court that address and subtlety in negotiation 
 became a science ; and during the sixteenth century 
 Eome was considered as the school in which it might 
 be best acquired. 
 
 As the decorum of their ecclesiastical character pre-
 
 ]24 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION in 
 
 vented the popes from placing themselves at the head 
 of their armies or from taking the command in person of 
 the military force in their dominions, they were afraid 
 to arm their subjects ; and in all their operations, whether 
 offensive or defensive, they trusted entirely to mercenary 
 troops. 
 
 As their power and dominions could not descend to 
 their posterity, the popes were less solicitous than other 
 princes to form or to encourage schemes of piiblic 
 utility and improvement. Their tenure was only for a 
 short life; present advantage was what they chiefly 
 studied ; to squeeze and to amass, rather than to ame- 
 liorate, was their object. They erected, perhaps, some 
 work of ostentation, to remain as a monument of their 
 pontificate ; they found it necessary, at some times, to 
 establish useful institutions, in order to soothe and 
 silence the turbulent populace of Kome; but plans of 
 general benefit of their subjects, framed with a view to 
 futurity, were rarely objects of attention in the papal 
 policy. The patrimony of St. Peter was worse governed 
 than any part of Europe ; and though a generous 
 pontiff might suspend for a little, or counteract, the 
 effects of those vices which are peculiar to the adminis- 
 tration of ecclesiastics, the disease not only remained 
 without remedy, but has gone on increasing from age 
 to age ; and the decline of the state has kept pace with 
 its progress. 
 
 One circumstance farther, concerning the papal go- 
 vernment, is so singular as to merit attention. As the 
 spiritual supremacy and temporal power were united in 
 one person, and uniformly aided each other in their 
 operations, they became so blended together that it 
 was difficult to separate them, even in imagination. 
 The potentates who found it necessary to oppose the 
 measures which the popes pursued as temporal princes 
 could not easily divest themselves of the reverence
 
 8KUTION III.] 
 
 STATE OF EUROPE. 
 
 125 
 
 which they imagined to be due to them as heads of 
 the Church and vicars of Jesus Christ. It was with 
 reluctance that they could be brought to a rupture 
 with the head of the Church ; they were unwilling to 
 push their operations against him to extremity ; they 
 listened eagerly to the first overtures of accommoda- 
 tion, and were anxious to procure it almost upon any 
 terms. Their consciousness of this encouraged the 
 enterprising pontiffs who filled the papal throne about 
 the beginning of the sixteenth century to engage in 
 schemes seemingly the most extravagant. They trusted 
 that, if their temporal power was not sufficient to carry 
 them through with success, . the respect paid to their 
 spiritual dignity would enable them to extricate them- 
 selves with facility and with honour. 4 But when popes 
 came to take part more frequently in the contests among 
 princes, and to engage as principals or auxiliaries in 
 every war kindled in Europe, this veneration for their 
 sacred character began to abate ; and striking instances 
 will occur in the following history of its being almost 
 totally extinct. 
 
 4 The manner in which Louis XII. 
 of France undertook and carried on 
 war against Julius II. remarkably 
 illustrates this observation. Louis 
 solemnly consulted the clergy of 
 France whether it was lawful to 
 take arms against a pope who had 
 wantonly kindled war in Europe, 
 and whom neither the faith of 
 treaties, nor gratitude for favours 
 received, nor the decorum of his 
 character, could restrain from the 
 most violent actions to which the 
 lust of power prompts ambitious 
 princes. Though his clergy autho- 
 rised the war, yet Anne of Bretagne, 
 his queen, entertained scruples with 
 regard to the lawfulness of it. The 
 king himself, from some superstition, 
 of the same kind, carried it on 
 
 faintly, and, upon every fresh ad- 
 vantage, renewed his propositions of 
 peace. (Me'ze'ray, Hist, de France, 
 fol. edit., 1685, torn. i. p. 852.) I 
 shall produce another proof of this 
 reverence for the papal character, 
 still more striking. Guicciardini, 
 the most sagacious, perhaps, of all 
 modern historians, and the boldest 
 in painting the vices and ambition 
 of the popes, represents the death 
 of Migliau, a Spanish officer who 
 was killed during the siege of 
 Naples, as a punishment inflicted 
 on him by Heaven on account of 
 his having opposed the setting of 
 Clement VII. at liberty. Guicciar- 
 dini, Istoria d'ltalia, Genev., 1645, 
 voL ii. lib. 18, p. 467.
 
 126 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION in. 
 
 Of all the Italian powers, the republic of Venice, 
 next to the papal see, was most connected with the rest 
 of Europe. The rise of that commonwealth during 
 the inroads of the Huns in the fifth century, the sin- 
 gular situation of its capital in the small isles of the 
 Adriatic gulf, and the more singular form of its civil 
 constitution, are generally known. If we view the 
 Venetian government as calculated for the order of 
 nobles alone, its institutions may be pronounced excel- 
 lent ; the deliberative, legislative, and executive powers 
 are so admirably distributed and adjusted that it must 
 be regarded as a perfect model of political wisdom. But 
 if we consider it as formed for a numerous body of 
 people subject to its jurisdiction, it will appear a rigid 
 and partial aristocracy, which lodges all power in the 
 hands of a few members of the community, while it 
 degrades and oppresses the rest. 
 
 The spirit of government in a commonwealth of this 
 species was, of course, timid and jealous. The Vene- 
 tian nobles distrusted their own subjects, and were 
 afraid of allowing them the use of arms. They encou- 
 raged among them arts of industry and commerce, they 
 employed them in manufactures and in navigation, but 
 never admitted them into the troops which the state 
 kept in its pay. The military force of the republic 
 consisted entirely of foreign mercenaries. The com- 
 mand of these was never trusted to noble Venetians, 
 lest they should acquire such influence over the army 
 as might endanger the public liberty, or become accus- 
 tomed to the exercise of such power as would make 
 them unwilling to return to the condition of private 
 citizens. A soldier of fortune was placed at the head of 
 the armies of the commonweath ; and to obtain that 
 honour was the great object of the Italian condot 'fieri, or 
 leaders of bands, who in the fifteenth and sixteenth 
 centuries made a trade of war and raised and hired out
 
 SECTION in.] STATE OF EUBOPE. l*^ 
 
 soldiers to different states. But the same suspicious 
 policy which induced the Venetians to employ these 
 adventurers preventing their placing entire confidence 
 in them. Two noblemen, appointed by the senate, 
 accompanied their army when it took the field, with the 
 appellation of proveditori, and, like the field deputies 
 of the Dutch republic in latter times, observed all the 
 motions of the general and checked and controlled him 
 in all his operations. 
 
 A commonwealth with such civil and military insti- 
 tutions was not formed to make conquests. While its 
 subjects were disarmed, and its nobles excluded from 
 military command, it carried on its warlike enterprises 
 with great disadvantage. This ought to have taught the 
 Venetians to rest satisfied with making self-preser- 
 vation, and the enjoyment of domestic security, the 
 objects of their policy. But republics are apt to be 
 seduced by the spirit of ambition, as well as kings. 
 When the Venetians so far forgot the interior defects 
 in their government as to aim at extensive conquests, 
 the fatal blow which they received in the war excited 
 by the league of Cambray convinced them of the im- 
 prudence and danger of making violent efforts in opposi- 
 tion to the genius and tendency of their constitution. 
 
 It is not, however, by its military, but by its nayal 
 and commercial power that the importance of the 
 Venetian commonwealth must be estimated. The latter 
 constituted the real force and nerves of the state. The 
 jealousy of government did not extend to this depart- 
 ment. Nothing was apprehended from this quarter that 
 could prove formidable to liberty. The senate encou- 
 raged the nobles to trade, and to serve on board the 
 fleet. They became merchants and admirals. They 
 increased the wealth of their country by their industry. 
 They added to its dominions by the valour with which 
 they conducted its naval armaments.
 
 1 28 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION m. 
 
 Commerce was an inexhaustible source of opulence 
 lo the Venetians. All the nations in Europe depended 
 upon them, not only for the commodities of the East, 
 but for various manufactures fabricated by them alone, 
 or finished with a dexterity and elegance unknown in 
 other countries. From this extensive commerce the 
 state derived such immense supplies as concealed those 
 vices in its constitution which I have mentioned, and 
 enabled it to keep on foot such armies as were not only 
 an over-match for the force which any of its neighbours 
 could bring into the field, but were sufficient to con- 
 tend, for some time, with the powerful monarchs be- 
 yond the Alps. During its struggles with the princes 
 united against it by the league at Cambray, the re- 
 public levied sums which even in the present age would 
 be deemed considerable ; and while the king of France 
 paid the exorbitant interest which I have mentioned 
 for the money advanced to him, and the emperor, eager 
 to borrow, but destitute of credit, was known by the 
 name of Maximilian the Moneyless, the Venetians raised 
 whatever sums they pleased, at the moderate premium 
 of five in the hundred. 5 
 
 The constitution of Florence was perfectly the re- 
 verse of the Venetian. It partook as much of demo- 
 cratical turbulence and licentiousness, as the other of 
 aristocratical rigour. Florence, however, was a com- 
 mercial, not a military democracy. The nature of its 
 institutions was favourable to commerce, and the genius 
 of the people was turned towards it. The vast wealth 
 which the family of Medici had acquired by trade, 
 together with the magnificence, the generosity, and 
 the virtue of the first Cosmo, gave him such an as- 
 cendant over the affections as well as the counsels 
 of his countrymen that though the forms of popular 
 
 5 Hist, de la Ligue faite &, Cam- Sandi, Storia civile Veneziana, liv. 
 bray, par M. 1'Abbd du Bos, liv. v. viii. c. 16, p. 891, etc.
 
 SECTION m.] STATE OP EUROPE. 129 
 
 government were preserved, though the various de- 
 partments of administration were filled by magistral es 
 distinguished by the ancient names and elected in the 
 usual manner, he was in reality the head of the com- 
 monwealth, and in the station of a private citizen he 
 possessed supreme authority. Cosmo transmitted a 
 considerable degree of this power to his descendants ; 
 and during a greater part of the fifteenth century the 
 political state of Florence was extremely singular. The 
 appearance of republican government subsisted, the 
 people were passionately attached to it, and on some 
 occasions contended warmly for their privileges ; and 
 yet they permitted a single family to assume the direc- 
 tion of their affairs, almost as absolutely as if it had 
 been formally invested with sovereign power. The 
 jealousy of the Medici concurred with the commercial 
 spirit of the Florentines in putting the military force 
 of the republic upon the same footing with that of the 
 other Italian states. The troops which the Florentines 
 employed in their wars consisted almost entirely of 
 mercenary soldiers, furnished by the condottieri, or 
 leaders of bands, whom they took into their pay. 
 
 In the kingdom of Naples, to which the sovereignty 
 of the island of Sicily was annexed, the feudal govern- 
 ment was established in the same form and with the 
 same defects as in the other nations of Europe. The 
 frequent and violent revolutions which happened in 
 that monarchy had considerably increased these defects, 
 and rendered them more intolerable. The succession 
 to the crown of Naples had been so often interrupted 
 or altered, and so many princes of foreign blood had at 
 different periods obtained possessior of the throne, that 
 the Neapolitan nobility had lost iu a great measure that 
 attachment to the family of their sovereigns^ as well as 
 that reverence for their persons, which in other feudal 
 kingdoms contributed to set some bounds to the en-
 
 130 A VIEW OF THE [SECTIOX in 
 
 croachments of the barons upon the royal prerogative 
 and power. At the same time, the different pretenders 
 to the crown being obliged to court the barons who 
 adhered to them and on whose support they depended 
 for the success of their claims, they augmented their 
 privileges by liberal concessions and connived at theii 
 boldest usurpations. Even when seated on the throne, 
 it was dangerous for a prince who held his sceptre by 
 a disputed title to venture on any step towards extend- 
 ing his own power or circumscribing that of the nobles. 
 
 From all these causes, the kingdom of Naples was 
 the most turbulent of any in Europe, and the authority 
 of its monarchs the least extensive. Though Ferdinand 
 I., who began his reign in the year 1468, attempted to 
 break the power of the aristocracy, though his son 
 Alphonso, that he might crush it at once by cutting off 
 the leaders of greatest reputation and influence among 
 the Neapolitan barons, ventured to commit one of the 
 most perfidious and cruel actions recorded in history, the 
 order of nobles was nevertheless more exasperated than 
 humbled by their measures. 6 The resentment which 
 these outrages excited was so violent, and the power of 
 the malcontent nobles was still so formidable, that to 
 these may be ascribed, in a great degree, the ease and 
 rapidity with which Charles VIII. conquered the king- 
 dom of Naples. 7 
 
 The event that gave rise to the violent contests con- 
 cerning the succession to the crown of Naples and 
 Sicily, which brought so many calamities upon these 
 kingdoms, happened in the thirteenth century. Upon 
 the death of the emperor Frederic II., Manfred, his 
 natural son, aspiring to the Neapolitan throne, murdered 
 his brother, the emperor Conrad (if we may believe 
 contemporary historians), and by that crime obtained 
 
 * Giannone, book xxviii. chap. 2, 7 Id., ibid. p. 414. 
 
 vol. ii. p. -410, etc.
 
 SECTION- in.] STATE Off EUROPE. 131 
 
 possession of it. 8 The popes, from their implacable 
 enmity to the house of Swabia, not only refused to 
 recognise Manfred's title, but endeavoured to excite 
 against him some rival capable of wresting the sceptre 
 out of his hand. Charles, count of Anjou, the brother 
 of St. Louis, king of France, undertook this; and he 
 received from the popes the investiture of the kingdom 
 of Naples and Sicily as a fief held of the holy see. 
 The count of Anjou's efforts were crowned with suc- 
 cess ; Manfred fell in battle ; and he took possession 
 of the vacant throne. But soon after, Charles sullied 
 the glory which he had acquired by the injustice and 
 cruelty with which he put to death, by the hands of 
 the executioner, Conradin, the last prince of the house 
 of Swabia, and the rightful heir of the Neapolitan 
 crown. That gallant young prince asserted his title, 
 to the last, with a courage worthy of a better fate. On 
 the scaffold, he declared Peter, at that time prince, and 
 soon after king, of Aragon, who had married Manfred's 
 only daughter, his heir ; and, throwing his glove among 
 the people, he entreated that it might be carried to 
 Peter, as the symbol by which he conveyed all his 
 rights to him. 9 The desire of avenging the insult 
 offered to royalty by the death of Conradin concurred 
 with his own ambition in prompting Peter to take arms 
 in support of the title which he had acquired. From 
 that period during almost two centuries the houses of 
 Aragon and Anjou contended for the crown of Naples. 
 Amidst a succession of revolutions more rapid, as well 
 as of crimes more atrocious, than what occur in the 
 history of almost any other kingdom, monarchs some- 
 times of the Aragonese line and sometimes of the An- 
 gevin were seated on the throne. At length the princes 
 of the house of Aragon obtained such firm possession of 
 
 8 Struv., Corp. Hist. Germ., L ' Giannone, book xix. ch 4, 2. 
 
 481. Giannone, book xviii. ch. 5. 
 
 K 2
 
 132 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION m. 
 
 this long-disputed inheritance that they transmitted it 
 quietly to a bastard branch of their family. 10 [1434.] 
 
 The race of the Angevin kings, however, was not 
 extinct, nor had they relinquished their title to the 
 Neapolitan crown. The count of Maine and Provence, the 
 heir of this family, conveyed all his rights and preten- 
 sions to Louis XI. and to his successors. Charles VIII. , 
 as I have already related, crossed the Alps at the head 
 of a powerful army in order to prosecute his claim with 
 a degree of vigour far superior to that which the princes 
 from whom he derived it had been capable of exerting. 
 The rapid progress of his arms in Italy, as well as the 
 short time during which he enjoyed the fruits of his 
 success, have already been mentioned, and are well 
 known. Frederic, the heir of the illegitimate branch of 
 the Aragonese family, soon recovered the throne of 
 which Charles had dispossessed him. Louis XII. and 
 Ferdinand of Aragon united against this prince, whom 
 both, though for different reasons, considered as a 
 usurper and agreed to divide his dominions between 
 them. Frederic, unable to resist the combined monarchs, 
 each of whom was far his superior in power, resigned 
 his sceptre. Louis and Ferdinand, though they had 
 .concurred in making the conquest, differed about the 
 division of it, and from allies became enemies. But 
 Gonsalvo de Cordova, partly by the exertion of such 
 military talents as gave him a just title to the appellation 
 of the great captain, which the Spanish historians have 
 bestowed upon him, and partly by such shameless and 
 frequent violations of the most solemn engagements as 
 leave an indelible stain on his memory, stripped the 
 French of all that they possessed in the Neapolitan 
 dominions, and secured the peaceable possession of 
 them to his master. These, together with his other 
 kingdoms, Ferdinand transmitted to his grandson, 
 
 10 Giannonc, book xxvi. ch. 2.
 
 SECTION IIL] STATE OF EUROPE. 133 
 
 Charles V., whose right to possess them, if not alto- 
 gether uncontrovertible, seems at least to be as well 
 founded as that which the kings of France set up in 
 opposition to it. 11 
 
 There is nothing in the political constitution or 
 interior government of the duchy of Milan so re- 
 markable as to require a particular explanation. But 
 as the right of succession to that fertile province was 
 the cause or the pretext of almost all the wars car- 
 ried on in Italy during the reign of Charles V., it is 
 necessary to trace these disputes to their source, and 
 to inquire into the pretensions of the various com- 
 petitors. 
 
 During the long and fierce contests excited in Italy 
 by the violence of the Guelf and Ghibelline factious, 
 the family of Visconti rose to great eminence among 
 their fellow-citizens of Milan. As the Yisconti had 
 adhered uniformly to the Ghibelline or imperial in- 
 terest, they, by way of recompense, received from one 
 emperor the dignity of perpetual vicars of the empire 
 in Italy; 12 they were created, by another, dukes of 
 Milan; and, together with that title, the possession of 
 the city and its territories was bestowed upon them 
 as an hereditary fief. 13 John, king of France, among 
 other expedients for raising money which the calami- 
 ties of his reign obliged him to employ, condescended 
 to give one of his daughters in marriage to John 
 Galeazzo Yisconti, the first duke of Milan, from whom 
 he had received considerable sums. Valentine Vis- 
 conti, one of the children of this marriage, married her 
 cousin, Louis, duke of Orleans, the only brother of 
 Charles VI. In their marriage-contract, which the 
 
 11 Droits des Hois de France au 12 Petrarch., Epist, ap. Struv., 
 
 Royaume de Sicile. Me"moires de Corp., i. 625. 
 Comines, edit, de Fresnoy, torn. iv. 13 Leibnit, Cod. Jur. Gent Di 
 
 part ii. p. 5. plom., voL i p. 267.
 
 134 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION m- 
 
 pope confirmed, it was stipulated that upon failure of 
 heirs male in the family of Visconti the Duchy of Milan 
 should descend to the posterity of Yalentine and the 
 duke of Orleans. That event took place. In the year 
 1447, Philip Maria, the last prince of the ducal family 
 of Yisconti, died. Various competitors claimed the 
 succession. Charles, duke of Orleans, pleaded his 
 right to it founded on the marriage-contract of his 
 mother, Yalentine Yisconti. Alfonso, king of Naples, 
 claimed it in consequence of a will made by Philip 
 Maria in his favour. The emperor contended that upon 
 the extinction of male issue in the family of Yisconti 
 the fief returned to the superior lord and ought to be 
 re-annexed to the empire. The people of Milan, 
 smitten with the love of liberty which in that age pre- 
 vailed among the Italian states, declared against the 
 dominion of any master, and established a republican 
 form of government. 
 
 But during the struggle among so many competitors, 
 the prize for which they contended was seized by one 
 from whom none of them apprehended any danger. 
 Francis Sforza, the natural son of Jacomuzzo Sforza, 
 whom his courage and abilities had elevated from the 
 rank of a peasant to be one of the most eminent and 
 powerful of the Italian condottierij having succeeded 
 his father in the command of the adventurers who fol- 
 lowed his standard, had married a natural daughter of 
 the last duke of Milan. Upon this shadow of a title 
 Francis founded his pretensions to the duchy, which 
 he supported with such talents and valour as placed him 
 at last on the ducal throne. The virtues, as well as 
 abilities, with which he governed, inducing his subjects 
 to forget the defects in his title, he transmitted his do- 
 minions quietly to his son ; from whom they descended 
 to his grandson. He was murdered by his grand-uncle 
 Ludovico, gurnamed the Moor, who took possession of
 
 SECTION in.] STATE OF EUROPE. 135 
 
 the duchy; and his right to it was confirmed by the 
 investiture of the emperor Maximilian, in the year 
 1494. 14 
 
 Louis XL, who took pleasure in depressing the 
 princes of the blood, and who admired the political 
 abilities of Francis Sforza, would not permit the duke 
 of Orleans to take any step in prosecution of his right 
 to the duchy of Milan. Ludovico the Moor kept up 
 such a close connection with Charles VIII. that during 
 the greater part of his reign the claim of the family of 
 Orleans continued to lie dormant. But when the crown 
 of France devolved on Louis XII., duke of Orleans, 
 he instantly asserted the rights of his family with the 
 ardour which it was natural to expect, and marched at 
 the head of a powerful army to support them. Ludo- 
 vico Sforza, incapable of contending with such a rival, 
 was stripped of all his dominions in the space of a few 
 days. The king, clad in the ducal robes, entered 
 Milan in triumph; and soon after, Ludovico, having 
 been betrayed by the Swiss in his pay, was sent a 
 prisoner into France, and shut up in the castle of 
 Loches, where he lay unpitied during the remainder 
 of his days. In consequence of one of the singular 
 revolutions which occur so frequently in the history of 
 the Milanese, his son, Maximilian Sforza, was placed 
 on the ducal throne, of which he kept possession dur- 
 ing the reign of Louis XII. But his successor, Fran- 
 cis I., was too high-spirited and enterprising tamely to 
 relinquish his title. As soon as he was seated upon the 
 throne, he prepared to invade the Milanese; and his 
 right of succession to it appears, from this detail, to 
 have been more natural and more just than that of any 
 other competitor. [1512.] 
 
 It is unnecessary to enter into any detail with re- 
 
 14 Ripalm., Hist. Mediol., lib. vi Du Mont, Corps. Diplom., torn, iii 
 p. 654, ap. Struv., Corp., i. 930. p. ii. 333, ibid
 
 136 A VIEW OP THE [SECTION in. 
 
 spect to the form of government in Genoa, Parma, 
 Modena, and the other inferior states of Italy. Their 
 names, indeed, will often occur in the following his- 
 tory. But the power of these states themselves was so 
 inconsiderable that their fate depended little upon their 
 own efforts; and the frequent revolutions which they 
 underwent were brought about rather by the operations 
 of the princes who attacked or defended them than by 
 anything peculiar in their internal constitution. 
 
 Of the great kingdoms on this side of the Alps, 
 Spain is one of the most considerable ; and, as it was 
 the hereditary domain of Charles V., as well as the 
 chief source of his power and wealth, a distinct know- 
 ledge of its political constitution is of capital importance 
 towards understanding the transactions of his reign. 
 
 The Yandals and Goths, who overturned the Eoman 
 power in Spain, established a form of government in 
 that country, and introduced customs and laws, per- 
 fectly similar to those which were established in the 
 rest of Europe by the other victorious tribes which 
 acquired settlements there. For some time, society 
 advanced, among the new inhabitants of Spain, by the 
 same steps, and seemed to hold the same course, as in 
 other European nations. To this progress a sudden 
 stop was put by the invasion of the Saracens or Moors 
 from Africa. The Goths could not withstand the 
 efforts of their enthusiastic valour, which subdued the 
 greatest part of Spain with the same impetuous rapidity 
 that distinguishes all the operations of their arms. The 
 ronquerors introduced into the country in which they 
 settled the Mahometan religion, the Arabic language, 
 the manners of the East, together with that taste for 
 the arts and that love of elegance and splendour which 
 the Caliphs had begun to cultivate among their sub- 
 jects. [712.] 
 
 Such Gothic nobles as disdained to submit to the
 
 SECTION in.] STATE OF EUROPE. ] 37 
 
 Moorish yoke fled for refuge to the inaccessible moun- 
 tains of Asturias. There they comforted themselves 
 with enjoying the exercise of the Christian religion 
 and with maintaining the authority of their ancient 
 laws. Being joined by many of the boldest and most 
 warlike among their countrymen, they sallied out upon 
 the adjacent settlements of the Moors in small parties; 
 but, venturing only upon short excursions at first, they 
 were satisfied with plunder and revenge, without think- 
 ing of conquest. By degrees their strength increased, 
 their views enlarged, a regular government was estab- 
 lished among them, and they began to aim at extending 
 their territories. While they pushed on their attacks 
 with the unremitting ardour excited by zeal for re- 
 ligion, by the desire of vengeance, and by the hope 
 of rescuing their country from oppression, while they 
 conducted their operations with the courage natural to 
 men who had no other occupation but war, and who 
 were strangers to all the arts which corrupt or enfeeble 
 the mind, the Moors gradually lost many of the advan- 
 tages to which they had been indebted for their first 
 success. They threw off all dependence on the Ca- 
 liphs ; 15 they neglected to preserve a close connection 
 with their countrymen in Africa ; their empire in Spain 
 was split into many small kingdoms ; the arts which 
 they cultivated, together with the luxury to which theso 
 gave rise, relaxed in some measure the force of their 
 military institutions and abated the vigour of their 
 war-like spirit. The Moors, however, continued still to 
 be a gallant people, and possessed great resources. Ac- 
 cording to the magnificent style of the Spanish his- 
 torians, eight centuries of almost uninterrupted war 
 elapsed, and three thousand seven hundred battles were 
 fought, before the last of the Moorish kingdoms in Spain 
 submitted to the Christian arms. [1492.] 
 
 u Jos. Sim. Assemauiii, Histor. Ital. Scriptores, vol. in. p. 135.
 
 138 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION nt 
 
 As the Christians made their conquests upon the 
 Mahometans at various periods and under different 
 leaders, each formed the territory which he had wrested 
 from the common enemy into an independent state. 
 Spain was divided into almost as many separate king- 
 doms as it contained provinces; in each city of note a 
 petty monarch established his throne and assumed all 
 the ensigns of royalty. In a series of years, however, 
 by the usual events of intermarriages, or succession, or 
 conquest, all these inferior principalities were annexed 
 to the more powerful kingdoms of Castile and of 
 Aragon. At length, by the fortunate marriage of 
 Ferdinand and Isabella, the former the hereditary 
 monarch of Aragon, and the latter raised to the throne 
 of Castile by the affection of her subjects, all the 
 Spanish crowns were united, and descended in the same 
 line. [1481.] 
 
 From this period the political constitution of Spain 
 began to assume a regular and uniform appearance ; 
 the genius of its government may be delineated, and 
 the progress of its laws and manners may be traced, 
 with certainty. Notwithstanding the singular revolu- 
 tion which the invasion of the Moors occasioned in 
 Spain, and the peculiarity of its fate in being so long 
 subject to the Mahometan yoke, the customs introduced 
 by the Yandals and Goths had taken such deep root, 
 and were so thoroughly incorporated with the frame 
 of its government, that in every province which the 
 Christians recovered from the Moors we find the con- 
 dition of individuals, as well as the political constitu- 
 tion, nearly the same as in other nations of Europe. 
 Lands were held by the same tenure ; justice was 
 dispensed in the same form ; the same privileges were 
 claimed by the nobility, and the same power exercised 
 by the cortes, or general assembly of the kingdom. 
 Several circumstances contributed to secure this per-
 
 SECTION in.] STATE OF EUROPE. 139 
 
 manence of the feudal institutions in Spain, notwith- 
 standing the conquests of the Moors, which seemed 
 to have overturned them. Such of the Spaniards as 
 preserved their independence adhered to their ancient 
 customs, not only from attachment to them, but out 
 of antipathy to the Moors, to whose ideas concerning 
 property and government these customs were totally 
 repugnant. Even among the Christians who submitted 
 to the Moorish conquerors and consented to become 
 their subjects, ancient customs were not entirely abol- 
 ished. They were permitted to retain their religion, 
 their laws concerning private property, their forms of 
 administering justice, and their mode of levying taxes. 
 The followers of Mahomet are the only enthusiasts who 
 have united the spirit of toleration with zeal for making 
 proselytes, and who, at the same time that they took 
 arms to propagate the doctrine of their prophet, per- 
 mitted such as would not embrace it to adhere to their 
 own tenets and to practise their own rites. To this 
 peculiarity in the genius of the Mahometan religion, as 
 well as to the desire which the Moors had of reconciling 
 the Christians to their yoke, it was owing that the 
 ancient manners and laws in Spain survived the violent 
 shock of a conquest, and were permitted to subsist not- 
 withstanding the introduction of a new religion and a 
 new form of government into that country. It is obvious 
 from all these particulars that the Christians must have 
 found it extremely easy to re-establish manners and 
 government on their ancient foundations in those pro- 
 vinces of Spain which they wrested successively from 
 the Moors. A considerable part of the people retained 
 such a fondness for the customs and such a reverence 
 for the laws of their ancestors that, wishing to see them 
 completely restored, they were not only willing but 
 eager to resume the former and to recognise the 
 authority of the latter.
 
 140 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION in. 
 
 But though the feudal form of government, with all 
 the institutions which characterise it, was thus preserved 
 in Castile and Aragon, as well as in all the kingdoms 
 which depended on these crowns, there were certain 
 peculiarities in their political constitutions which dis- 
 tinguish them from those of any other country in 
 Europe. The royal prerogative, extremely limited in 
 every feudal kingdom, was circumscribed in Spain 
 within such narrow bounds as reduced the power of 
 the sovereign almost to nothing. The privileges of the 
 nobility were great in proportion, and extended so far 
 as to border on absolute independence. The immuni- 
 ties of the cities were likewise greater than in other 
 feudal kingdoms ; they possessed considerable influence 
 in the cortes, and they aspired at obtaining more. Such 
 a state of society, in which the political machine was so 
 ill adjusted and the several members of the legislature 
 so improperly balanced, produced internal disorders in 
 the kingdoms of Spain, which rose beyond the pitch 
 of turbulence and anarchy usual under the feudal 
 government. The whole tenor of the Spanish history 
 confirms the truth of this observation ; and when the 
 mutinous spirit to which the genius of their policy gave 
 birth and vigour was no longer restrained and overawed 
 by the immediate dread of the Moorish arms, it broke 
 out into more frequent insurrections against the govern- 
 ment of their princes, as well as more outrageous insults 
 on their dignity, than occur in the annals of any other 
 country. These were accompanied at some times with 
 more liberal sentiments concerning the rights of the 
 people, at other times with more elevated notions con- 
 cerning the privileges of the nobles, than were common 
 in other nations. 
 
 In the principality of Catalonia, which was annexed 
 to the kingdom of Aragon, the impatience of the people 
 to obtain a redress of their grievances having prompted
 
 SECTION in.] STATE OF EUROPE. 141 
 
 them to take arms against their sovereign, John II., 
 they, by a solemn deed, recalled the oath of allegiance 
 which they had sworn to him, declared him and his 
 posterity to be unworthy of the throne, 16 and en- 
 deavoured to establish a republican form of govern- 
 ment, in order to secure the perpetual enjoyment of 
 that liberty after which they aspired. 17 Nearly about 
 the same period, the indignation of the Castilian 
 nobility against the weak and flagitious administration 
 of Henry IY. having led them to combine against him, 
 they arrogated, as one of the privileges belonging to 
 their order, the right of trying and of passing sentence 
 on their sovereign. That the exercise of this power 
 might be as public and solemn as the pretension to it 
 was bold, they summoned all the nobility of their party 
 to meet at Avila; a spacious theatre was erected in a 
 plain without the walls of the town ; an image repre- 
 senting the king was seated on a throne, clad in royal 
 robes, with a crown on its head, a sceptre in its hand, 
 and the sword of justice by its side. The accusation 
 against the king was read, and the sentence of deposi- 
 tion was pronounced, in presence of a numerous assembly. 
 At the close of the first article of the charge, the arch- 
 bishop of Toledo advanced and tore the crown from the 
 nead of the image ; at the close of the second, the Conde 
 de Placentia snatched the sword of justice from its side ; 
 at the close of the third, the Conde de JSenevente wrested 
 the sceptre from its hand ; at the close of the last, Don 
 Diego Lopes de Stuniga tumbled it headlong from the 
 throne. At the same instant, Don Alfonzo, Henry's 
 brother, was proclaimed king of Castile and Leon in his 
 stead. 18 
 
 16 Zurita, Anales de Arag., torn. Marinseus Siculus, De Reb. Hispan.. 
 iv. pp. 113, 115, etc. apud Schotti Script. Hispan., fol. 
 
 17 Ferrera, Hist. d'Espagne, torn. 429. 
 
 vii. p. 92. P. Orleans, ReVol. 1S Marian., Hist, lib. xxxiii. c. 9. 
 
 d'Espagne, torn, iii p. 155. L. [1465.]
 
 L42 A VIEW OF THE L SECTION m 
 
 The most daring leaders of faction would not have 
 ventured on these measures, nor have conducted them 
 with such public ceremony, if the sentiments of the 
 people concerning the royal dignity had not been so 
 formed by the laws and policy to which they were 
 accustomed, both in Castile and Catalonia, as prepared 
 them to approve of such extraordinary proceedings, or 
 to acquiesce in them. 
 
 In Aragon the form of government was monarchical, 
 but the genius and maxims of it were purely republican. 
 The kings, who were long elective, retained only the 
 shadow of power ; the real exercise of it was in the 
 cortes, or parliament of the kingdom. This supreme 
 assembly was composed of four different arms or mem- 
 bers : the nobility of the first rank ; the equestrian order, 
 or nobility of the second class ; the representatives of 
 the cities and towns, whose right to a place in the 
 cortes, if we may give credit to the historians of 
 Aragon, was coeval with the constitution ; the eccle- 
 siastical order, composed of the dignitaries of the 
 church, together with the representatives of the inferior 
 clergy. 19 No law could pass in this assembly without 
 the assent of every single member who had a right to 
 vote. 20 Without the permission of the cortes no tax 
 could be imposed, no war could be declared, no peace 
 could be concluded, no money could be coined, nor 
 could any alteration be made in the current specie. 31 
 The power of reviewing the proceedings of all inferior 
 courts, the privilege of inspecting every department of 
 administration, and the right of redressing all griev- 
 ances, belonged to the cortes. Nor did those who con- 
 ceived themselves to be aggrieved address the cortes 
 in the humble tone of supplicants and petition for 
 
 19 Forma de celebrar Cortes en 21 Hier. Blanca, Comment. Rer. 
 Aragon, por Geron. MarteL Aragon., ap. Schot. Script. Hispau. 
 
 '"' Martel, ibid., p. 2. vol. iii p. 750.
 
 SECTION in.] STATE OF EUROPE. 143 
 
 redress : they demanded it as the birthright of freemen, 
 and required the guardians of their liberty to decide 
 with respect to the points which they laid before them. M 
 This sovereign court was held during several centuries 
 every year ; but, in consequence of a regulation intro- 
 duced about the beginning of the fourteenth century, 
 it was convoked from that period only once in two 
 years. After it was assembled, the king had no right 
 to prorogue or dissolve it without its own consent ; and 
 the session continued forty days. 23 
 
 Not satisfied with having erected such formidable 
 barriers against the encroachments of the royal pre- 
 rogative, nor willing to commit the sole guardianship 
 of their liberties entirely to the vigilance and authority 
 of an assembly similar to the diets, states-general, and 
 parliaments in which the other feudal nations have 
 placed so much confidence, the Aragonese had recourse 
 to an institution peculiar to themselves, and elected a 
 justiza, or supreme Judge. This magistrate, whose 
 office bore some resemblance to that of the cphori in 
 ancient Sparta, acted as the protector of the people 
 and the controller of the prince. The person of the 
 justiza was sacred, his power and jurisdiction almost 
 unbounded. He was the supreme interpreter of the 
 laws. Hot only inferior judges, but the kings them- 
 selves, were bound to consult him in every doubtful 
 case and to receive his responses with implicit defer- 
 ence. 24 An appeal lay to him from the royal judges, as 
 well as from those appointed by the barons within their 
 respective territories. Even when no appeal was made 
 to him, he could interpose by his own authority, pro- 
 hibit the ordinary judge to proceed, take immediate 
 
 22 Martel, Forma de celebrar, p. 2. sponses of the justiza to James II., 
 
 '" Hier. Blanca, Comment, p. who reigned towards the close of 
 
 763. the thirteenth century. Blanca, 
 
 74 Blanca has preserved two re- p. 748.
 
 144 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION m. 
 
 cognizance of the cause himself, and remove the party 
 accused to the manifestation, or prison of the state, to 
 which no person had access but by his permission. 
 His power was exerted with no less vigour and effect in 
 superintending the administration of government than 
 in regulating the course of justice. It was the preroga- 
 tive of the justiza to inspect the conduct of the king. 
 He had a title to review all the royal proclamations and 
 patents, and to declare Avhether or not they were agree- 
 able to law and ought to be carried into execution. He, 
 by his sole authority, could exclude any of the king's 
 ministers from the conduct of affairs and call them to 
 answer for their maladministration. He himself was 
 accountable to the cortes only for the manner in which 
 he discharged the duties of this high office and per- 
 formed functions of the greatest importance that could 
 be committed to a subject. 26 
 
 It is evident, from a bare enumeration of the privi- 
 leges of the Aragonese cortes, as well as of the rights 
 6elonging to the justiza, that a very small portion ol 
 power remained in the hands of the king. The Arago- 
 nese seem to have been solicitous that their monarchs 
 should know and feel this state of impotence to which 
 they were reduced. Even in swearing allegiance to 
 their sovereign, an act which ought naturally to be 
 accompanied with professions of submission and re- 
 spect, they devised an oath in such a form as to remind 
 him of his dependence on his subjects. " We," said 
 the justiza to the king in the name of his high-spirited 
 barons, "who are each of us as good, and who are 
 altogether more powerful than you, promise obedience 
 to your government if you maintain our rights and 
 liberties ; but if not, not." Conformably to this oath 
 they established it as a fundamental article in their 
 constitution that if the king should violate their rights 
 
 2i Note XXXI. Hier. BJanca, Comment., pp. 747, 755.
 
 3KCT10N m.] STATE OF EUROPE. 146 
 
 and privileges it was lawful for the people to disclaim 
 him as their sovereign, and to elect another, even 
 though a heathen, in his place. 26 The attachment of 
 the Aragonese to this singular constitution of govern- 
 ment was extreme, and their respect for it approached 
 to superstitious veneration. 27 In the preamble to one 
 of their laws they declare that such was the barrenness 
 of their country, and the poverty of the inhabitants, 
 that, if it were not on account of the liberties by which 
 they were distinguished from other nations, the people 
 would abandon it and go in quest of a settlement to 
 some more fruitful region. 28 
 
 In Castile there were not such peculiarities in the 
 form of Government as to establish any remarkable 
 distinction between it and that of the other European 
 nations. The executive part of government was com- 
 mitted to the king, but with a prerogative extremely 
 limited. The legislative authority resided in the cortes, 
 which was composed of the nobility, the dignified 
 ecclesiastics, and the representatives of the cities. The 
 assembly of the cortes in Castile was very ancient, and 
 seems to have been almost coeval with the constitution. 
 The members of the three different orders, who had a 
 right of suffrage, met in one place and deliberated as 
 one collective body, the decisions of which were regu- 
 lated by the sentiments of the majority. The right of 
 imposing taxes, of enacting laws, and of redressing 
 grievances belonged to this assembly ; and, in order 
 to secure the assent of the king to such statutes and 
 regulations as were deemed salutary or beneficial to 
 the kingdom, it was usual in the cortes to take no step 
 towards granting money until all business relative to 
 the public welfare was concluded. The representatives 
 
 26 Hier. Blanca, Comment., p. 28 Hier. Blanca, Comment, p. 
 
 720. 751. 
 
 -' Note XXXII. 
 
 VOL. 1. L
 
 146 A VIEW THE [SECTION m. 
 
 of cities seemed to have obtained a seat very early in the 
 cortes of Castile, and soon acquired such influence and 
 credit as were very uncommon at a period when the 
 splendour and pre-eminence of the nobility had eclipsed 
 or depressed all other orders of men. The number of 
 members from cities bore such a proportion to that of 
 the whole collective body as rendered them extremely 
 respectable in the cortes. 29 The degree of considera- 
 tion which they possessed in the state may be estimated 
 by one event. Upon the death of John I. a council 
 of regency was appointed to govern the kingdom during 
 the minority of his son. It was composed of an equal 
 number of noblemen and of deputies chosen by the 
 cities ; the latter were admitted to the same rank and 
 invested with the same powers as prelates and grandees 
 of the first order. 30 But though the members of com- 
 munities in Castile were elevated above the condition 
 wherein they were placed in other kingdoms of Europe, 
 though they had attained to such political importance 
 that even the proud and jealous spirit of the feudal 
 aristocracy could not exclude them from a considerable 
 share in government, yet the nobles, notwithstanding 
 these acquisitions of the commons, continued to assert 
 the privileges of their order, in opposition to the crown, 
 in a tone extremely high. There was not any body of 
 nobility in Europe more distinguished for independence 
 of spirit, haughtiness of deportment, and bold preten- 
 sions than that of Castile. The history of that mon- 
 archy affords the most striking examples of the vigilance 
 with which they observed, and of the vigour with which 
 they opposed, every measure of their king's that tended 
 to encroach on their jurisdiction, to diminish their 
 dignity, or to abridge their power. Even in their 
 ordinary intercourse with their monarchs they preserved 
 such a consciousness of their rank that the nobles 
 
 29 Note XXXIIL 30 Marian., Hist., lib. rviii. c. 16.
 
 SECTION in.] STATE OP EUEOPE. 147 
 
 of the first order claimed it as a privilege to be covered 
 in the royal presence, and approached their sovereigns 
 rather as equals than as subjects. 
 
 The constitutions of the subordinate monarchies 
 which depended on the crowns of Castile and Aragon 
 nearly resembled those of the kingdoms to which they 
 were annexed. In all of them, the dignity and inde- 
 pendence of the nobles were great, the immunities and 
 power of the cities were considerable. 
 
 An attentive observation of the singular situation of 
 Spain, as well as the various events which occurred 
 there from the invasion of the Moors to the union of 
 its kingdom under Ferdinand and Isabella, will dis- 
 cover the causes to which all the peculiarities in its 
 political constitution I have pointed out ought to be 
 ascribed. 
 
 As the provinces of Spain were wrested from the 
 Mahometans gradually and with difficulty, the nobles 
 who followed the standard of any eminent leader in 
 these wars conquered not for him alone, but for them- 
 selves. They claimed a share in the lands which their 
 valour had won from the enemy, and their prosperity 
 and power increased in proportion as the territory of 
 the prince extended. 
 
 During their perpetual wars with the Moors, the mon- 
 archs of the several kingdoms in Spain depended so 
 much on their nobles that it became necessary to con- 
 ciliate their good will by successive grants of new honours 
 and privileges. By the time that any prince could 
 establish his dominion in a conquered province, the 
 greater part of the territory was parcelled out by him 
 among his barons, with such jurisdiction and immuni- 
 ties as raised them almost to sovereign power. 
 
 At the same time, the kingdoms erected in so many 
 different corners of Spain were of inconsiderable extent. 
 The petty monarch was but little elevated above his 
 
 L 2
 
 148 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION in. 
 
 nobles. They, feeling themselves to be almost his equals, 
 acted as such, and could not look up to the kings of such 
 limited domains with the same reverence that the sove- 
 reigns of the great monarchies in Europe were viewed by 
 their subjects. 31 
 
 While these circumstances concurred in exalting the 
 nobility and in depressing the royal authority, there 
 were other causes which raised the cities in Spain to 
 consideration and power. 
 
 As the open country, during the wars with the Moors, 
 was perpetually exposed to the excursions of the enemy, 
 with whom no peace or truce was so permanent as to 
 prove any lasting security, self-preservation obliged 
 persons of all ranks to fix their residence in places of 
 strength. The castles of the barons, which in other 
 countries afforded a commodious retreat from the 
 depredations of banditti or from the transient violence 
 of any interior commotion, were unable to resist an 
 enemy whose operations were conducted with regular 
 and persevering vigour. Cities, in which great numbers 
 united for their mutual defence, were the only places in 
 which people could reside with any prospect of safety. 
 To this was owing the rapid growth of those cities in 
 Spain of which the Christians recovered possession. 
 All who fled from the Moorish yoke resorted to them, 
 as to an asylum ; and in them the greater part of those 
 who took the field against the Mahometans established 
 their families. 
 
 Several of these cities, during a longer or shorter 
 course of years, were the capitals of little states, and 
 enjoyed all the advantages which accelerate the in- 
 crease of inhabitants in every place that is the seat of 
 government. 
 
 From these concurring causes, the number of cities 
 in Spain at the beginning of the fifteenth century had 
 
 31 Note XXXIV.
 
 SECTION in.] STATE OF EUROPE. 149 
 
 become considerable, and they were peopled far beyond 
 the proportion which was common in other parts of 
 Europe, except in Italy and the Low Countries. The 
 Moors had introduced manufactures into those cities 
 while under their dominion. The Christians, who, by 
 intermixture with them, had learned their arts, con- 
 tinued to cultivate these. Trade, in several of the 
 Spanish towns, appears to have been carried on with 
 vigour ; and the spirit of commerce continued to pre- 
 serve the number of their inhabitants, as the sense of 
 danger had first induced them to crowd together. 
 
 As the Spanish cities were populous, many of the 
 inhabitants were of a rank superior to those who resided 
 in towns in other countries of Europe. That cause 
 which contributed chiefly to their population affected 
 equally persons of every condition, who flocked thither 
 promiscuously, in order to find shelter there, or in 
 hopes of making a stand against the enemy with greater 
 advantage than in any other station. The persons 
 elected as their representatives in the cortes by the 
 cities, or promoted to offices of trust and dignity in 
 the government of the community, were often, as will 
 appear from transactions which I shall hereafter relate, 
 of such considerable rank in the kingdom as reflected 
 lustre on their constituents and on the stations wherein 
 they were placed. 
 
 As it was impossible to carry on a continual war 
 against the Moors without some other military force 
 than that which the barons were obliged to bring into 
 the field in consequence of the feudal tenures, it be- 
 came necessary to have some troops, particularly a 
 body of light cavalry, in constant pay. It was one 
 of the privileges of the nobles that their lands were 
 exempt from the burden of taxes. The charge of sup- 
 porting the troops requisite for the public safety fell 
 wholly upon the cities ; and their kings, being
 
 150 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION in. 
 
 frequently to apply to them for aid, found it necessary 
 to gain their favour by concessions, which not only 
 extended their immunities, but added to their wealth 
 and power. 
 
 When the influence of all these circumstances, pecu- 
 liar to Spain, is added to the general and common 
 causes which contributed to aggrandize cities in other 
 countries of Europe, this will fully account for the 
 extensive privileges which they acquired, as well as for 
 the extraordinary consideration to which they attained, 
 in all the Spanish kingdoms. 32 
 
 By these exorbitant privileges of the nobility, and 
 this unusual power of the cities, in Spain, the royal 
 prerogative was hemmed in on every side and reduced 
 within very narrow bounds. Sensible of this, and im- 
 patient of such restraint, several monarchs endeavoured, 
 at various junctures and by different means, to enlarge 
 their own jurisdiction. Their power, however, or their 
 abilities, were so unequal to the undertaking that their 
 efforts were attended with little success. But when 
 Ferdinand and Isabella found themselves at the head 
 of the united kingdoms of Spain and delivered from 
 the danger and interruption of domestic wars, they 
 were not only in a condition to resume, but were able 
 to prosecute with advantage, the schemes for extending 
 the prerogative which their ancestors had attempted in 
 vain. Ferdinand's profound sagacity in concerting his 
 measures, his persevering industry in conducting them, 
 and his uncommon address in carrying them into exe- 
 cution, fitted him admirably for an undertaking which 
 required all these talents. 
 
 As the overgrown power and high pretensions of 
 the nobility were what the monarchs of Spain felt 
 most sensibly and bore with the greatest impatience, 
 the great object of Ferdinand's policy was to reduce 
 
 33 Note XXXV.
 
 SECTION in.] STATE OF EUROPE. 151 
 
 these within more moderate bounds. Under various 
 pretexts, sometimes by violence, more frequently in 
 consequence of decrees obtained in the courts of law, 
 he wrested from the barons a great part of the lands 
 which had been granted to them by the inconsiderate 
 bounty of former monarchs, particularly during the 
 feeble and profuse reign of his predecessor, Henry IY. 
 He did not give the entire conduct of affairs to persons 
 of noble birth, who were accustomed to occupy every 
 department of importance in peace or in war, as if it 
 had been a privilege peculiar to their order to be em- 
 ployed as the sole counsellors and ministers of thr 
 crown. He often transacted business of great conse- 
 quence without their intervention, and bestowed many 
 offices of power and trust on new men, devoted to his 
 interest. 33 He introduced a degree of state and dig- 
 nity into his court which, being little known in Spain 
 while it remained split into many small kingdoms, 
 taught the nobles to approach their sovereign with 
 more ceremony, and gradually rendered him the object 
 of greater deference and respect. 
 
 The annexing the masterships of the three military 
 orders of St. Jago, Calatrava, and Alcantara to the 
 crown was another expedient by which Ferdinand 
 greatly augmented the revenue and power of the kings 
 of Spain. These orders were instituted, in imitation 
 of those of the Knights Templars and of St. John of 
 Jerusalem, on purpose to wage perpetual war with the 
 Mahometans, and to protect the pilgrims who visited 
 Compostella, or other places of eminent sanctity in 
 Spain, The zeal and superstition of the ages in which 
 they were founded prompted persons of every rank to 
 bestow such liberal donations on those holy warriors that 
 in a short time they engrossed a considerable share in 
 the property and wealth of the kingdom. The master- 
 
 33 Zurita, Anales de Arag., torn. vi. p. 22.
 
 152 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION in. 
 
 ships of these orders came to be stations of the greatest 
 power and opulence to which a Spanish nobleman could 
 be advanced. These high dignities were in the dis- 
 posal of the knights of the order, and placed the per- 
 sons on whom they conferred them almost on a level 
 with their sovereign. 34 Ferdinand, unwilling that the 
 nobility, whom he considered as already too formidable, 
 should derive such additional credit and influence from 
 possessing the government of these wealthy fraternities, 
 was solicitous to wrest it out of their hands and to 
 vest it in the crown. His measures for accomplishing 
 this were wisely planned and executed with vigour. 35 
 By address, by promises, and by threats, he prevailed 
 on the knights of each order to place Isabella and him 
 at the head of it. Innocent VIII. and Alexander VI. 
 gave this election the sanction of papal authority; 36 
 and subsequent pontiffs rendered the annexation of 
 these masterships to the crown perpetual. 
 
 While Ferdinand by this measure diminished the 
 power and influence of the nobility and added new 
 lustre or authority to the crown, he was taking other 
 important steps with a view to the same object. The 
 sovereign jurisdiction which the feudal barons exercised 
 within their own territories was the pride and dis- 
 tinction of their order. To have invaded openly a 
 privilege which they prized so highly, and in defence 
 of which they would have run so eagerly to arms, 
 was a measure too daring for a prince of Ferdinand's 
 cautious temper. He took advantage, however, of an 
 opportunity which the state of his kingdoms and the 
 spirit of his people presented him, in order to under- 
 mine what he durst not assault. The incessant depre- 
 
 34 Note XXXVI. a Ferdinand, et Elizab. gestarum 
 
 '' Marian., Hist., lib. xxv. c. 0. decades ii., apud Schot Script 
 
 36 Zurita, Anales, torn. v. p. 22. Hispan., i. 860. 
 uElii Anton. Nebrissfjisis Renun
 
 SECTION in.] STATE OF EUROPE. 15-". 
 
 dations of the Moors, the want of discipline among 
 the troops which were employed to oppose them, the 
 frequent civil wars between the crown and the nobility, 
 as well as the undiscerning rage with which the barons 
 carried on their private wars with each other, filled all 
 the provinces of Spain with disorder. Rapine, outrage, 
 and murder became so common as not only to in- 
 terrupt commerce, but in a great measure to suspend 
 all intercourse between -one place and another. That 
 security and protection which men expect from enter- 
 ing into civil society ceased in a great degree. Internal 
 order and police, while the feudal institutions remained 
 in vigour, were so little objects of attention, and the 
 administration of justice was so extremely feeble, that 
 it would have been vain to have expected relief from 
 the established laws or the ordinary judges. But the 
 evil became so intolerable, and the inhabitants of cities, 
 who were the chief sufferers, grew so impatient of this 
 anarchy, that self-preservation forced them to have 
 recourse to an extraordinary remedy. About the middle 
 of the thirteenth century, the cities in the kingdom 
 of Aragon, and, after their example, those in Castile, 
 formed themselves into an association distinguished by 
 the name of the holy brotherhood. They exacted a 
 certain contribution from each of the associated towns ; 
 they levied a considerable body of troops, in order 
 to protect travellers, and to pursue criminals ; they 
 appointed judges, who opened their courts in various 
 parts of the kingdom. Whoever was guilty of murder, 
 robbery, or of any act that violated the public peace, 
 and was seized by the troops of the brotherhood, was 
 carried before judges of their nomination, who, without 
 paying any regard to the exclusive and sovereign juris- 
 diction which the lord of the place might claim, tried 
 and condemned the criminals. By the establishment 
 of this fraternity the prompt and impartial adminis-
 
 154 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION in. 
 
 tration of justice was restored, and, together with it, 
 internal tranquillity and order began to return. The 
 nobles alone murmured at this salutary institution. 
 They complained of it as an encroachment on one of 
 their most valuable privileges. They remonstrated 
 against it in a high tone, and, on some occasions, 
 refused to grant any aid to the crown unless it were 
 abolished. Ferdinand, however, was sensible not only 
 of the good effects of the holy brotherhood with respect 
 to the police of his kingdoms, but perceived its tendency 
 to abridge, and at length to annihilate, the territorial 
 jurisdiction of the nobility. He countenanced it on 
 every occasion. He supported it with the whole force 
 of royal authority ; and, besides the expedients employed 
 by him in common with the other monarchs of Europe, 
 he availed himself of this institution, which was peculiar 
 to his kingdom, in order to limit and abolish that 
 independent jurisdiction of the nobility, which was no 
 less inconsistent with the authority of the prince than 
 with the order of society. 37 
 
 But though Ferdinand by these measures considerably 
 enlarged the boundaries of his prerogative, and acquired 
 a degree of influence and power far beyond what any 
 of his predecessors had enjoyed, yet the limitations of 
 the royal authority, as well as the barriers against its 
 encroachments, continued to be many and strong. The 
 spirit of liberty was vigorous among the people of 
 Spain ; the spirit of independence was high among the 
 nobility ; and though the love of glory, peculiar to the 
 Spaniards in every period of their history, prompted 
 them to support Ferdinand with zeal in his foreign 
 operations, and to afford him such aid as enabled him 
 not only to undertake but to execute great enterprises, 
 he reigned over his subjects with a jurisdiction less 
 extensive than that of any of the great monarchs in 
 
 37 Note XXXVII.
 
 SECTION in.] STATE OF EUROPE. 155 
 
 Europe. It will appear from many passages in the 
 following history that during a considerable part of the 
 reign of his successor Charles V. the prerogative of the 
 Spanish crown was equally circumscribed. 
 
 The ancient government and laws in France so nearly 
 resembled those of the other feudal kingdoms that such 
 a detail with respect to them as was necessary, in order 
 to convey some idea of the nature and effects of the 
 peculiar institutions which took place in Spain, would 
 be superfluous. In the view which I have exhibited of 
 the means by which the French monarchs acquired such 
 a full command of the national force of their kingdom 
 as enabled them to engage in extensive schemes of 
 foreign operation, I have already pointed out the great 
 steps by which they advanced towards a more ample 
 possession of political power and a more uncontrolled 
 exercise of their royal prerogative. All that now 
 remains is to take notice of such particulars in the 
 constitution of France as serve either to distinguish it 
 from that of other countries, or tend to throw any light 
 on the transactions of that period to which the following 
 History extends. 
 
 Under the French monarchs of the first race, the 
 royal prerogative was very inconsiderable. The general 
 assemblies of the nation, which met annually at stated 
 seasons, extended their authority to every department 
 of government. The power of electing kings, of enact- 
 ing laws, of redressing grievances, of conferring dona- 
 tions on the prince, of passing judgment in the last 
 resort, with respect to every person and to every cause, 
 resided in this great convention of the nation. Under 
 the second race of kings, notwithstanding the power 
 and splendour which the conquests of Charlemagne 
 added to the crown, the general assemblies of the nation 
 continued to possess extensive authority. The right of 
 determining which of the royal family should be placed
 
 L56 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION m. 
 
 on the throno was vested in them. The princes, ele- 
 vated to that dignity by their suffrage, were accustomed 
 regularly to call and to consult them with respect to 
 every affair of importance to the state, and without 
 their consent no law was passed and no new tax was 
 levied. 
 
 But by the time that Hugh Capet, the father of the third 
 race of kings, took possession of the throne of France, 
 such changes had happened in the political state of the 
 kingdom as considerably affected the power and jurisdic- 
 tion of the general assembly of the nation. The royal 
 authority, in the hands of the degenerate posterity of 
 Charlemagne, had dwindled into insignificance and con- 
 tempt. Every considerable proprietor of land had 
 formed his territory into a barony almost independent 
 of the sovereign. The dukes or governors of provinces, 
 the counts or governors of towns and small districts, and 
 the great officers of the crown, had rendered these dig- 
 nities, which originally were granted only during plea- 
 sure or for life, hereditary in their families. Each of 
 these had usurped all the rights which hitherto had been 
 deemed the distinctions of royalty, particularly the pri- 
 vileges of dispensing justice within their own domains, 
 of coining money, and of waging war. Every district 
 was governed by local customs, acknowledged a distinct 
 lord, and pursued a separate interest. The formality of 
 doing homage to their sovereign was almost the only act 
 of subjection which those haughty barons would per- 
 form ; and that bound them no farther than they were 
 willing to acknowledge its obligation. 38 
 
 In a kingdom broken into so many independent baro- 
 nies, hardly any common principle of union remained ; 
 and the general assembly, in its deliberations, could 
 scarcely consider the nation as forming one body, or 
 establish common regulations to be of equal force in 
 
 38 Note XXXVIII.
 
 BECTJON in.] STATE OF EUROPE. 157 
 
 every part. Within the immediate domains of the crown 
 the king might publish laws, and they were obeyed, be- 
 cause there he was acknowledged as the only lord. But 
 if he had aimed at rendering these laws general, that 
 would have alarmed the barons as an encroachment upon 
 the independence of their jurisdiction. The barons, when 
 met in the great national convention, avoided with no 
 less care the enacting of general laws to be observed in 
 every part of the kingdom, because the execution of 
 them must have been vested in the king, and would have 
 enlarged that paramount power which was the object of 
 their jealousy. Thus, under the descendants of Hugh 
 Capet the states-general (for that was the name by which 
 the supreme assembly of the French nation came then to 
 be distinguished) lost their legislative authority, or at 
 least entirely relinquished the exercise of it. From that 
 period the jurisdiction of the states-general extended no 
 farther than to the imposition of new taxes, the determina- 
 tion of questions with respect to the right of succession 
 to the crown, the settling of the regency when the pre- 
 ceding monarch had not fixed it by his will, and the 
 presenting remonstrances enumerating the grievances of 
 which the nation wished to obtain redress. 
 
 As during several centuries the monarchs of Europe 
 seldom demanded extraordinary subsidies of their sub- 
 jects, and the other events which required the interposi- 
 tion of the states rarely occurred, their meetings in 
 France were not frequent. They were summoned occa- 
 sionally by their kings, when compelled by their wants 
 or by their fears to have recourse to the great convention 
 of their people ; but they did not, like the diet in Ger- 
 many, the cortes in Spain, or the parliament in England, 
 form an essential member of the constitution, the regular 
 exertion of whose powers was requisite to give vigour and 
 order to government. 
 
 When the states of France ceased to exercise legisla-
 
 158 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION m. 
 
 tive authority, the kings began to assume it. Thej 
 ventured at first on acts of legislation with great reserve, 
 and after taking every precaution that could prevent 
 their subjects from being alarmed at the exercise of a 
 new power. They did not at once issue their ordinances 
 in a tone of authority and command. They treated with 
 their subjects; they pointed out what was best, and 
 allured them to comply with it. By degrees, however, 
 as the prerogative of the crown extended, and as the 
 supreme jurisdiction of the royal courts came to be 
 established, the kings of France assumed more openly 
 the style and authority of lawgivers ; and before the be- 
 ginning of the fifteenth century the complete legislative 
 power was vested in the crown. 39 
 
 Having secured this important acquisition, the steps 
 which led to the right of imposing taxes were rendered 
 few and easy. The people, accustomed to see their sove- 
 reigns issue ordinances, by their sole authority, which 
 regulated points of the greatest consequence with respect 
 to the property of their subjects, were not alarmed when 
 they were required by the royal edicts to contribute 
 certain sums towards supplying the exigencies of govern- 
 ment and carrying forward the measures of the nation. 
 When Charles VII. and Louis XI. first ventured to exer- 
 cise this new power, in the manner in which I have 
 already described, the gradual increase of the royal 
 authority had so imperceptibly prepared the minds of 
 the people of France for this innovation that it excited 
 no commotion in the kingdom, and seemed scarcely to 
 have given rise to any murmur or complaint. 
 
 When the kings of France had thus engrossed every 
 power which can be exerted in government, when the 
 right of making laws, of levying money, of keeping an 
 army of mercenaries in constant pay, of declaring war, 
 and of concluding peace, centred in the crown, the 
 
 39 Note XXXIX.
 
 SECTION in.] STATE OF EUROPE. 159 
 
 constitution of the kingdom, which under the first race 
 of kings was nearly democratical, which under the second 
 race became an aristocracy, terminated under the third 
 race in a pure monarchy. Every thing that tended to 
 preserve the appearance or revive the memory of the 
 ancient mixed government seems from that period to 
 have been industriously avoided. During the long and 
 active reign of Francis L, the variety as well as extent 
 of whose operations obliged him to lay many heavy im- 
 positions on his subjects, the states-general of France 
 were not once assembled, nor were the people once 
 allowed to exert the power of taxing themselves, which, 
 according to the original ideas of feudal government, was 
 a right essential to every freeman. . 
 
 Two things, however, remained which moderated the 
 exercise of the regal prerogative and restrained it within 
 such bounds as preserved the constitution of France from 
 degenerating into mere despotism. The rights and pri- 
 vileges claimed by the nobility must be considered as 
 one barrier against the absolute dominion of the crown. 
 Though the nobles of France had lost that political 
 power which was vested in their order as a body, they 
 still retained the personal rights and pre-eminence which 
 they derived from their rank. They preserved a con- 
 sciousness of elevation above other classes of citizens ; ai 
 exemption from burdens to which persons of inferior 
 condition were subject; a contempt of the occupations in 
 which they were engaged; the privilege of assuming 
 ensigns that indicated their own dignity ; a right to be 
 treated with a certain degree of deference during peace : 
 and a claim to various distinctions when in the field. 
 Many of these pretensions were not founded on the 
 words of statutes, or derived from positive laws : they 
 were defined and ascertained by the maxims of honour, a 
 title more delicate, but no less sacred. These rights, 
 established and protected by a principle equally vigilant
 
 1 60 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION in. 
 
 in guarding and intrepid in defending them, are to the 
 sovereign himself objects of respect and veneration. 
 Wherever they stand in its way, the royal prerogative is 
 bounded. The violence of a despot may exterminate 
 such an order of men ; but as long as it subsists, and its 
 ideas of personal distinction remain entire, the power of 
 the prince has limits. 40 
 
 As in France the body of nobility was very numerous, 
 md the individuals of which it was composed retained a 
 high sense of their own pre-eminence, to this we may 
 ascribe in a great measure the mode of exercising the 
 royal prerogative which peculiarly distinguishes the 
 government of that kingdom. An intermediate order was 
 placed between the monarch and his other subjects, and 
 in every act of authority it became necessary to attend 
 to its privileges, and not only to guard against any real 
 violation of them, but to avoid any suspicion of suppos- 
 ing it to be possible that they might be violated. Thus 
 a species of government was established in France un- 
 known in the ancient world, that of a monarchy in which 
 the power of the sovereign, though unconlined by any 
 legal or constitutional restraint, has certain bounds set to 
 it by the ideas which one class of his subjects entertain 
 concerning their own dignity. 
 
 The jurisdiction of the parliaments in France, particu- 
 larly that of Paris, was the other barrier which served 
 to confine the exercise of the royal prerogative within 
 certain limits. The parliament of Paris was originally 
 the court of the kings of France, to which they com- 
 mitted 1he supreme administration of justice within their 
 own domains, as well as the power of deciding with 
 respect to all cases brought before it by appeals from the 
 courts of the barons. When, in consequence of events 
 and regulations which have been mentioned formerly, the 
 
 40 De 1'Esprit des Loix, liv. iL History of Civil Society, part L 
 c. 4. Dr. Ferguson's Essay on the sect. 10.
 
 SECTION in.] STATE OF EUROPE. 
 
 time and place of its meeting were fixed, when not 
 only the form of its procedure, but the principles on 
 which it decided, were rendered regular and consistent, 
 when every cause of importance was finally determined 
 there, and when the people became accustomed to resort 
 thither as to the supreme temple of justice, the parlia- 
 ment of Paris rose to high estimation in the kingdom, 
 its members acquired dignity, and its decrees were sub- 
 mitted to with deference. NOT was this the only source 
 of the power and influence which the parliament obtained. 
 The kings of France, when they first began to assume 
 the legislative power, in order to reconcile the minds of 
 their people to this new exertion of prerogative, pro- 
 duced their edicts and ordinances in the parliament of 
 Paris, that they might be approved of and registered 
 there before they were published and declared to be of 
 authority in the kingdom. During the intervals between 
 the meetings of the states-general of the kingdom, or 
 during those reigns in which the states-general were not 
 assembled, the monarchs of France were accustomed to 
 consult the parliament of Paris with respect to the most 
 arduous affairs of government, and frequently regulated 
 their conduct by its advice, in declaring war, in conclud- 
 ing peace, and in other transactions of public concern. 
 Thus there was erected in the kingdom a tribunal which 
 became the great depository of the laws, and, by the 
 uniform tenor of its decrees, established principles of 
 justice and forms of proceeding which were considered 
 as so sacred that even the sovereign power of the 
 monarch durst not venture to disregard or to violate 
 them. The members of this illustrious body, though 
 they neither possess legislative authority nor can be 
 considered as the representatives of the people, have 
 availed themselves of the reputation and influence which 
 they had acquired among their countrymen, in order 
 to make a stand, to the utmost of their ability, against 
 
 vol.. 1 K
 
 162 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION in, 
 
 every unprecedented and exorbitant exertion of the 
 prerogative. In every period of the French history 
 they have merited the praise of being the virtuous 
 but feeble guardians of the rights and privileges of 
 the nation. 41 
 
 After taking this view of the political state of France, 
 I proceed to consider that of the German empire, from 
 which Charles V. derived his title of highest dignity. 
 In explaining the constitution of this great and complex 
 body at the beginning of the sixteenth century, I shall 
 avoid entering into such a detail as would involve my 
 readers in that inextricable labyrinth which is formed 
 by the multiplicity of its tribunals, the number of its 
 members, their interfering rights, and by the endless 
 discussions or refinements of the public lawyers of Ger- 
 many with respect to all these. 
 
 The empire of Charlemagne was a structure erected 
 in so short a time that it could not be permanent. 
 Under his immediate successor it began to totter, and 
 soon after fell to pieces. The crown of Germany was 
 separated from that of France, and the descendants of 
 Charlemagne established two great monarchies so situated 
 as to give rise to a perpetual rivalship and enmity be- 
 tween them. But the princes of the race of Charlemagne 
 who were placed on the imperial throne were not alto- 
 gether so degenerate as those of the same family who 
 reigned in France. In the hands of the former the royal 
 authority retained some vigour, and the nobles of Ger- 
 many, though possessed of extensive privileges as well 
 as ample territories, did not so early attain independence. 
 The great offices of the crown continued to be at the 
 disposal of the sovereign, and during a long period fiefs 
 remained in their original state, without becoming here- 
 ditary and perpetual in the families of the persons to 
 whom they had been granted. 
 
 41 Note XL.
 
 ii i. j STATE OF EUROPE. 163 
 
 At length the German branch of the family of Charle- 
 magne became extinct, and his feeble descendants who 
 reigned in France had sunk into such contempt that the 
 Germans, without looking towards them, exercised the 
 right inherent in a free people, and in the general assem- 
 bly of the nation elected Conrad, count of Franconia, 
 emperor. After him Henry of Saxony, and his de- 
 scendants, the three Othos, were placed, in succession, 
 on the imperial throne, by the suffrages of their coun- 
 trymen. The extensive territories of the Saxon em- 
 perors, their eminent abilities and enterprising genius, 
 not only added new vigour to the imperial dignity, but 
 raised it to higher power and pre-eminence. Otho the 
 Great marched at the head of a numerous army into 
 Italy, and, after the example of Charlemagne, gave law 
 to that country. Every power there recognised his 
 authority. He created popes, and deposed them, by his 
 sovereign mandate. He annexed the kingdom of Italy 
 to the German empire. Elated with his success, he 
 assumed the title of CaBsar Augustus. 42 A prince born 
 in the heart of Germany pretended to be the successor of 
 the emperors of ancient Eome, and claimed a right to the 
 same power and prerogative. [952.] 
 
 But while the emperors, by means of these new 
 titles and new dominions, gradually acquired additional 
 authority and splendour, the nobility of Germany had 
 gone on at the same time extending their privileges and 
 jurisdiction. The situation of affairs was favourable to 
 their attempts. The vigour which Charlemagne had 
 given to government quickly relaxed. The incapacity 
 of some of his successors was such as would have encou- 
 raged vassals less enterprising than the nobles of that 
 age to have claimed new rights and to have assumed 
 new powers'. The civil wars in which other emperors 
 were engaged obliged them to pay perpetual court to 
 
 42 Annalista Saxo, etc., ap. Struv., Corp., vol. i p. 246. 
 
 vl
 
 164 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION ill. 
 
 their subjects, on whose support they depended, and not 
 only to connive at their usurpations, but to permit and 
 even to authorise them. Fiefs gradually became here- 
 ditary. They were transmitted not only in the direct 
 but also in the collateral line. The investiture of them 
 was demanded not only by male but by female heirs. 
 Every baron began to exercise sovereign jurisdiction 
 within his own domains ; and the dukes and counts of 
 Germany took wide steps towards rendering their terri- 
 tories distinct and independent states. 43 The Saxon 
 emperors observed their progress and were aware of its 
 tendency. But, as they could not hope to humble 
 vassals already grown too potent, unless they had turned 
 their whole force as well as attention to that enterprise, 
 and as they were extremely intent on their expeditions 
 into Italy, which they could not undertake without 
 the concurrence of their nobles, they were solicitous 
 not to alarm them by any direct attack on their privileges 
 and jurisdictions. They aimed, however, at under- 
 mining their power. With this view, they inconsi- 
 derately bestowed additional territories and accumulated 
 new honours on the clergy, in hopes that this order 
 might serve as a counterpoise to that of the nobility in 
 any future struggle. 44 
 
 The unhappy effects of this fatal error in policy were 
 quickly felt. Under the emperors of the Franconian 
 and Swabian lines, whom the Germans, by their volun- 
 tary election, placed on the imperial throne, a new face 
 of things appeared, and a scene was exhibited in Ger- 
 many which astonished all Christendom at that time, 
 and in the present age appears almost incredible. The 
 popes, hitherto dependent on the emperors and indebted 
 for power as well as dignity to their beneficence and 
 protection, began to claim a superior jurisdiction, and, 
 
 a Pfeffel, Abrejrf, pp. 120, 152. 44 Pfeffel, Abreg<$, p. 154. 
 
 Lib. Feudor., tit. i.
 
 SECTION in.] STATE OF EUEOPE. 165 
 
 in virtue of authority which they pretended to derive 
 from heaven, tried, condemned, excommunicated, and 
 deposed their former masters. Nor is this to be consi- 
 dered merely as a frantic sally of passion in a pontiff 
 intoxicated with high ideas concerning the extent of 
 priestly domination and the plenitude of papal authority. 
 Gregory VII. was able as well as daring. His presump- 
 tion and violence were accompanied with political dis- 
 cernment and sagacity. He had observed that the 
 princes and nobles of Germany had acquired such con- 
 siderable territories and such extensive jurisdiction as 
 rendered them not only formidable to the emperors, 
 but disposed them to favour any attempt to circumscribe 
 their power. He foresaw that the ecclesiastics of Ger- 
 many, raised almost to a level with its princes, were 
 ready to support any person who would stand forth as 
 the protector of their privileges and independence. With 
 both of these Gregory negotiated, and had secured many 
 devoted adherents among them before he ventured to 
 enter the lists against the head of the empire. 
 
 He began his rupture with Henry IV. upon a pretext 
 that was popular and plausible. He complained of the 
 venality and corruption with which the emperor had 
 granted the investiture of benefices to ecclesiastics. 
 He contended that this right belonged to him as the 
 head of the Church ; he required Henry to confine him- 
 self within the bounds of his civil jurisdiction, and to 
 abstain for the future from such sacrilegious encroach- 
 ments on the spiritual dominion. All the censures of 
 the Church were denounced against Henry because he 
 refused to relinquish those powers which his predeces- 
 sors had uniformly exercised. The most considerable 
 of the German princes and ecclesiastics were excited 
 to take arms against him. His mother, his wife, his 
 sons, were wrought upon to disregard al 1 . the ties of 
 blood as well as of duty, and to join the party of his
 
 166 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION m. 
 
 enemies. 45 Such were the successful arts with which the 
 court of Home inflamed the superstitious zeal and con- 
 ducted the factious spirit of the Germans and Italians, 
 that an emperor distinguished not only for many virtues, 
 but possessed of considerable talents, was at length 
 obliged to appear as a supplicant at the gate of the castle 
 in which the pope resided, and to stand there three days, 
 barefooted, in the depth of winter, imploring a pardon, 
 which at length he obtained with difficulty. 46 [1077.] 
 
 This act of humiliation degraded the imperial dig- 
 nity. Nor was the depression momentary only. The 
 contest between Gregory and Henry gave rise to the 
 two great factions of the Guelfs and Ghibellines, the 
 former of which, supporting the pretensions of the 
 popes, and the latter, defending the rights of the em- 
 peror, kept Germany and Italy in perpetual agitation 
 during three centuries. A regular system for humbling 
 the emperors and circumscribing their power was 
 formed, and adhered to uniformly throughout that 
 period. The popes, the free states in Italy, the nobi- 
 lity and ecclesiastics of Germany, were all interested 
 in its success; and, notwithstanding the return of some 
 short intervals of vigour under the administration of a 
 few able emperors, the imperial authority continued 
 to decline. During the anarchy of the long interreg- 
 num subsequent to the death of William of Holland, 
 it dwindled down almost to nothing. Eodulph of Haps- 
 burg, the founder of the house of Austria, and who 
 first opened the way to its future grandeur, was at 
 length elected emperor, not that he might re-establish 
 and extend the imperial authority, but because his 
 territories and influence were so inconsiderable as to 
 excite no jealousy in the German princes, who were 
 -willing to preserve the forms of a constitution the power 
 and vigour of which they had destroyed. Several of his 
 
 " Anna! German., ap. Struv., vol. i. p. 325. 48 Note XLI,
 
 SECTION in.] STATE OP EUEOPE. 167 
 
 successors were placed on the imperial throne from the 
 same motive, and almost every remaining prerogative 
 was wrested out of the hands of feeble princes unable to 
 exercise or to defend them. 
 
 During this period of turbulence and confusion the 
 constitution of the Germanic body underwent a total 
 change. The ancient names of courts and magistrates, 
 together with the original forms and appearance of 
 policy, were preserved; but such new privileges and 
 jurisdiction were assumed, and so many various rights 
 established, that the same species of government no 
 longer subsisted. The princes, the great nobility, the 
 dignified ecclesiastics, the free cities, had taken advan- 
 tage of the interregnum which I have mentioned to 
 establish or to extend their usurpations. They claimed 
 and exercised the right of governing their respective 
 territories with full sovereignty. They acknowledged 
 no superior with respect to any point relative to the 
 interior administration and police of their domains. 
 They enacted laws, imposed taxes, coined money, de- 
 clared war, concluded peace, and exerted every preroga- 
 tive peculiar to independent states. The ideas of order 
 and political union which had originally formed the 
 various provinces of Germany into one body were almost 
 entirely lost; and the society must have dissolved, if 
 the forms of feudal subordination had not preserved such 
 an appearance of connection or dependence among the 
 various members of the community as preserved it from 
 falling to pieces. 
 
 This bond of union, however, was extremely feeble ; 
 and hardly any principle remained in the German con- 
 stitution of sufficient force to maintain public order or 
 even to ascertain personal security. From the accession 
 of Eodulph of Hapsburg to the reign of Maximilian, the 
 immediate predecessor of Charles V., the empire felt 
 every calamity which a state must endure when the
 
 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION in. 
 
 authority of government is so much relaxed as to have 
 lost its proper degree of vigour. The causes of dissen- 
 sion among that vast number of members which composed 
 the Germanic body were infinite and unavoidable. 
 These gave rise to perpetual private wars, which were 
 carried on with all the violence that usually accompanies 
 resentment when unrestrained by superior authority. 
 Rapine, outrage, exactions, became universal. Com- 
 merce was interrupted, industry suspended, and every 
 part of Germany resembled a country which an enemy 
 had plundered and left desolate. 47 The variety of ex- 
 pedients employed with a view to restore order and 
 tranquillity prove that the grievances occasioned by 
 this state of anarchy had grown intolerable. Arbiters 
 were appointed to terminate the differences among the 
 several states. The cities united in a league the object 
 of which was to check the rapine and extortions of 
 the nobility. The nobility formed confederacies on 
 purpose to maintain tranquillity among their own order. 
 Germany was divided into several circles, in each of 
 which a provincial and partial jurisdiction was estab- 
 lished, to supply the place of a public and common 
 tribunal. 48 
 
 But all these remedies were so ineffectual that they 
 served only to demonstrate the violence of that anarchy 
 which prevailed, and the insufficiency of the means 
 employed to correct it. At length Maximilian re-estab- 
 lished public order in the empire, by instituting the 
 Imperial Chamber, a tribunal composed of judges named 
 partly by the emperor, partly by the several states, and! 
 vested with authority to decide finally concerning all 
 differences among the members of the Germanic body. 
 A few years after, by giving a new form to the Aulie 
 
 47 See above, pp. 42-44 and Note 26, p. 35, no. 11. 
 XXI. Datt., de Pace Publica 4S Datt, passim. Stray., Corp 
 Imper., p. 25, no. 53, p. 28, no. Hist., i. 510, etc.
 
 SECTION in.] STATE OF EUROPE. 169 
 
 Council which takes cognizance of all feudal causes and 
 such as belong to the emperor's immediate jurisdiction, 
 he restored some degree of vigour to the imperial au- 
 thority. [1512.] 
 
 But, notwithstanding the salutary effects of these 
 regulations and improvements, the political constitution 
 of the German empire, at the commencement of the 
 period of which I propose to write the history, was of a 
 species so peculiar as not to resemble perfectly any 
 form of government known either in the ancient or 
 modern world. It was a complex body, formed by the 
 association of several states, each of which possessed 
 sovereign and independent jurisdiction within its own 
 territories. Of all the members which composed this 
 united body the emperor was the head. In his name 
 all decrees and regulations with respect to points of 
 common concern were issued, and to him the power of 
 carrying them into execution was committed. But this 
 appearance of monarchical power in the emperor was 
 more than counterbalanced by the influence of the 
 princes and states of the empire in every act of admi- 
 nistration. No law extending to the whole body could 
 pass, no resolution that affected the general interest 
 could be taken, without the approbation of the diet of 
 the empire. In this assembly every sovereign prince 
 and state of the Germanic body had a right to be pre- 
 sent, to deliberate, and to vote. The decrees, or recesses, 
 of the diet were the laws of the empire, which the 
 emperor was bound to ratify and enforce. 
 
 Under this aspect, the constitution of the empire 
 appears a regular confederacy, similar to the Achaean 
 league in ancient Greece, or to that of the United 
 Provinces, and of the Swiss Cantons, in modern times. 
 But, if viewed in another light, striking peculiarities in 
 its political state present themselves. The Germanic 
 body was not formed by the union of members altogether
 
 170 A. VIEW OF THE [SECTIOH in. 
 
 distinct and independent. All the princes and states 
 joined in this association were originally subject to 
 the emperors and acknowledged them as sovereigns. 
 Besides this, they originally held their lands as impe- 
 rial fiefs, and in consequence of this tenure owed the 
 emperor all those services which feudal vassals are 
 bound to perform to their liege lord. But though this 
 political subjection was entirely at an end, and the in- 
 fluence of the feudal relation much diminished, the 
 ancient forms and institutions, introduced while the 
 c-mperors governed Germany with authority not inferior 
 to that which the other monarchs of Europe possessed, 
 still remained. Thus an opposition was established 
 between the genius of the government and the forms of 
 administration in the German empire. The former con- 
 sidered the emperor only as the head of a confederacy, 
 the members of which, by their voluntary choice, have 
 raised him to that dignity ; the latter seemed to imply 
 that he is really invested with sovereign power. By 
 this circumstance such principles of hostility and dis- 
 cord were interwoven into the frame of the Germanic 
 body as affected each of its members, rendering their 
 interior union incomplete and their external efforts 
 feeble and irregular. The pernicious influence of this 
 defect, inherent in the constitution of the empire, is so 
 considerable that without attending to it we cannot fully 
 comprehend many transactions in the reign of Charles V. 
 or form just ideas concerning the genius of the German 
 government. 
 
 The emperors of Germany at the beginning of the 
 sixteenth century were distinguished by the most 
 pompous titles, and by such ensigns of dignity as 
 intimated their authority to be superior to that of all 
 other monarchs. The greatest princes of the empire 
 attended and served them, on some occasions, as the 
 officers of their household. They exercised prerogatives
 
 SECTION in.] STATE OF EUROPE. 171 
 
 which no other sovereign ever claimed. They retained 
 pretensions to all the extensive powers which their 
 predecessors had enjoyed in any former age. But, at 
 the same time, instead of possessing that ample domain 
 which had belonged to the ancient emperors of Ger- 
 many and which stretched from Basil to Cologne, along 
 both banks of the Rhine, 49 they were stripped of all 
 territorial property, and had not a single city, a single 
 castle, a single foot of land, that belonged to them as 
 heads of the empire. As their domain was alienated, 
 their stated revenues were reduced almost to nothing ; 
 and the extraordinary aids which on a few occasions 
 they obtained were granted sparingly and paid with 
 reluctance. The princes and states of the empire, 
 though they seemed to recognise the imperial authority, 
 were subjects only in name, each of them possessing a 
 complete municipal jurisdiction within the precincts of 
 his own territories. 
 
 From this ill- compacted frame of government effects 
 that were unavoidable resulted. The emperors, dazzled 
 with the splendour of their titles and the external signs 
 of vast authority, were apt to imagine themselves to be 
 the real sovereigns of Germany, and were led to aim 
 continually at recovering the exercise of those powers 
 which the forms of the constitution seemed to vest in 
 them, and which their predecessors, Charlemagne and 
 the Othos, had actually enjoyed. The princes and 
 states, aware of the nature as well as the extent of 
 these pretensions, were perpetually on their guard in 
 order to watch all the motions of the imperial court 
 and to circumscribe its power within limits still more 
 narrow. The emperors, in support of their claims, 
 appealed to ancient forms and institutions which the 
 states held to be obsolete. The states founded their 
 
 49 Pfeffel, Abrdg^, etc., p. 241.
 
 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION in. 
 
 rights on recent practice and modern privileges, which 
 the emperors considered as usurpations. 
 
 This jealousy of the imperial authority, together with 
 the opposition between it and the rights of the states, 
 increased considerably from the time that the emperors 
 were elected, not by the collective body of German 
 nobles, but by a few princes of chief dignity. During 
 a long period all the members of the Germanic body 
 had a right to assemble and to make choice of the 
 person whom they appointed to be their head. But 
 amidst the violence and anarchy which prevailed for 
 several centuries in the empire, seven princes who 
 possessed the most extensive territories, and who had 
 obtained an hereditary title to the great offices of the 
 state, acquired the exclusive privilege of nominating 
 the emperor. This right was confirmed to them by 
 the Golden Bull ; the mode of exercising it was ascer- 
 tained, and they were dignified with the appellation 
 of electors. The nobility and free cities, being thus 
 stripped of a privilege which they had once enjoyed, 
 were less connected with a prince towards whose eleva- 
 tion they had not contributed by their suffrages, and 
 came to be more apprehensive of his authority. The 
 electors, by their extensive power and the distinguish- 
 ing privileges which they possessed, became formidable 
 to the emperors with whom they were placed almost on 
 a level in several acts of jurisdiction. Thus the intro- 
 duction of the electoral college into the empire, and 
 the authority which it acquired, instead of diminishing, 
 contributed to strengthen, the principles of hostility and 
 discord in the Germanic constitution. 
 
 These were farther augmented by the various and 
 repugnant forms of civil policy in the several states 
 which composed the Germanic body. It is no easy 
 matter to render the union of independent states 
 perfect and entire, even when the genius and forms of
 
 BBCTW-K m.] STATE OF EUEOPE. 173 
 
 their respective governments happen to be altogether 
 similar. But in the German empire, which was a 
 confederacy of princes, of ecclesiastics, and of free 
 cities, it was impossible that they conld incorporate 
 thoroughly. The free cities were small republics, in 
 which the maxims and spirit peculiar to that species 
 of government prevailed. The princes and nobles, to 
 whom supreme jurisdiction belonged, possessed a sort 
 of monarchical power within their own territories, and 
 the forms of their interior administration nearly resem- 
 bled those of the great feudal kingdoms. The interests, 
 the ideas, the objects of states so differently constituted 
 cannot be the same. Nor could their common delibera- 
 tions be carried on with the same spirit, while the love 
 of liberty and attention to commerce were the reigning 
 principles in the cities, while the desire of power and 
 ardour for military glory were the governing passions of 
 the princes and nobility. 
 
 The secular and ecclesiastical members of the empire 
 were as little fitted for union as the free cities and the 
 nobility. Considerable territories had been granted to 
 several of the German bishoprics and abbeys, and some 
 of the highest offices in the empire, having been annexed 
 to them inalienably, were held by the ecclesiastics raised 
 to these dignities. The younger sons of noblemen of 
 the second order, who had devoted themselves to the 
 Church, were commonly promoted to these stations of 
 eminence and power ; and it was no small mortification 
 to the princes and great nobility to see persons raised 
 from an inferior rank to the same level with them- 
 selves, or even exalted to superior dignity. The educa- 
 tion of these churchmen, the genius of their profession, 
 and their connection with the court of Eome, ren- 
 dered their character as well as their interest different 
 from those of the other members of the Germanic 
 body with whom they were called to act in concert.
 
 174 A VIEW OF THE [SKCTION m. 
 
 Thus another source of jealousy and variance was 
 opened which ought not to be overlook ed when we are 
 searching into the nature of the German constitution. 
 
 To all these causes of dissension may be added one 
 more, arising from the "unequal distribution of power 
 and wealth among the states of the empire. The 
 electors, and other nobles of the highest rank, not only 
 possessed sovereign jurisdiction, but governed such 
 extensive, populous, and rich countries as rendered 
 them great princes. Many of the other members, 
 though they enjoyed all the rights of sovereignty, 
 ruled over such petty domains that their real power 
 bore no proportion to this high prerogative. A well- 
 compacted and vigorous confederacy could not be 
 formed of such dissimilar states. The weaker were 
 jealous, timid, and unable either to assert or to defend 
 their just privileges. The more powerful were apt to 
 assume and to become oppressive. The electors and 
 emperors, by turns, endeavoured to extend their own 
 authority by encroaching on those feeble members of 
 the Germanic body, who sometimes defended their 
 rights with much spirit, but more frequently, being 
 overawed or corrupted, they tamely surrendered their 
 privileges, or meanly favoured the designs formed 
 against them. 50 
 
 After contemplating all these principles of disunion 
 and opposition in the constitution of the German em- 
 pire, it will be easy to account for the want of concord 
 and uniformity conspicuous in its councils and proceed- 
 ings. That slow, dilatory, distrustful, and irresolute 
 spirit which characterises all its deliberations will ap- 
 pear natural in a body the junction of whose members 
 was so incomplete, the different parts of which were] 
 held together by such feeble ties and set at variance by 
 such powerful motives. But the empire of Germany, 
 
 40 Note XLIL
 
 SECTION in.] STATE OF EUKOPE 175 
 
 nevertheless, comprehended countries of such great 
 extent, and was inhabited by such a martial and 
 hardy race of men, that when the abilities of an em- 
 peror, or zeal for any common cause, could rouse this 
 unwieldy body to put forth its strength, it acted with 
 almost irresistible force. In the following history we 
 .-.hall find that as the measures on which Charles Y. was 
 most intent were often thwarted or rendered abortive 
 by the spirit of jealousy and division peculiar to the 
 Germanic constitution, so it was by the influence which 
 he acquired over the princes of the empire, and by 
 engaging them to co-operate with him, that he was 
 enabled to make some of the greatest efforts which 
 distinguish his reign. 
 
 The Turkish history is so blended, during the reign 
 of Charles Y., with that of the great nations in Europe, 
 and the Ottoman Porte interposed so often, and with 
 such decisive influence, in the wars and negotiations of 
 the Christian princes, that some previous account of the 
 state of government in that great empire is no less neces- 
 sary for the information of my readers than those views 
 of the constitution of other kingdoms which I have 
 already exhibited to them. 
 
 It has been the fate of the southern and more fertile 
 parts of Asia, at different periods, to be conquered by 
 that warlike and hardy race of men who inhabit the 
 vast country known to the ancients by the name of 
 Scythia and among the moderns by that of Tartary. 
 One tribe of these people, called Turks or Turcomans, 
 extended its conquests, under various leaders, and 
 during several centuries, from the shore of the Caspian 
 Sea to the Straits of the Dardanelles. Towards the 
 middle of the fifteenth century these formidable con- 
 querors took Constantinople by storm and established 
 the seat of their government in that imperial city. 
 Greece, Moldavia, Wallachia, and the other provinces
 
 176 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION ra. 
 
 of the ancient kingdoms of Thrace and Macedonia, 
 together with part of Hungary, were subjected to their 
 power. 
 
 But though the seat of the Turkish government was 
 fixed in Europe, and the sultans obtained possession of 
 such extensive dominions in that quarter of the globe, 
 the genius of their policy continued to be purely Asiatic, 
 and may be properly termed a despotism, in contradis- 
 tinction to those monarchical and republican forms of 
 government which we have been hitherto contemplating. 
 The supreme power was vested in sultans of the Ottoman 
 race, that blood being deemed so sacred that no other 
 was thought worthy of the throne. From this elevation 
 these sovereigns could look down and behold all their 
 subjects reduced to the same level before them. The 
 maxims of Turkish policy do not authorise any of those 
 institutions which in other countries limit the exercise 
 or moderate the rigour of monarchical power: they 
 admit neither of any great court with constitutional and 
 permanent jurisdiction to interpose both in enacting 
 laws and in superintending the execution of them, nor 
 of a body of hereditary nobles whose sense of their own 
 pre-eminence, whose consciousness of what is due to 
 their rank and character, whose jealousy of their privi- 
 leges, circumscribe the authority of the prince, and 
 serve not only as a barrier against the excesses of his 
 caprice, but stand as an intermediate order between 
 him and the people. Under the Turkish government 
 the political condition of every subject is equal. To 
 be employed in the service of the sultan is the only 
 circumstance that confers distinction. Even this dis- 
 tinction is rather official than personal, and so closely 
 annexed to the station in which any individual serves 
 that it is scarcely communicated to the persons of 
 those who are placed in them. The highest dignity 
 in the empire does not give any rank or pre-eminence
 
 SEctioii Hi.] STATE OF EUROPE. 177 
 
 to the family of him who enjoys it. As every man 
 before he is raised to any station of authority must go 
 through the preparatory discipline of a long and ser- 
 vile obedience, 51 the moment he is deprived of power 
 he and his posterity return to the same condition with 
 other subjects and sink back into obscurity. It is the 
 distinguishing and odious characteristic of Eastern 
 despotism that it annihilates all other ranks of men 
 in order to exalt the monarch ; that it leaves nothing 
 to the former, while it gives everything to the latter; 
 that it endeavours to fix in the minds of those who are 
 subject to it the idea of no relation between men but 
 that of a master and of a slave, the former destined to 
 command and to punish, the latter formed to tremble 
 and obey. 58 
 
 But, as there are circumstances which frequently 
 obstruct or defeat the salutary effects of the best- 
 regulated governments, there are others which con- 
 tribute to mitigate the evils of the most defective 
 forms of policy. There can, indeed, be no constitu- 
 tional restraints upon the will of a prince in a despotic 
 government; but there may be such as are accidental. 
 Absolute as the Turkish sultans are, they feel themselves 
 circumscribed both by religion, the principle on which 
 their authority is founded, 53 and by the army, the instru- 
 ment which they must employ in order to maintain it. 
 Wherever religion interposes, the will of the sovereign 
 must submit to its decrees. When the Koran hath 
 prescribed any religious rite, hath enjoined any moral 
 duty, or hath confirmed by its sanction any political 
 maxim, the command of the sultan cannot overturn 
 that which a higher authority hath established. The 
 chief restriction, however, on the will of the sultans is> 
 imposed by the military power. An armed force must 
 
 41 State of the Turkish Empire, " Note XLIII. 
 by Ryuuut, p. 25. M Rycant, p. 8.
 
 178 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION ill. 
 
 surround the throne of every despot, to maintain his 
 authority and to execute his commands. As the Turks 
 extended their empire over nations which they did 
 not exterminate, hut reduced to subjection, they found 
 it necessary to render their military establishment nu- 
 merous and formidable. Amruth, their third sultan, 
 in order to form a body of troops devoted to his 
 will, that might serve as the immediate guards of his 
 person and dignity, commanded his officers to seize 
 annually, as the imperial property, the fifth part of the 
 youth taken in war. These, after being instructed in 
 the Mahometan religion, inured to obedience by severe 
 discipline, and trained to warlike exercises, were formed 
 into a body distinguished by the name of janizaries, or 
 new soldiers. Every sentiment which enthusiasm can 
 inspire, every mark of distinction that the favour of the 
 prince could confer, were employed in order to animate 
 this body with martial ardour and with a consciousness 
 of its own pre-eminence. 54 The janizaries soon became 
 the chief strength and pride of the Ottoman armies, and, 
 by their number as well as reputation, were distin- 
 guished above all the troops whose duty it was to attend 
 on the person of the sultan. 55 [1362.] 
 
 Thus, as the supreme power in every society is pos- 
 sessed by those who have arms in their hands, this for- 
 midable body of soldiers, destined to be the instruments 
 of enlarging the sultan's authority, acquired at the 
 same time the means of controlling it. The janizaries 
 in Constantinople, like the praetorian bands in ancient 
 Eome, quickly perceived all the advantages which they 
 derived from being stationed in the capital, from their 
 union under one standard, and from being masters of 
 the person of the prince. The sultans became no 
 les sensible of their influence and importance. The 
 
 44 Prince Cantemir's History of 65 Note XLIV. 
 the Othmaii Empire, p. 87.
 
 SECTION ni] STATE OF EUROPE. 170 
 
 capicuty, or soldiery of the Porte, was the only power in 
 the empire that a sultan or his vizier had reason to 
 dread. To preserve the fidelity and attachment of the 
 janizaries was the great art of government and the prin- 
 cipal object of attention in the policy of the Ottoman 
 court. Under a monarch whose abilities and vigour of 
 mind fit him for command, they are obsequious instru- 
 ments, execute whatever he enjoins, and render his 
 power irresistible. Under feeble princes, or such as are 
 unfortunate, they become turbulent and mutinous, 
 assume the tone of masters, degrade and exalt sultans 
 at pleasure, and teach those to tremble, on whose nod, 
 at other times, life and death depend. 
 
 From Mahomet II., who took Constantinople, to 
 Solyman the Magnificent, who began his reign a few 
 months after Charles V. was placed on the imperial 
 throne of Germany, a succession of illustrious princes 
 ruled over the Turkish empire. By their great abili- 
 ties they kept their subjects of every order, military 
 as well as civil, submissive to government, and had 
 the absolute command of whatever force their vast 
 empire was able to exert. Solyman, in particular, 
 who is known to the Christians chiefly as a con- 
 queror, but is celebrated in the Turkish annals as 
 the great lawgiver who established order and police in 
 their empire, governed during his long reign with no 
 less authority than wisdom. He divided his dominions 
 into several districts ; he appointed the number of sol- 
 diers which each should furnish; he appropriated a 
 certain proportion of the land in every province for 
 their maintenance ; he regulated with a minute accu- 
 racy every thing relative to their discipline, their arms, 
 and the nature of their service. He put the finances of 
 the empire into an orderly train of administration ; and, 
 though the taxes in the Turkish dominions, as well as in 
 the other despotic monarchies of the East, are far from 
 
 N 2
 
 180 A VIEW OF THE [SECTION in. 
 
 being considerable, he supplied that defect by an atten- 
 tive and severe economy. 
 
 Nor was it only under such sultans as Solyman, 
 whose talents were no less adapted to preserve internal 
 order than to conduct the operations of war, that the 
 Turkish empire engaged with advantage in its contests 
 with the Christian states. The long succession of 
 able princes which I have mentioned had given such 
 vigour and firmness to the Ottoman government that it 
 seems to have attained during the sixteenth century 
 the highest degree of perfection of which its constitu- 
 tion was capable. Whereas the great monarchies in 
 Christendom were still far from that state which could 
 enable them to act with a full exertion of their force. 
 Besides this, the Turkish troops in that age possessed 
 every advantage which arises from superiority in mili- 
 tary discipline. At the time when Solyman began his 
 reign, the janizaries had been embodied near a cen- 
 tury and a half, and during that long period the 
 severity of their military discipline had in no degree 
 relaxed. The other soldiers, drawn from the provinces 
 of the empire, had been kept almost continually under 
 arms, in the various wars which the sultans had carried 
 on, with hardly an interval of peace. Against troops 
 thus trained and accustomed to service the forces of 
 the Christian powers took the field with great disad- 
 vantage. The most intelligent as well as impartial 
 authors of the sixteenth century acknowledge and 
 lament the superior attainments of the Turks in the 
 military art. 56 The success which almost uniformly 
 attended their arms, in all their wars, demonstrates the 
 justness of this observation. The Christian armies 
 did not acquire that superiority over the Turks which 
 they now possess until the long establishment of stand- 
 
 M Note XLV.
 
 SECTION in.] STATE OF EUROPE. 181 
 
 ing forces had improved military discipline among the 
 former, and until various causes and events, which it 
 is not in my province to explain, had corrupted or 
 abolished their ancient warlike institutions among the 
 latter.
 
 PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 NOTE I. Sect I. p. 6. 
 
 THE consternation of the Britons, when invaded by the Picts and Cale- 
 donians, after the Roman legions were called out of the island, may give 
 some idea of the degree of debasement to which the human mind was 
 reduced by long servitude under the Romans. In their supplicatory letter 
 to Aetius, which they call the Groans of Britain, " We know not (say 
 they) which way to turn us. The barbarians drive us to the sea, and the 
 sea forces us back on the barbarians ; between which we have only the 
 choice of two deaths, either to be swallowed up by the waves, or to be 
 slain by the sword." (Histor. Gildas, ap. Gale, Hist. Britan. Script., p. 6.) 
 One can hardly believe this dastardly race to be descendants of that gallant 
 people who repulsed Caesar and defended their liberty so long against the 
 Roman arms. 
 
 NOTE II. Sect. I. p. 6. 
 
 The barbarous nations were not only illiterate, but regarded literature 
 with contempt. They found the inhabitants of all the provinces of the 
 i-mpire sunk in effeminacy and averse to war. Such a character was the 
 object of scorn to a high-spirited and gallant race of men. " When we 
 would brand an enemy," says Luitprandus, " with the most disgraceful 
 and contumelious appellation, we call him a Roman ; hoc solo, id est 
 Ramani nomine, quicquid ignobilitatis, quicquid timiditatis, quicquid 
 avaritise, quicquid luxuriae, quicquid mendacii, irnmo quicquid vitiorum est 
 coinprehendentes." (Luitprandi Legatio, apud Murat., Scriptor. Italic., 
 vol. ii. pars. i. p. 48 1.) This degeneracy of manners, illiterate barbarians 
 imputed to their love of learning. Even after they settled in the countries 
 which they had conquered, they would not permit their children to be 
 instructed in any science. " For (said they,) instruction in the sciences 
 tends to corrupt, enervate, and depress the mind ; and he who has been 
 accustomed to tremble under the rod of a pedagogue will never look on a 
 sword or a spear with an undaunted eye." (Procop., de Bello Gothor., 
 lib. i. p. 4, ap. Script. Byz., edit. Venet., voL i.) A considerable number 
 of years elapsed before nations so rude and so unwilling to learn could 
 produce historians capable of recording their transactions or of describing 
 their manners and institutions. By that time the memory of their ancient 
 condition was in a great measure lost, and few monuments remained to, 
 guide their first writers to any Certain knowledge, of i.t... If one expects tQ.
 
 184 PEOOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. j NOTE in. 
 
 receive any satisfactory account of the manners and laws of the Goths. 
 Lombards, or Franks during their residence in those countries where they 
 were originally seated, from Jornandes", Paulus Warnefridus, or Gregory 
 of Tours, the earliest and most authentic historians of these people, he will 
 be miserably disappointed. Whatever imperfect knowledge has been con- 
 veyed to us of their ancient state we owe not to their own writers, but to 
 the Greek and Roman historians. 
 
 NOTE III. Sect. I. p. 7. 
 
 A circumstance related by Priscus, in his history of the embassy to 
 Attila, king of the Huns, gives a striking view of the enthusiastic passion 
 for war which prevailed among the barbarous nations. When the enter- 
 tainment to which that fierce conqueror admitted the Roman ambassadors 
 was ended, two Scythians advanced towards Attila and recited a poem in 
 which they celebrated his victories and military virtues. All the Huns 
 fixed their eyes with attention on the bards. Some seemed to be delighted 
 with the verses ; others, remembering their own battles and exploits, 
 exulted with joy ; while such as were become feeble through age burst out 
 into tears, bewailing the decay of their vigour, and the state of inactivity in. 
 which they were now obliged to remain. Excerpta ex Historia Prisci 
 Rhetoris, ap. Byz. Hist. Scrip., vol. i. p. 45. 
 
 NOTE IV. Sect. I. p. 12. 
 
 A remarkable confirmation of both parts of this reasoning occurs in the 
 history of England. The Saxons carried on the conquest of that country 
 with the same destructive spirit which distinguished the other barbarous 
 nations. The ancient inhabitants of Britain were either exterminated, or 
 forced to take shelter among the mountains of Wales, or reduced to servi- 
 tude. The Saxon government, laws, manners, and language were of 
 consequence introduced into Britain, and were so perfectly established that 
 all memory of the institutions previous to their conquest of the country 
 was in a great measure lost. The very reverse of this happened in a 
 subsequent revolution. A single victory placed William the Norman on 
 the throne of England. The Saxon inhabitants, though oppressed, were 
 not exterminated. William employed the utmost efforts of his power and 
 policy to make his new subjects conform in every thing to the Norman 
 standard, but without success. The Saxons, though vanquished, were far 
 more numerous than their conquerors ; when the two races began to 
 incorporate, the Saxon laws and manners gradually gained ground. The 
 Norman institutions became unpopular and odious ; many of them fell 
 into disuse ; and in the English constitution and language at this day many 
 essential parts are manifestly of Saxon, not of Norman extraction. 
 
 NOTE V. Sect I. p. 12. 
 
 Procopius, the historian, declines, from a principle of benevolence, to 
 give any particular detail of the cruelties of the Goths ; " lest," says he, 
 " T should transmit a monument and example of inhumanity to succeeding
 
 NOTK v.] PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 ages." (Proc., de Bello Goth., lib. iii. cap. 10, ap. Byz. Script., vol. i. 
 p. 126.) But as the change which I have pointed out as a consequence 
 t/f the settlement of the barbarous nations in the countries formerly subject 
 to the Roman empire could not have taken place if the greater part of the 
 ancient inhabitants had not been extirpated, an event of such importance 
 and influence merits a more particular illustration. This will justify me 
 for exhibiting some part of that melancholy spectacle over which humanity 
 prompted Procopius to draw a veil. I shall not, however, disgust my 
 readers by a minute narration, but rest satisfied with collecting some 
 instances of the devastations made by two of the many nations which 
 settled in the empire. The Vandals were the first of the barbarians who 
 invaded Spain. It was one of the richest and most populous of the Roman 
 provinces : the inhabitants had been distinguished for courage, and had 
 defended their liberty against the arms of Rome with greater obstinacy and 
 during a longer course of years than any nation in Europe. But so 
 entirely were they enervated by their subjection to the Romans that the 
 Vandals, who entered the kingdom A.D. 409, completed the conquest of it 
 with such rapidity that in the year 411 these barbarians divided it among 
 them by casting lots. . The desolation occasioned by their invasion is thus 
 described by Idatius, an eye-witness : " The barbarians wasted every 
 thing with hostile cruelty. The pestilence was no less destructive. A 
 dreadful famine raged to such a degree that the living were constrained to 
 feed on the dead bodies of their fellow-citizens ; and all these terrible 
 plagues desolated at once the unhappy kingdoms." (Idatii Chron., ap 
 Biblioth. Patrum, vol. vii. p. 1233, edit. Lugd., 1677.) The Goths 
 having attacked the Vandals in their new settlements, a fierce war ensued ; 
 the country was plundered by both parties ; the cities which had escaped 
 from destruction in the first invasion of the Vandals were now laid in ashes, 
 and the inhabitants exposed to suffer every thing that the wanton cruelty 
 of barbarians could inflict. Idatius describes these scenes of inhumanity, 
 ibid., p. 1235, b. 1236, c. f. A similar account of their devastations is 
 given by Isidorus Hispalensis and other contemporary writers. (Isid., 
 Chron., ap. Grot., Hist. Goth., 732.) From Spain the Vandals passed 
 over into Africa, A.D. 428. Africa was, next to Egypt, the most fertile of 
 the Roman provinces. It was one of the granaries of the empire, and is 
 called by an ancient writer the soul of the commonwealth. Though the 
 army with which the Vandals invaded it did not exceed thirty thousand fight- 
 ing men, they became absolute masters of the province in less than two years. 
 A contemporary author gives a dreadful account of the havoc which they 
 made : " They found a province well cultivated, and enjoying plenty, the 
 beauty of the whole earth. They carried their destructive arms into 
 every comer of it ; they dispeopled it "by their devastations, exterminating 
 every thing with fire and sword. They did not even spare the vines and 
 fruit-trees, that those to whom caves and inaccessible mountains had 
 afforded a retreat might find no nourishment of any kind. Their hostile 
 rage could not be satiated, and there was no place exempted from the 
 effects of it. They tortured their prisoners with the most exquisite cruelty, 
 that they might force from them a discovery of their hidden treasures. 
 The more they discovered, the more they expected, and the more implac- 
 able they became. Neither the infirmities of age nor of sex, neither the
 
 1 86 PEOOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE v. 
 
 dignity of nobility nor the sanctity of the sacerdotal office, could mitigate 
 nheir fury ; but the more illustrious their prisoners were, the more barbar- 
 ously they insulted them. The public buildings which resisted the 
 violence of the flames they levelled with the ground. They left many 
 cities without an inhabitant. When they approached any fortified placo 
 which their undisciplined army could not reduce, they gathered together i 
 multitude of prisoners, and, putting them to the sword, left their bodies 
 unburied, that the stench of the carcasses might oblige the garrison to 
 abandon it." (Victor Vitensis de Persecutione Africana, ap. Bibl. Patrum, 
 vol. viii. p. 666.) St. Augustin, an African, who survived the conquest oi 
 bis country by the Vandals some years, gives a similar description of theii 
 cruelties. (Opera, vol. x. p. 372, edit. 1616.) About a hundred years 
 after the settlement of the Vandals in Africa, Belisarius attacked and dis- 
 possessed them. Procopius, a contemporary historian, describes the 
 devastation which that war occasioned. " Africa," says he, " was so 
 entirely dispeopled that one might travel several days in it without meeting 
 one man ; and it is no exaggeration to say that in the course of the wai 
 five millions of persons perished." (Proc., Hist. Arcana, cap. 18, ap. Byz. 
 Script., vol. i. p. 315.) I have dwelt longer upon the calamities of this 
 province, because they are described not only by contemporary authors, 
 but by eye-witnesses. The present state of Africa confirms their testimony. 
 Many of the most flourishing and populous cities with which it was filled 
 were so entirely ruined that no vestiges remain to point out where they 
 were situated. That fertile territory, which sustained the Roman empire, 
 still lies in a great measure uncultivated ; and that province, which Victor, 
 in his barbarous Latin, called speciositas totius terrce florentis, is now the 
 retreat of pirates and banditti. 
 
 While the Vandals laid waste a great part of the empire, the Huns 
 desolated the remainder. Of all the barbarous tribes they were the fiercest 
 and most formidable. Ammianus Marcellinus, a contemporary author, and 
 one of the best of the later historians, gives an account of their policy and 
 manners, which nearly resemble those of the Scythians described by the 
 ancients, and of the Tartars known to the moderns. Some parts of their 
 character, and several of their customs, are not unlike those of the savages 
 in North America. Their passion for war was extreme. " As in polished 
 societies (says Ammianus) ease and tranquillity are courted, they delight in 
 war and dangers. He who falls in battle is reckoned happy. They who 
 die of old age or of disease are deemed infamous. They boast with the 
 utmost exultation of the number of enemies whom they have slain, and, as 
 the most glorious of all ornaments, they fasten the scalps of those who 
 have fallen by their hands to the trappings of their horses." (Ammian. 
 Marc., lib. xxxi. p. 477, edit. Gronov., Lugd., 1693.) Their incursions 
 into the empire began in the fourth century ; and the Romans, though no 
 strangers, by that time, to the effects of barbarous rage, were astonished at 
 the cruelty of their devastations. Thrace, Pannonia, and Illyricum were 
 the countries which they first laid desolate. As they had at first no inten- 
 tiou of settling in Europe, they made only inroads of short continuance 
 into the empire ; but these were frequent ; and Procopius computes that 
 in each of these, at a medium, two hundred thousand persons perished, or 
 were carried off as slaves. (Procop., Hist. Arcan., ap. Byz. Script., vol. i.
 
 NOTE v.] PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 187 
 
 p. 316.) Thrace, the best cultivated province in that quarter of the 
 empire, was converted into a desert ; and when Priscus accompanied the 
 ambassadors sent to Attila there were no inhabitants in some of the cities, 
 but a few miserable people who had taken shelter among the ruins of the 
 churches ; and the fields were covered with the bones of those who had 
 fallen by the sword. (Priscus, ap. Byz. Script., vol. i. p. 34.) Attila 
 became king of the Huns, A.D. 434. He is one of the greatest and most 
 enterprising conquerors mentioned in history. He extended his empire 
 over all the vast countries comprehended under the general names of 
 Scythia and Germany in the ancient division of the world. While he was 
 carrying on his wars against the barbarous nations, he kept the Roman 
 empire under perpetual apprehensions, and extorted enormous subsidies 
 from the timid and effeminate monarchs who governed it. In the year 
 451 he entered Gaul, at the head of an army composed of all the various 
 nations which he had subdued. It was more numerous than any with 
 which the barbarians had hitherto invaded the empire. The devastations 
 which he committed were horrible. Not only the open country, but the 
 most nourishing cities, were desolated. The extent and cruelty of his 
 devastations are described by Salvianus de Gubernat. Dei, edit. Baluz., 
 Par. 1669, p. 139, etc., and by Idatius, ubi supra, p. 1235. Aetius put 
 a stop to his progress in that country by the famous battle of Chalons, in 
 which (if we may believe the historians of that age) three hundred thousand 
 pei-sons perished. (Idat., ibid. ; Jornandes de Rebus Geticis, ap. Grot., 
 Hist. Gothor., p. 671, Amst, 1665.) But the next year he resolved to 
 attack the centre of the empire, and, marching into Italy, wasted it with 
 rage inflamed by the sense of his late disgrace. What Italy suffered by 
 the Huns exceeded all the calamities which the preceding incursions of 
 the barbarians had brought upon it Conringius has collected several 
 passages from the ancient historians which prove that the devastations 
 committed by the Vandals and Huns in the countries situated on the banks 
 of the Rhine were no less cruel and fatal to the human race. (Exercitatio 
 de Urbibus Germanise, Opera, vol. i. p. 488.) It is endless, it is shocking, 
 to follow these destroyers of mankind through so many scenes of horror, 
 and to contemplate the havoc which they made of the human species. 
 
 But the state in which Italy appears to have been during several ages 
 after the barbarous nations settled in it is the most decisive proof of the 
 cruelty as well as extent of their devastations. Whenever any country is 
 thinly inhabited, trees and shrubs spring up in the uncultivated fields, and, 
 spreading by degrees, form large forests ; by the overflowing of rivers and 
 the stagnating of waters, other parts of it are converted into lakes and 
 marshes. Ancient Italy, which the Romans rendered the seat of elegance 
 and luxury, was cultivated to the highest pitch. But so effectually did 
 the devastations of the barbarians destroy all the effects of Roman industry 
 and cultivation that in the eighth century a considerable part of Italy 
 appears to have been covered with forests and marshes of great extent. 
 Muratori enters into a minute detail concerning the situation and limits of 
 several of these, and proves by the most authentic evidence that great 
 tracts of territory in all the different provinces of Italy were either overrun 
 with wood or laid under water. Nor did these occupy parts of the country 
 naturally barren or of little value, but were spread over districts which
 
 1 SS 1'ROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE VL 
 
 ancient writers represent as extremely fertile and which at present are 
 highly cultivated. (Muratori, Antiquitates Italicse Medii .ZEvi, dissert, xxi., 
 vol. ii. pp. 149, 153, etc.) A strong proof of this occurs in a description 
 of the city of Modena, by an author of the tenth century. (Murat., 
 Script. Rerum Italic., vol. iii. pars. ii. p. 691.) The state of desc lo- 
 tion in other countries of Europe seems to have "been the same. 
 In many of the most early charters now extant, the lands granted 
 to monasteries or to private persons are distinguished into such as are 
 cultivated or inhabited, and such as were eremi, desolate. In many in- 
 stances lauds are granted to persons because they had taken them from the 
 desert, ab eremo, and had cultivated and planted them with inhabitants. 
 This appears from a charter of Charlemagne, published by Eckhart, de 
 Rebus Francis Orientalis, vol. ii. p. 864, and from many charters of Ms 
 successors quoted by Du Cange, voc. Eremus. Wherever a right of pro- 
 perty in land can be thus acquired, it is evident that the country must be 
 extremely desolate and thinly peopled. The first settlers in America 
 obtained possession of land by such a title. Whoever was able to clear and 
 to cultivate a field was recognised as the proprietor. His industry merited 
 such a recompense. The grants in the charters which I have mentioned 
 flow from a similar principle, and there must have been some resemblance 
 in the state of the countries. 
 
 Muratori adds that during the eighth and ninth centuries Italy was 
 greatly infested by wolves and other wild beasts ; another mark of its 
 being destitute of inhabitants. (Murat., Antiq., vol. ii. p. 163.) Thus 
 Italy, the pride of the ancient world for its fertility and cultivation, was 
 reduced to the state of a country newly peopled and lately rendered 
 habitable. 
 
 I am sensible not only that some of these descriptions of the devastations, 
 which I have quoted, may be exaggerated, but that the barbarous tribes, 
 in making their settlements, did not proceed invariably in the same 
 manner. Some of them seemed to be bent on exterminating the ancient 
 inhabitants ; others were more disposed to incorporate with them. It is 
 not my province either to inquire into the causes which occasioned this 
 variety in the conduct of the conquerors, or to describe the state of those 
 countries where the ancient inhabitants were treated most mildly. The 
 facts which I have produced are sufficient to justify the account which I 
 have given in the text, and to prove that the destruction of the human 
 species, occasioned by the hostile invasions of the Northern nations and 
 their subsequent settlements, was much greater than many authors seem 
 to imagine. 
 
 NOTE VI. Sect I. p. 14. 
 
 I have observed, Note II., that our only certain information concerning 
 the ancient state of the barbarous nations must be derived from the Greek 
 and Roman writers. Happily, an account of the institutions and customs 
 of one people, to which those of all the rest seem to have been in a great 
 measure similar, has been transmitted to us by two authors, the most 
 capable, perhaps, that ever wrote, of observing them with profound dis- 
 cernment and of describing them with propriety and force. The reader
 
 NOTE vi.] PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 180 
 
 must perceive that Caesar and Tacitus are the authors whom I have in 
 view. The former gives a short account of the ancient Germans in a 
 lew chapters of the sixth book of his Commentaries ; the latter wrote a 
 treatise expressly on that subject. These are the most precious and in- 
 structive monuments of antiquity to the present inhabitants of Europe. 
 From them we learn, 
 
 1. That the state of society among the ancient Germans was of the 
 rudest and most simple form. They subsisted entirely by hunting 
 or by pasturage. (Caes., lib. vi. c. 21.) They neglected agriculture, and 
 lived chiefly on milk, cheese, and flesh. (Ibid., c. 22.) Tacitus agrees 
 with him in most of these points. (De Morib. Germ., c. 14, 15, 23.) 
 The Goths were equally negligent of agriculture. (Prise. Rhet., ap. By/.. 
 Script., v. i. p. 31, B.) Society was in the same state among the Huns, 
 who disdained to cultivate the earth or to touch a plough. (Amm. 
 Marcel., lib. xxxi. p. 475.) The same manners took place among the 
 Alans. (Ibid., p. 477.) While society remains in this simple state, men 
 by uniting together scarcely relinquish any portion of their natural in- 
 dependence. Accordingly, we are informed, 2. That the authority of 
 civil government was extremely limited among the Germans. During 
 times of peace they had no common or fixed magistrate, but the chief 
 men of every district dispensed justice and accommodated differences. 
 (Ctes. ibid., c. 23.) Their kings had not absolute or unbounded power; 
 their authority consisted rather in the privilege of advising than in the 
 power of commanding. Matters of small consequence were determined 
 by t,he chief men ; affairs of importance, by the whole community. 
 (Tacit., c. 7, 11.) The Huns, in like manner, deliberated in common 
 concerning every business of moment to the society, and were not sub- 
 ject to the rigour of regal authority. (Amm. Marcel., lib. xxxi. p. 474.) 
 
 3. Every individual among the ancient Germans was left at liberty to 
 choose whether he would take part in any military enterprise which was 
 proposed ; there seems to have been no obligation to engage in it imposed 
 on him by public authority. " When any of the chief men proposes an 
 expedition, such as approve of the cause and of the leader rise up and 
 declare their intention of following him ; after coming under this engage- 
 ment, those who do not fulfil it are considered as deserters and traitors, 
 and are looked upon as infamous." (Caes., ibid., c. 23.) Tacitus plainly 
 points at the same custom, though in terms more obscure. (Tacit., c. 11.) 
 
 4. As every individual was so independent, and master in so great a degree 
 of his own actions, it became, of consequence, the great object of every 
 person among the Germans, who aimed at being a leader, to gain adherents 
 and attach them to his person and interest. These adherents Caesar calls 
 ambacti and clientes, i.e., retainers or clients ; Tacitus, comites, or com- 
 panions. The chief distinction and power of the leaders consisted in being 
 attended by a numerous band of chosen youth. This was their pride as 
 well as ornament during peace, and their defence in war. The leaders 
 gained or preserved the favour of these retainers by presents of armour 
 and of horses, or by the profuse though inelegant hospitality with which 
 they entertained them. (Tacit., c. 14, 15.) 5. Another consequence of 
 the personal liberty and independence which the Germans retained, even 
 after they united in society, was their circumscribing the criminal juris-
 
 190 PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE vi. 
 
 diction of the magistrate within very narrow limits, and their not only 
 claiming, but exercising, almost all the rights of private resentment and 
 revenge. Their magistrates had not the power either of imprisoning or 
 of inflicting any corporal punishment on a free man. (Tacit., c. 7.) 
 Every person was obliged to avenge the wrongs which his parents or 
 friends had sustained. Their enmities were hereditary, but not irre- 
 concilable. Even murder was compensated by paying a certain num- 
 ber of cattle. (Tacit., c. 21.) A part of the fine went to the king, or 
 state, a part to the person who had been injured, or to his kindred. 
 Ibid., c. 12. 
 
 Those particulars concerning the institutions and manners of the Ger- 
 mans, though well known to every person conversant in ancient literature, 
 I have thought proper to arrange in this order, and to lay before such of 
 my readers as may be less acquainted with these facts, both because they 
 confirm the account which I have given of the state of the barbarous 
 nations, and because they tend to illustrate all the observations I shall 
 have .occasion to make concerning the various changes in their government 
 and customs. The laws and customs introduced by the barbarous nations 
 into their new settlements are the best commentary on the writings of 
 Caesar and Tacitus ; and their observations are the best key to a perfect 
 knowledge of these laws and customs. 
 
 One circumstance with respect to the testimonies of Caesar and Tacitus 
 concerning the Germans merits attention. Caesar wrote his brief account 
 of their manners more than a hundred years before Tacitus composed his 
 Treatise de Moribus Germanorum. A hundred years make a considerable 
 period in the progress of national manners, especially if during that time 
 those people who are rude and unpolished have had much communication 
 with more civilised states. This was the case with the Germans. Their 
 intercourse with the Romans began when Caesar crossed the Rhine, and 
 increased greatly during the interval between that event and the time when 
 Tacitus flourished. We may accordingly observe that the manners of the 
 Germans in his time, which Caesar describes, were less improved than 
 those of the same people as delineated by Tacitus. Besides this, it is re- 
 markable that there was a considerable difference in the state of society 
 among the different tribes of Germans. The Suiones were so much im- 
 proved that they began to be corrupted. (Tacit., c. 44.) The Fenni 
 were so barbarous that it is wonderful how they were able to subsist. 
 (Ibid., c. 46.) Whoever undertakes to describe the manners of the Ger- 
 mans, or to found any political theory upon the state of society among 
 them, ought carefully to attend to both these circumstances. 
 
 Before I quit this subject, it may not be improper to observe that, 
 though successive alterations in their institutions, together with the gradual 
 progress of refinement, have made an entire change in the manners of the 
 various people who conquered the Roman empire, there is still one race of 
 men nearly in the same political situation with theirs when they first 
 settled in their new conquests ; I mean the various tribes and nations of 
 savages in North America. It cannot, then, be considered either as a 
 digression, or as an improper indulgence of curiosity, to inquire whether 
 this similarity in their political state has occasioned any resemblance 
 between their character and manners. If the likeness turns out to be
 
 NOTE vi.] PKOOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS 191 
 
 striking, it is a stronger proof that a just account has been given of the 
 ancient inhabitants of Europe than the testimony even of Caasar or of 
 Tacitus. 
 
 1. The Americans subsist chiefly by hunting and fishing. Some tribes 
 neglect agriculture entirely. Among those who cultivate some small spot 
 near their huts, that, together with all works of labour, is performed by 
 the women. (P. Charlevoix, Journal historique d'un Voyage de 1'Ame- 
 rique, 4to, Par. 1744, p. 334.) In such a state of society, the common 
 wants of men being few and their mutual dependence upon each other 
 femall, their union is extremely imperfect and feeble, and they continue to 
 enjoy their natural liberty almost unimpaired. It is the first idea of an 
 American that every man is born free and independent, and that no power 
 on earth hath any right to diminish or circumscribe his natural liberty. 
 There is hardly any appearance of subordination, either in civil or domestic 
 government. Every o:ie does what he pleases. A father and mother live 
 with their children like persons whom chance has brought together and 
 whom no common bond unites. Their manner of educating their children 
 is suitable to this principle. They never chastise or punish them, even 
 during their infancy. As they advance in years, they continue to be 
 entirely masters of their own actions, and seem not to be conscious of being 
 responsible for any part of thfciv -ond'act (Ibid., pp. 272, 273.) 2. The 
 power of their civil magistrates is extremely limited. Among most of 
 their tribes, the sachem, or chief, is elective. A council of old men is 
 chosen to assist him, without whose advice he determines no affair of im- 
 portance. The sachems neither possess nor claim any great degree of 
 authority. They propose and entreat, rather than command. The 
 obedience of their people is altogether voluntary. (Ibid., pp. 266, 268.) 
 3. The savages of America engage in their military enterprises, not from 
 constraint, but choice. When war is resolved, a chief arises and offers 
 himself to be the leader. Such as are willing (for they compel no person) 
 stand up one after another and sing their war-song. But if, after this, any 
 of these should refuse to follow the leader to whom they have engaged, his 
 life would be in danger, and he would be considered as the most infamous 
 of men. (Ibid., pp. 217, 218.) 4. Such as engage to follow any leader 
 expect to be treated by him with great attention and respect ; and he is 
 obliged to make them presents of considerable value. (Ibid., p. 218.) 
 5. Among the Americans, the magistrate has scarcely any criminal juris- 
 diction. (Ibid., p. 272.) Upon receiving any injury, the person or 
 family offended may inflict what punishment they please on the person 
 who was the author of it (Ibid., p. 274.) Their resentment and demre 
 of vengeance are excessive and implacable. Time can neither extinguish 
 nor abate it. It is the chief inheritance parents leave to their children ; 
 it is transmitted from generation to generation, until an occasion be found 
 of satisfying it. (Ibid., p. 309.) Sometimes, however, the offended party 
 is appeased. A compensation is paid for a murder that has been com- 
 mitted. The relations of the deceased receive it ; and it consists most 
 commonly of a captive taken in war, who, being substituted in place of 
 the person who was murdered, assumes his name and is adopted into his 
 family. (Ibid., p. 274.) The resemblance holds in many other particu- 
 lars. It is sufficient for my purpose to have pointed out the similarity oi
 
 192 PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE vlf. 
 
 those great features which distinguish and characterise both peopla 
 Bochart, and other philologists of the last century, who, with more erudi- 
 tion than science, endeavoured to trace the migrations of various nations, 
 and who were apt upon the slightest appearance of resemblance to find an 
 affinity between nations far removed from each other, and to conclude that 
 they were descended from the same ancestors, would hardly have failed, on 
 viewing such an amazing similarity, to pronounce with confidence "that the 
 Germans and Americans must be the same people." But a philosopher will 
 satisfy himself with observing " that the characters of nations depend on 
 the state of society in which they live, and on the political institutions 
 established among them ; and that the human mind, whenever it is placed 
 in the same situation, will, in ages the most distant and in countries the 
 most remote, assume the same form and be distinguished by the same 
 manners." 
 
 I have pushed the comparison between the Germans and Americans no 
 further than was necessary for the illustration of my subject. I do not 
 pretend that the state of society in the two countries was perfectly similar 
 in every respect. Many of the German tribes were more civilised than 
 the Americans. Some of them were not unacquainted with agriculture ; 
 almost all of them had flocks of tame cattle, and depended upon them for 
 the chief part of their subsistence. Most of the American tribes subsist 
 by hunting, and are in a ruder and more simple state than the ancient 
 Germans. The resemblance, however, between their condition is greater, 
 perhaps, than any that history affords an opportunity of observing between 
 any two races of uncivilised people ; and this has produced a surprising 
 similarity of manners. 
 
 NOTE VII. Soct. I. p. 14. 
 
 The booty gained by an army belonged to the army. The king himself 
 had no part of it but what he acquired by lot. A remarkable instance of 
 this occurs in the history of the Franks. The army of Clovis, the founder 
 of the French monarchy, having plundered a church, carried off, among 
 other sacred utensils, a vase of extraordinary size and beauty. The bishop 
 sent deputies to Clovis beseeching him to restore the vase, that it might be 
 again employed in the sacred services to which it had been consecrated. 
 Olovis desired the deputies to follow him to Soissons, as the booty was to 
 be divided in that place, and promised that if the lot should give him the 
 disposal of the vase he would grant what the bishop desired. When lie 
 came to Soissons, and all the booty was placed in one great heap in the 
 middle of the army, Clovis entreated that before making the division they 
 would give him that vase over and above his share. All appeared willing 
 to gratify the king and to comply with his request, when a fierce and 
 haughty soldier lifted up his battle-axe, and, striking the vase with the 
 utmost violence, cried out, with a loud voice, " You shall receive nothing 
 here but that to which the lot gives you a right." Gregor. Turon., Histor. 
 Francorum, lib. ii. c. 27, p. 70, Par. 1610.
 
 vm. j PllOOFtJ AND ILLUSTitATluNS. 1U3 
 
 NOTE VIII. Sect I. p. 16. 
 
 The history of the establishment and progress of the feudal system is an 
 interesting object to all the nations of Europe. lu some countries their 
 Jurisprudence and laws are still in a great measure feudal. In others, 
 many forms and practices established by custom, or founded on statutes, 
 took their rise from the feudal law, and cannot be understood without 
 attending to the ideas peculiar to it. Several authors of the highest 
 reputation for genius and erudition have endeavoured to illustrate this 
 subject, but still many parts of it are obscure. I shall endeavour to trace 
 with precision the progress and variation of ideas concerning property in 
 land among the barbarous nations, and shall attempt to point out the 
 causes which introduced these changes, as well as the effects which followed 
 upon them. Property in land seems to have gone through four successive 
 changes among the people who settled in the various provinces of the 
 Roman empire. 
 
 I. While the barbarous nations remained in their original countries, 
 their property in land was only temporary, and they had no certain limits 
 to their possession. After feeding their flocks in one district, they removed 
 with them, and with their wives and families, to another, and abandoned 
 that likewise in a short time. They were not, in consequence of this 
 imperfect species of property, brought under any positive or formal obliga- 
 tion to serve the community ; all their services were purely voluntary. 
 Every individual was at liberty to choose how far he would contribute 
 towards carrying on any military enterprise. If he followed a leader in 
 any expedition, it was from attachment, not from a sense of obligation. 
 The clearest proof of this has been produced in Note VI. While property 
 continued in this state, we can discover nothing that bears any resemblance 
 to a feudal tenure, or to the subordination and military service which the 
 feudal system introduced. 
 
 II. Upon settling in the countries which they had subdued, the vic- 
 torious troops divided the conquered lands. Whatever portion of them 
 fell to a soldier, he seized as the recompense due to his valour, as a settle- 
 ment acquired by his own sword. He took possession of it as a freeman 
 in full property. He enjoyed it during his own life, and could dispose of 
 it at ple;isure, or transmit it as an inheritance to his children. Thus pro- 
 perty in land became fixed. It was at the same time allodial ; i.e., the 
 possessor had the entire right of property and dominion ; he held of no 
 sovereign or superior lord to whom he was bound to do homage and per- 
 form service. But as these new proprietors were in some danger (as has 
 been observed in the text) of being disturbed by the remainder of the 
 ancient inhabitants, ancf In still greater danger of being attacked by suc- 
 cessive colonies of borlmans as fierce and rapacious as themselves, they 
 saw the necessity of coming under obligations to defend the community 
 more explicit than those to which they had been subject in their original 
 habitations. On this account, immediately upon their fixing in their new 
 settlements, every freeman became bound to take arms in defence of the 
 community, and, if he refused or neglected so to do, was liable to a con- 
 
 VOL. I. O
 
 194 PfiOOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS, [NOTE viii 
 
 eideiable penalty. I do not mean that any contract of this kind was 
 formally concluded or mutually ratified by any legal solemnity. It was 
 established by tacit consent, like the other compacts which hold society 
 together. The mutual security and preservation made it the interest of 
 all to recognize its authority and to enforce the observation of it. We can 
 trace back this new obligation on the proprietors of land to a very early 
 period in the history of the Franks. Chilperic, who began his reign 
 A.D. 562, exacted a fine, bannos jussit exigi, from certain persons who had 
 refused to accompany him in an expedition. (Gregor. Turon., lib. v. c. 
 26, p. 211.) Childebert, who began his reign A.D. 576, proceeded in the 
 same manner against others who had been guilty of a like crime. (Ibid., 
 lib. vii. c. 42, p. 342.) Such a fine could not have been exacted while 
 property continued in its first state and military service was entirely volun- 
 tary. Charlemagne ordained that every freeman who possessed five mansi, 
 i.e., sixty acres, of land, in property, should march in person against the 
 enemy. (Capitul., A.D. 807.) Louis le Debonnaire, A.D. 815, granted 
 lands to certain Spaniards who fled from the Saracens, and allowed them 
 to settle in his territories, on condition that they should serve in the army 
 like other freemen. (Capitul., vol. i. p. 500.) By land possessed in pro- 
 perty, which is mentioned in the law of Charlemagne, we are to under- 
 stand, according to the style of that age, allodial land ; alodes and 
 proprietas, alodum and proprium, being words perfectly synonymous. (Du 
 Cange, voce Alodis.} The clearest proof of the distinction between 
 allodial and beneficiary possession is contained in two charters published 
 by Muratori, by which it appears that a person might possess one part of 
 his estate as allodial, which he could dispose of at pleasure, the other as a 
 beneficium, of which he had only the usufruct, the property returning to 
 the superior lord on his demise. (Antiq. Ital. Medii ^Evi, vol. i. pp. 
 559, 565.) The same distinction is pointed out in a capitulare of Charle- 
 magne, A.D. 812, edit. Baluz., vol. i. p. 491. Count Everard, who 
 married a daughter of Louis le Debonnaire, in the curious testament by 
 which he disposes of his vast estate among his children, distinguishes 
 between what he possessed proprietate and what he held beneficio; and it 
 appears that the greater part was allodial, A.D. 837. Aub. Miraei Opera 
 Diplomatica, Lovan., 1723, vol. i. p. 19. 
 
 In the same manner liber homo is commonly opposed to vassus or vassallus, 
 the former denotes an allodial proprietor, the latter one who held of a 
 superior. These free men were under an obligation to serve the state ; 
 and this duty was considered as so sacred that freemen were prohibited from 
 entering into holy orders unless they had obtained the consent of the 
 sovereign. The reason given for this in the statute is remarkable : " For 
 we are informed that some do so not so much out of devotion as in order to 
 avoid that military service which they are bound to perform." (Capitul., 
 lib. i. 114.) If upon being summoned into the field any freeman refused 
 to obey, a full herebannum, i.e., a fine of sixty crowns, was to be exacted 
 from him according to the law of the Franks. (Capit. Car. Magn., ap. Leg. 
 Longob., lib. i. tit. 14, 13, p. 539.) This expression, according to the 
 ]aw of the Franks, seems to imply that both the obligation to serve, and 
 the penalty on those that disregarded it, were coeval with the laws made 
 by the Franks at their first settlement in Gaul. This fine was levied with
 
 NOTE viii.] PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 195 
 
 such rigour " that if any person convicted of this crime was insolvent he 
 was reduced to servitude, and continued in that state until imch time as 
 hia labour should amount to the value of the lierebannum." (Ibid.) The 
 ninperor Lotharius rendered the penalty still more severe ; and if any 
 person possessing such an extent of property as made it incumbent on him 
 to take the field in person refused to obey the summons, all his goods were 
 declared to be forfeited, and he himself might be punished with banish- 
 ment. Murat., Script. Ital., vol. i. pars. ii. p. 153. 
 
 III. Property in land having thus become fixed, and subject to military 
 service, another change was introduced, though slowly and step by step. 
 We learn from Tacitus that the chief men among the Germans endeavoured 
 to attach to their persons and interests certain adherents whom he calls 
 comites. These fought under their standard and followed them in all their 
 enterprises. The same custom continued among them in their new settle- 
 ments, and those attached or devoted followers were called fideles, antrus- 
 tiones, homines in truste dominica, leudes. Tacitus informs us that the 
 rank of a comes was deemed honourable. (De Morib., Germ., c. 13.) 
 The composition, which is the standard by which we must judge of the 
 rank and condition of persons in the Middle Ages, paid for the murder of 
 one in truste dominica, was triple to that paid for the murder of a freeman. 
 (Leg. Salicor., tit. 44, 1 et 2.) While the Germans remained in their 
 own country, they courted the favour of these comites by presents of arms 
 and horses, and by hospitality. (See Note VI.) As long as they had no 
 fixed property in land, these were the only gifts that they could bestow, 
 and the only reward which their followers desired. But upon their settling 
 in the countries which they conquered, and when the value of property 
 came to be understood among them, instead of those slight presents, the 
 kings and chieftains bestowed a more substantial recompense in land on 
 their adherents. These grants were called beneficia, because they were 
 gratuitous donations ; and honores, because they were regarded as marks of 
 distinction. What were the services originally exacted in return for these 
 beneficia cannot be determined with aksolute precision ; because there are 
 no records so ancient. When allodial possessions were first rendered feudal, 
 they were not at once subjected to all the feudal services. The transition 
 here, as in all other changes of importance, was gradual. As the great object 
 of a feudal vassal was to obtain protection, when allodial proprietors first 
 consented to become vassals of any powerful leader they continued to 
 retain as much of their ancient independence as was consistent with that 
 new relation. The homage which they did to their superior, of whom 
 they chose to hold, was called homagium planum, and bound them to 
 nothing more than fidelity, but without any. obligation either of military 
 service or attendance in the courts of their superior. Of this homagium 
 planum some traces, though obscure, may still be discovered. (Biussel, 
 torn, i. p. 97.) Among the ancient writs published by D. D. de Vic and 
 Vaisette, Hist, de Langued., are a great many which they call homagia. 
 They seem to be an intermediate step between the homagium planum men- 
 tioned by Brussel, and the engagement to perform complete feudal service. 
 The one party promises protection and grants certain castles or lands ; the 
 other engages to defend the person of the grantor, and to assist him like- 
 wise in defending his property as often as he shall be summoned to do so. 
 
 o 2
 
 19t) PROOFS AND ILLUSTEATIONS. [NOTE vm. 
 
 But these engagements are accompanied with none of the feudal formalities, 
 and no mention is made of any of the other feudal services. They appear 
 i-ather to he a mutual contract between equals than the engagement of a 
 vassal to perform services to a superior lord. (Preuves de 1'Hist. de Lang., 
 torn. ii. p. 173, et passim.) As soon as men were accustomed to these, 
 the other feiidal services were gradually introduced. M. de Montesquieu 
 considers these beneficia as fiefs, which originally subjected those who held 
 them to military service. (L'Esprit desLoix, 1. xxx. c. 3 et 16.) M. 1'Abbe' 
 de Mably contends that such as held these were at first subjected to no 
 other service than what was incumbent on every freeman. (Observations 
 sur 1'Histoire cle France, i. 356.) But upon comparing their proofs and 
 reasonings and conjectures it seems to he evident that as every freeman, in 
 consequence of his allodial property, was bound to serve the community 
 tinder a severe penalty, no good reason can be assigned for conferring these 
 beneficia if they did not subject such as received them to some new obliga- 
 tion. Why should a king have stripped himself of his domain, if he had 
 not expected that by parcelling it out he might acquire a right to services 
 to which he had formerly no title ] We may then warrantably conclude, 
 " That as allodial property subjected those who possessed it to serve the 
 community, so beneficia subjected such as held them to personal service 
 and fidelity to him from whom they received these lands." These beneficia 
 were granted originally only during pleasure. No circumstance relating 
 to the customs of the Middle Ages is better ascertained than this ; and 
 innumerable proofs of it might be added to those produced in L'Esprit des 
 Loix, L xxx. c. 16, and by Du Cange, vocc. Beneficium et Feudum. 
 
 IV. But the possession of benefices did not continue long in this state. 
 A precarious tenure during pleasure was not sufficient to satisfy such as 
 held lands, and by various means they gradually obtained a confirmation 
 of their benefices during life. (Feudor., lib. L tit i.) Du Cange pro- 
 duces several quotations from ancient charters and chronicles in proof of 
 this. (Gloss., voc. Beneficium.) After this it was easy to obtain or extort 
 charters rendering beneficia hereditary, fii-st in the direct line, then in the 
 collateral, and at last in the female line. Leg. Longob., lib. iii. tit. 8 ; Du 
 Cange, voc. Beneficium. 
 
 It is no easy matter to fix the precise tune when each of these changes 
 took place. M. 1'Abbe' Mably conjectures, with some probability, that 
 Charles Martel first introduced the practice of granting beneficia for life. 
 (Observat., torn, i pp. 103, 160.) And that Louis le Debonnaire was 
 among the first who rendered them hereditary, is evident from the 
 authorities to which he refers. (Ibid., 429.) Mabillon, however, has 
 published a placitum of Louis le Ddbonnaire, A.J>. 860, by which it appears 
 that he still continued to grant some beneficia only during life. (De Re Dip- 
 lomatica, lib. vL p. 353.) In the year 889, Odo, king of France, granted 
 lands to " Ricabodo, fideli suo, jure beneficiario et fructuario," during his 
 own life : and if he should die, and a son were bom to him, that right 
 was to continue during the life of his son. (Mabillon, ut supra, p. 556.) 
 This was an intermediate step between fiefs merely during life and fiefs 
 hereditary to perpetuity. While beneficia continued under their first form, 
 and were held only during pleasure, he who granted them not only exer- 
 cised the dominium, or prerogative of superior lord, but he retained th*
 
 (TOTE vni.] PBOOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 197 
 
 property, giving his vassal only the usufruct. But under the latter form, 
 when they became hereditary, although feudal lawyers continued to define 
 a beneficium agreeably to its original nature, the property was in effect 
 taken out of the hands of the superior lords and lodged in those of the 
 vassal. As soon as the reciprocal advantages of the feudal mode of tenure 
 came to be understood by superiors as well as vassals, .that species of hold- 
 ing became so agreeable to both that not only lands, but casual rents, 
 such as the profits of a toll, the fare paid at ferries, etc., the salaries 
 or perquisites of offices, and even pensions themselves, were granted and 
 held as fiefs ; and military service was promised and exacted on account 
 of these. (Morice, Me'm. pour servir de Preuves k 1'Hist. de Bretagne, 
 torn. ii. pp. 78, 690 ; Brussel, torn. i. p. 41.) How absurd soever it may 
 seem to grant or to hold such precarious and casual property as a fief, 
 there are instances of feudal tenure still more singular. The profits 
 arising from the masses said at an altar were properly an ecclesiastical 
 revenue, belonging to the clergy of the church or monastery which per- 
 formed that duty ; but these were sometimes seized by the powerful 
 barons. In order to ascertain their right to them, they held them as fiefs 
 of the Church, and parcelled them out in the same manner as other pro- 
 perty to their sub-vassals. (Bouquet, Recueil des Hist., vol. x. pp. 238, 
 480.) The same spirit of encroachment which rendered fiefs hereditary 
 led the nobles to extort from their sovereigns hereditary grants of offices. 
 Many of the great offices of the crown became hereditary in most of the 
 kingdoms in Europe ; and so conscious were monarchs of this spirit of 
 usurpation among the nobility, and so solicitous to guard against it, 
 that on some occasions they obliged the persons whom they promoted to 
 any office of dignity to grant an obligation that neither they nor their 
 heirs should claim it as belonging to them by hereditary right. A re- 
 markable instance of this is produced, Me'm. de 1'Acad. des Inscrip., 
 torn. xxx. p. 595. Another occurs in the Thesaur. Anecdot., published 
 by Martene et Durand, voL i. p. 873. This revolution in property 
 occasioned a change corresponding to it in political government ; the great 
 vassals of the crown, as they acquired such extensive possessions, usurped 
 a proportional degree of power, depressed the jurisdiction of the crown, 
 and trampled on the privileges of the people. It is on account of this 
 connection that it becomes an object of importance in history to trace the 
 progress of feudal property ; for upon discovering in what state property 
 was at any particular period we may determine with precision what was the 
 degree of power possessed by the king or by the nobility at that juncture. 
 One circumstance more, with respect to the changes which property 
 underwent, deserves attention. I have shown that when the various 
 tribes of barbarians divided their conquests in the fifth and sixth centuries 
 the property which they acquired was allodial ; but in several parts of 
 Europe property had become almost entirely feudal by the beginning of 
 the tenth century. The former species of property seems to be so much 
 better and more desirable than the latter that such a change appears sur- 
 prising, especially when we are informed that allodial property was fre- 
 quently converted into feudal by a voluntary deed of the possessor. The 
 motives which determined them to a choice so repugnant to the ideas of 
 modern times concerning property have been investigated and explained by
 
 198 PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE vm. 
 
 M. dc Montesquieu, with his usual discernment and accuracy, lib. xxxi. c. 
 8. The most considerable is that of which we have a hint in Lambertu& 
 Ardensis, an ancient writer quoted by Du Cange, voce Alodis. In those 
 times of anarchy and disorder which became general in Europe after the 
 death of Charlemagne, when there was scarcely any union among the 
 different members of the community, and individuals were exposed, single 
 and undefended by government, to rapine and oppression, it became 
 necessary for every man to have a powerful protector, under whose 
 banner he might range himself and obtain security against enemies whom 
 singly he could not oppose. For this reason he relinquished his allodial 
 independence, and subjected himself to the feudal services, that he might 
 find safety under the patronage of some respectable superior. In some 
 parts oi Europe this change from allodial to feudal property became so 
 general that he who possessed land had no longer any liberty of choice 
 left : he was obliged to recognize some liege-lord and to hold of him. 
 Thus, Beaumanoir informs us that in the counties of Clermont and Beauvois, 
 if the lord or count discovered any land within his jurisdiction for which no 
 service was performed, and which paid to him no taxes or customs, he 
 might instantly seize it as his own ; for, says he, according to our custom, 
 no man can hold allodial property. (Coust, chap. 24, p. 123.) Upon 
 the same principle is founded a maxim which has at length become 
 general in the law of France, Nulle terre sans seigneur. In other provinces 
 of France allodial property seems to have remained longer unalienated 
 and to have been more highly valued. A great number of charters, con- 
 taining grants or sales or exchanges of allodial lands in the province of 
 Languedoc, are published in Hist, gene'r. de Langued., par. D. D. de Vic 
 et Vaisette, torn. ii. During the ninth, tenth, and great part of the 
 eleventh century the property in that province seems to have been entirely 
 allodial ; and scarcely any mention of feudal tenures occurs in the deeds 
 of that country. The state of property during these centuries seems to 
 have been perfectly similar in Catalonia and the country of Rousillon, as 
 appears from the original charters published in the Appendix to Petr. de 
 la Marca's treatise de Marca sive Limite Hispanico. Allodial property 
 seems to have continued in the Low Countries to a period still later. 
 During the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries this species of pro- 
 perty appears to have been of considerable extent. (Mirsei Opera Diplom., 
 vol. i pp. 34, 74, 75, 83, 817, 296, 842, 847, 578.) Some vestiges of 
 allodial property appear there as late as the fourteenth centuiy. (Ibid., 
 p. 218.) Several facts which prove that allodial property subsisted in 
 different parts of Europe long after the introduction of feudal tenuies,, and 
 which tend to illustrate the distinction between these two different species 
 of possession, are produced by M. Houard, Anciennes Loix des Francois, 
 conserve'es dans les Coutumes Angloises, vol. i. p. 192, etc. The notions 
 of men with respect to property vary according to the diversity of their un- 
 derstandings and the caprice of their passions. At the same time that some 
 persons were fond of relinquishing allodial property in order to hold it 
 by feudal tenure, others seem to have been solicitous to convert their 
 fiefs into allodial property. An instance of this occurs in a charter of 
 Louis le DeTjonnaire, published by Eckharcl, Commentarii de Rebus 
 Francise Orientalis, vol. ii p. 885. Another occurs in the year 1299
 
 NOTE vin.] PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 199 
 
 (Reliquiae MSS. omnis ^Evi, by Ludwig, vol. i. p. 209) ; and even one 
 as late as the year 1337 (ibid., vol. vii. p. 40). The same thing took 
 place in the Low Countries. Miraei Oper., i 52. 
 
 In tracing these various revolutions of property I have hitherto 
 chiefly confined myself to what happened in France, because the 
 ancient monuments of that nation have either been more carefully pre- 
 served, or have been more clearly illustrated, than those of any people 
 in Europe. 
 
 In Italy the same revolutions happened in property and succeeded each 
 other in the same order. There ia some ground, however, for conjectur- 
 ing that allodial property continued longer in estimation among the Italians 
 than among the French. It appears that many of the charters granted 
 by the emperors in the ninth century conveyed an allodial right to land. 
 (Murat., Antiq. Med. JEvi, vol. i. p. 575, etc.) But in the eleventh 
 century we find some examples of persons who resigned their allodial 
 property and received it back as a feudal tenure. (Ibid., p. 610, etc.) 
 Muratori observes that the word feudum, which came to be substituted in 
 place of beneficium, does not occur in any authentic charter previous to the 
 eleventh century. (Ibid., p. 594.) A charter of King Robert of France, 
 A.r>. 1008, is the earliest deed in which I have met with the word feudvm. 
 (Bouquet, Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France, torn. x. p. 
 593, b.) This word occurs, indeed, in an edict, A.D. 790, published by 
 Brussel, voL i. p. 77. But the authenticity of that deed has been called 
 in question, and perhaps the frequent use of the word feudum in it is an 
 additional reason for doing so. The account which I have given of the 
 nature both of allodial and feudal possessions receives some confirmation from 
 the etymology of the words themselves. Alodeor allodium is compounded 
 of the German particle an and lot, i.e., land obtained by lot (Wachteri 
 Glossar. Germanicum, voc. Allodium, p. 35.) It appears from the authori- 
 ties produced by him, and by Du Cange, voc. Sors, that the Northern 
 nations divided the lands which they had conquered in this manner. 
 Feodum is compounded of od, possession or estate, and feo, wages, pay ; 
 intimating that it was stipendiary and granted as a recompense for service. 
 Wachterus, ibid., voc. Feodum, p. 441. 
 
 The progress of the feudal system among the Germans was perfectly 
 similar to that which we have traced in France. But as the emperors 
 of Germany, especially after the imperial crown passed from the des- 
 cendants of Charlemagne to the house of Saxony, were far superior to the 
 contemporary monarchs of France in abilities, the imperial vassals did not 
 aspire so early to independence, nor did they so soon obtain the privilege 
 of possessing their benefices by hereditary right. According to the com- 
 pilers of the Libri Feudorum, Conrad II., or the Salic, was the first 
 emperor who rendered fiefs hereditary. (Lib. i tit i.) Conrad began his 
 reign A.D. 1024. Ludovicus Pius, under whose reign grants of hereditary 
 fiefs were frequent in France, succeeded his father A.D. 814. Not only 
 was this innovation so much later in being introduced among the vassals 
 of the German emperors, but even after Conrad had established it the law 
 continued favourable to the ancient practice ; and unless the charter of 
 the vassal bore expressly that the fief descended to his heirs, it was pre- 
 jumed to be granted only during life. (Lib. Feud., ibid.) Even after the
 
 200 PEOOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE ix. 
 
 alteration made by Conrad, it was not uncommon in Germany to grant 
 fiefs only for life. A charter of this kind occurs as late as the year 1376. 
 (Charta, ap. Boehmer., Princip. Jur. Feud., p. 361.) The transmission of 
 fiefs to collateral and female heirs took place very slowly among the 
 Germans. There is extant a charter, A.D. 1201, conveying the right of 
 succession to females ; but it is granted as an extraordinaiy mark of favour 
 and in reward of uncommon services. (Boehmer., ibid. p. 365.) In 
 Germany, as well as in France and Italy, a considerable part of the lands 
 continued to be allodial long after the feudal mode of tenure was intro- 
 duced. It appears from the Codex Diplomaticus Monasterii Buch that 
 a great part of the lands in the marquisate of Misnia was still allodial as 
 late as the thirteenth century. (Nos. 31, 36, 37, 46, etc., ap. Scriptores 
 Hist. German., cura Schoetgenii et Kreysigii, Altenb., 1755, vol. ii. p. 
 183, etc.) Allodial property seems to have been common in another 
 district of the same province during the same period. Reliquiae Diplo 
 maticae SanctimoniaL, Beutiz., Nos. 17, 36, 58, ibid. 374, etc. 
 
 NOTE IX. Sect I. p. 17. 
 
 As I shall have occasion, in another note, to represent the condition of 
 that part of the people who dwelt in cities, I will confine myself in 
 this to consider the state of the inhabitants of the country. The persons 
 employed in cultivating the ground during the ages under review may be 
 divided into three classes : 1. Servi, or slaves. This seems to have been 
 the most numerous class, and consisted either of captives taken in war, or of 
 persons the property in whom was acquired in some one of the various 
 methods enumerated by Du Cange, voc. Servus, vol. vi. p. 447. The 
 wretched condition of this numerous race of men will appear from several 
 circumstances. 1. Their masters had absolute dominion over their 
 persons. They had the power of punishing their slaves capitally, with- 
 out the intervention of any judge. This dangerous right they possessed 
 not only in the more early periods when their manners were fierce, but 
 it continued as late as the twelfth century. (Joach. Potgiesserus de 
 Statu Servorum, Lemgov., 1736, 4to, lib. ii. cap. 1, 4, 10, 13, 24.) 
 Even after this jurisdiction of masters came to be restrained, the life of a 
 slave was deemed to be of so little value that a very slight compensa- 
 tion atoned for taking it away. (Idem. lib. iii c. 6.) If masters had 
 power over the lives of their slaves, it is evident that almost no bounds 
 would be set to the rigour of the punishments which they might in- 
 flict upon them. The codes of ancient laws prescribed punishments for 
 the crimes of slaves different from those which were inflicted on freemen. 
 The latter paid only a fine or compensation ; the former were subjected 
 to corporal punishments. The cruelty of these was, in many instances, 
 excessive. Slaves might be put to the rack on very slight occasions. 
 The laws with respect to these points are to be found in Potgiesserus, 
 lib. iii. c. 7, 2, and are shocking to humanity. 2. If the dominion of 
 masters over the lives and persons of their slaves was thus extensive, 
 it was no less BO over their actions and property. They were 
 not originally permitted to marry. Male and female slaves were 
 allowod and even encouraged, to cohabit together. But this union was
 
 NOTE ix.] PROOFS AND ILLUSTEATIONS. 201 
 
 not considered as a marriage : it was called contubernium, not nuptiat <*i 
 matrimonium. (Potgiess., lib. iL c. 2, 1.) This notion was so much 
 established that, during several centuries after the barbarous nations 
 embraced the Christian religion, slaves who lived as husband and wife were 
 not joined together by any religious ceremony, and did not receive the 
 nuptial benediction from a priest. (Ibid., 10, 11.) When this con- 
 junction between slaves came to be considered as a lawful marriage, they 
 were not permitted to marry without the consent of their master, and such 
 as ventured to do so without obtaining that were punished with great 
 severity, and sometimes were put to death. (Potgiess., ibid., 12, etc. ; 
 Gregor. Turon., Hist, lib. v. c. 3.) When the manners of the European 
 nations became more gentle, and their ideas more liberal, slaves who married 
 without their master's consent were subjected only to a fine. (Potgiess., 
 ibid., 20 ; Du Cange, Gloss, voc. Forismaritagium.) 3. All the chil- 
 dren of slaves were in the same condition with their parents, and became 
 the property of the master. (Du Cange, Gloss., voc. Servus, vol. vi. p. 450 ; 
 Murat., Antiq. ItaL, vol. L p. 766.) 4. Slaves were so entirely the pro- 
 perty of their masters that they could sell them at pleasure. While 
 domestic slavery continued, property in a slave was sold in the same 
 manner with that which a person had in any other movable. Afterwards 
 slaves became adscripti glebce, and were conveyed by sale together with the 
 farm or estate to which they belonged. Potgiesserus has collected the 
 laws and charters which illustrate this well-known circumstance in the 
 condition of slaves. (Lib. ii. c. 4.) 5. Slaves had a title to nothing but 
 subsistence and clothes from their master ; all the profits of their labour 
 accrued to him. If a master, from indulgence, gave his slaves any 
 peculium, or fixed allowance for their subsistence, they had no right of 
 property in what they saved out of that. All that they accumulated be- 
 longed to their master. (Potgiess., lib. ii. c. 10 ; Murat., Antiq. ItaL, 
 vol. i. p. 768; Du Cange, voc. Servus, vol. vi. p. 451.) Conformably to the 
 same principle, all the effects of slaves belonged to their masters at their death, 
 and they could not dispose of them by testament. (Potgiess., lib. ii. c. 11.) 
 6. Slaves were distinguished from freemen by a peculiar dress. Among 
 all the barbarous nations, long hair was a mark of dignity and of free- 
 dom ; slaves were, for that reason, obliged to shave their heads ; and by 
 this distinction, how indifferent soever it may be in its own nature, they 
 were reminded every moment of the inferiority of their condition. 
 (Potgiess., lib. iii c. 4.) For the same reason, it was enacted in the laws 
 of almost all the nations of Europe that no slave should be admitted to give 
 evidence against a freeman in a court of justice. Du Cange, voc. Servus, 
 vol. vi p. 451 ; Potgiess., lib. iii. c. 3. 
 
 II. Villani. They were likewise adscripti glebce or villas, from which 
 they derived their name, and were transferable along with it (Du Cange, 
 voc. Villanus.) But in this they differed from slaves, that they paid a 
 fixed rent to their mastei for the land which they cultivated, and, after 
 paying that, all the fruits of their labour and industry belonged to them- 
 selves in property. This distinction is marked by Pierre de Fontain's 
 Conseil. Vie de St. Louis, par Joinville, p. 119, 6dit. de Du Cange. 
 Several cases decided agreeably to this principle are mentioned by Murat, 
 ibid., p. 773.
 
 202 PKOOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE ix. 
 
 III. The last class of persons employed in agriculture were freemen. 
 These are distinguished by various names among the writers of the Middle 
 Ages, arimanni, conditionales, originarii, tributales, etc. These seem to 
 have been persons who possessed some small allodial property of their own. 
 and, besides that, cultivated some farm belonging to their more wealthy 
 neighbours, for which they paid a fixed rent, and bound themselves like- 
 wise to perform several small services in prato ml in messe, in aratura vd 
 in vinea, such as ploughing a certain quantity of their landlord's ground, 
 assisting him in harvest and vintage work, etc. The clearest proof of this 
 may be found in Muratori, vol. i. p. 712, and in Du Cange, under the 
 respective words above mentioned. I have not been able to discover 
 whether these arimanni, etc., were removable at pleasure, or held their 
 farms by lease for a certain number of years. The former, if we may 
 judge from the genius and maxims of the age, seems to be the most 
 probable. These persons, however, were considered as freemen in the 
 most honourable sense of the word : they enjoyed all the privileges of that 
 condition, and were even called to serve in war ; an honour to which no 
 slave was admitted. (Murat., Antiq., vol. i. p. 743, vol. ii. p. 446). 
 This account of the condition of these three different classes of persons will 
 enable the reader to apprehend the full force of an argument which I shall 
 produce in confirmation of what I have said in the text concerning the 
 wretched state of the people during the Middle Ages. Notwithstanding 
 the immense difference between the first of these classes and the third, such 
 was the spirit of tyranny which prevailed among the great proprietors of 
 lands, and so various their opportunities of oppressing those who were 
 settled on their estates, and of rendering their condition intolerable, that 
 many freemen, in despair, renounced their liberty and voluntarily surren- 
 dered themselves as slaves to their powerful masters. This they did in 
 order that their masters might become more immediately interested to 
 afford them protection, together with the means of subsisting themselves 
 and their families. The forms of such a surrender, or obnoxiatio, as it was 
 then called, are preserved by Marculfus, lib. ii. c. 28, and by the anony- 
 mous author published by M. Bignon together with the collection of 
 formulae compiled by Marculfus, c. 16. In both, the reason given for the 
 obnoxiatio is the wretched and indigent condition of the person who gives 
 up his liberty. It was still more common for freemen to surrender their 
 liberty to bishops or abbots, that they might partake of the security which 
 the vassals and slaves of churches and monasteries enjoyed, in consequence 
 of the superstitious veneration paid to the saint under whose immediate 
 protection they were supposed to be taken. (Du Cange, voc. Oblatus, 
 vol. iv. p. 1286.) That condition must have been miserable indeed 
 which could induce a freeman voluntarily to renounce his liberty and to 
 give up himself as a slave to the disposal of another. The number of 
 slaves in every nation of Europe was immense. The greater part of the 
 inferior class of people in France were reduced to this state at the com- 
 mencement of the third race of kings. (L'Esprit des Loix, liv. xxx. c. 11.) 
 The same was the case in England. (Brady, Pref. to Gen. Hist.) Manj> 
 curious facts with respect to the ancient state of villains or slaves in 
 England are published in Observations on the Statutes, chiefly the more 
 ancient, 3d edit., p. 269, etc.
 
 NOTE x.j PEOOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 203 
 
 NOTE X. Sect. I. p. 19. 
 
 Innumerable proofs of this might be produced. Many charters, granted 
 by persons of the highest rank, are preserved, from which it appears that 
 they could not subscribe their name. It was usual for persons who could 
 not write to make the sign of the cross in confirmation of a charter. 
 Several of these remain where kings and persons of great eminence affix 
 signum crucis manu propria pro ignoratione literarum. (Du Cange, voc. 
 Crux, vol. iii. p. 1191.) From this is derived the phrase of signing 
 instead of subscribing a paper. In the ninth century, Herbaud, Comes 
 Palatii, though supreme judge of the empire by virtue of his office, could 
 not subscribe his name. (Nouveau Traitd de Diplomatique, par deux 
 Bene'dictins, 4to, torn. ii. p. 422.) As late as the fourteenth century, 
 Du Guesclin, constable of France, the greatest man in the state, and one 
 of the greatest men of his age, could neither read nor write. (Ste. Palaye, 
 Mdmoires sur 1'ancienne Chevalerie, tit. ii. p. 82.) Nor was this igno- 
 rance confined to laymen : the greater part of the clergy was not many 
 degrees superior to them in science. Many dignified ecclesiastics could 
 not subscribe the canons of those councils in which they sat as members. 
 (Nouv. Traite de Diplom., torn. ii. p. 424.) One of the questions 
 appointed by the canons to be put to persons who were candidates for 
 orders was this : " Whether they could read the Gospels and Epistles, and 
 explain the sense of them, at least literally ? " (Regino Prumiensis, ap. 
 Bruck., Hist. Philos., v. iii. p. 631.) Alfred the Great complained that 
 from the Humber to the Thames there was not a priest who understood 
 the liturgy in his mother-tongue or who could translate the easiest piece of 
 Latin, and that from the Thames to the sea the ecclesiastics were still more 
 ignorant. (Asserus de Rebus gestis Alfredi, ap. Camdeni Anglica, etc., p. 
 25.) The ignorance of the clergy is quaintly described by an author of the 
 Dark Ages : " Potius dediti guise quam glossse ; potius colligunt libras quam 
 legunt libros ; libentivis intuentur Martham quam Marcum ; malunt legere 
 in Salmone quam in Solomone." (Alanus de Art. Predicat., ap. Lebeuf, 
 Dissert, torn. ii. p. 21.) To the obvious causes of such universal igno- 
 rance, arising from the state of government and manners, from the seventh 
 to the eleventh century, we may add the scarcity of books during that 
 period, and the difficulty of rendering them more common. The Romans 
 wrote their books either on parchment or on paper made of the Egyptian 
 papyrus. The latter, being the cheapest, was of course the most commonly 
 used. But after the Saracens conquered Egypt, in the seventh century, 
 the communication between that country and the people settled in Italy or 
 in other parts of Europe was almost entirely broken off, and the papyrus 
 was no longer in use among them. They were obliged, on that account, to 
 write all their books upon parchment, and, as the price of that was high, 
 books became extremely rare and of great value. We may judge of the 
 scarcity of the materials for writing them from one circumstance. There 
 still remain several manuscripts of the eighth, ninth, and following cen- 
 turies, written on parchment from which some former writing had been 
 erased in order to substitute a new composition in its place. In this 
 manner it is probable that several works of the ancients perished. A book 
 of Livy or of Tacitus might be erased to make room for the legendary tale
 
 PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. NOTE xi. 
 
 of a saint OT the superstitious prayers of a missaL (Mural, Autiq. ItaL, 
 vol. iii. p. 833.) P. de Montfaucon affirms that the greater part of the 
 manuscripts on parchment which he has seen, those of an ancient date 
 excepted, are written on parchment from which some former treatise had 
 been erased. (Mdm. de 1'Acad. des Inscript, torn. ix. p. 325.) As the 
 want of materials for writing is one reason why so many of the works of 
 the ancients have perished, it accounts likewise for the small number of 
 manuscripts of any kind previous to the eleventh century, when they 
 began to multiply, from a cause which shall be mentioned. (Hist, litter, 
 de France, torn. vi p. 6.) Many circumstances prove the scarcity of books 
 during these ages. Private persons seldom possessed any books whatever. 
 Even monasteries of considerable note had only one missal. (Murat, 
 Antiq., voL ix. p. 789.) Lupus, abbot of Ferrieres, in a letter to the 
 pope, A.D. 855, beseeches him to lend him a copy of Cicero de Oratore 
 and Quintilian's Institutions ; " for," says he, "although we have parts of 
 those books, there is no complete copy of them in all France." (Murat, 
 Antiq., voL iii p. 835.) The price of books became so high that persons 
 of a moderate fortune could not afford to purchase them. The countess 
 of Anjou paid for a copy of the Homilies of Haimon, bishop of Halber- 
 stadt, two hundred sheep, five quarters of wheat, and the same quantity of 
 rye and millet. (Histoire litte'raire de France, par des Eeligieux Be'ne'- 
 dictins, torn, vii p. 3.) Even so late as the year 1471, when Louis XI. 
 borrowed the works of Rasis, the Arabian physician, from the faculty of 
 medicine in Paris, he not only deposited in pledge a considerable quantity 
 of plate, but was obliged to procure a nobleman to join with him as surety 
 in a deed, binding himself, under a great forfeiture, to restore it. (Gabv. 
 Naudd Addit. a. 1'Histoire de Louys XI. par Comines, edit de Fresnoy, 
 torn. iv. p. 281.) Many curious circumstances with respect to the extrava- 
 gant price of books in the Middle Ages are collected by that industrious 
 compiler, to whom I refer such of my readers as deem this small branch 
 of literary history an object of curiosity. When any person made a 
 present of a book to a church or monastery, in which were the only libra- 
 ries during several ages, it was deemed a donative of such value that he 
 offered it on the altar pro remedio animce SUCK, in order to obtain the forgive- 
 ness of his sins. (Murat., voL iii p. 836 ; Hist, litter, de France, torn. 
 vi p. 6 ; Nouv. Trait de Diplomat, par deux Be'nedictins, 4to, torn, i p. 
 481.) In the eleventh century the art of making paper, in the manner 
 now become universal, was invented ; by means of that, not only the 
 number of manuscripts increased, but the study of the sciences was won- 
 derfully facilitated. (Murat, ib. p. 871.) The invention of the art of 
 making paper, and the invention of the art of printing, are two consider- 
 able events in literary history. It is remarkable that the former preceded 
 the first dawning of letters and improvement in knowledge towards the 
 close of the eleventh century ; the latter ushered in the light which 
 spread over Europe at the era of the Reformation. 
 
 NOTE XL Sect L p. 20. 
 
 All the religious maxims and practices of the Dark Ages are a proof of 
 this. I shall produce one remarkable testimony in confirmation of it.
 
 NOTE xii.] PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 205 
 
 from an author canonised by the Church of Rome, St Eloy, or Egidius, 
 bishop of Noyon, in the seventh century. " He is a good Christian who 
 comes frequently to church ; who presents the oblation which is offered to 
 God upon the altar ; who doth not taste the fruits of his own industry 
 until he has consecrated a part of them to God ; who, when the holy festi- 
 vals approach, lives chastely even with his own wife during several clays, 
 that with a safe conscience he may draw near the altar of God ; and who, 
 in the lust place, can repeat the Creed and the Lord's Prayer. Redeem 
 then your souls from destruction while you have the means in your power : 
 offer presents and tithes to churchmen ; come more frequently to church ; 
 humbly implore the patronage of the saints ; for, if you observe these 
 things, you may come with security in the day of retribution to the tribunal 
 of the Eternal Judge, and say, ' Give to us, Lord, for we have given 
 unto thee.' " (Dacherii Spicilegium Vet Script, vol. ii. p. 94.) The 
 learned and judicious translator of Dr. Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, to 
 one of whose additional notes I am indebted for my knowledge of this 
 passage, subjoins a very proper reflection : " We see here a large and 
 ample description of a good Christian, in which there is not the least 
 mention of the love of God, resignation to his will, obedience to his laws, 
 or of justice, benevolence, and charity towards men." Mosh. Eccles. 
 Hist, vol. i. p. 324. 
 
 NOTE XII. Sect I. p. 20. 
 
 That infallibility in all its determinations, to which the Church of Rome 
 pretends, has been attended with one unhappy consequence. As it is 
 impossible to relinquish any opinion or to alter any practice which has 
 been established by authority that cannot err, all its institutions and cere- 
 monies must be immutable and everlasting, and the Church must continue 
 to observe in enlightened times those rites which were introduced during 
 the ages of darkness and credulity. What delighted and edified the latter 
 must disgust and shock the former. Many of the rites observed in the 
 Romish Church appear manifestly to have been introduced by a supersti- 
 tion of the lowest and most illiberal species. Many of them were bor- 
 rowed, with little variation, from the religious ceremonies established 
 among the ancient heathens. Some were so ridiculous that, if every age 
 did not furnish instances of the fascinating influence of superstition, as 
 well as of the whimsical forms which it assumes, it must appear incredible 
 that they should have been ever received or tolerated. In several churches 
 of France they celebrated a festival in commemoration of the Virgin Mary's 
 Flight into Egypt It was called the Feast of the Asa. A young girl, 
 richly dressed, with a child in her arms, was set upon an ass superbly 
 caparisoned. The ass was led to the altar in solemn procession. High 
 mass was said with great pomp. The ass was taught to kneel at proper 
 places ; a hymn no less childish than impious was sung in his praise ; and, 
 when the ceremony was ended, the priest, instead of the usual words with 
 which he dismissed the people, brayed three times like an ass, and the 
 people, instead of the usual response, " We bless the Lord," brayed three 
 times in the same manner. (Du Cange, voc. Festum, voL iii p. 424.) 
 This ridiculous ceremony was not, like the festival of fools, and some other 
 pageants of those ages, a mere farcical entertainment exhibited in a church.
 
 PROOFS AND ILLUSTEATIONS. [NOTE xni. 
 
 and mingled, as was then the custom, with an imitation of some religious 
 rites : it was an act of devotion, performed by the ministers of religion and 
 by the authority of the Church. However, as this practice did not prevail 
 universally in the Catholic Church, its absurdity contributed at last to 
 abolish it. 
 
 NOTE XIII. Sect. I. p. 25. 
 
 As there is no event in the history of mankind more singular than that 
 of the crusades, every circumstance that tends to explain or to give any 
 rational account of this extraordinary frenzy of the human mind is inter- 
 esting. I have asserted in the text that the minds of men were prepared 
 gradually for the amazing effort which they made in consequence of the 
 exhortations of Peter the Hermit, by several occurrences previous to his 
 time. A more particular detail of this curious and obscure part of history 
 may perhaps appear to some of my readers to be of importance. That the 
 end of the world was expected about the close of the tenth and beginning 
 of the eleventh century, and that this occasioned a general alarm, is evident 
 from the authors to whom I have referred in the text. This belief was so 
 universal and so strong that it mingled itself with civil transactions. Many 
 charters in the latter part of the tenth century begin in this manner : 
 " Appropinquante mundi termino," etc. As the end of the world is now 
 at hand, and by various calamities and judgments the signs of its approach 
 are now manifest. (Hist, de Langued., par D. D. de Vic et Vaisette, torn, 
 ii. ; Preuves, pp. 86, 89, 90, 117, 158, etc.). One effect of this opinion 
 was that a great number of pilgrims resorted to Jerusalem, with a resolu- 
 tion to die there, or to wait the coming of the Lord ; kings, earls, mar- 
 quises, bishops, and even a great number of women, besides persons of an 
 inferior rank, flocked to the Holy Land. (Glaber. Rodulph., Hist., apud 
 Bouquet, Recueil, torn. x. pp. 50, 52.) Another historian mentions a vast 
 cavalcade of pilgrims who accompanied the count of Angouleme to Jeru- 
 salem in the year 1026. (Chronic. Ademari, ibid., p. 162.) Upon their 
 return, these pilgrims filled Europe with lamentable accounts of the state 
 of Christians in the Holy Land. (Willerm. Tyr., Hist, ap. Gest. Dei per 
 Franc, vol. ii p. 636 ; Guibert. Abbat., Hist., ibid., vol. i. p. 476.) 
 Besides this, it was usual for many of the Christian inhabitants of Jeru- 
 salem, as well as of other cities in tlie East, to travel as mendicants through 
 Europe, and, by describing the wretched condition of the professors of the 
 Christian faith under the dominion of infidels, to extort charity, and to 
 excite zealous persons to make some attempt in order to deliver them from 
 oppression. (Baldrici Archiepiscopi Histor., ap. Gesta Dei, etc., vol. i. p. 
 86.) In the year 986, Gerbert, archbishop of Ravenna, afterwards Pope 
 Silvester IT., addressed a letter to all Christians in the name of the church 
 of Jerusalem. It is eloquent and pathetic, and contains a formal exhorta- 
 tion to take arms against the pagan oppressors in order to rescue the holy 
 city from their yoke. (Gerberti Epistola3, ap. Bouquet, Recueil, torn. x. 
 p. 426.) In consequence of this spirited call, some subjects of the republic 
 of Pisa equipped a fleet and invaded the territories of the Mahometans in 
 Syria. (Murat, Script. Rer. Italic., vol. iii. p. 400.) The alarm was 
 taken in the East, and an opinion prevailed, A.D. 1010, that all the forces 
 of Christendom were to unite in order to drive the Mahometans out of
 
 xiii.] PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 207 
 
 Palestine. (Chron. Ademari, ap. Bouquet, torn. x. p. 152.) It is evident 
 from all these particulars that the ideas which led the crusaders to under- 
 take their wild enterprise did not arise, according to the description of 
 many authors, from a sudden fit of frantic enthusiasm, but were gradually 
 formed ; so that the universal concourse to the standard of the cross, when 
 erected by Urban II., will appear less surprising. 
 
 If the various circumstances which I have enumerated ra this note, as 
 well as in the history, are sufficient to account for the ardour with which 
 such vast numbers engaged in such a dangerous undertaking, the extensive 
 privileges and immunities granted to the persons who assumed the cross 
 serve to account for the long continuance of this spirit in Europe. 1. They 
 were exempted from prosecutions on account of debt during the time of 
 their being engaged in this holy service. (Du Cange, voc. Grucis Privile- 
 gium, vol. ii. p. 1194.) 2. They were exempted from paying interest for 
 the money which they had borrowed in order to fit them for this sacred 
 warfare. (Ibid.) 3. They were exempted either entirely, or at least 
 during a certain time, from the payment of taxes. (Ibid. ; Ordonnances 
 des Rois de France, torn. i p. 33.) 4. They might alienate their lands 
 without the consent of the superior lord of whom they held. (Ibid.) 
 5. Their persons and effects were taken under the protection of St. Peter, 
 and the anathemas of the Church were denounced against all who should 
 molest them, or carry on any quarrel or hostility against them, during 
 their absence on account of the holy war. (Du Cange, ibid. ; Guibertus 
 Abbas, ap. Bongars., vol. i pp. 480, 482.) 6. They enjoyed all the 
 privileges of ecclesiastics, and were not bound to plead in any civil court, 
 but were declared subject to the spiritual jurisdiction alone. (Du Cange, 
 ibid. ; Ordon. des Rois, torn, i pp. 34, i 7 4.) 7. They obtained a plenary 
 remission of all their sins, and the gates of heaven were set open to them, 
 without requiring any other proof of their penitence but their engaging in 
 this expedition ; and thus by gratifying their favourite passion, the love 
 of war, they secured to themselves immunities which were not usually 
 obtained but by paying large sums of money or by undergoing painful 
 penances. (Guibertus Abbas, p. 480.) When we behold the civil and 
 ecclesiastical powers vying with each, other and straining their invention 
 in order to devise expedients for encouraging and adding strength to the 
 spirit of superstition, can we be surprised that it should become so general 
 as to render it infamous, and a mark of cowardice, to decline engaging in 
 the holy war? (Willerm, Tyriensis, ap. Bongars., voL ii p. 641.) The 
 histories of the crusades written by modern authors, who are apt to substi- 
 tute the ideas and maxims of their own age in the place of those which 
 influenced the persons whose actions they attempt to relate, convey a very 
 imperfect notion of the spirit at that time predominant in Europe. The 
 original historians, who were animated themselves with the same passions 
 which possessed their contemporaries, exhibit to us a more striking picture 
 of the times and manners which they describe. The enthusiastic rapture 
 with which they account for the effects of the pope's discourse in (lie 
 Council of Clermont, the exultation with which they mention the numbers 
 who devoted themselves to this holy warfare, the confidence with -which 
 they express their reliance on the divine protection, the ecstacy of joy with 
 which they describe their taking possession of the holy city, will enable
 
 208 PKOOES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE xm. 
 
 us to conceive in some degree the extravagance of that zeal which agitated 
 the minds of men with such violence, and will suggest as many singular 
 reflections to a philosopher as any occurrence in the history of mankind, 
 It is unnecessary to select the particular passages in the several historians 
 which confirm this observation. But, lest those authors may be suspected 
 of adorning their narrative with any exaggerated description, I shall appeal 
 to one of the leaders who conducted the enterprise. There is extant a 
 letter from Stephen, the earl of Chartres and Blois, to Adela, his wife, in 
 which he gives her an account of the progress of the crusaders. He 
 describes the crusaders as the chosen army of Christ, as the servants and 
 soldiers of God, as men who marched under the immediate protection of 
 the Almighty, being conducted by his hand to victory and conquest. He 
 speaks of the Turks as accursed, sacrilegious, and devoted by Heaven to 
 destruction ; and when he mentions the soldiers in the Christian army who 
 had died or were killed, he is confident that their souls were admitted 
 directly into the joys of Paradise. Dacherii Spicilegium, vol. iv. p. 257. 
 The expense of conducting numerous bodies of men from Europe to 
 Asia must have been excessive, and the difficulty of raising the necessary 
 sums must have been proportionally great, during ages when the public 
 revenues in every nation of Europe were extremely small. Some account 
 is preserved of the expedients employed by Humbert II., Dauphin of 
 Vienne, in order to levy the money requisite towards ecpaipping him for 
 the crusade, A.D. 1346. These I shall mention, as they tend to show the 
 considerable influence which the crusades had both on the state of property 
 and of civil government. 1. He exposed to sale part of his domains; 
 and, as the price was destined for such a sacred service, he obtained the 
 consent of the French king, of whom these lands were held, ratifying the 
 alienation. (Hist, de Dauphine", torn. i. pp. 332, 335.) 2. He issued a 
 proclamation in which he promised to grant new privileges to the nobles, 
 as well as new immunities to the cities and towns in his territories, in 
 consideration of certain sums which they were instantly to pay on that 
 account. (Ibid., torn. ii. p. 512.) Many of the charters of community, 
 which I shall mention in another note, were obtained in this manner. 
 3. He exacted a contribution towards defraying the charges of the expe- 
 dition from all his subjects, whether ecclesiastics or laymen, who did not 
 accompany him in person to the East. (Ibid., torn. i. p. 335.) 4. He 
 appropriated a considerable part of his usual revenues for the support of 
 the troops to be employed in this service. (Ibid., torn. ii. p. 518.) 
 5. He exacted considerable sums, not only of the Jews settled in his 
 dominions, but also of the Lombards and other bankers who had fixed 
 their residence there. (Ibid., torn. i. p. 338, torn. ii. p. 528.) Notwith- 
 standing the variety of these resources, the dauphin was involved in such 
 expense by this expedition that on his return he was obliged to make new 
 demands on his subjects and to pillage the Jews by fresh exactions. (Ibid , 
 torn. i. pp. 344, 347.) When the count de Foix engaged in the first 
 crusade, he raised the money necessary for defraying the expenses of that 
 expedition by alienating part of his territories. (Hist, de Langued., pat 
 D. D. de Vic et Vaisette, torn. ii. p. 287.) In like manner Baldwin, count 
 of Hainault, mortgaged or sold a considerable portion of his dominions to 
 khe bishop of Liege, A.D. 1096. (Du Mont, Corps Diplomatique, torn, i:
 
 KOTE xiv.] PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 2u9 
 
 p. 59.) At a later period, Baldwin, count of Namur, sold part of his* 
 estate to a monastery, when he intended to assume the cross, A.D. 1239. 
 Miraei Oper., L p. 313. 
 
 NOTE XIV. Sect L p. 29. 
 
 The usual method of forming an opinion concerning the comparative 
 state of manners in two different nations is by attending to the facts which 
 historians relate concerning each of them. Various passages might be 
 selected from the Byzantine historians, describing the splendour and mag- 
 nificence of the Greek empire. P. de Montfaucon has produced from the 
 writings of St. Chrysostom a very full account of the elegance and luxury 
 of the Greeks in his age. That father, in his sermons, enters into such 
 minute details concerning the manners and customs of his contemporaries 
 as appear strange in discourses from the pulpit. P. de Montfaucon has 
 collected these descriptions and ranged them under different heads. The 
 court of the more early Greek emperors seems to have resembled those of 
 Eastern monarchs, both in magnificence and in corruption of manners. 
 The emperors in the eleventh century, though inferior in power, did not 
 yield to them in ostentation and splendour. (Me'moires de 1'Acad. dea 
 Inscript., torn. xx. p. 197.) But we may decide concerning the compara- 
 tive state of manners in the Eastern empire, and among the nations in the 
 West of Europe, by another method, which if not more certain is at least 
 more striking. As Constantinople was the place of rendezvous for all the 
 armies of the crusaders, this brought together the people of the East and 
 West as to one great interview. There are extant several contemporary 
 authors, both awiong the Greeks and Latins, who were witnesses of this 
 singular congress of people- formerly strangers in a great measure to each 
 other. They describe with simplicity and candour the impression which 
 that new spectacle made upon their own minds. This may be considered 
 as the most lively and just picture of the real character and manners of 
 each people. When the Greeks speak of the Franks, they describe them 
 as barbarians, fierce, illiterate, impetuous, and savage. They assume a 
 f^ne of superiority, as a more polished people, acquainted with the arts 
 L. b of government and of elegance, of which the other was ignorant. It 
 is thus Anna Comnena describes the manners of the Latins. (Alexias, 
 pp. 224, 231, 237, ap. Byz. Script., vol. ix.) She always views them 
 with contempt as a rude people, the very mention of whose names was 
 sufficient to contaminate the beauty and elegance of history (p. 229). 
 Nicetas Choniatas inveighs against them with still more violence, and 
 gives an account of their ferocity and devastations in terms not unlike 
 those which preceding historians had employed in describing the incursions 
 of the Goths and Vandals. (Nicet. Chon., ap. Byz. Script., vol. iii. 
 p. 302, etc.) But, on the other hand, the Latin historians were struck 
 with astonishment at the magnificence, wealth, and elegance which they 
 discovered in the Eastern empire. " Oh, what a vast city is Constanti- 
 nople ! " exclaims Fulcherius Carnotensis when he first beheld it, " and 
 how beautiful ! How many monasteries are there in it, and how many 
 palaces built with wonderful art ! How many manufactures are there in 
 the city amazing to behold ! It would be astonishing to relate how it 
 abounds with all good things, with gold, silver, and stuffs of varion' 
 VOL. i. f
 
 210 PEOOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE xv. 
 
 kinds ; for every hour ships arrive in its port laden with all things neces- 
 sary for the use of man." (Fulcher., ap. Bongars., vol. i. p. 386.) 
 Willermus, archbishop of Tyre, the most intelligent historian of the 
 Crusades, seems to be fond, on every occasion, of describing the elegance 
 and splendour of the court of Constantinople, and adds that what he and 
 his countrymen observed there exceedetl any idea which they could have 
 formed of it, " nostrarum enim rerum modum et dignitatem excedunt." 
 (Willerm. Tyr., ap. Bong., vol. ii. pp. 657, 664.) Benjamin the Jew, of 
 Tudela in Navarre, who began his travels A.D. 1173, appears to have been 
 equally astonished at the magnificence of that city, and gives a description 
 of its splendour in terms of high admiration. (Benj. TudeL, ap. Les 
 Voyages faits dans les 12 e , 13*", etc. Siecles, par Bergeron, p. 10, etc.) 
 Guntherus, a French monk, who wrote a history of the conquest of Con- 
 stantinople by the crusaders in the thirteenth century, speaks of the 
 magnificence of that city in the same tone of admiration : " Structuram 
 autem sedificiorum in corpore civitatis, in ecclesiis videlicet, et turribus, 
 et in domibus magnatorum, vix ullus vel describere potest, vel credere 
 describenti, nisi qui ea oculata fide cognoverit." (Hist. Constantinop., ap. 
 Canisii Lectiones Antiquas, fol., Antw., 1725, vol. iv. p. 14.) Geoffrey 
 de Villehardouin, a nobleman of high rank, and accustomed to all the 
 magnificence then known in the West, describes in similar terms the 
 astonishment and admiration of such of his fellow-soldiers as beheld Con- 
 stantinople for the first time. " They could not have believed," says he, 
 " that there was a city so beautiful and so rich in the whole world. When 
 they viewed its high walls, its lofty towers, its rich palaces, its superb 
 churches, all appeared so great that they could have formed no conception 
 of this sovereign city unless they had seen it with their own eyes." 
 (Histoire de la Conquete de Constantinople, p. 49.) From these undis- 
 guised representations of their own feelings it is evident that to the Greeks 
 the crusaders appeared to be a race of rude, unpolished barbarians ; 
 whereas the latter, how much soever they might contemn the unwarlike 
 character of the former, could not help regarding them as far superior to 
 themselves in elegance and arts. That the state of government and manners 
 was much more improved in Italy than in the other countries of Europe 
 is evident not only from the facts recorded in history, but it appears that 
 the more intelligent leaders of the crusaders were struck with the differ- 
 ence. Jacobus de Vitriaco, a French historian of the holy war, makes an 
 elaborate panegyric on the character and manners of the Italians. He 
 views them as a more polished people, and particularly celebrates them 
 for their love of liberty, and civil wisdom : "In consiliis circumspecti, in 
 re suA publica procurand diligentes et studiosi ; sibi in posterum provi- 
 dentes ; aliis subjici renuentes ; ante omnia libertatem sibi defendentes ; 
 sub uno quern eligunt capitaneo, communitati suse jura et instituta die-- 
 tan tes et similiter observantes." Histor. Hierosol., ap. Gesta Dei pet 
 Francos, voL ii. p. 1085. 
 
 NOTE XV. Sect. I. p. 32. 
 
 The different steps taken by the cities of Italy in order to extend their 
 power and dominions are remarkable. As soon as their liberties were 
 established and they began to feel their own importance, they endeavoured
 
 NOTE xv.] PfiOOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 211 
 
 to render themselves masters of the territory round their walls. Under 
 the Romans, when cities enjoyed municipal privileges and jurisdiction, the 
 circumjacent lands belonged to each town and were the property of the 
 community. But, as it was not the genius of the feudal policy to encourage 
 cities or to show any regard for their possessions and immunities, these 
 lands had been seized and shared among the conquerors. The barons to 
 whom they were granted erected their castles almost at the gates of the 
 city, and exercised their jurisdiction there. Under pretence of recovering 
 their ancient property, many of the cities in Italy attacked these trouble- 
 some neighbours, and, dispossessing them, annexed their territories to the 
 communities, and made thereby a considerable addition to their power. 
 Several instances of this occur in the eleventh and beginning of the twelfth 
 centuries. (Murat., Antiq. ItaL, voL iv. p. 159, etc.) Their ambition 
 increasing together with their power, the cities afterwards attacked several 
 barons situated at a greater distance from their walls, and obliged them to 
 engage that they would become members of their community ; that they 
 would take the oath of fidelity to their magistrates ; that they would 
 subject their lands to all burdens and taxes imposed by common consent ; 
 that they would defend the community against all its enemies ; and 
 that they would reside within the city during a certain specified time in 
 each year. (Murat., ibid., p. 163.) This subjection of the nobility to 
 the municipal government established in cities became almost universal, 
 and was often extremely grievous to persons accustomed to consider them- 
 selves as independent Otto Frisingensis thus describes the state of Italy 
 under Frederic I. : " The cities so much affect liberty, and are so solicitous 
 to avoid the insolence of power, that almost all of them have thrown off 
 every other authority and are governed by their own magistrates. Inso- 
 much that all that country is now filled with free cities, most of which 
 have compelled their bishops to reside within their walls, and there is 
 scarcely any nobleman, how great soever his power may be, who is not 
 subject to the laws and government of some city." (De Gestis Frider. I. 
 Imp., lib. ii. c. 13, p. 453.) In another place he observes of the marquis 
 of Montferrat that he was almost the only Italian baron who had preserved 
 his independence and had not become subject to the laws of any city. (See 
 also Muratori, Antichita Estensi, voL i. pp. 411, 412.) That state into 
 which some of the nobles were compelled to enter, others embraced from 
 choice. They observed the high degree of security, as well as of credit 
 and estimation, which the growing wealth and dominion of the great com- 
 munities procured to all the members of them. They were desirous to 
 partake of these and to put themselves under such powerful protection. 
 With this view they voluntarily became citizens of the towns to which 
 their lands were most contiguous, and, abandoning their ancient castles, 
 took up their residence in the cities, at least during part of the year. 
 Several deeds are still extant by which some of the most illustrious 
 families in Italy are associated as citizens of different cities. (Murat., 
 ibid., p. 165, etc.) A charter by which Atto de Macerata is admitted 
 as a citizen of Osima, A.D. 1198, in the March a di Ancona, is still extant. 
 In this he stipulates that he will acknowledge himself to be a burgess 
 of that community ; that he will to the utmost of his power promote 
 its honour and welfare ; that he will obev its magistrates ; that he will 
 
 i- 2
 
 212 PEOOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE xv. 
 
 enter into no league with its enemies ; that he will reside in the town 
 during two months in every year, or for a longer time, if required by the 
 magistrates. The community, on the other hand, take him, his family, 
 and Mends, under their protection, and engage to defend him against every 
 enemy. (Fr. Ant. Zacharias, Anecdota Medii Mvi, Aug. Taur., 1755, 
 t'ol., p. 66.) This privilege was deemed so important that not only lay- 
 men, hut ecclesiastics of the highest rank, condescended to be adopted as 
 members of the great communities, in hopes of enjoying the safety and 
 dignity which that condition conferred. (Murat., ibid., p. 179.) Before 
 the institution of communities, persons of noble birth had no other residence 
 but their castles. They kept their petty courts there ; and the cities were 
 deserted, having hardly any inhabitants but slaves or persons of low con- 
 dition. But, in consequence of the practice which I have mentioned, 
 cities not only became more populous, but were filled with inhabitants of 
 better rank, and a custom which still subsists in Italy was then introduced, 
 that all families of distinction reside more constantly in the great towns 
 than is usual in other parts of Europe. As cities acquired new considera- 
 tion and dignity by the accession of such citizens, they became more 
 solicitous to preserve their liberty and independence. The emperors, as 
 sovereigns, had anciently a palace in almost every great city of Italy : 
 when they visited that country, they were accustomed to reside in these 
 palaces, and the troops which accompanied them were quartered in the 
 houses of the citizens. This the citizens deemed both ignominious and 
 dangerous. They could not help considering it as receiving a master and 
 an enemy within their walls. They laboured, therefore, to get free of this 
 subjection. Some cities prevailed on the emperors to engage that they 
 would never enter their gates but take up their residence without the 
 walls. (Chart. Hen. IV., Murat., ibid., p. 24.) Others obtained the im- 
 perial license to pull down the palace situated within their liberties, on 
 condition that they built another in the suburbs for the occasional re- 
 ception of the emperor. (Chart. Hen. IV., Murat., ibid., p. 25.) These 
 various encroachments of the Italian cities alarmed the emperors, and 
 put them on schemes for re-establishing the imperial jurisdiction over them 
 on its ancient footing. Frederic Barbarossa engaged in this enterprise 
 with great ardour. The free cities of Italy joined together in a general 
 league, and stood on their defence ; and after a long contest, carried on 
 with alternate success, a solemn treaty of peace was concluded at Con- 
 stance, A.D. 1183, by which all the privileges and immunities granted by 
 former emperors to the principal cities in Italy were confirmed and rati- 
 fied. (Murat., Dissert. XLVIII.) This treaty of Constance was considered 
 as such an important article in the jurisprudence of the Middle Ages that 
 it is usually published together with the Libri Feudorum at the end of the 
 Corpus Juris Civilis. The treaty secured privileges of great importance to 
 the confederate cities, and though it reserved a considerable degree of 
 authority and jurisdiction to the empire, yet the cities persevered with such 
 vigour in their efforts in order to extend their immunities, and the con- 
 junctures in which they made them were so favourable, that before the 
 conclusion of the thirteenth century most of the great cities in Italy had 
 shaken off all marks of subjection to the empire and were become inde- 
 pendent sovereign republics. It is not requisite that I should trace the
 
 NOTE xvi.] PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 213 
 
 various steps by which they advanced to this high degree of power, so fatal 
 to the empire and so beneficial to the cause of liberty in Italy. Muratori, 
 with his usual industry, has collected many original papers which illus- 
 trate this curious and little known part of history. Murat., Autiq. ItaL, 
 Dissert. L. See also Jo. Bapt. Villanovaa Hist. Laudis Pompeii sive 
 Lodi, in Grsev. Thes. Antiquit. ItaL, vol. iii. p. 888. 
 
 NOTE XVI. Sect. I. p. 33. 
 
 Long before the institution of communities in France, charters of im- 
 munity or franchise were granted to some towns and villages by the lords 
 on whom they depended. But these are very different from such as be- 
 came common in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. They did not 
 erect these towns into corporations ; they did not establish a municipal 
 government ; they did not grant them the privilege of bearing aims. 
 They contained nothing more than a manumission of the inhabitants from 
 the yoke of servitude ; an exemption from certain services which were 
 oppressive and ignominious ; and the establishment of a fixed tax or rent 
 which the citizens were to pay to their lord in place of impositions which 
 he could formerly lay upon them at pleasure. Two charters of this kind 
 to two villages in the county of Roussillon, one in A.D. 974, the other 
 in A.D. 1025, are still extant. (Petr. de Marca, Marca, sive- Limes His- 
 panicus, App., pp. 909, 1038.) Such concessions, it is probable, were 
 not unknown in other parts of Europe, and may be considered as a step 
 towards the more extensive privileges conferred by Louis le Gros on the 
 towns within his domains. The communities in France never aspired 
 to the same independence with those in Italy. They acquired new 
 privileges and immunities, but the right of sovereignty remained entire to 
 the king or baron within whose territories the respective cities were situated 
 and from whom they received the charter of their freedom. A great 
 number of these charters, granted both by the kings of France and by 
 their great vassals, are published by M. d'Achery in his Spicilegium, and 
 many are found in the collection of the Ordonnances des Rois de France. 
 These convey a very striking representation of the wretched condition of 
 cities previous to the institution of communities, when they were subject 
 to the judges appointed by the superior lords of whom they held, and 
 who had scarcely any other law but their will. Each concession in these 
 charters must be considered as a grant of some new privileges which the 
 people did not formerly enjoy, and each regulation as a method of redressing 
 some grievance under which the inhabitants of cities formerly laboured. 
 The charters of communities contain likewise the first expedients employed 
 for the introduction of equal laws and regular government. On both these 
 accounts they merit particular attention, and therefore, instead of referring 
 my readers to the many bulky volumes in which they are scattered, I ahull 
 give them a view of some of the most important articles in these charters, 
 ranged under two general heads. I. Such aa respect personal safety. 
 II. Such as respect the security of property. 
 
 I. During that state of turbulence and disorder which the corruption of 
 the feudal government introduced into Europe, personal safety was the 
 hrst and great object of every individual ; and, as the great military barons
 
 214 PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS OOE xvi. 
 
 alone were able to give sufficient protection to their vassals, this was one 
 threat source of their power and authority. But by the institution r>f 
 communities effectual provision was made for the safety of individual/, 
 independent of the nobles. For, 1. The fundamental 'ticle in eveiy 
 charter was that all the members of the community bound themselves by 
 oath to assist, defend, and stand by each other against all aggressors, and 
 that they should not suffer any person to injure, distress, or molest any of 
 their fellow-citizens. (D'Acher., SpiciL, x. 642, xi. 341, etc.) 2. Who- 
 ever resided in any town which was made free was obliged, under a severe 
 .penalty, to accede to the community and to take part in the mutual defence 
 of its members. (D'Acher., SpiciL, xi. 344.) 3. The communities had 
 the privilege of carrying arms ; of making war on their private enemies ; 
 and of executing by military force any sentence which their magistrates 
 pronounced. (D'Acher., Spicil., x. 643, 644, xi. 343.) 4. The practice 
 of making satisfaction by a pecuniary compensation for murder, assault, or 
 other acts of violence, most inconsistent with the order of society and the 
 safety of individuals, was abolished ; and such as committed these crimes 
 were punished capitally, or with rigour adequate to their guilt. (D'Ach., 
 xi. 362 ; Mirsei Opera Diplomatica, i. 292.) 5. No member of a com- 
 munity was bound to justify or defend himself by battle or combat ; but 
 if he was charged with any crime he could be convicted only by the 
 evidence of witnesses and the regular course of legal proceedings. (Mirceus, 
 ibid. ; D'Ach., xi. 375, 349 ; Ordon., torn. iii. p. 265.) 6. If any man 
 suspected himself to be in danger from the malice or enmity of another, 
 upon his making oath to that effect before a magistrate the person suspected 
 was bound under a severe penalty to give security for his peaceable be- 
 haviour. (D'Ach., xi. 346.) This is the same species of security which 
 is still known in Scotland under the name of law burrows. Tn France it 
 was first introduced among the inhabitants of communities, and, having 
 been found to contribute considerably towards personal safety, it was ex- 
 tended to all the other members of the society. Etablissemens de St. 
 Louis, liv. L cap. 28, ap. Du Cange, Vie de St. Louis, p. 15. 
 
 II. The provisions in the charters of communities concerning the secu- 
 rity of property are not less considerable than those respecting personal 
 safety, by the ancient law of France, no person could be arrested or con- 
 fined in prison on account of any private debt (Ordon. des Rois de 
 France, torn. i. pp. 72, 80.) If any person was arrested upon any pre- 
 text but his having been guilty of a capital crime, it was lawful to rescue 
 him out of the hands of the officers who had seized him. (Ordon., torn. iii. 
 p. 1 7.) Freedom from arrest on account of debt seems likewise to have 
 been enjoyed in other countries. (Gudenus, Sylloge Diplom., 473.) In 
 society, while it remained in its rudest and most simple form, debt seems 
 to have been considered as an obligation merely personaL Men had made 
 some progress towards refinement before creditors acquired a right of 
 seizing the property of their debtors in order to recover payment. The 
 expedients for this purpose were all introduced originally in communities, 
 and we can trace the gradual progress of them. 1. The simplest and 
 most obvious species of security was that the person who sold any com 
 modity should receive a pledge from him who bought it, which he re- 
 stored upon receiving pavment. Of this custom there are vestiges in
 
 NOTE xvi.] PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 215 
 
 several charters of community. (D'Ach., ix. 185, xi, ,377.) 2. When 
 no pledge was given, and the debtor became refractor) or insolvent, the 
 creditor was allowed to seize his effects with a strong hand and by his 
 private authority ; the citizens of Paris are wan-anted by the royal man- 
 date, " ut ubicumque, et quocumque modo poterunt, tantum capiant, 
 unde pecuniam sibi debitam integre et plenarie habeant, et inde sibi 
 invicem udju tores existant." (Ordon., etc., torn, i. p. 6.) This rude prac- 
 tice, suitable only to the violence of that which has been called a state of 
 nature, was tolerated longer than one can conceive to be possible in any 
 society where laws and order were at all known. The ordinance autho- 
 rizing it was issued A.D. 1134; and that which corrects the law, and 
 prohibits creditors from seizing the effects of their debtors unless by a 
 warrant from a magistrate and under his inspection, was not published 
 until the year 1351. (Ordon., torn, k p. 438.) It is probable, how- 
 ever, that men were taught, by observing the disorders which the former 
 mode of proceeding occasioned, to correct it in practice long before a 
 remedy was provided by a law to that effect. Every discerning reader 
 will apply this observation to many other customs and practices which 
 I have mentioned. New customs are not always to be ascribed to the 
 laws which authorize them. Those statutes only give a legal sanction 
 to such things as the experience of mankind has previously found to be 
 proper and beneficial. 3. As soon as the interposition of the magistrate 
 became requisite, regular provision was made for attaching or distraining 
 the movable effects of a debtor ; and if his movables were not sufficient 
 to discharge the debt, his immovable property, or estate in land, was 
 liable to the same distress, and was sold for the benefit of his creditor. 
 (D'Ach., ix. 184, 185, xi. 348, 380.) As this regulation afforded the 
 most complete security to the creditor, it was considered as so severe 
 that humanity pointed out several limitations in the execution of it. 
 Creditors were prohibited from seizing the wearing-apparel of their debtors, 
 their beds, the door of their house, their instruments of husbandly, etc. 
 (D'Ach., ix. 184, xi. 377.) Upon the same principles, when the power 
 of distraining effects became more general, the horse and arms of a 
 gentleman could not be seized. (D'Ach., ix. 185.) As hunting was 
 the favourite amusement of martial nobles, the emperor Ludovicus Pius 
 prohibited the seizing of a hawk on account of any composition or debt. 
 (Capitul., lib. iv. 21.) But, if the debtor had no other movables, even 
 these privileged articles might be seized. 4. In order to render the 
 security of property complete within a community, every person who was 
 admitted a member of it was obliged to buy or build a house, or to pur- 
 chase lands within its precincts, or at least to bring into the town a con- 
 siderable portion of his movables, per qucs justiciari possit, si quid forte in 
 eum querdiz cvenerit. (D'Ach., xi 326 ; Ordon., torn. i. p. 367 ; Liber- 
 tates S. Georgii de Esperanchia, Hist, de Dauphins', torn, i p. 26.) 
 5. That security might be as perfect as possible, in some towns the me n- 
 bers of the community seem to have been bound for each other. (D'A ;h., 
 x., 644.) 6. All questions with respect to property were tried within 
 the community, by magistrates and judges whom the citizens elected or 
 appointed. Their decisions were more equal and fixed than the sentences 
 which depended on the capricious and arbitrary will of a baron, who
 
 21 G PEOOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE xvi. 
 
 thought himself superior to all laws. (D'Ach., x. 644, 646, xi. 344, et 
 passim ; Ordon., torn, iil p. 204.) 7. No member of a community could 
 be burdened by any arbitrary tax ; for the superior lord, who granted the 
 charter of community, accepted of a fixed census or duty in lieu of all 
 demands. (Ordon., torn. iii. p. 204 ; Libertates de Calma, Hist, de 
 Dauphins', torn. i. p. 19 ; Libertates S. Georgii de Esperanchia, ibid., 
 p. 26.) Nor could the members of a community be distressed by an un- 
 equal imposition of the sum to be levied on the community. Regulations 
 are inserted in the charters of some communities concerning the method of 
 determining the quota of any tax to be levied on each inhabitant. (D'Ach. , 
 xi 350, 365.) St. Louis published an ordinance concerning this matter, 
 which extended to all the communities. (Ordon., torn. i. p. 186.) These 
 regulations are extremely favourable to liberty, as they vest the power of 
 proportioning the taxes in a certain number of citizens chosen out of each 
 parish, who were bound by solemn oath to decide according to justice. 
 That the more perfect security of property was one great object of those 
 who instituted communities, we learn not only from the nature of the 
 thing, but from the express words of several charters, of which I shall only 
 mention that granted by Alienor, queen of England and duchess of Guienne, 
 to the community of Poitiers, " ut sua propria melius defendere possint, 
 et magis integre custodire." (Du Cange, voc. Communia, vol. ii. p. 863.) 
 Such are some of the capital regulations established in communities during 
 the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. These may be considered as the first 
 expedients for the re-establishment of law and order, and contributed 
 greatly to introduce regular government among all the members of society. 
 As soon as communities were instituted, high sentiments of liberty began 
 to manifest themselves. When Humbert, lord of Beaujeu, upon granting 
 a charter of community to the town of Belleville, exacted of the inhabit- 
 ants an oath of fidelity to himself and successors, they stipulated, on their 
 part, that he shoxild swear to maintain their franchises and liberties ; and, 
 for their greater security, they obliged him to bring twenty gentlemen to 
 take the same oath and to be bound together with him. (D'Ach., ix. 
 183.) In the same manner, the lord of Moriens in Dauphine produced 
 a certain number of persons as his sureties for the observation of the articles 
 contained in the charter of community to that town. These were bound 
 to surrender themselves prisoners to the inhabitants of Moriens if their 
 liege-lord should violate any of their franchises, and they promised to re- 
 main in custody until he should grant the members of the community 
 redress. (Hist, de Dauphin^, torn. i. p. 17.) If the mayor or chief 
 magistrate of a town did any injury to a citizen, he was obliged to give 
 security for his appearance in judgment, in the same manner as a private 
 person, and, if cast, was liable to the same penalty. (D'Ach., ix. 183.) 
 These are ideas of equality uncommon in the feudal times. Communities 
 were so favourable to freedom that they were distinguished by the name 
 of libertates. (Du Cange, voL ii. p. 863.) They were at first extremely 
 odious to the nobles, who foresaw what a check they must prove to their 
 power and domination. Guibert, abbot of Nogent, calls them execrable 
 inventions, by which, contrary to law and justice, slaves withdrew them- 
 selves from that obedience which they owed to their masters. (Du Gauge, 
 ibid., p. 862.) The zeal with which some of the nobles and powerful
 
 NOTE xvn.] PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 217 
 
 ecclesiastics opposed the establishment of communities and endeavoured to 
 circumscribe tlicir privileges was extraordinary. A striking instance of 
 this occurs in the contests between the archbishop of Rheims and the in- 
 habitants of that community. It was the chief business of every arch- 
 bishop, during a considerable time, to abridge the rights and jurisdiction 
 of the community ; and the great object of the citizens, especially when 
 the see was vacant, to maintain, to recover, and to extend their own juris- 
 diction. Histoire civile et politiquede la Ville de Reims, parM. Anquetil, 
 torn, i p. 287, etc. 
 
 The observations which I have made concerning the low state of cities, 
 and the condition of their inhabitants, are confirmed by innumerable 
 passages in the historians and laws of the Middle Ages, It is not im- 
 probable, however, that some cities of the first order were in a better state 
 and enjoyed a superior degree of liberty. Under the Roman government 
 the municipal government established in cities was extremely favourable 
 to liberty. The jurisdiction of the senate in each corporation, and the 
 privileges of the citizens, were both extensive. There is reason to believe 
 that some of the greater cities, which escaped the destructive rage of the 
 barbarous nations, still retained their ancient form of government, at least 
 in a great measure. They were governed by a council of citizens, and by 
 magistrates whom they themselves elected. Very strong presumptions in 
 favour of this opinion are produced by M. 1'Abbd de Bos, Hist crit. de la 
 Mon. Frang., torn. i. p. 18, etc., torn, ii, p. 524, edit 1742. It appears 
 from some of the charters of community to cities, granted in the twelfth 
 and thirteenth centuries, that these only confirm the privileges possessed 
 by the inhabitants previous to the establishment of the community. 
 (D'Acher., Spicileg., vol. xi. p. 345.) Other cities claimed their privi- 
 leges, as having possessed them without interruption from the times of the 
 Romans. (Hist crit de la Mon. Franc., torn. ii. p. 333.) But the 
 number of cities which enjoyed such immunities was so small as hardly in 
 any degree to diminish the force of my conclusions in the text 
 
 NOTE XVII. Sect I. p. 33. 
 
 Having given a full account of the establishment, as well as effects, of 
 communities in Italy and France, it will be necessary to inquire with some 
 attention into the progress of cities and of municipal government in 
 Germany. The ancient Germans had no cities. Even in their hamlets or 
 villages they did not build their houses contiguous to each other. (Tacit, 
 de Mor. Germ., cap. 16.) They considered it as a badge of servitude to 
 be obliged to dwell in a city siirrounded with walls. When one of their 
 tribes had shaken off the Roman yoke, their countrymen required of them, 
 as an evidence of their having recovered liberty, to demolish the walls of a 
 town which the Romans had built in their country. Even the fiercest 
 animals, said they, lose their spirit and courage when they are confined. 
 (Tacit, Histor., lib. iv. c. 64.) The Romans built several cities of note 
 on the banks of the Rhine. But in all the vast countries from that river 
 to the coasts of the Baltic there was hardly one city previous to the ninth 
 century of the Christian era, (Conringius, Exercitatio de Urbibus Ger- 
 manise, Oper., vol. i. 25, 27, 31, etc.) Heineccius differs from Con-
 
 218 PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE xvn. 
 
 ringius with respect to this. But, even after allowing to his arguments 
 and authorities their utmost force, they prove only that there were a few 
 places in those extensive regions on which some historians have bestowed 
 the name of towns. (Elem. Jur. German., lib. i. 102.) Under Charle- 
 magne and the emperors of his family, as the political state of Germany 
 began to improve, several cities were founded, and men became accustomed 
 to associate and to live together in one place. Charlemagne founded two 
 archbishoprics and nine bishoprics in the most considerable towns of Ger- 
 many. (Aub. Miroei Opera Diplomatica, vol. i. p. 16.) His successors 
 increased the number of these ; and as bishops fixed their residence in the 
 chief town of their diocese, and performed religious functions there, that 
 induced many people to settle in them. (Coming., ibid., 48.) But 
 Henry, surnamed the Fowler, who began his reign A.D. 920, must be con- 
 sidered as the great founder of cities in Germany. The empire was at that 
 time infested by the incursions of the Hungarians and other barbarous people. 
 In order to oppose them, Henry encouraged his subjects to settle in cities, 
 which he surrounded with walls strengthened by towers. He enjoined or 
 persuaded a certain proportion of the nobility to fix their residence in the 
 towns, and thus rendered the condition of citizens more honourable than it 
 had been formerly. (Wittikindus, Annal., lib. i., ap. Conring., 82.) 
 From this period the number of cities continued to increase, and they 
 became more populous and more wealthy. But cities in Germany were 
 still destitute of municipal liberty or jurisdiction. Such of them as were 
 situated in the imperial demesnes were subject to the emperors. Their 
 comites, missi, and other judges presided in them and dispensed justice. 
 Towns situated on the estate of a baron were part of his fief, and he or 
 his officers exercised a similar jurisdiction in them. (Conring., ibid., 
 73, 74 ; Heinec., Elem. Jur. Germ., lib. i. 104.) The Germans 
 borrowed the institution of communities from the Italians. (Kuipschil- 
 dius, Tractatus Politico-Histor. Jurid. de Civitatum Imperialium Juribus, 
 vol. i. lib. i cap. 5, no. 23.) Frederic Barbarossa was the first emperor 
 who, from the same political consideration that influenced Louis le Gros, 
 multiplied communities in order to abridge the power of the nobles. 
 (Pfeffel, Abrdge de 1'Histoire et du Droit publique d'Allemagne, 4to, p. 
 297.) From the reign of Henry the Fowler to the time when the German 
 cities acquired full possession of their immunities, various circumstances 
 contributed to their increase. The establishment of bishoprics (already 
 mentioned), and the building of cathedrals, naturally induced many people 
 to settle near the chief place of worship. It became the custom to hold 
 councils and courts of judicature of every kind, ecclesiastical as well as 
 civil, in cities. In the eleventh centuiy many slaves were enfranchised, 
 the greater part of whom settled in cities. Several mines were discovered 
 and wrought in different provinces, which drew together such a concourse 
 of people as gave rise to several cities and increased the number of inhabi- 
 tants in others. (Conring., 105.) The cities began in the thirteenth 
 century to form leagues for their mutual defence, and for repressing the 
 disorders occasioned by the private wars among the barons, as well as by 
 their exactions. This rendered the condition of the inhabitants of cities 
 more secure than that of any other order of men, and allured many to 
 become members of their communities. (Coming., 94.) There were
 
 xvin.] PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 219 
 
 inhabitants of three different ranks in the towns of Germany : the nobles, 
 or familce ; the citizens, or liberi ; and the artisans, who were slaves, or 
 homines proprii. (Knipschild. , lib. ii cap. 29, no. 13.) Henry V., who 
 began his reign A.D. 1106, enfranchised the slaves who were artisans or 
 inhabitants in several towns, and gave them the rank of citizens or liberi. 
 (Pfeffel, p. 254; Knipsch., lib. ii c. 29, nos. 113, 119.) Though the 
 cities in Germany did not acquire liberty so early as those in France, they 
 extended their privileges much farther. All the imperial and free cities, 
 the number of which is considerable, acquired the full right of being 
 immediate ; by which term, in the German jurisprudence, we are to under- 
 stand that they are subject to the empire alone, and possess within their 
 own precincts all the rights of complete and independent sovereignty. The 
 various privileges of the imperial cities, the great guardians of the Germanic 
 liberties, are enumerated by Knipschildius, lib. ii. The most important 
 articles are generally known, and it would be improper to enter into any 
 disquisition concerning minute particulars. 
 
 NOTE XVIII. Sect. L p. 33. 
 
 The Spanish historians are almost entirely silent concerning the origin 
 and progress of communities in that kingdom ; so -that I cannot fix with 
 any degree of certainty the time and manner of their first introduction 
 there. It appears, however, from Mariana, vol. ii. p. 221, fol. Hagse, 1736, 
 that in the year 1350 eighteen cities had obtained a seat in the cortes of 
 Castile. From the account which will be given of their constitution and 
 pretensions, Sect. III. of this volume, it will appear that their privileges 
 and form of government were the same with those of the other feudal 
 corporations ; and this, as well as the perfect similarity of political insti- 
 tutions and transactions in all the feudal kingdoms, may lead us to 
 conclude that communities were introduced there in the same manner and 
 probably about the same time as in the other nations of Europe. In 
 Aragon, as I shall have occasion to observe in a subsequent note, cities 
 seem early to have acquired extensive immunities, together with a share in 
 the legislature. In the year 1118 the citizens of Saragossa had not only 
 attained political liberty, but they were declared to be of equal rank with 
 the nobles of the second class ; and many other immunities, unknown to 
 persons in their rank of life in other parts of Europe, were conferred upon 
 them. (Zurita, Anales de Aragon, torn, i p. 44.) In England, the 
 establishment of communities or corporations was posterior to the Con- 
 quest. The practice was borrowed from France, and the privileges granted 
 by the crown were perfectly similar to those which I have enumerated. 
 But, as this part of history is well known to most of my readers, I shall, 
 without entering into any critical or minute discussion, refer them to 
 authors who have fully illustrated this interesting point in the English 
 history. (Brady's Treatise of Boroughs ; Madox, Firma Burgi, cap. i. 
 sect. ix. ; Hume's History of England, voL i., Append, i. and ii.) It is 
 not improbable that some of the towns in England were formed into cor- 
 porations under the Saxon kings, and that the charters granted by the 
 kings of the Norman race were not charters of enfranchisement from a 
 state of slavery, but a confirmation of privileges which they already
 
 220 PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE xix. 
 
 enjoyed. (See Lord Lyttelton's History of Henry II., vol. ii. p. 317.) 
 The English cities, however, were very inconsiderable in the twelfth 
 century. A clear proof of this occurs in the history to which I last 
 referred. Fitzstephen, a contemporary author, gives a description of the 
 city of London in the reign of Henry II., and the terms in which he 
 speaks of its trade, its wealth, and the splendour of its inhabitants, would 
 suggest uo inadequate idea of its state at present, when it is the greatest 
 and most opulent city of Europe. But all ideas of grandeur and magnifi- 
 cence are merely comparative ; and every description of them in general 
 terms is very apt to deceive. It appears from Peter of Blois, archdeacon 
 of London, who flourished in the same reign, and who had good oppor- 
 tunity of being well informed, that this city, of which Fitzstephen gives 
 such a pompous account, contained no more than forty thousand inhabi- 
 tants. (Ibid, pp. 315, '316.) The other cities were small in proportion, 
 and were not in a condition to extort any extensive privileges. That the 
 constitution of the boroughs in Scotland, in many circumstances, resembled 
 that of the towns in France and England, is manifest from the Leges 
 Burgorum, annexed to the Regiam Majestatem. 
 
 NOTE XIX. Sect. I. p. 38. 
 
 Soon after the introduction of the third estate into the national council, 
 the spirit of liberty which that excited in France began to produce con- 
 spicuous effects. In several provinces of France the nobility and com- 
 munities formed associations whereby they bound themselves to defend 
 their rights and privileges against the formidable and arbitrary proceedings 
 of the king. The Count de Boulainvilliers has preserved a copy of one of 
 these associations, dated in the year 1314, twelve years after the admis- 
 sion of the deputies from towns into the states-general. (Histoire de 
 1'ancien Gouvemement de la France, torn. ii. p. 94.) The vigour with 
 which the people asserted and prepared to maintain their rights obliged 
 their sovereigns to respect them. Six years after this association, Philip 
 the Long issued a writ of summons to the community of Narbonne, in the 
 following terms : " Philip, by the grace, etc., to our well-beloved, etc. As 
 we desire with all our heart, and above all other things, to govern our 
 kingdom and people in peace and tranquillity, by the help of God, and 
 to reform our said kingdom in so far as it stands in need thereof, for 
 the public good and for the benefit of our subjects, who in times past 
 have been aggrieved and oppressed in divers manners by the malice of 
 sundry persons, as we have learned by common report, as well as by the 
 information of good men worthy of credit, and we having determined in 
 our council which we have called to meet in our good city, etc., to give 
 redress to the utmost of our power, by all ways and means possible, 
 according to reason and justice, and willing that this should be done with 
 solemnity and deliberation, by the advice of the prelates, barons, and good 
 towns of our realm, and particularly of you, and that it should be trans- 
 acted agreeably to the will of God and for the good of our people, therefore 
 we command," etc. (Mably, Observat., vol. iii., App., p. 386.) I shall 
 allow these to be only the formal words of a public and legal style ; but 
 the ideas are singular, and much more liberal and enlarged than one could
 
 NOTE xx.] PEOOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 221 
 
 expect in that age. A popular monarch of Great Britain could hardly 
 address himself to parliament in terms more favourable to public liberty. 
 There occurs in the history of France a striking instance of the progress 
 which the principles of liberty had made in that kingdom, and of the 
 influence which the deputies of towns had acquired in the states-general. 
 During the calamities in which the war with England and the captivity of 
 King John had involved France, the states-general made a bold efl'ort to 
 extend their own privileges and jurisdiction. The regulations established 
 by the states held A.D. 1355, concerning the mode of levying taxes, the 
 administration of wliich they vested, not in the crown, but in commis- 
 sioners appointed by the states ; concerning the coining of money ; con- 
 cerning the redress of the grievance of purveyance ; concerning the regular 
 administration of justice, are much more suitable to the genius of a 
 republican government than that of a feudal monarchy. This curious 
 statute is published, Ordon., torn. iii. p. 19. Such as have not an oppor- 
 tunity to consult that large collection will find an abridgment of it in 
 Hist, de France par Villaret, torn. ix. p. 130, or in Histoire de Boulainv., 
 torn. ii. p. 213. The French historians represent the bishop of Laon, and 
 Marcel, provost of the merchants of Paris, who had the chief direction of 
 this assembly, as seditious tribunes, violent, interested, ambitious, and 
 aiming at innovations subversive of the constitution and government of 
 their country. That may have been the case ; but these men possessed 
 the confidence of the people ; and the measures which they proposed as 
 the most popular and acceptable, as well as most likely to increase their 
 own influence, plainly prove that the spirit of liberty had spread wonder- 
 fully, and that the ideas which then prevailed in France concerning 
 government were extremely liberal The states-general held at Paris A.D. 
 1355 consisted of about eight hundred members, and above one-half of 
 these were deputies from towns. (M. Secousse, Pref. a Ordon., torn. iii. 
 p. 48.) It appears that in all the different assemblies of the states held 
 during the reign of John, the representatives of towns had great influence, 
 and in every respect the tliird state was considered as co-ordinate and equal 
 to either of the other two. (Ibid., passim.) These spirited efforts were 
 made in France long before the House of Commons in England acquired 
 any considerable influence in the legislature. As the feudal system was 
 carried to its utmost height in France sooner than in England, so it began 
 to decline sooner in the former than in the latter kingdom. In England, 
 almost all attempts to establish or to extend the liberty of the people have 
 been successful ; in France, they have proved unfortunate. What were 
 the accidental events or political causes which occasioned this difference it 
 ia not my present business to inquire. 
 
 Note XX. Sect I. p. 40. 
 
 In a former Note [No. VIII.] I have inquired into the condition of that 
 part of the people which was employed in agriculture, and have represented 
 the various hardships and calamities of their situation. When charters of 
 liberty or manumission were granted to such persons, they contained four 
 concessions corresponding to the four capital grievances to which men in a 
 state of servitude are subject. 1. The right of disposing of their persona
 
 222 PKOOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE xx. 
 
 by sale or grant was relinquished. 2. Power was given to them of con- 
 veying their property and effects by will or any other legal deed. Or if 
 they happened to die intestate, it was provided that their property should 
 go to their lawful heirs, in the same manner as the property of other 
 persons. 3. The services and taxes which they owed to their superior or 
 liege-lord, which were formerly arbitrary and imposed at pleasure, are 
 precisely ascertained. 4. They are allowed the privilege of marrying 
 according to their own inclination : formerly they could contract no mar- 
 riage without their lord's permission, and with no person but one of his 
 slaves. All these particulars are found united in the charter granted 
 " HabitatoriLus Montis Britonis," A.D. 1376. (Hist, de Dauphind, torn. i. 
 p. 81.) Many circumstances concurred with those wliich I have men- 
 tioned in the text in procuring them deliverance from that wretched state. 
 The gentle spirit of the Christian religion, the doctrines which it teaches 
 concerning the original equality of mankind, its tenets with respect to the 
 divine government and the impartial eye with which the Almighty regards 
 men of every condition and admits them to a participation of his benefits, 
 are all inconsistent with servitude. But in this, as in many other 
 instances, considerations i if interest and the maxims of false policy led men 
 to a conduct inconsistent with their principles. They were so sensible, 
 however, of this inconsistency, that to set their fellow-Christians at liberty 
 from servitude was deemed an act of piety highly meritorious and accept- 
 able to Heaven. The humane spirit of the Christian religion struggled 
 long with the maxims and manners of the world, and contributed more 
 than any other circumstance to introduce the practice of manumission. When 
 Pope Gregory the Great, who flourished towards the end of the sixth 
 century, granted liberty to some of his slaves, he gives this reason for it : 
 " Cum Redemptor noster, totius conditor naturae, ad hoc propitiatus 
 humanam carnem voluerit assumere, ut divinitatis suae gratia, dirempto 
 (quo tenebamur captivi) vinculo, pristinse nos restitueret libertati ; salu- 
 briter agitur, si homines, quos ab initio liberos natura protulit, et jus 
 gentium jugo substituit servitutis, in ea, qua nati fuerant, manumittentis 
 beneficio, libertati reddantur." (Gregor. Magn., ap. Potgiess., lib. iv. c. i, 
 3.) Several laws or charters founded on reasons similar to this are pro- 
 duced by the same author. Accordingly, a great part of the charters of 
 manumission, previous to the reign of Loiiis X., are granted "pro amore 
 Dei, pro remedio animse, et pro mercede animse." (Murat., Antiq. Ital., 
 vol. i. pp. 849, 850 ; Du Cange, voc. Manumissio.) The formality of 
 manumission was executed in a church, as a religious solemnity. The 
 person to be set free was led round the great altar with a torch in his hand, 
 he took hold of the horns of the altar, and there the solemn words con- 
 ferring liberty were pronounced. (Du Cange, ibid., vol. iv. p. 467.) I 
 shall transcribe a part of a charter of manumission granted A.D. 1056, both 
 as it contains a full account of the ceremonies used in this form of manu- 
 mission, and as a specimen of the imperfect knowledge of the Latin tongue 
 in that barbarous age. It is granted by Willa, the widow of Hugo, the 
 duke and marquis, in favour of Clariza, one of her slaves. " Et ideo noa 
 Domina Wille inclite cometisse libera et absolve te Cleriza filia Uberto 
 pro timore omnipotentis Dei, et remedio luminarie anime bone memorie 
 quondam supra scripto Domini Ugo gloriossissimo ? ut quando ilium Domi-
 
 NOTE xx.] PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 223 
 
 mis de hac vita migrare jusserit, pars iniqua non abeat potestatem ullam, 
 sed anguelus Domini nostri Jesu Christi colocare dignitur ilium inter 
 sanctos dilectos suos ; et beatus Petrus princips apostolorum, qui habed 
 potestatem omnium animarum ligandi et absolvendi, ut ipsi absolvat 
 iinimce ejus de peccatis sui, aperiad ilium janua paradisi ; pro eadem vero 
 r itioni, in mano mite te, Benzo presbiter, ut vadat tecum in ecclesia sancti 
 Bartholomaei apostoli ; traad de tribus vicibus circa altare ipsius ecclesise 
 cum caereo apprehensum in manibus tuis et manibus suis ; deiride exite 
 ambulate in via quadrubio, ubi quatuor vie se dividuntur. Statimque pro 
 remedio luminarie anime bone memorie quondam supra scripto Domini 
 Ugo et ipsi presbiter Benzo fecit omnia, et dixit, Ecce quatuor vie, ite et 
 ambulate in quacunque partem tibi placuerit, tam sic supra scripta Cleriza, 
 qua nosque tui heredes, qui ab ac hora in antea nati, vel procreati fuerit 
 utriusque sexus," etc. (Murat., ibid., p. 853. ) Many other charters 
 might have been selected which in point of grammar or style are in no 
 wise superior to this. Manumission was frequently granted on death-bed 
 or by latter will. As the minds of men are at that time awakened to 
 sentiments of humanity and piety, these deeds proceeded from religious 
 motives, and were granted pro redemptione animce, in order to obtain 
 acceptance with God. (Du Cange, ubi supra, p. 470, et. voc. Servus, 
 vol. vi. p. 451.) Another method of obtaining liberty was by entering 
 into holy orders, or taking the vow in a monastery. This was permitted 
 for some time ; but so many slaves escaped, by this means, out of the 
 hands of their masters, that the practice was afterwards restrained, and at 
 last prohibited, by the laws of almost all the nations of Europe. (Murat., 
 ibid., p. 842.) Conformably to the same principles, princes, on the birth 
 of a son, or upon any other agreeable event, appointed a certain number 
 of slaves to be enfranchised, as a testimony of their gratitude to God for 
 that benefit. (Marculfi Form., lib. i. cap. 39.) There are several forms 
 of manumission published by Marculfus, and all of them are founded on 
 i-eligious considerations, in order to procure the favour of God or to obtain 
 the forgiveness of their sins. (Lib. ii. c. 23, 33, 34, edit. Baluz.) The 
 same observation holds with respect to the other collections of Formulae 
 annexed to Marculfus. As sentiments of religion induced some to grant 
 liberty to their fellow-Christians who groaned under the yoke of servitude, 
 so mistaken ideas concerning devotion led others to relinquish their liberty. 
 When a person conceived an extraordinary respect for the saint who was 
 the patron of any church or monastery in which he was accustomed to 
 attend religious worship, it was not unusual, among men possessed with 
 an excess of superstitious reverence, to give up themselves and their pos- 
 terity to be the slaves of the saint (Mabillon, De Re Diplomat, lib. vi. 
 p. 63^.) The oblati, or voluntary slaves of churches or monasteries, were 
 very numerous, and may be divided into three different classes. The first 
 were such as put themselves and effects under the protection of a particular 
 church or monastery, binding themselves to defend its privileges and pro- 
 perty against every aggressor. These were prompted to do so not merely 
 by devotion, but in order to obtain that security which arose from the 
 protection of the Church. They were rather vassals than slaves, and 
 sometimes persons of noble birth found it prudent to secure the protection 
 of the Church in this manner. Persons of the second class bound them-
 
 224 PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE ** 
 
 selves to pay an annual tax or quit-rent out of their estates to a church or 
 monastery. Besides this, they sometimes engaged to perform certain 
 services. They were called censuales. The last class consisted of such as 
 actually renounced their liberty and became slaves in the strict and proper 
 sense of the word. These were called minister idles, and enslaved their 
 bodies, as some of the charters bear, that they might procure the liberty 
 Df their souls. (Potgiesserus, De Statu Servorum, lib. L c. 1, 6, 7.) 
 How zealous the clergy were to encourage the opinions which led to this 
 practice, will appear from a clause in a charter by which one gives up 
 himself as a slave to a monastery : " Cum sit omni carnali ingenuitate 
 generosius extremum quodcumque Dei servitium, scilicet quod terrena 
 nobilitas multos plerumque vitiorum servos ftx.'it, servi^us vero Christi 
 nobiles virtutibus reddit, nemo autem sani capitis virtutil as vitia compara- 
 verit, claret pro certo eum esse generosiorem, qui se Dei servitio prsebuerit 
 proniorem. Quod ego Ragnaldus intelligens," etc. Another charter is 
 expressed in the following words : " Eligens magis esse servus Dei quam 
 libertus sseculi, firmiter credens et sciens, quod servire Deo, regnare est, 
 summaque ingenuitas sit in qua servitus comparabatur Christi," etc. (Du 
 Gauge, voc. Oblatus, vol. iv. pp. 128(5, 1287.) Great, however, as the 
 power of religion was, it does not appear that the enfranchisement of slaves 
 was a frequent practice while the feudal system preserved its vigour. On 
 the contrary, there were laws which set bounds to it, as detrimental to 
 society. (Potgiess., lib. iv. c. ii. 6.) The inferior order of men owed 
 the recovery of their liberty to the decline of that aristocratical policy 
 which lodged the most extensive power in the hands of a few members of 
 the society and depressed all the rest. When Louis X. issued his ordi- 
 nance, several slaves had been so long accustomed to servitude, and their 
 minds were so much debased by that unhappy situation, that they refused 
 to accept of the liberty which was offered them. (D'Ach., SpiciL, vol. xi. 
 p. 387.) Long after the reign of Louis X. several of the French nobility 
 continued to assert their ancient dominion over their slaves. It appears 
 from an ordinance of the famous Bertrand de Guesclin, constable of France, 
 that the custom of enfranchising them was considered as a pernicious inno- 
 vation. (Morice, Me'm. pour servir de Preuves a 1'Hist. de Bret., torn. ii. 
 p. 100.) In some instances, when the prsedial slaves were declared to be 
 freemen, they were still bound to perform certain services to their ancient 
 masters, and were kept in a state different from other subjects, being re- 
 stricted either from purchasing land or becoming members of a community 
 within the precincts of the manor to which they formerly belonged. 
 (Martene et Durand, Thesaur. Anecdot., vol. i. p. 914.) This, however, 
 ems not to have been common. There is no general law for the manu- 
 mission of slaves in the Statute-book of England, similar to that which 
 has been quotad from the Ordonnances of the kings of France. Though 
 the genius of the English constitution seems early to have favoured per- 
 sonal liberty, personal servitude, nevertheless, continued long in England 
 in some particular places. In the year 1514 we find a charter of Henry 
 VIII. enfranchising two slaves belonging to one of his manors. (Rym., 
 Feeder., vol. xiii. p. 470.) As late as the year 1574, there is a commission 
 from Queen Elizabeth with respect to the manumission of certain bondmen 
 belonging to her. Rymer, in Observat. on the Statutes, etc., p. 251
 
 NOTB xxi.] PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 226 
 
 NOTE XXI. Sect. I. p. 46. 
 
 There is no custom in the Middle Ages more singular than that of 
 private war. It is a right of so great importance, and prevailed so uni- 
 versally, that the regulations concerning it occupy a considerable place in 
 the system of laws during the Middle Ages. M. de Montesquieu, who 
 has unravelled so many intricate points in feudal jurisprudence and thrown 
 light on so many customs formerly obscure and unintelligible, was not led 
 by his subject to consider this. I shall therefore give a more minute 
 account of the customs and regulations which directed a practice so con- 
 trary to the present ideas of civilised nations concerning government and 
 order. 1. Among the ancient Germans, as well as other nations in a 
 similar state of society, the right of avenging injuries was a private and 
 personal right exercised by force of arms, without any reference to an 
 umpire or any appeal to a magistrate for decision. The clearest proofs of 
 this were produced, Note VI. 2. This practice subsisted among the 
 barbarous nations after their settlement in the provinces of the empire 
 which they conquered ; and as the causes of dissension among them mul- 
 tiplied, their family feuds and private wars became more frequent. Proofs 
 of this occur in their early historians (Greg. Turon., Hist, lib. vii. c. 2, 
 lib. viii c. 18, lib. x. c. 27), and likewise in the codes of their laws. It 
 was not only allowable for the relations to avenge the injuries of their 
 family, but it was incumbent on them. Thus, by the laws of the Angli 
 and Werini, " ad quemcunque hereditas terrse pervenerit, ad ilium vest is 
 bellica, id est lorica et ultio proxiini, et solatio leudis, debet pertinere" 
 (tit. vi. 5, ap. Lindenbr., Leg. Saliq., tit. 63 ; Leg. Longob., lib. iL tit. 
 14, 10). 3. None but gentlemen, or persons of noble birth, had the 
 right of private war. All disputes between slaves, villani, the inhabitants 
 of towns, and freemen of inferior condition, were decided in the courts of 
 justice. All disputes between gentlemen and persons of inferior rank 
 were terminated in the same manner. The right of private war supposed 
 nobility of birth and equality of rank in both the contending parties. 
 (Befiumanoir, Coustumes de Beauv., ch. lix. p. 300 ; Ordon. des Rois de 
 France, torn, ii. p. 395, xvii p. 508, xv., etc.) The dignified eccle- 
 siastics likewise claimed and exercised the right of private war ; but, as it 
 was not altogether decent for them to prosecute quarrels in person, advocati 
 or vidames were chosen by the several monasteries or bishoprics. These 
 were commonly men of high rank and reputation, who became the pro- 
 tectors of the churches and convents by which they were elected ; espoused 
 their quarrels, and fought their battles ; " armis omnia quse erant ecclesiae 
 viriliter defendebant, et vigilanter protegebant." (Brussel, Usage dei 
 Fiefs, torn. i. p. 144; Du Cange, voc. Advocatus.) On many occasions 
 the martial ideas to which ecclesiastics of noble birth were accustomed 
 made them forget the pacific spirit of their profession, and led them into 
 the field in person at the head of their vassals : " flamma, ferro, csede, 
 possessiones ecclesiarum prrelati defendebant." (Guido Abbas, ap. Du 
 Cange, ibid., p. 179.) 4. It was not every injury or trespass that gave a 
 gentleman a title to make war upon his adversary. Atrocious acts of 
 violence, insults, and affronts, publicly committed, were legal and per 
 VOL. i. Q
 
 226 PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE xxi. 
 
 raitted motives for taking arms against the authors of them. Such crimes 
 as are now punished capitally in civilised nations at that time justified 
 private hostilities. (Beauman., ch. lix. ; Du Cange, Dissert. XXIX., sur 
 Joinville, p. 331.) But though the avenging of injuries was the only 
 motive that could legally authorise a private war, yet disputes concerning 
 civil property often gave rise to hostilities and were terminated by the 
 sword. (Du Cange, Dissert., p. 332.) 5. All persons present when 
 any quarrel arose or any act of violence was committed were included in 
 the war which it occasioned ; for it was supposed to be impossible for any 
 man in such a situation to remain neuter, without taking side with one or 
 other of the contending parties. (Beauman., p. 300.) 6. All the kindred 
 of the two principals in the war were included in it, and obliged to espouse 
 the quarrel of the chieftain with whom they were connected. (Du Cange, 
 ibid., p. 332.) This was founded on the maxim of the ancient Germans, 
 " suscipere tarn inimicitias seu patris, seu propinqui, quam amicitias, 
 necesse est ; " a maxim natural to all rude nations, among which the form 
 of society, and political union, strengthen such a sentiment. This obliga- 
 tion-was enforced by legal authority. If a person refused to take part in 
 the quarrel of his kinsman and to aid him against his adversary, he was 
 deemed to have renounced all the rights and privileges of kindredship, 
 and became incapable of succeeding to any of his relations, or of deriving 
 any benefit from any civil right or property belonging to them. (Du Gauge, 
 Dissert., p. 333.) The method of ascertaining the degree of affinity which 
 obliged a person to take part in the quarrel of a kinsman was curious. 
 While the Church prohibited the marriage of persons within the seventh 
 degree of affinity, the vengeance of private war extended as far as this 
 absurd prohibition, and all who had such a remote connection with any of 
 the principals were involved in the calamities of war. But when the 
 Church relaxed somewhat of its rigour, and did not extend its prohibition 
 of marrying beyond the fourth degree of affinity, the same restriction took 
 place in the conduct of private war. (Beauman., p. 303 ; Du Cange, 
 Dissert., p. 333.) 7. A private war could not be carried on between two 
 full brothers, because both have the same common kindred, and conse- 
 quently neither had any persons bound to stand by him against the other 
 in the contest ; but two brothers of the half-blood might wage war, because 
 each of them has a distinct kindred. (Beauman., p. 299.) 8. The vassals 
 of each principal in any private war were involved in the contest, because, 
 by the feudal maxims, they were bound to take arms in defence of the 
 chieftain of whom they held, and to assist him in every quarrel. As soon, 
 therefore, as feudal tenures were introduced, and this artificial connection 
 was established between vassals and the baron of whom they held, vassals 
 came to be considered as in the same state with relations. (Beauman., 
 p. 303.) 9. Private wars were very frequent for several centuries. 
 Nothing contributed more to increase those disorders in government or to 
 encourage such ferocity of manners as reduced the nations of Europe to 
 that wretched state which distinguished the period of history which I am 
 reviewing. Nothing was such an obstacle to the introduction of a regular 
 administration of justice. Nothing could more effectually discourage 
 industry or retard the progress and cultivation of the arts of peace. Private 
 wans were earned on with all the destructive rage which is to be dreaded
 
 NOTE xxi.] PEOOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 227 
 
 from violent resentment when armed with force and authorised by law. 
 It appears from the statutes prohibiting or restraining the exercise of 
 private hostilities that the invasion of the most barbarous enemy could not 
 be more desolating to a country, or more fatal to its inhabitants, than 
 those intestine wars. (Ordon., torn. i. p. 701, torn. ii. pp. 395, 408, 507, 
 etc.) The contemporary historians describe the excesses committed in 
 prosecution of these quarrels in such terms as excite astonishment and 
 horror. I shall mention only one passage from the History of the Holy 
 War, by Guibert, abbot of Nogent : " Erat eo tempore, maximis ad 
 invicem hostilitatibus, totius Francorum regni facta turbatio ; crebra uhique 
 latrocinia, viarum obsessio ; audiebantur passim, immo tiebant inceiulia 
 infinita ; nullis prater sola et indomita cupiditate existentibus causis, 
 extruebantur prselia ; et ut brevi totum claudam, quicquid obtutibus 
 cupidorum subjacebat, nusquam attendendo cujus esset, prasdee patebat." 
 Gesta Dei per Francos, vol. i. p. 482. 
 
 Having thus collected the chief regulations which custom had established 
 concerning the right and exercise of private war, I shall enumerate, in 
 chronological order, the various expedients employed to abolish or restrain 
 this fatal custom. 1. The first expedient employed by the civil magis- 
 trate, in order to set some bounds to the violence of private revenge, was 
 the fixing by law the fine or composition to be paid for each different 
 crime. The injured person was originally the sole judge concerning the 
 nature of the wrong which he had suffered, the degree of vengeance which 
 he should exact, as well as the species of atonement or reparation with 
 which he might rest satisfied. Resentment became, of course, as implacable 
 as it was fierce. It was often a point of honour not to forgive, nor to be 
 reconciled. This made it necessary to fix those compositions which make 
 so great a figure in the laws of barbarous nations. The nature of crimes 
 and offences was estimated by the magistrate, and the sum due to the 
 person offended was ascertained with a minute, and often a whimsical, 
 accuracy. Rotharis, the legislator of the Lombards, who reigned about 
 the middle of the seventh century, discovers his intention both in ascer- 
 taining the composition to be paid by the offender and in increasing its 
 value : it is, says he, that the enmity may be extinguished, the prosecu- 
 tion may cease, and peace may be restored. (Leg. Longob., bib. i. tit. 7, 
 10.) 2. About the beginning of the ninth century, Charlemagne struck 
 at the root of the evil, and enacted " That when any person had been 
 guilty of a crime, or had committed an outrage, he should immediately 
 submit to the penance which the Church imposed, and offer to pay the 
 composition which the law prescribed ; and if the injured person or his 
 kindred should refuse to accept of this, and presume to avenge themselves 
 by force of arms, their lands and properties should be forfeited." (CapituL, 
 \.D. 802, edit. Baluz., vol. i. p. 371.) 3. But in this, as well as in other 
 regulations, the genius of Charlemagne advanced before the spirit of his 
 age. The ideas of his contemporaries concerning regular government were 
 too imperfect, and their manners too tierce, to submit to this law. Private 
 ware, with all the calamities which they occasioned, became more frequent 
 than ever after the death of that great monarch. His successors were 
 unable to restrain them. The Church found it necessary to interpose. 
 The most early of these interpositions now extant is towards the end of 
 
 Q li
 
 228 PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE xxi. 
 
 the tenth century. In the year 990, several bishops in the south of 
 France assembled, and published various regulations in order to set some 
 bounds to the violence and frequency of private wars : if any person 
 within their dioceses should venture to transgress, they ordained that he 
 should be excluded from all Christian privileges during his life, and be 
 denied Christian burial after his death. (Du Mont, Corps Diplomatique, 
 torn. i. p. 41.) These, however, were only partial remedies; and there- 
 fore a council was held at Limoges, A.D. 994. The bodies of the saints, 
 according to the custom of those ages, were carried thither ; and by these 
 sacred relics men were exhorted to lay down their arms, to extinguish their 
 animosities, and to swear that they would not, for the future, violate the 
 public peace by their private hostilities. (Bouquet, Recueil des Histor., 
 vol. x. pp. 49, 147.) Several other councils issued decrees to the same 
 effect. (Du Cange, Dissert., 343.) 4. But the authority of councils, 
 how venerable soever in those ages, was not sufficient to abolish a custom 
 which flattered the pride of the nobles and gratified their favourite 
 passions. The evil grew so intolerable that it became necessary to employ 
 supernatural means for suppressing it. A bishop of Aquitaine, A.D. 1032, 
 pretended that an angel had appeared to him and brought him a writing 
 from Heaven, enjoining men to cease from their hostilities and to be recon- 
 ciled to each other. It was during a season of public calamity that he 
 published this revelation. The minds of men were disposed to receive 
 pious impressions, and willing to perform anything in order to avert the 
 wrath of Heaven. A general peace and cessation from hostilities took 
 place, and continued for seven years ; and a resolution was formed that no 
 man should, in times to come, attack or molest his ac'verwvies during the 
 seasons set apart for celebrating the great festivals of the Church, or from 
 the evening of Thursday in each week to the morning of Monday in the 
 week ensuing, the intervening days being considered particularly holy, our 
 Lord's passion having happened on one of these days, and his resurrection 
 on another. A change in the dispositions of men so sudden, and which 
 produced a resolution so unexpected, was considered as miraculous ; and the 
 respite from hostilities which followed upon it was called the truce of God. 
 (Glaber. Rodulphus, Histor., lib. v., ap. Bouquet, vol. x. p. 59.) This, 
 from being a regulation or concert in one kingdom, became a general law 
 in Christendom, was confirmed by the authority of several popes, and the 
 violators were subjected to the penalty of excommunication. (Corpus Jur. 
 Canon. Decretal., lib. i. tit. 34, c. 1 ; Du Cange, Glossar., voc. Treuga.) 
 An act of the council of Toulujes in Roussillon, A.D. 1041, containing all 
 the stipulations required by the truce of God, is published by Dom de Vic 
 et Dom Vaisette, Hist, de Languedoc, torn, ii., Preuves, p. 206. A cessa- 
 tion from hostilities during three complete days in every week allowed 
 such a considerable space for the passions of the antagonists to cool, and 
 for the people to enjoy a respite from the calamities of war, as well as to 
 take measures for their own security, that if this truce of God had been 
 exactly observed it must have gone far towards putting an end to private 
 wars. This, however, seems not to have been the case : the nobles, dis- 
 regarding the truce, prosecuted their quarrels without interruption, as 
 formerly. " Qua nimirum tempestate, universse provinciee adeo devasta- 
 tionis continuae importunitate inquietantur, ut ne ipsa, pro observatione
 
 xxi.] PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 229 
 
 divinae pacis, professa sacramenta custodian tur." (Abbas Uspurgensis, 
 apud Datt., de Pace Imperil Publica, p. 13, no. 35.) The violent spirit 
 of the nobility could not be restrained by any engagements. The com- 
 plaints of this were frequent ; and bishops, in order to compel them to 
 renew their vows and promises of ceasing from their private wars, were 
 obliged to enjoin their clergy to suspend the performance of divine service 
 and the exercise of any religious function within the parishes of such aa 
 were refractory and obstinate. (Hist, de Langued., par D. D. de Vic et 
 Vaisette, torn, ii., Preuves, p. 118.) 5. The people, eager to obtain relief 
 from their sufferings, called in a second time revelation to their aid. 
 Towards the end of the twelfth century, a carpenter in Guienne gave out 
 that Jesus Christ, together with the blessed Virgin, had appeared to him, 
 and having commanded him to exhort mankind to peace, had given him, 
 as a proof of his mission, an image of the Virgin, holding her Son in her 
 arms, with this inscription, Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the 
 world, give us peace. This low fanatic addressed himself to an ignorant 
 age, prone to credit what was marvellous. He was received as an inspired 
 messenger of God. Many prelates and barons assembled at Puy and took 
 an oath not only to make peace with all their enemies, but to attack such 
 as refused to lay down their arms and to be reconciled to their enemies. 
 They formed an association for this purpose, and assumed the honourable 
 name of the brotherhood of God. (Robertus de Monte Michaele, ap. M. de 
 Lauriere, Prdf., torn, i., Orel on., p. 29.) But the influence of this super- 
 stitious terror or devotion was not of long continuance. 6. The civil 
 magistrate was obliged to exert his authority in order to check a custom 
 which threatened a dissolution of government. Philip Augustus, as some 
 imagine, or St. Louis, as is more probable, published an ordinance, 
 A.D. 1245, prohibiting any person to commence hostilities against the 
 friends and vassals of his adversary until forty days after the commission 
 of the crime or pffence which gave rise to the quarrel : declaring that if 
 any man presumed to transgress this statute, he should be considered as 
 guilty of a breach of the public peace and be tried and punished by the 
 judge ordinary as a traitor. (Ordon., torn. i. p. 56.) This was called 
 the royal truce, and afforded time for the violence of resentment to subside, 
 as well as leisure for the good offices of such as were willing to compose 
 the difference. The happy effects of this regulation seem to have been 
 considerable, if we may judge from the solicitude of succeeding monarchs 
 to enforce it. 7. In order to restrain the exercise of private war still 
 farther, Philip the Fair, towards the close of the same century, A.D. 1296, 
 published an ordinance commanding all private hostilities to cease while 
 he was engaged in war against the enemies of the state. (Ordon., torn, i 
 pp. 328, 390.) This regulation, which seems to be almost essential to 
 the existence and preservation of society, was often renewed by his suc- 
 cessors, and, being enforced by the regal authority, proved a considerable 
 check to the destructive contests of the nobles. Both these regulations, 
 introduced first in France, were adopted by the other nations of Europe. 
 8. The evil, however, was so inveterate that it did not yield to all these 
 remedies. No sooner was public peace established in any kingdom than 
 the barons renewed their private hostilities. They not only struggled to 
 maintain this pernicio'is right, but to secure the exercise of it without any
 
 230 PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE XXL 
 
 restraint. Upon the death of Philip the Fair, the nobles of different 
 provinces in France formed associations, and presented remonstrances to 
 his successor demanding the repeal of several laws by which he had 
 abridged the privileges of their order. Among these the right of private- 
 war is always mentioned as one of the most valuable ; and they claim that 
 the restraint imposed by the truce of God, the royal truce, as well as tha'; 
 arising from the ordinance of the year 1296, should be taken off. Ii. 
 some instances the two sons of Philip, who mounted the throne sue 
 cessively, eluded their demands ; in others they were obliged to makci 
 concessions. (Ordon., torn. i. pp. 551, 557, 561, 573.) The . ordinances 
 to which I here refer are of such length that I cannot insert them ; but 
 they are extremely curious, and may be peculiarly instructive to an 
 English reader, as they throw considerable light on that period of English 
 history in which the attempts to circumscribe the regal prerogative were 
 carried on, not by the people straggling for liberty, but by the nobles 
 contending for power. It is not necessary to produce any evidence of the 
 continuance and frequency of private wars under the successors of Philip 
 the Fair. 9. A practice somewhat similar to the royal truce was intro- 
 duced in order to strengthen and extend it. Bonds of assurance, or 
 mutual security, were demanded from the parties at variance, by which 
 they obliged themselves to abstain from all hostilities, either during a time 
 mentioned in the bond, or for ever, and became subject to heavy penalties 
 if they violated this obligation. These bonds were sometimes granted 
 voluntarily, but more frequently exacted by the authority of the civil 
 magistrate. Upon a petition from the party who felt himself weakest, the 
 magistrate summoned his adversary to appear in court and obliged him to 
 give him a bond of assurance. If, after that, he committed any further 
 hostilities, he became subject to all the penalties of treason. This restraint 
 on private war was known in the age of St. Louis. (Establissements, 
 liv. i. c. 28.) It was frequent in Bretagne ; and, what is very remarkable, 
 such bonds of assurance were given mutually between vassals and the lord 
 of whom they held. Oliver de Clisson grants one to the duke of Bretagne, 
 his sovereign. (Morice, Me'm. pour servir de Preuves a 1'Hist. de Bret., 
 torn. i. p. 846, torn. ii. p. 371.) Many examples of bonds of assurance 
 in other provinces of France are collected by Brussel (torn. iL p. 856). 
 The nobles of Burgundy remonstrated against this practice, and obtained 
 exemption from it as an encroachment on the privileges of their order. 
 (Ordon., torn. i. p. 558.) This mode of security was first introduced into 
 cities, and, the good effects of it having been felt there, was extended to 
 the nobles. (See Note XVI.) 10. The calamities occasioned by private 
 wars became at some times so intolerable that the nobles entered into 
 voluntary associations, binding themselves to refer all matters in dispute, 
 whether concerning civil property or points of honour to the determination 
 of the majority of the associates. (Morice, Me'm. pour servir de Preuves 
 a 1'Hist. de Bret., torn, ii p. 728.) 11. But all these expedients proving 
 ineffectual, Charles VI., A.D. 1413, issued an ordinance expressly pro- 
 hibiting private wars on any pretext whatsoever, with power to the judge 
 ordinary to compel all persons to comply with this injunction, and to 
 punish such as should prove refractory or disobedient, by imprisoning 
 their persons, seizing their goods, and appointing the officers of justice,
 
 NOTE xxi.] PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 231 
 
 mcuiageurs et gasteurs, to live at free quarters on their estate. If those 
 who were disobedient to this edict could not be personally arrested, he 
 appointed their friends and vassals to be seized, and detained until they 
 gave surety for keeping the peacp and he abolished all laws, customs, or 
 privileges which might be pleaded in opposition to this ordinance. 
 (Ordon., torn. x. p. 138.) How slow is the progress of reason and of civil 
 order ! Regulations which to us appear so equitable, obvious, and simple 
 required the efforts of civil and ecclesiastical authority, during several 
 centuries, to introduce and establish them. Even posterior to this period, 
 Louis XL was obliged to abolish private wars in Dauphind by a particular 
 edict, A.D. 1451. Du Cange, Dissert., p. 348. 
 
 This note would swell to a disproportionate bulk if I should attempt 
 to inquire with the same minute attention into the progress of this per- 
 nicious custom in the other countries of Europe. In England the ideas 
 of the Saxons concerning personal revenge, the right of private wars, and 
 the composition due to the party offended, seem to have been much the 
 same with those which prevailed on the Continent. The law of Ina de 
 vindicantibus, in the eighth century (Lamb., p. 3) ; those of Edmund in 
 the tenth century, de homicidio (Lamb., p. 72), and de inimicitiis (p. 76) ; 
 and those of Edward the Confessor, in the eleventh century, de temporibus 
 et diebus pacw, or Treuga Dei (Lamb., p. 126), are perfectly similar to the 
 ordonnances of the French kings their contemporaries. The laws of 
 Edward, de pace regis, are still more explicit than those of the French 
 monarchs, and, by several provisions in them, discover that a more perfect 
 police was established in England at that period. (Lambard, p. 128, fol. 
 vers.) Even after the Conquest, private wars, and the regulations for 
 preventing them, were not altogether unknown, as appeal's from Madox, 
 Formulare Anglicanum, No. CXLV., and from the extracts from Domes- 
 day Book published by Gale, Scriptores Hist. Britan., pp. 759, 777. 
 The well-known clause in the form of an English indictment, which, as 
 an aggravation of the criminal's guilt, mentions his having assaulted a 
 person who was in the peace of God and of the king, seems to be 
 borrowed from the Treuga or Pax Dei, and the Pax Regis, which I have 
 explained. But after the Conquest the mention of private wars among the 
 uobility occurs more rarely in the English history than in that of any 
 other European nation, and no laws concerning them are to be found 
 in the body of their statutes. Such a change in their own manners, and 
 such a variation from those of their neighbours, is remarkable. Is it to 
 be ascribed to the extraordinary power that William the Norman acquired 
 by right of conquest and transmitted to his successors, which rendered 
 the execution of justice more vigorous and decisive, and the jurisdiction 
 of the king's court more extensive, than under the monarchs on the 
 Continent ? Or was it owing to the settlement of the Normans in 
 England, who, having never adopted the practice of private war in their 
 own country, abolished it in the kingdom which they conquered 1 It 
 is asserted in an ordinance of John, king of France, that in all times 
 jpast persons of eveiy rank in Normandy have been prohibited to "wage 
 private war, and the practice has been deemed unlawful. (Ordon., torn. ii. 
 p. 407.) If this fact were certain, it would go far towards explaining the 
 peculiarity which I havo, mentioned. But, as there are some English acta
 
 232 PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE xxi. 
 
 of parliament which, according to the remark of the learned author of the 
 Observations on the Statutes, chiefly the more Ancient, recite falsehoods, it may 
 be added that this is not peculiar to the laws of that country. Notwith- 
 standing the positive assertion contained in this public law of France, 
 there is good reason for considering it as a statute which recites a falsehood. 
 This, however, is not the place for discussing that point. It is an inquiry 
 not unworthy the curiosity of an English antiquary. 
 
 In Castile the pernicious practice of private war prevailed, and was 
 authorized by the customs and law of the kingdom. (Leges Tauri, tit. 76, 
 cum commentario Anton. Gomezii, p. 551.) As the Castilian nobles were 
 no less turbulent than powerful, their quarrels and hostilities involved 
 their country in many calamities. Innumerable proofs of this occur in 
 Mariana. In Aragon the right of private revenge was likewise authorized 
 by law, exercised in its full extent, and accompanied with the same unhappy 
 consequences. (Hieron. Blunca, Comment, de Rebus Arag., ap. Schotti 
 Hispan. illustrat, vol. iii. p. 733 ; Lex Jacobi I., A.r>. 1247 ; Fueros y 
 Observancias del Reynode Aragon, lib. ix. p. 182.) Several confederacies 
 between the kings of Aragon and their nobles for the restoring of peace, 
 founded on the truce of God, are still extant. (Petr. de Marca, Marca, 
 sive Limes Hispanic., App., 1303, 1388, 1428.) As early as the year 
 1165 we find a combination of the king and court of Aragon in order to 
 abolish the right of private war and to punish those who presumed to claim 
 that privilege. (Anales de Aragon, por Zurita, vol. i. p. 73.) But the 
 evil was so inveterate that, as late as A.D. 1519, Charles V. was obliged to 
 publish a law enforcing all former regulations tending to suppress this 
 practice. Fueros y Observancias, lib. ix. 183, b. 
 
 The Lombards, and other Northern nations who settled in Italy, intro 
 duced the same maxims concerning the right of revenge into that country. 
 and these were followed by the same effects. As the progress of the evil 
 was perfectly similar to what happened in France, the expedients employed 
 to check its career, or to extirpate it finally, resembled those which I have 
 enumerated. Murat., Anliq. ItaL, vol. ii. p. 306, etc. 
 
 In Germany the disorders and calamities occasioned by the right of 
 private war were greater and more intolerable than in any other country of 
 Europe. The imperial authority was so much shaken and enfeebled by 
 the violence of the civil wars excited by the contests between the popes and 
 the emperors of the Franconian and Suabian lines that not only the nobility 
 but the cities acquired almost independent power and scorned all subordi- 
 nation and obedience to the laws. The frequency of these faidce, or private 
 wars, is often mentioned in the German annals, and the fatal effects of 
 them are most pathetically described, Datt, de Pace Imper. Pub., lib. i. 
 cap. 5, no, 30, et passim. The Germans early adopted the Treuga Dei, 
 which was first established in France. This, however, proved but a tem- 
 porary and ineffectual remedy. The disorders multiplied so fast and grew 
 to be so enormous that they threatened the dissolution of society, and 
 compelled the Germans to have recourse to the only remedy of the evil, 
 namely, an absolute prohibition of private wars. The emperor William 
 published his edict to this purpose, A.D. 1255, an hundred and sixty 
 years previous to the ordinance of Charles VI. in France. (Datt., lib. i 
 cap. 4, no. 20.) But neither he nor his successors had authority to secura
 
 xxii.j PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 2B3 
 
 the observance of it. This gave rise to a practice in Germany which con- 
 veys to us a striking idea both of the intolerable calamities occasioned by 
 private wars, and of the feebleness of government during the twelfth and 
 thirteenth centuries. The cities and nobles entered into alliances and 
 associations, by which they bound themselves to maintain the public peace 
 and to make war on such as should violate it. This was the origin of 
 the league of the Rhine, of Suabia, and of many smaller confederacies 
 distinguished by various names. The rise, progress, and beneficial effects 
 of these associations are traced by Datt with great accuracy. Whatever 
 degree of public peace or of regular administration was preserved in the 
 empire from the beginning of the twelfth century to the close of the 
 fifteenth, Germany owes to these leagues. During that period, political 
 order, respect for the laws, together with the equal administration of 
 justice, made considerable progress in Germany. But the final and per- 
 petual abolition of the right of private war was not accomplished until 
 A.D. 1495. The imperial authority was by that time more firmly esta- 
 blished, the ideas of men with respect to government and subordination 
 were become more just. That barbarous and pernicious privilege of 
 waging private war, which the nobles had so long possessed, was declared 
 to be incompatible with the happiness and existence of society. In order 
 to terminate any differences which might arise among the various mem- 
 bers of the Germanic body, the Imperial Chamber was instituted with 
 supreme jurisdiction, to judge without appeal in every question brought 
 before it. That court has subsisted since that period, forming a very 
 respectable tribunal of essential importance in the German constitution. 
 Datt., lib. iii., iv., v. ; Pfeffel, AbregcS de 1'Histoire du Droit, etc., p. 556. 
 
 NOTE XXII. Sect I. p. 55. 
 
 It would be tedious and of little use to enumerate the various modes of 
 appealing to the justice of God which superstition introduced during the 
 ages of ignorance. I shall mention only one, because we have an account 
 of it in a placitum, or trial, in the presence of Charlemagne, from which 
 we may learn the imperfect manner in which justice was administered 
 even during his reign. In the year 775 a contest arose between the bishop 
 of Paris and the abbot of St. Denys concerning the property of a small 
 abbey. Each of them exhibited deeds and records in order to prove the 
 right to be in them. Instead of trying the authenticity or considering the ; 
 import of these, the point was referred to the judicium crucis. Each pror- 
 duced a person who, during the celebration of mass, stood before the cross 
 with his arms expanded ; and he whose representative first became weary 
 and altered his posture lost the cause. The person employed by the 
 bishop on this occasion had less strength or less spirit than his adversary,, 
 and the question was decided in favour of the abbot. (Mabillon, de Re 
 Diplomat., lib. vi. p. 498.) If a prince so enlightened as Charlemagne 
 countenanced such an absurd mode of decision, it is no wonder that other 
 monarchs should tolerate it so long. M. de Montesquieu has treated of 
 the trial by judicial combat at considerable length. The two talents which 
 distinguish that illustrious author, industry in tracing all the circumstances 
 of ancient and obscure institutions, and sagacity in penetrating into the
 
 234 PEOOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE xxn. 
 
 causes and principles which contributed to establish them, are equally 
 conspicuous in his observations on this subject. To these I refer the 
 reader, as they contain most of the principles by which I have endeavoured 
 to explain this practice. (De 1'Esprit des Loix, liv. xxviii.) It seems 
 to be probable, from the remarks of M. de Montesquieu, as well as from 
 the facts produced by Muratori (torn. iii. Dissert. XXXVIII.), that appeals 
 to the justice of God by the experiments with fire and water, etc., were 
 frequent among the people who settled in the different provinces of the 
 Roman empire, before they had recourse to the judicial combat ; and yet 
 the judicial combat seems to have been the most ancient mode of 
 cerminating any controversy among the barbarous nations in their original 
 settlements. This is evident from Velleius Paterculus (lib. ii. c. 118), 
 who informs us that all questions which were decided among the Romans 
 by legal trial were terminated among the Germans by arms. The same 
 thing appears in the ancient laws and customs of the Swedes, quoted 
 by Jo. O. Stiernhook de Jure Sueonum et Gothorum vetusto, 4to, Holmise, 
 1682, lib. i. c. 7. It is probable that when the various tribes which 
 invaded the empire were converted to Christianity their ancient custom of 
 allowing judicial combats appeared so glaringly repugnant to the precepts 
 of religion that for some time it was abolished, and by degrees several 
 circumstances which I have mentioned led them to resume it. 
 
 It seems likewise to be probable, from a law quoted by Stiernhook in 
 the treatise which I have mentioned, that the judicial combat was originally 
 permitted in order to determine points respecting the personal character or 
 reputation of individuals, and was afterwards extended not only to criminal 
 cases, but to questions concerning property. The words of the law are, 
 " If any man shall say to another these reproachful words, ' You are not a 
 man equal to other men,' or, ' You have not the heart of a man,' and the 
 other shall reply, ' I am a man as good as you,' let them meet on the 
 highway. If he who first gave off once appear, and the person offended absent 
 himself, let the latter be deemed a worse man even than he was called ; 
 let him not be admitted to give evidence in judgment either for man or 
 woman, and let him not have the privilege of making a testament. If he 
 who gave the offence be absent, and only the person offended appear, let 
 him call upon the other thrice with a loud voice, and make a mark 
 upon the earth, and then let him who absented himself be deemed in- 
 famous, because he uttered words which he durst not support. If both 
 shall appear properly armed, and the person offended shall fall in the 
 combat, let a half compensation be paid for his death. But if the person 
 who gave the offence shall fall, let it be imputed to his own rashness. 
 The petulance of his tongue hath been fatal to him. Let him lie in the 
 field without any compensation being demanded for his death." (Lex 
 Uplandica, ap. Stiern., p. 76.) Martial people were extremely delicate 
 with respect to every thing that affected their reputation as soldiers. By 
 the law of the Salians, if any man called another a hare, or accused 
 him of having left his shield in the field of battle, he was ordained to 
 pay a large fine. (Leg. Sal., tit. xxxii. 4, 6.) By the law of the 
 Lombards, if any one called another arga, i.e., a good-for-nothing fellow, 
 he might immediately challenge him to combat. (Leg. Longob., lib. L 
 tit. v. I.) By the law of the Salians, if one called another cenitus, a
 
 NOTE xxii.] PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 235 
 
 term of reproach equivalent to arga, he was bound to pay a very high 
 fine. (Tit. xxxii. 1.) Paulus Diaconus relates the violent impression 
 which this reproachful expression made upon one of his countrymen, and 
 the fatal effects with which it was attended. (De Qestis Longobard, 
 liv. vi. c. 34.) Thus the ideas concerning the point of honour, which 
 we are apt to consider as a modern refinement, as well as the practice 
 of duelling, to which it gave rise, are derived from the notions of our 
 ancestors while in a state of society very little improved. 
 
 As M. de Montesquieu's view of this subject did not lead him to con- 
 sider every circumstance relative to judicial combats, I shall mention some 
 particular facts necessary for the illustration of what I have said with 
 respect to them. A remarkable instance occurs of the decision of an 
 abstract point of law by combat. A question arose in the tenth century 
 concerning the right of representation, which was not then fixed, though 
 now universally established in every part of Europe. " It was a matter 
 of doubt and dispute," saith the historian, " whether the sons of a son 
 ought to be reckoned among the children of the family, and succeed equally 
 with their uncles, if their father happen to die while their grandfather was 
 alive. An assembly was called to deliberate on this point, and it was 
 the general opinion that it ought to be remitted to the examination and 
 decision of judges. But the emperor, following a better course, and desirous 
 of dealing honourably with his people and nobles, appointed the matter to 
 be decided by battle between two champions. He who appeared in behalf 
 of the right of children to represent their deceased father was victori- 
 ous ; and it was established, by a perpetual decree, that they should here- 
 after share in the inheritance together with their uncles." (Wittikindus 
 Corbiensis, lib. AnnaL, ap. M. de Lauriere, Prdf. Ordon., voL i. p. xxxiii.) 
 If we can suppose the caprice of folly to lead men to any action more ex- 
 travagant than this of settling a point in law by combat, it must be that 
 of referring the truth or falsehood of a religious opinion to be decided in 
 the same manner. To the disgrace of human reason, it has been capable 
 even of this extravagance. A question was agitated in Spain in the eleventh 
 century, whether the Musarabic liturgy and ritual which had been used 
 in the churches of Spain, or that approved of by the see of Rome, which 
 differed in many particulars from the other, contained the form of worship 
 most acceptable to the Deity. The Spaniards contended zealously for the 
 ritual of their ancestors. The popes urged them to receive that to which 
 they had given their infallible sanction. A violent contest arose. The 
 nobles proposed to decide the controversy by the sword. The king ap- 
 proved of this method of decision. Two knights in complete armour 
 entered the lists. John Ruys de Matanca, the champion of the Musarabic 
 liturgy, was victorious. But the queen and archbishop of Toledo, who 
 favoured the other form, insisted on having the matter submitted to 
 another trial, and had interest enough to prevail in a request, inconsistent 
 with the laws of combat, which being considered as an appeal to God, the 
 decision ought to have been acquiesced in as final. A great fire was 
 kindled. A copy of each liturgy was cast into the flames. It was agreed 
 that the book which stood this proof and remained untouched should be 
 received in all the churches of Spain. The Musarabic liturgy triumphed 
 likewise in this trial, and, if we may believe Roderigo de Toledo, remained
 
 236 PROOFS AND ILLUSTEATIONS. [NOTE xxn. 
 
 unhurt by the fire when the other was reduced to ashes. The queen and 
 archbishop had power or art sufficient to elude this decision also, and the 
 use of the Musarabic form of devotion was permitted only in certain 
 churches, a determination no less extraordinary than the whole trans* 
 action. (Eoder. de Toledo, quoted by P. Orleans, Hist, des Revolutions 
 d'Espagne, torn. i. p. 417 ; Mariana, lib. i. c. 18, vol. i p. 378.) A re- 
 markable proof of the general use of trial by combat, and of the predilec- 
 tion for that mode of decision, occurs in the laws of the Lombards. It was 
 a custom in the Middle Ages that any person might signify publicly the 
 law to which he chose to be subjected ; and by the prescriptions of that 
 law he was obliged to regulate his transactions, without being bound to 
 comply with any practice authorized by other codes of law. Persons who 
 had subjected themselves to the Roman law, and adhered to the ancient 
 jurisprudence, as far as any knowledge of it was retained in those ages of 
 ignorance, were exempted from paying any regard to the forms of pro- 
 ceedings established by the laws of the Burgundians, Lombards, and other 
 barbarous people. But the emperor Otho, in direct contradiction to this 
 received maxim, ordained " That all persons, under whatever law they 
 lived, even although it were the Roman law, should be bound to conform 
 to the edicts concerning the trial by combat." (Leg. Longob., lib. ii. 
 tit. 55, 38.) While the trial by judicial combat subsisted, proof by 
 charters, contracts, or other deeds became ineffectual ; and even this species 
 of written evidence, calculated to render the proceedings of courts certain 
 and decisive, was eluded. When a charter or other instrument was pro- 
 duced by one of the parties, his opponent might challenge it, affirm that 
 it was false and forged, and offer to prove this by combat. (Leg. Longob., 
 ibid., 34.) It is true that, among the reasons enumerated by Beaumanoir 
 on account of which judges might refuse to permit a trial by combat, 
 one is, " If the point in contest can be clearly proved or ascertained by 
 other evidence." (Coust. de Beauv., ch. 63, p. 323.) But that regula- 
 tion removed the evil only a single step. For the party who suspected 
 that a witness was about to depose in a manner unfavourable to his cause 
 might accuse him of being suborned, give him the lie, and challenge 
 him to combat ; if the witness was vanquished in battle, no other evidence 
 could be admitted, and the party by whom he was summoned to appear 
 lost his cause. (Leg. Baivar., tit. 16, 2 ; Leg. Burgund. tit. 45 ; Beau- 
 man., ch. 61, p. 315.) The reason given for obliging a witness to accept 
 of a defiance, and to defend himself by combat, is remarkable, and con- 
 tains the same idea which is still the foundation of what is called the 
 point of honour : " for it is just that if any one affirms that he perfectly 
 knows the truth of anything, and offers to give oath upon it, he should 
 not hesitate to maintain the veracity of his affirmation in combat." Leg. 
 Burgund., tit. 45. 
 
 That the trial by judicial combat was established in every country of 
 Europe is a fact well known, and requires no proof. That this mode of 
 decision was frequent appears not only from the codes of ancient laws which 
 established it, but from the earliest writers concerning the practice of law 
 in the different nations of Europe. They treat of this custom at great 
 length ; they enumerate the regulations concerning it with minute accuracy 
 and explain them with much solicitude. It made a capital and extensive
 
 NOTE xxii.] PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 237 
 
 article in jurisprudence. There is not any one subject in their system ol 
 law which Beaunianoir, Defontaines, or the compilers of the Assizes de 
 Jerusalem seem to have considered as of greater importance ; and none 
 upon which they have bestowed so much attention. The same observation 
 will hold with respect to the early authors of other nations. It appears 
 from Madox that trials of this kind were so frequent in England that fines 
 paid on these occasions made no inconsiderable branch of the king's revenue. 
 (Hist, of the Excheq., vol. i. p. 349.) A very curious account of a judi- 
 cial combat between Messire Robert de Beaunianoir and Messire Pierre 
 Tournemine, in presence of the duke of Bretngne, A.D. 1385, is published 
 by Morice (Me'in. pour servir de Preuves a 1'Hist. de Bretugne, torn. ii. 
 p. 498.) All the formalities observed in such extraordinary proceedings 
 are there described more minutely than in any ancient monument which I 
 have had an opportunity of considering. Tournemine was accused by 
 Beaumanoir of having murdered his brother. The former was vanquished, 
 but was saved from being hanged upon the spot by the generous interces- 
 sion of his antagonist. A good account of the origin of the laws concerning 
 judicial combat is published in the History of Pavia, by Bernardo Sacci, 
 lib. ix. c. 8, in Graev. Thes. Antiquit. Ital., vol. iii. p. 743. 
 
 This mode of trial was so acceptable that ecclesiastics, notwithstanding 
 the prohibitions of the Church, were constrained not only to connive at the 
 practice, but to authorize it. A remarkable instance of this is produced 'by 
 Pasquier, Recherches, lib. iv. ch. i. p. 350. The abbot Wittikindus, whose 
 words I have produced* in this note, considered the determination of a point 
 in law by combat as the best and most honourable mode of decision. In the 
 year 978 a judicial combat was fought in the presence of the emperor. 
 The archbishop Aldebert advised him to terminate a contest which had 
 arisen between two noblemen of his court by this mode of decision. The 
 vanquished combatant, though a person of high rank, was beheaded on the 
 spot. (Chronic. Ditmari, Episc. Mersb., apud Bouquet, Recueil des Hist., 
 torn. x. p. 121.) Questions concerning the property of churches and 
 monasteries were decided by combat. In the year 961 a controversy con- 
 cerning the church of St. MeMard, whether it belonged to the abbey of 
 Beaulieu or not, was terminated by judicial combat. (Bouquet, Recueil 
 des Hist., torn. ix. p. 729; ibid., p. 612, etc.) The emperor Henry I. 
 declares that this law, authorizing the practice of judicial combats, was 
 enacted with consent and applause of many faithful bishops. (Ibid., 
 p. 231.) So remarkably did the martial ideas of those ages prevail over 
 the genius and maxims of the canon law, which in other instances was in 
 the highest credit and authority with ecclesiastics. A judicial combat was 
 appointed in Spain, by Charles V., A.D. 1522. The combatants fought 
 in the emperor's presence, and the battle was conducted with all the rites 
 prescribed by the ancient laws of chivalry. The whole transaction is 
 described at great length by Pontus Heuterus, Rer. Austriac., lib. viii. c. 
 17, p. 205. 
 
 The last instance which occurs in the history of France of a judicial 
 combat authorized by the magistrate was the famous one between M. Jarnac 
 and M. de la Chaistaignerie, A.D. 1547. A trial by combat was appointed 
 in England, A.D. 1571, under the inspection of the judges in the Court of 
 Common Pleas ; and though it was not carried to the same extremity
 
 238 PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE xxm. 
 
 with the former, Queen Elizabeth having interposed her authority and 
 enjoined the parties to compound the matter, yet, in order to preserve their 
 honour, the lists were marked out, and all the forms previous to the combat 
 were observed with much ceremony. (Spehn., Gloss., voc. Campus, 
 p. 103.) In the year 1631 a judicial combat was appointed between 
 Donald Lord Rea and David Ramsay, Esq., by the authority of the lord 
 high constable and earl marshal of England ; but that quarrel likewise 
 terminated without bloodshed, being accommodated by Charles I. Another 
 instance occurs seven years later. Rushworth, in Observations on the Sta- 
 tutes, etc., p. 266. 
 
 NOTE XXIII. Sect. I. p. 60. 
 
 The text contains the great outlines which mark the course of private 
 and public jurisdiction in the several nations of Europe. I shall here 
 follow more minutely the various steps of this progress, as the mat- 
 ter is curious and important enough to merit this attention. The 
 payment of a fine by way of satisfaction to the person or family injured 
 was the first device of a rude people in order to check the career of private 
 resentment, and to extinguish those faidce, or deadly feuds, which were 
 prosecuted among them with the utmost violence. This custom may be 
 traced back to the ancient Germans (Tacit., de Morib. Germ., c. 21), and 
 prevailed among other uncivilised nations. Many examples of this are 
 collected by the ingenious and learned author of Historical Law Tracts 
 (vol. i. p. 41). These fines were ascertained and levied in three different 
 manners. At first they were settled by voluntary agreement between the 
 parties at variance. When their rage began to subside, and they felt the 
 bad effects of their continuing in enmity, they came to terms of concord, 
 and the satisfaction made was called a composition, implying that it was fixed 
 by mutual consent. (De 1'Esprit des Loix, liv. xxx. c. 19.) It is appa- 
 rent from some of the more ancient codes of laws that at the time when 
 these were compiled matters still remained in that simple state. In certain 
 cases the person who had committed an offence was left exposed to the 
 resentment of those whom he had injured, until he should recover their 
 favour., " quoquo modo potuerit." (Leg. Frision., tit. 11, 1.) The next 
 mode of levying these fines was by the sentence of arbiters. An arbiter is 
 called in the Regiam Majestatem amicabilis compositor (lib. xi. c. 4, 10.) 
 He could estimate the degree of offence with more impartiality than the 
 parties interested, and determine with greater equity what satisfaction 
 ought to be demanded. It is difficult to bring an authentic proof of a 
 custom previous to the records preserved in any nation of Europe. But one 
 of the Formulae Andegavenses compiled in the sixth century seems to 
 allude to a transaction carried on, not by the authority of a judge, but by 
 the mediation of arbiters chosen by mutual consent. (Bouquet, Recueil 
 des Histor., torn. iv. p. 566.) But, as an arbiter wanted authority to enforce 
 his decisions, judges were appointed with compulsive power to oblige both 
 parties to acquiesce in their decisions. Previous to this last step, the expe- 
 dient of paying compositions was an imperfect remedy against the perni- 
 cious effects of private resentment. As soon as this important change was 
 introduced, the magistrate, putting himself in place of the person injured,
 
 NOTE xxni.] PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 239 
 
 ascertained the composition with which he ought to rest satisfied. Every 
 possible injury that could occur in the intercourse of civil society was con- 
 sidered, and estimated, and the compositions due to the persons aggrieved 
 were fixed with such minute attention as discovers, in most cases, amazing 
 discernment and delicacy, in some instances unaccountable caprice. Besides 
 the composition payable to the private party, a certain sum, called a fredum, 
 was paid to the king or state, as Tacitus expresses it, or to the fiscun. in the 
 language of the barbarous laws. Some authors, blending the refined ideas 
 of modem policy with their reasonings concerning ancient transactions, have 
 imagined that the fredum was a compensation due to the community on 
 account of the violation of the public peace. But it is manifestly nothing 
 more than the price paid to the magistrates for the protection which he 
 afforded against the violence of resentment. The enacting of this was a 
 considerable step towards improvement in criminal jurisprudence. In 
 some of the more ancient codes of laws the freda are altogether omitted, or 
 so seldom mentioned that it is evident they were but little known. In 
 the latter codes the fredum is as precisely specified as the composition. In 
 common cases it was equal to the third part of the composition. (Capitul., 
 vol. i. p. 52.) In some extraordinary cases, where it was more difficult to 
 protect the person who had committed violence, the fredum was augmented. 
 (Capitul., vol. i. p. 515.) These freda made a considerable branch in the 
 revenues of the barons ; and in whatever district territorial jurisdiction was 
 granted, the royal judges were prohibited from levying any freda. In 
 explaining the nature of the fredum, I have followed in a great measure the 
 opinion of M. de Montesquieu, though I know that several learned anti- 
 quaries have taken the word in a different sense. (De 1'Esprit des Loix, 
 liv. xxx. c. 20, etc.) The great object of judges was to compel the one 
 party to give, and the other to accept, the satisfaction prescribed. They 
 multiplied regulations to this purpose, and enforced them by grievous 
 penalties. (Leg. Longob., lib. i. tit. 9, 34; ibid., tit. 37, 1, 2; 
 Capitul., voL i. p. 371, 22.) The person who received a composition 
 was obliged to cease from all further hostility, and to confirm his recon- 
 ciliation with the adverse party by an oath. (Leg. Longob., lib. i tit. 9, 
 8.) As an additional and more permanent evidence of reconciliation, he 
 was required to grant a bond of security to the person from whom he 
 received a composition, absolving him from all further prosecution. Mar- 
 culfus, and the other collectors of ancient writs, have preserved several 
 different forms of such bonds. (Marc., lib. xi. 18; Append., 23; 
 Form. Sirmondicae, 39.) The letters of Slanes, known in the law of 
 Scotland, are perfectly similar to these bonds of security. By the letters of 
 Slanes, the heirs and relations of a person who had been murdered 
 bound themselves, in consideration of an assythment, or composition paid 
 to them, to forgive, "pass over, and forever forget, and in oblivion inter, 
 all rancour, malice, revenge, prejudice, grudge, and resentment that they 
 have or may conceive against the aggressor or his posterity, for the crime 
 which he had committed, and discharge him of all action, civil or criminal, 
 against him or his estate, for now and ever." (System of Stiles, by Dallas 
 of St. Martin's, p. 862.) In the ancient form of letters of Slanes, the pri- 
 vate jarty not only forgives and forgets, but pardons and grants remission 
 of the crime. This practice Dallas, reasoning according to the principle*
 
 240 PBOOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE xxm. 
 
 of his own age, considers as an encroachment on the rights of sovereignty, 
 as none, says he, could pardon a criminal but the king. (Ibid.) But in 
 early and rude times the prosecution, the punishment, and the pardon of 
 criminals were all deeds of the private person who was injured. Madox 
 has published two writs, one in the reign of Edward I., the other in the 
 reign of Edward III., by which private persons grant a release or pardon 
 of all trespasses, felonies, robberies, and murders committed. (FonuuL 
 Anglican., no. 702, 705.) In the last of these instruments, some regard 
 seems to be paid to the rights of the sovereign, for the pardon is granted 
 en quant que en nous est. Even after the authority of the magistrate was 
 interposed in punishing crimes, the punishment of criminals is long con- 
 sidered chiefly as a gratification to the resentment of the persons who have 
 been injured. In Persia a murderer is still delivered to the relations of the 
 person whom he has slain, who put him to death with their own hands. 
 If they refuse to accept of a sum of money as a compensation, the sovereign, 
 absolute as he is, cannot pardon the murderer. (Voyages de Chardin, iii. 
 417, edit. 1735, 4to ; Voyages de Tavernier, liv. v. c. 5, 10.) Among 
 the Arabians, though one of the first polished people in the East, the same 
 custom still subsists. (Description de 1'Arabie, par M. Niebuhr, p. 28.) By 
 a law in the kingdom of Aragon as late as the year 1564, the punishment 
 of one condemned to death cannot be mitigated but by consent of the 
 parties who have been injured. Fueros y Observancias del Reyno de 
 Aragon, p. 204, 6. 
 
 If, after all the engagements to cease from enmity which I have men- 
 tioned, any person renewed hostilities, and was guilty of any violence, either 
 towards the person from whom he had received a composition, or towards 
 his relations and heirs, this was deemed a most heinous crime, and 
 punished with extraordinary rigour. It was an act of direct rebellion 
 against the authority of the magistrate, and was repressed by the interpo- 
 sition of all his power. (Leg. Longob., lib. i. tit. 9, 8, p. 34 ; Capit., 
 vol. L p. 371, 22.) Thus the avenging of injuries was taken out of 
 private hands, a legal composition was established, and peace and amity 
 were restored under the inspection and by the authority of a judge. It is 
 evident that at the time when the barbarians settled in the provinces of the 
 Roman empire they had fixed judges established among them with compul- 
 sive authority. Persons vested with this character are mentioned by the 
 earliest historians. (Du Cange, voc. Judices.) The right of territorial 
 jurisdiction was not altogether an usurpation of the feudal barons, or an 
 invasion of the prerogative of the sovereign. There is good reason to 
 believe that the powerful leaders who seized different districts of the coun- 
 tries which they conquered, and kept possession of them as allodial property, 
 assumed from the beginning the right of jurisdiction, and exercised it 
 within their own territories. This jurisdiction was supreme, and extended 
 to all causes. The clearest proofs of this are produced by M. Bouquet, Le 
 Droit publique de France e'clairci, etc., torn. i. p. 206, etc. The privilege 
 of judging his own vassals appears to haye been originally a right inherent 
 in every baron who held a fief. As far back as the archives of nations can 
 conduct us with any certainty, we find the jurisdiction and fief united. 
 One of the earliest charters to a layman which I have met with is that of 
 Ludovicus Pius, A.D. 814 ; and it contains the right of territorial jurisdic-
 
 VOTE XXIIL] PHOOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 tion in the most express and extensive terms. (Capital., voL ii. p. 1405.) 
 There are many charters to churches and monasteries of a more early date, 
 containing grants of similar jurisdiction, and prohibiting any royal judge to 
 enter the territories of those churches or monasteries or to perform any act 
 of judicial authority there. (Bouquet, Recueil des Hist, torn. iv. pp. 628, 
 631, 633, torn. v. pp. 703, 710, 752, 762.) Muratori has published 
 many very ancient charters containing the same immunities. (Antiq. Ital., 
 Dissert. LXX.) In most of these deeds the royal judge is prohibited from 
 exacting the freda due to the possessor of territorial jurisdiction, which 
 shows that they constituted a valuable part of the revenue of each superior 
 lord at that juncture. The expense of obtaining a sentence in a court of 
 justice during the Middle Ages was so considerable that this circumstance 
 alone was sufficient to render men unwilling to decide any contest in 
 judicial form. It appears from a charter in the thirteenth century that the 
 baron who had the right of justice received the fifth part of the value of 
 every subject the property of which was tried and determined in his court. 
 If after the commencement of a lawsuit the parties terminated the contest in 
 an amicable manner, or by arbitration, they were nevertheless bound to pay 
 the fifth part of the subject contested to the court before which the suit had 
 been brought. (Hist, de Dauphins', Geneve, 1722, torn. i. p. 22.) Similar 
 to this is a regulation in the charter of liberty granted to the town of 
 Friburg, A.D. 1120. If two of the citizens shall quarrel, and if one of 
 them shall complain to the superior lord or to his judge, and after com- 
 mencing the suit shall be privately reconciled to his adversary, the judge, 
 if he does not approve of this reconciliation, may compel him to go on 
 with his lawsuit, and all who were present at the reconciliation shall forfeit 
 the favour of the superior lord. Historia Zaringo-Badensis,' Auctor. Jo. Dan. 
 Schoepflinus, Carolsr., 1765, 4to, vol. v. p. 55. 
 
 What was the extent of that jurisdiction which those who held fiefs 
 possessed originally we cannot now determine with certainty. It is 
 evident that during the disorders which prevailed in every kingdom 
 of Europe the great vassals took advantage of the feebleness of their 
 monarchs and enlarged their jurisdictions to the utmost. As early as 
 the tenth century the more powerful barons had usurped the right of 
 deciding all causes, whether civil or criminal. They had acqxured the 
 high justice as well as the low. (Establ. de St. Louis, liv. i. c. 24, 25.) 
 Their sentences were final, and there lay no appeal from them to any 
 superior court. Several striking instances of this are collected by Brussel 
 (Traite des Fiefs, liv. iii. c. 11 ? 12, 13). Not satisfied with this, the 
 more potent barons got their territories created into regalities, with 
 almost every royal prerogative and jurisdiction. Instances of these 
 were frequent in France. (Bruss., ibid.) In Scotland, where the power 
 of the feudal nobles became exorbitant, they were very numerous 
 (Historical Law Tracts, voL i. tract vi.) Even in England, though the 
 authority of the Norman kings circumscribed the jurisdiction of the 
 barons within more narrow limits than in any other feudal kingdom, 
 several counties palatine were erected, into which the king's judges could 
 not enter, and no writ could come in the king's name until it received 
 the seal of the county palatine. (Spelman, Gloss., voc. Comites Palatini ; 
 Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, vol. iii. p. 78.) 
 
 VOL. I. *
 
 242 PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE xxm. 
 
 These lords of regalities had a right to claim or rescue their vassals from 
 the king's judges, if they assumed any jurisdiction over them. (Brussel, 
 ubi supra.) In the law of Scotland, this privilege was termed the right 
 of repledging ; and the frequency of it not only interrupted the course 
 of justice, but gave rise to great disorders in the exercise of it. (Hist. 
 Law Tracts, ibid.) The jurisdiction of the counties palatine seems to 
 have been productive of like inconveniences in England. 
 
 The remedies provided by princes against the bad effects of these 
 usurpations of the nobles, or inconsiderate grants of the crown, were 
 various and gradually applied. Under Charlemagne and his immediate 
 descendants, the regal prerogative still retained great vigour, and the 
 duces, comites, and missi dominici, the former of whom were ordinary 
 and fixed judges, the latter extraordinary and itinerant judges, in the 
 different provinces of their extensive dominions, exercised a jurisdiction 
 co-ordinate with the barons in some cases, and superior to them in others. 
 (Du Cange, voc. Dux, Comites, et Missi; Murat, Antiq., Dissert. VIII. 
 et IX.) But under the feeble race of monarchs who succeeded them, the 
 authority of the royal judges declined, and the barons acquired that 
 unlimited jurisdiction which has been described. Louis VI. of France 
 attempted to revive the function of the missi dominici, under the title 
 of juges des exempts, but the barons were become too powerful to bear 
 such an encroachment on their jurisdiction, and he was obliged to desist 
 from employing them. (Hainault, Abre'ge' Chron., torn. ii. p. 730.) 
 His successor (as has been observed) had recourse to expedients less 
 alarming. The appeal de defaute de droit, or on account of the refusal of 
 justice, was the first which was attended with any considerable effect. 
 According to the maxims of feudal law, if a baron had not as many vassals 
 as enabled him to try by their peers the parties who offered to plead in 
 his court, or if he delayed or refused to proceed in the trial, the cause 
 might be carried, by appeal, to the court of the superior lord of whom 
 the baron held, and tried there. (De 1'Esprit des Loix, liv. xxviii. c. 28 ; 
 Du Cange, voc. Defectus Justitice.) The number of peers or assessors in 
 the courts of barons was frequently very considerable. It appears from 
 a criminal trial in the court of the Viscount de Lautrec, A.D. 1299, that 
 upwards of two hundred persons were present, and assisted in the trial, 
 and voted in passing judgment (Hist, de Langued., par D. D. de Vic 
 et Vaisette, torn, iv., Preuves, p. 114.) But, as the right of jurisdiction 
 had been usurped by many inconsiderable barons, they were often unable 
 to hold courts. This gave frequent occasion to such appeals, and rendered 
 the practice familiar. By degrees, such appeals began to be made frou 
 the courts of the more powerful barons ; and it is evident from a decision 
 recorded by Brussel that the royal judges were willing to give countenance 
 to any pretext for them. (Traite' des Fiefs, torn. i. pp. 235, 261.) This 
 species of appeal had less effect in abridging the jurisdiction of the nobles 
 than the appeal on account of the injustice of the sentence. When the 
 feudal monarchs were powerful and their judges possessed extensive 
 authority, such appeals seem to have been frequent. (Capitul., vol. i 
 pp. 175, 180.) And they were made in a manner suitable to the rude- 
 ness of a simple age. The persons aggrieved resorted to the palace of 
 their sovereign and with outcries and loud noise called V him for redress.
 
 NOTE xxn i. j PROOP& AND ILLUSTEATIONS. 243 
 
 (Capital., lib. iii. c. 59 ; Chronic. Lawterbergiense, ap. Mencken., Script. 
 German., vol. ii p. 284, b.) In the kingdom of Aragon, the appeals to 
 the justiza, or supreme judge, were taken in such a form as supposed 
 the appellant to be in immediate danger of death or of some violent 
 outrage : he rushed into the presence of the judge, crying with a loud 
 voice, Aw, Am, Fuerm, Fuerza, thus imploring (as it were) the instant 
 interposition of that supreme judge in order to save him. (Hier. Blanca, 
 Comment, de Rebus Aragon., ap. Script. Hispanic., Pistorii, vol. iii. 
 p. 753.) The abolition of the trial by combat facilitated the revival of 
 appeals of this kind. The effects of the subordination which appeals 
 established, in introducing attention, equity, and consistency of decision 
 into courts of judicature, were soon conspicuous ; and almost all causes 
 of importance were carried to be finally determined in the king's courts. 
 (Brussel, torn. i. p. 252.) Various circumstances which contributed 
 towards the introduction and frequency of such appeals are enumerated 
 De 1'Esprit des Loix, liv. xxviii. c. 27. Nothing, however, was of such 
 effect as the attention which monarchs gave to the constitution and dignity 
 of their courts of justice. It was the ancient custom for the feudal 
 monarchs to preside themselves in their courts, and to administer justice 
 in person. (Marculf., lib. i. 25 ; Murat, Dissert. XXXI.) Charlemagne, 
 whilst he was dressing, used to call parties into his presence, and, having 
 heard and considered the subject of litigation, gave judgment concerning 
 it. (Eginhartus, Vita Caroli Magni, cited by Madox, Hist, of Exchequer, 
 vol. i. p. 91.) This trial and decision of causes by the sovereigns them- 
 selves could not fail of rendering their courts respectable. St. Louis, 
 who encouraged to the utmost the practice of appeals, revived this ancient 
 custom, and administered justice in person with all the ancient simplicity. 
 " I have often seen the saint," says Joinville, " sit under the shade of an 
 oak in the wood of Vincennes, when all who had any complaint freely 
 approached him. At other times he gave orders to spread a carpet in a 
 garden, and, seating himself upon it, heard the causes that were brought 
 before him." (Hist, de St. Louis, p. 13, edit. 1761.) Princes of inferior 
 rank, who possessed the right of justice, sometimes dispensed it in person, 
 and presided in theif tribunals. Two instances of this occur with respect 
 to the dauphins of Vienne. (Hist, de Dauphin^, torn. i. p. 18. torn. ii. 
 p. 257.) But as kings and princes could not decide every cause in 
 person, nor bring them all to be determined in the same court, they 
 appointed baillis, with a right of jurisdiction, in different districts of 
 their kingdom. These possessed powers somewhat similar to those of the 
 ancient comites. It was towards the end of the twelfth century and 
 beginning of the thirteenth that this office was first instituted in France. 
 (Brussel, liv. ii. c. 35.) When the king had a court established in different 
 quarters of his dominions, this invited his subjects to have recourse to it. 
 It was the private interest of the baillis, as well as an object of public 
 policy, to extend their jurisdiction. They took advantage of every defect 
 in the rights of the barons, and of every error in their proceedings, to 
 remove causes out of their courts, and to bring them under their own 
 cognizance. There was a distinction in the feudal law, and an extremely 
 ancient one, between the high justice and the low. (CapituL 3, A.D. 
 812, 4, A.D. 815, 3; Establ. de St. Louis, liv. i c. 40.) Many 
 
 R 2
 
 244 PEOOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE xxin. 
 
 barons possessed the latter jurisdiction who had no title to the former. 
 The former included the right of trying crimes of every kind, even the 
 highest ; the latter was confined to petty trespasses. This furnished 
 endless pretexts for obstructing, restraining, and reviewing the proceed 
 ings in the baron courts. (Ordon., ii. 457, 25 ; 458, 29.) A 
 regulation of greater importance succeeded the institution of baillis. The 
 king's supreme court or parliament was rendered fixed as to the place and 
 constant as to the time of its meetings. In France, as well as in the 
 other feudal kingdoms, the king's court of justice was originally ambu- 
 latory, followed the person of the monarch, and was held only during 
 some of the great festivals. Philip Augustus, A.D. 1305, rendered it 
 stationary at Paris, and continued its terms during the greater part of the 
 year. (Pasquier, Recherches, liv. ii. c. 2 et 3, etc. ; Ordon., torn, i p. 366, 
 62.) He and his successors vested extensive powers in that court ; 
 they granted the members of it several privileges and distinctions which 
 it would be tedious to enumerate. (Pasquier, ibid. ; Velly, Hist, de 
 France, torn. vii. p. 307.) Persons eminent for integrity and skill in 
 law were appointed judges there. (Ibid.) By degrees the final decision 
 of all causes of importance was brought into the parliament of Paris, and 
 the other parliaments which administered justice in the king's name, in 
 different provinces of the kingdom. This jurisdiction, however, the 
 parliament of Paris acquired very slowly, and the great vassals of the 
 crown made violent efforts in order to obstruct the attempts of that 
 parliament to extend its authority. Towards the close of the thirteenth 
 century, Philip the Fair was obliged to prohibit his parliament from 
 taking cognizance of certain appeals brought into it from the courts of 
 the count of Bretagne, and to recognize and respect his right of supreme 
 and final jurisdiction. (Me*moires pour servir de Preuves a 1'Histoire de 
 Bretagne, par Morice, torn. i. pp. 1037, 1074.) Charles VI., at the end 
 of the following century, was obliged to confirm the rights of the dukes 
 of Bretagne in still more ample form. (Ibid., torn. ii. pp. 580, 581.) 
 So violent was the opposition of the barons to this right of appeal, which 
 they considered as fatal to their privileges and power, that the authors 
 of the Encycloptdie have mentioned several instances in which barons 
 put to death or mutilated such persons as ventured to appeal from the 
 sentences pronounced in their courts to the parliament of Paris (torn, xii., 
 art. Parlement, p. 25). 
 
 The progress of jurisdiction in the other feudal kingdoms was in a 
 great measure similar to that which we have traced in France. In 
 England the territorial jurisdiction of the barons was both ancient and 
 extensive. (Leg. Edw. Conf., nos. 5 and 9.) After the Norman Conquest 
 it became more strictly feudal ; and it is evident from facts recorded in 
 the English history, as well as from the institution of counties paatine, 
 which I have already mentioned, that the usurpations of the nobes in 
 England were not less bold or extensive than those of their contemporaries 
 on the continent. The same expedients were employed to circumscribe 
 or abolish those dangerous jurisdictions. William the Conqueror established 
 a constant court in the hall of his palace ; from which the four courts 
 now intrusted with the administration of justice in England took their 
 rise. Henry II. divided his kingdom into six circuits, and sent itinerant
 
 xxiv.] PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 245 
 
 judges to hold their courts in them at stated seasons. (Blackstone's Com- 
 mentaries on the Laws of England, voL iii p. 57.) Jiistices of the peace 
 were appointed in every county by subsequent monarch*, to whose juris- 
 diction the people gradually had recourse in many civil causes. The 
 privileges of the counties palatine were gradually limited ; with respect 
 to some points they were abolished, and the administration of justice was 
 brought into the king's courts, or before judges of his appointment The 
 several steps taken for this purpose are enumerated in Dalrymple'a History 
 of Feudal Property, chap. vii. 
 
 In Scotland the usurpations of the nobility were more exorbitant than 
 in any other feudal kingdom. The progress of their encroachments, and 
 the methods taken by the crown to limit or abolish their territorial and 
 independent jurisdictions, both which I had occasion to consider and 
 explain in a former work, differed very little from those of which I have 
 now given the detail History of Scotland, vol. L p. 37. 
 
 I should perplex myself and my readers in the labyrinth of German 
 jurisprudence if I were to attempt to delineate the progress of jurisdiction 
 in the empire with a minute accuracy. It is sufficient to observe that the 
 authority which the aulic council and imperial chamber now possess took 
 its rise from the same desire of redressing the abuses of territorial jurisdic- 
 tion, and was acquired in the same manner that the royal courts attained 
 influence in other countries of Europe. All the important facts with 
 respect to both these particulars may be found in Phil. Datt. de Pace 
 Publica Imperii, lib. iv. The capital articles are pointed out in Pfeffel, 
 Abre'ge' de 1'Histoire du Droit publique d'Allemagne, pp. 556, 581 ; and 
 in Trait^ du Droit publique de 1'Empire, par M. le Coq de Villeray. 
 The two last treatises are of great authority, having been composed under 
 the eye of M. Schoepflin of Strasburg, one of the ablest public lawyers in 
 Germany. 
 
 NOTE XXIV. Sect L p. 63. 
 
 It ia not easy to fix with precision the period at which ecclesiastics first 
 began to claim exemption from the civil jurisdiction. It is certain that 
 during the early and purest ages of the Church they pretended to no 
 such immunity. The authority of the civil magistrate extended to all 
 persons and to all causes. This fact has not only been clearly established 
 by Protestant authors, but is admitted by many Roman Catholics of 
 eminence, and particularly by the writers in defence of the liberties of 
 the Gallican Church. There are several original papers published by 
 Muratori, which show that in the ninth and tenth centuries causes of the 
 greatest importance relating to ecclesiastics were still determined by civil 
 judges. (Antiq. ItaL, vol. v. Dissert LXX.) Proofs of this are produced 
 likewise by M. Houard (Anciennes Lois des Fra^ois, etc., voL i. p. 209.) 
 Ecclesiastics did not shake off all at once their subjection to civil courts. 
 This privilege, like their other usurpations, was acquired slowly, and 
 Btep by step. This exemption seems at first to have been merely an 
 act of complaisance, flowing from veneration for their character. Thus, 
 from a charter of Charlemagne in favour of the church of Mans, A.D. 796. 
 to which M. I'Abbe' de Foy refers in his Notice de Diplomes, torn L,
 
 246 PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE xxiv. 
 
 p. 201, that monarch directs Ids judges, if any difference should arise 
 between the administrators of the revenues of that church and any person 
 whatever, not to summon the administrators to appear in " mallo publico," 
 but first of all to meet with them, and to endeavour to accommodate the 
 iifterence in an amicable manner. This indulgence was in process of 
 time improved into a legal exemption ; which was founded on the same 
 superstitious respect of the laity for the clerical character and function. 
 A remarkable instance of this occurs in a charter of Frederic Barbarossa, 
 A.D. 1172, to the monastery of Altenburg. He grants them "judicium 
 non tantum sanguinolentis plagae, sed vitae et mortis ;" he prohibits any 
 of the royal judges from disturbing their jurisdiction ; and the reason 
 which he gives for this ample concession is, " nam quorum, ex Dei gratia, 
 ratione divini ministerii onus leve est, et jugum suave ; nos penitus 
 nolumus illos oppressionis contumelia, vel manu laica, fatigari." Mencken, 
 Script. Rer. Germ., vol. iii. p. 1067. 
 
 It is not necessary for illustrating what is contained in the text, that 
 I should describe the manner in which the code of the canon law was 
 compiled, or show that the doctrines in it most favourable to the power of 
 the clergy are founded on ignorance, or supported by fraud and forgery. 
 The reader will find a full account of these in Gerard, van Mastricht, His- 
 toria Juris Ecclesiastici, and in Science du Gouvernement, par M. Rdal, 
 torn. vii. c. 1 et 3, 2, 3, etc. The history of the progress and extent of 
 ecclesiastical jurisdiction, with an account of the arts which the clergy 
 employed in order to draw causes of every kind into the spiritual courts, 
 is no less curious, and would throw great light upon many of the customs 
 and institutions of the Dark Ages ; but it is likewise foreign from the pre- 
 sent subject. Du Cange, in his Glossary, voc. Curia Christianitatis, has 
 collected most of the causes with respect to which the clergy arrogated an 
 exclusive jurisdiction, and refers to the authors, or original papers, which 
 confirm his observations. Giannone, in his Civil History of Naples, lib. 
 xix. 3, has ranged these under proper heads, and scrutinizes the preten- 
 sions of the Church with his usual boldness and discernment. M. Fleury 
 observes that the clergy multiplied the pretexts for extending the authority 
 of the spiritual courts with so much boldness that it was soon in their 
 power to withdraw almost every person and every cause from the jurisdic- 
 tion of the civil magistrate. (Hist. Eccle's., torn, xix., Disc. Prelim., 16.) 
 But, how ill founded soever the jurisdiction of the clergy may have been, 
 or whatever might be the abuses to which their manner of exercising it 
 gave rise, the principles and forms of their jurisprudence were far more 
 perfect than that which was known in the civil courts. It seems to be 
 certain that ecclesiastics never submitted, during any period in th= Middle 
 Ages, to the laws contained in the codes of the barbarous nations, but were 
 governed entirely by the Roman law. They regulated all their transac- 
 tions by such of its maxims as were preserved by tradition or were con- 
 tained in the Theodosian Code and other books extant among them. This 
 we learn from a custom which prevailed universally in those ages. Every 
 person was permitted to choose, among the various codes of laws then in 
 force, that to which he was willing to conform. In any transaction of import- 
 ance, it was usual for the persons contracting to mention the law to which 
 they submitted that it might be known how any controversy that should
 
 NOTE xxnr.] PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 247 
 
 arise between them was to be decided. Innumerable proofs of this occui 
 in the charters of the Middle Ages. But the clergy considered it as such 
 a valuable privilege of their order to be governed by the Roman law, that 
 when any person entered into holy orders it was usual for him to renounce 
 the code of laws to which he had been formerly subject, and to declare that 
 he now submitted to the Roman law. " Constat me Johannem clericum, 
 filium quondam Verandi, qui professus sum, ex natione mea, lege vivere 
 Longobardorum, sed tamen, pro honore ecclesiastico, lege nunc videor 
 vivere Romana." (Charta, A.D. 1072.) " Farulfus presbyter qui pro- 
 fessus sum, more sacerdotii mei, lege vivere Romana." Charta, A.D. 107&; 
 Muratori, Antichita Estensi, vol. i. p. 78. See likewise Houard. Anciennes 
 Loix des Franois, etc., vol. i. p. 203. 
 
 The code of the canon law began to be compiled early in the ninth 
 century. (Mem. de 1'Acad. des Inscript, torn, xviii. p. 346, etc.) It was 
 above two centuries after that before any collection was made of those 
 customs which were the rule of judgments in the courts of the barons. 
 Spiritual judges decided, of course, according to written and known laws : 
 lay judges, left without any fixed guide, were directed by loose traditionary 
 customs. But, besides this general advantage of the canon law, its forms 
 and principles were more consonant to reason, and more favourable to the 
 equitable decision of every point in controversy, than those which prevailed 
 in lay courts. It appears from notes XXI. and XXIII., concerning private 
 wars and the trial by combat, that the whole spirit of ecclesiastical juris- 
 prudence was adverse to those sanguinary customs, which were destructive 
 of justice ; and the whole force of ecclesiastical authority was exerted to 
 abolish them, and to substitute trials by law and evidence in their room. 
 Almost all the forms in lay courts which contribute to establish and con- 
 tinue to preserve order in judicial proceedings are borrowed from the canon 
 law. (Fleury, Instit. du Droit Canon., part iii. c. 6, p. 52.) St. Louis, 
 in his Establissemens, confirms many of his new regulations concerning 
 property and the administration of justice by the authority of the canon 
 law, from which he borrowed them. Thus, for instance, the first hint of 
 attaching movables for the recovery of a debt was taken from the canon 
 law, (Estab., ^v. ii. c. 21 et 40.) And likewise the cessio bonorum, 
 by a person wio was insolvent. (Ibid.) In the same manner, he estab- 
 lished new regulations with respect to the effects of persons dying intestate 
 (liv. i. c. 89). These and many other salutary regulations the canonists 
 had borrowed from the Roman law. Many other examples might be pro- 
 duced of more perfect jurisprudence in the canon law than was known in 
 lay courts. For that reason it was deemed a high privilege to be subject 
 to ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Among the many immunities by which men 
 were allured to engage in the dangeroiis expeditions for the recovery of the 
 Holy Land, one of the most considerable was the declaring such as tooi. 
 the cross to be subject only to the spiritual courts, and to the rules of 
 decision observed in them. See Note XIIL, and Du Cange, voc. Crutit
 
 248 PBOOFS AND ILLUSTKAT10NS. [NOTE xxv. 
 
 NOTE XXV. Sect I. p. 65. 
 
 The rapidity with which the knowledge and study of the Roman law 
 spread over Europe is amazing. The copy of the Pandects was found 4t 
 Amalfi, A.D. 1137. Irnerius opened a college of civil law at Bologna a. 
 few years after. (Giann., Hist., book xi. c. 2.) It began to be taught as 
 a part of academical learning in different parts of France before the middle 
 of the century. Vaccarius gave lectures on the civil law at Oxford as early 
 as the year 1147. A regular system of feudal law, formed plainly in 
 imitation of the Roman code, was composed by two Milanese lawyers about 
 the year 1150. Gratian published the code of canon law, with large 
 additions and emendations, about the same time. The earliest collection 
 of those customs which served as the rules of decision in the courts of 
 justice is the Assises de Jerusalem. They were compiled, as the preamble 
 informs us, in the year 1099, and are called "Jus Consuetudinarium quo 
 regebatur Regnum Orientale." (Willerm. Tyr., lib. xix. c. 2.) But pecu- 
 liar circumstances gave occasion to this early compilation. The victorious 
 crusaders settled as a colony in a foreign country, and adventurers from a! 1 
 the different nations of Europe composed this new society. It was neces- 
 sary on that account to ascertain the laws and customs which were to 
 regulate the transactions of business and the administration of justice 
 among them. But in no country of Europe was there, at that time, any 
 collection of customs, nor had any attempt been made to render law fixed. 
 The first undertaking of that kind was by Glanville, lord chief justice of 
 England, in his Tractatus de Legibus et Consuetudinibus Anglia?, composed 
 about the year 1181. The Regiam Majestatem in Scotland, ascribed to 
 David L, seems to be an imitation, and a servile one, of Glanville. Several 
 Scottish antiquaries, under the influence of that pious credulity which dis- 
 poses men to assent without hesitation to whatever they deem for the 
 honour of their native country, contend zealously that the Regiam Majes- 
 tatem is a production prior to the treatise of Glanville, and have brought 
 themselves to believe that a nation in a superior state of improvement bor- 
 rowed its laws and institutions from one considerably less advanced in its 
 political progress. The internal evidence (were it my province to examine 
 it) by which this theory might be refuted is, in my opinion, decisive. The 
 external circumstances which have seduced Scottish authors into this mis- 
 take ha ye been explained with so much precision and candour by Sir 
 David Dalrymple, in his examination of some of the arguments for the 
 high antiquity of the Regiam Majestatem (Edin., 1769, 4to), that it is to be 
 hoped the controversy will not be again revived. Pierre de Fontaines, wh^ 
 tells us that he was the first who had attempted such a work in France, 
 composed his Conseil, which contains an account of the customs of the 
 country of Vermandois in the reign of St. Louis, which began Jt. n. 
 1226. Beaumanoir, the author of the Coustumes de Beauvoisis, lived about 
 the same time. The Establissemens of St. Louis, containing a large col- 
 lection of the customs which prevailed within the royal domains, were 
 published by the authority of that monarch. As soon as men became 
 acquainted with the advantages of having written customs and laws to 
 which they could have recourse on every occasion, the practice of col-
 
 NOTE xxvi.] PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 249 
 
 lecting them became common. Charles VII. of France, by an ordinance 
 A.D. 1453, appointed the customary laws in every province of France to be 
 collected and arranged. Velly et Villaret, Histoire, torn. xvi. p. 113. 
 
 His successor, Louis XL, renewed the injunction. But this salutary 
 undertaking hath never been fully executed, and the jurisprudence of the 
 French nation remains more obscure and uncertain than it would have been 
 if these prudent regulations of their monarchs had taken effect. A mode 
 of judicial determination was established in the Middle Ages, which affords 
 the clearest proof that judges, while they had no other rule to direct their 
 decrees but unwritten and traditionary customs, were often at a loss how 
 to find out the facts and principles according to which they were bound to 
 decide. They were obliged, in dubious cases, to call a certain number of 
 old men, and to lay the case before them, that they might inform them 
 what was the practice or custom with regard to the point. This was called 
 enqueste par tourbe. (Du Cange, voc. Turbo,.) The effects of the revival 
 of the Roman jurisprudence have been explained by M. de Montesquieu 
 (liv. xxviii. c. 42), and by Mr. Hume (Hist, of England, vol. ii p. 441). 
 I have adopted many of their ideas. Who can pretend to review any sub- 
 ject which such writers have considered, without receiving from them 
 light and information ? At the same time,- 1 am convinced that the know- 
 ledge of the Roman law was not so entirely lost in Europe during the 
 Middle Ages as is commonly believed. My subject does not require me 
 to examine this point. Many striking facts with regard to it are col- 
 lected by Donato Antonio d' Asti, Dell' Uso e Autoritk della Ragione civile 
 nelle Provincie dell' Imperio Occidentale, Nap., 1751, 2 vols. 8vo. 
 
 That the civil law is intimately connected with the municipal jurispru- 
 dence in several countries of Europe is a fact so well known that it needs 
 no illustration. Even in England, where the common law is supposed to 
 form a system perfectly distinct from the Roman code, and although such 
 as apply in that country to the study of the common law boast of this 
 distinction with some degree of affectation, it is evident that many of the 
 ideas and maxims of the civil law are incorporated into the English 
 jurisprudence. This is well illustrated by the ingenious and learned 
 author of Observations on the Statutes, chiefly the more Ancient, 3d edit., 
 p. 76, etc. 
 
 NOTE XXVI. Sect. I. p. 66. 
 
 The whole history of the Middle Ages makes it evident that war was 
 the sole profession of gentlemen, and almost the only object attended to in 
 their education. Even after some change in manners began to take place, 
 and the civil arts of life had acquired some reputation, the ancient ideas 
 with respect to the accomplishments necessary for a person of noble birth 
 continued long in force. In the Me'ruoires de Fleuranges, p. 9, etc., we 
 have an account of the youthful exercises and occupations of Francis I., 
 and they were altogether martial and athletic. That father of letters owed 
 his relish for them, not to education, but to his own good sense and good 
 taste. The manners of the superior order of ecclesiastics during the 
 Middle Ages furnish the strongest proof that, in some instances, the dis- 
 tinction of professions was not completely ascertained in Europe. The
 
 250 PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE xxvm. 
 
 functions and character of the clergy are obviously very different from those 
 of laymen ; and among the inferior orders of churchmen this constituted a 
 distinct character separate from that of other citizens. But the dignified 
 ecclesiastics, who were frequently of noble birth, were above such a distinc- 
 tion ; they retained the idea of what belonged to them as gentlemen, and, 
 in spite of the decrees of popes or the canons of councils, they bore arms, 
 led their vassals to the field, and fought at their head in battle. Among 
 them the priesthood was scarcely a separate profession ; the military accom- 
 plishments which they thought essential to them as gentlemen were culti- 
 vated ; the theological science and pacific virtues suitable to their spiritual 
 function were neglected and despised. 
 
 As soon as the science of law became a laborious study, and the practice 
 of it a separate profession, such persons as rose to eminence in it obtained 
 honours which had formerly been appropriated to soldiers. Knighthood 
 was the most illustrious mark of distinction during several ages, and con- 
 ferred privileges to which rank or birth alone was not entitled. To this 
 high dignity persons eminent for their knowledge of law were advanced, 
 and were thereby placed on a level with those whom their military talents 
 had rendered conspicuous. Miles justitice, miles literatus, became common 
 titles. Matthew Paris mentions such knights as early as A.D. 1251. If a 
 judge attained a certain rank in the courts of justice, that alone gave him 
 a right to the honour of knighthood. (Pasquier, Recherches, liv. xi. c. 16, 
 p. 130 ; Dissertations historiques sur la Che valeric, par Honors' de 
 Sainte-Marie, p. 164, etc.) A profession that led to offices which enno- 
 bled the persons who held them grew into credit, and the people of 
 Europe became accustomed to see men rise to eminence by civil as well as 
 military talents. 
 
 NOTE XXVII. Sect. I. p. 69. 
 
 The chief intention of these notes was to bring at once under the view of 
 my readers such facts and circumstances as tend to illustrate or confirm 
 what is contained in that part of the history to which they refer. When 
 these lay scattered in many different authors, and were taken from books 
 not generally known, or which many of my readers might find it disagree- 
 able to consult, I thought it would be of advantage to collect them together. 
 But when every thing necessary for the proof or illustration of my narra- 
 tive or reasoning may be found in any one book which is generally known, 
 or deserves to be so, I shall satisfy myself with referring to it. This is the 
 case with respect to chivalry. Almost every fact which I have mentioned 
 in the text, together with many other curious and instructive particulars 
 concerning this singular institution, may be found in Memoires sur 1'ancienne 
 Chevalerie conside're'e comme une Establissement politique et militaire, par 
 M. de la Curne de Ste. Palaye. 
 
 NOTE XXVIII. Sect. I. p. 74. 
 
 The subject of my inquiries does not call me to write a history of the 
 progress of science. The facts and observations which I have produced are 
 <mffi< ient to illustrate the effects of its progress upon manners and the state
 
 NOTE xxvni.] PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 251 
 
 of society. While science was altogether extinct in the western parts ol 
 Europe, it was cultivated in Constantinople and other parts of the Grecian 
 empire. But the subtile genius of the Greeks turned almost entirely to 
 theological disputation. The Latins borrowed that spirit from them, an 1 
 many of the controversies which still occupy and divide theologians took 
 their rise among the Greeks, from whom the other Europeans derived a con 
 siderable part of their knowledge. (See the testimony of JSneas Silvius, 
 ap. Coringium de Antiq. Academicis, p. 43 ; Histoire litte'raire de France, 
 torn. vii. p. 113, etc., torn. ix. p. 151, etc.) Soon after the empire of the 
 Caliphs was established in the East, some illustrious princes arose among 
 them, who encouraged science. But when the Arabians turned their 
 attention to the literature cultivated by the ancient Greeks and Romans, 
 the chaste and correct taste of their works of genius appeared frigid and 
 unauimated to a people of a more warm imagination. Though they conld 
 not admire the poets and historians of Greece or of Rome, they were sensi- 
 ble to the merit of their philosophers. The operations of the intellect are 
 more fixed and uniform than those of the fancy or taste. Truth makes an 
 impression nearly the same in every place ; the ideas of what is beautiful, 
 elegant, or sublime vary in different climates. The Arabians, though they 
 neglected Homer, translated the most eminent of the Greek philosophers 
 into their own language, and, guided by their precepts and discoveries, 
 applied themselves with great ardour to the study of geometry, astronomy, 
 medicine, dialectics, and metaphysics. In the three former they made con- 
 siderable and useful improvements, which have contributed not a little to 
 advance those sciences to that high degree of perfection which they have 
 attained. In the two latter they chose Aristotle for their guide, and, refin- 
 ing on the subtle and distinguishing spirit which characterizes his philoso- 
 phy, they rendered it in a great degree frivolous and unintelligible. The 
 schools established in the East for teaching and cultivating these sciences 
 were in high reputation. They communicated their love of science to 
 their countrymen, who conquered Africa and Spain ; and the schools 
 instituted there were little inferior in fame to those in the East. Many of 
 the persons who distinguished themselves by their proficiency in science 
 during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were educated among the 
 Arabians. Bruckerus collects many instances of this (Histor. Philos., vol. 
 iii. p. 681, etc.). Almost all the men eminent for science during several 
 centuries, if they did not resort in person to the schools in Africa and 
 Spain, were instructed in the philosophy of the Arabians. The first know- 
 ledge of the Aristotelian philosophy in the Middle Ages was acquired by 
 translations of Aristotle's works out of the Arabic. The Arabian commen- 
 tators were deemed the most skilful and authentic guides in the study of 
 his system. (Conring., Antiq. Acad., Diss. III. p. 95, etc. ; Supplem., 
 p. 241, etc. ; Murat., Antiquit. Ital., vol. iii. p. 932, etc.) From them 
 the schoolmen derived the genius and principles of their philosophy, which 
 contributed so much to retard the progress of true science. 
 
 The establishment of colleges or universities is a remarkable era in 
 literary history. The schools in cathedrals and monasteries confined them- 
 selves chiefly to the teaching of grammar. There were only one or two 
 masters employed in that office. But in colleges, professors were appointed 
 tn teach all the different parts of science. The course or order of education
 
 252 PROOifS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE xxix. 
 
 was fixed. The time that ought to be allotted to the study of each science 
 was ascertained. A regular form of trying the proficiency of students was 
 prescribed ; and academical titles and honours were conferred on such as 
 acquitted themselves with approbation. A good account of the origin and 
 nature of these is given by Seb. Bacmeisterus, Antiquitates Rostochienses, 
 sive Historia Urbis et Academies Rostoch. ap. Monumenta inedita Rer. 
 Germ., per E. J. de Westphalen, vol. iii. p. 781, Lips., 1743. The first 
 obscure mention of these academical degrees in the University of Paris 
 (from which the other universities in Europe have borrowed most of their 
 customs and institutions) occurs A.D. 1216. (Crevier, Hist, de 1'Univ. de 
 Paris, torn. i. p. 296, etc.) They were completely established A.D. 1231. 
 (Ibid., 248.) It is unnecessary to enumerate the several privileges to 
 which bachelors, masters, and doctors were entitled. One circumstance is 
 sufficient to demonstrate the high degree of estimation in which they were 
 held. Doctors in the different faculties contended with knights for prece- 
 dence, and the dispute was terminated in many instances by advanc- 
 ing the former to the dignity of knighthood, the high prerogatives of 
 which I have mentioned. It was even asserted that a doctor had a right 
 to that title without creation. Bartolus taught "doctorem actualiter re- 
 gentem in jure civili per decennium effici militem ipso facto." (Honore* de 
 Ste. Marie, Dissert., p. 165.) This was called " chevalerie de lectures," 
 and the persons advanced to that dignity, "milites clerici." These 
 new establishments for education, together with the extraordinary honours 
 conferred on learned men, greatly increased the number of scholars. In 
 the year 1262 there were ten thousand students in the university of 
 Bologna ; and it appears from the history of that university that law was 
 the only science taught in it at that time. In the year 1340 there were 
 thirty thousand in the University of Oxford. (Speed's Chron., ap. Ander- 
 son's Chronol. Deduction of Commerce, voL i. p. 172.) In the same 
 century, ten thousand persons voted in a question agitated in the University 
 of Paris ; and, as graduates alone were admitted to that privilege, the 
 number of students must have been very great. (Velly, Hist de France, 
 torn, xi p. 147.) There were indeed few universities in Europe at that 
 time ; but such a number of students may nevertheless be produced as a 
 proof of the extraordinary ardour with which men applied to the study of 
 science in those ages; it shows, likewise, that they already began to 
 consider other professions beside that of a soldier as honourable and 
 useful. 
 
 NOTE XXIX. Sect L p. 75. 
 
 The great variety of subjects which I have endeavoured to illustrate, 
 and the extent of this tipon which I now enter, will justify my adopting the 
 words of M. de Montesqiiieu when he begins to treat of commerce. " The 
 dbject which follows would require to be discussed more at large ; but the 
 nature of this work does not permit it I wish to glide on a tranquil 
 stream ; Hit I am hurried along by a torrent." 
 
 Many proofs occur in history of the little intercourse between nations 
 during the Mid. lie Ages. Towards the close of the tenth century, Count 
 Bouchard, intending to found a monastery at St Maur des Fosses, near
 
 NOTE xxix.] PEOOFS AND ILLTJSTEATIONS. 253 
 
 Paris, applied to an abbot of Clugny, in Burgundy, famous for his sanctity, 
 entreating him to conduct the monks thither. The language in which he 
 addressed that holy man is singular : he tells him that he had undertaken 
 the labour of such a great journey ; that he was fatigued with the length of 
 it, therefore hoped to obtain his request, and that his journey iiuto such a 
 distant country should not be in vain. The answer of the abbot is still 
 more extraordinary. He refused to comply with his desire, as it would 
 be extremely fatiguing to go along with him into a strange and unknown 
 region. (Vita Burchardi venerabilis Comitis, ap. Bouquet, Rec. des Hist., 
 vol. x. p. 351.) Even so late as the beginning of the twelfth century, the 
 monks of Feiiieres, in the diocese of Sens, did not know that there was 
 such a city as Tournay in Flanders ; and the monks of St. Martin of Tour- 
 nay were equally unacquainted with the situation of Ferrieres. A trans- 
 action in which they were both concerned made it necessary for them to 
 have some intercourse. The mutual interest of both monasteries prompted 
 each to find out the situation of the other. After a long search, which is 
 particularly described, the discovery was made by accident. (Herimannus 
 Abbas, de Restauratione St. Martini Tornacensis, ap. Dacher. Spicil., vol. 
 xiL p. 400.) The ignorance of the Middle Ages with respect to the situa- 
 tion and geography of remote countries was still more remarkable. The 
 most ancient geographical chart which now remains as a monument of the 
 state of that science in Europe during the Middle Ages is found in a manu- 
 script of the Chronique de St. Denys. There the three parts of the earth 
 then known are so represented that Jerusalem is placed in the middle of the 
 globe, and Alexandria appears to be as near to it as Nazareth. (Me'm. de 
 FAcad. des Belles-Lettres, torn. xvi. p. 185.) There seems to have been 
 no inns or houses of entertainment for the reception of travellers during 
 the Middle Ages. (Murat., Antiq. ItaL, vol. iii. p. 581, etc.) This is 
 a proof of the little intercourse which took place between different nations. 
 Among people whose manners are simple, and who are seldom visited by 
 strangers, hospitality is a virtue of the first rank. This duty of hospitality 
 was so necessary in that state of society which took place during the Middle 
 Ages that it was not considered as one of those virtues which men may 
 practise or not, according to the temper of their minds and the generosity 
 of their hearts. Hospitality was enforced by statutes, and such as neglected 
 this duty were liable to punishment. " Quicunque hospiti venienti lectum 
 aut focum negaverit, trium solidorum inlatione mulctetur." (Leg. Bur- 
 gund. tit. xxxviii. 1.) "Si quis homini aliquo pergenti in itinere man- 
 sionem vetaverit, sexaginta solidos componat in publico." (Capitul., lib. 
 vi. 82.) This increase of the penalty, at a period so long after that in 
 which the laws of the Burgundians were published, and when the state of 
 society was much improved, is very remarkable. Other laws of the same 
 purport are collected by Jo. Fred. Polac., Systema Jurisprud. Germanicae, 
 Lips., 1 733, p. 75. The laws of the Slavi were more rigorous than any that 
 he mentions : they ordained that the movables of an inhospitable person 
 should be confiscated, and his house burnt. They were even so solicitous 
 for the entertainment of strangers that they permitted the landlord to steal 
 for the support of his guest. " Quod noctu furatus fueris, eras appone 
 hospitibus." (Rerum Mecleburgicar., lib. viii. a Mat. Jo. Beehr., Lips., 
 1751, p. 50.) In consequence of these laws, or of the state of society
 
 254 PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE xxix. 
 
 which made it proper to enact them, hospitality abounded while the inter 
 course among men was inconsiderable, and secured the stranger a kind 
 reception under every roof where he chose to take shelter. This, too, 
 proves clearly that the intercourse among men was rare ; for as soon as this 
 became frequent, what was a pleasure became a burden, and the entertaining 
 of travellers was converted into a branch of commerce. 
 
 But the laws of the Middle Ages afford a proof still more convincing of 
 the small intercourse between different nations. The genius of the feudal 
 system, as well as the spirit of jealousy which always accompanies ignorance, 
 concurred in discouraging strangers from settling in any new country. If 
 a person removed from one province in a kingdon to another, he was 
 bound within a year and a day to acknowledge himself the vassal of the 
 baron in whose estate he settled ; if he neglected to do so, he became liable 
 to a penalty ; and if at his death he neglected to leave a certain legacy to 
 the baron within whose territory he had resided, all his goods were confis- 
 cated. The hardships imposed on foreigners settling in a country were still 
 more intolerable. In more early times the superior lord of any territory in 
 which a foreigner settled might seize his person and reduce him to servi- 
 tude. Vry striking instances of this occur in the history of the Middle 
 Ages. The cruel depredations of the Normans in the ninth century obliged 
 many inhabitants of the maritime provinces of France to fly into the interior 
 parts of the kingdom. But, instead of being received with that humanity 
 to which their wretched condition entitled them, they were reduced to a 
 state of servitude. Both the civil and ecclesiastical powers found it neces- 
 sary to interpose in order to put a stop to this barbarous practice. (Pot- 
 giesser., de Statu Servor., lib. i. c. 1, 16.) In other countries the laws 
 permitted the inhabitants of the maritime provinces to reduce such as were 
 shipwrecked on their coast to servitude. (Ibid., 17.) This barbarous 
 custom prevailed in many countries of Europe. The practice of seizing the 
 goods of persons who had been shipwrecked, and of confiscating them as 
 the property of the lord on whose manor they were thrown, seems to have 
 been universal. (De Westphalen, Monum. inedita Rer. Germ., vol. iv. 
 p. 907, etc., and Du Cange, voc. Laganum; Beehr., Rer. Mecleb., lib. viii. 
 p. 512.) Among the ancient Welsh three sorts of persons, a madman, a 
 stranger, and a leper, might be killed with impunity. (Leges Hoel Dda, 
 quoted in Observat. on the Statutes, chiefly the more Ancient, p. 22.) M. 
 de Lauriere produces several ancient deeds which prove that in different 
 provinces of France strangers became the slaves of the lord on whose lands 
 they settled. (Glossaire du Droit Frangois, art. Aubaine, p. 92.) Beau- 
 manoir says, " That there are several places in France in which if a stranger 
 fixes his residence for a year and a day, he becomes the slave of the lord of 
 the manor." (Coust. de Beauv., ch. 45, p. 254.) As a practice so con- 
 trary to humanity could not subsist long, the superior lords found it 
 necessary to rest satisfied, instead of enslaving aliens, with levying certain 
 annual taxes upon them, or imposing upon them some extraordinary duties 
 or services. But when any stranger died, he could not convey his effects 
 by will ; and all his real as well as personal estate fell to the king, or to 
 the lord of the barony, to the exclusion of his natural heirs. This is termed 
 in France droit d'aubaine. (PreX de Lauriere, Ordon., torn, i p. 15 ; 
 Brusael, torn. ii. p. 944 ; Du Cange, voc. Albani ; Pasquier, Recherches,
 
 NOTE xxix.] PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 255 
 
 p. 367.) This practice of confiscating the effects of strangers upon their 
 death was very ancient. It is mentioned, though very obscurely, in a law 
 of Charlemagne, A.D. 813, Capitul. Baluz., p. 507, 5. Not only persons 
 who were born in a foreign country were subject to the " droit d'aubaine," 
 but in some countries such as removed from one diocese to another, or 
 from the lands of one baron to another. (Brussel, vol. ii. pp. 947, 949.) 
 It is hardly possible to conceive any law more unfavourable to the inter- 
 course between nations. Something similar to it, however, may be found 
 in the ancient laws of every kingdom in Europe. With respect to Italy, 
 see Murat., Ant., vol. ii. p. 14. As nations advanced in improvement, 
 this practice was gradually abolished. It is no small disgrace to the French 
 jurisprudence that this barbarous, inhospitable custom should have so long 
 remained among a people so highly civilized. 
 
 The confusion and outrage which abounded under a feeble form of 
 government, incapable of framing or executing salutary laws, rendered the 
 communication between the different provinces of the same kingdom ex- 
 tremely dangerous. It appears from a letter of Lupus, abbot of Ferrieres, 
 in the ninth century, that the highways were so much infested by banditti 
 that it was necessary for travellers to form themselves into companies or 
 caravans, that they might be safe from the assaults of robbers. (Bouquet, 
 Recueil des Hist, voL vii. p. 51ft.) The numerous regulations published 
 by Charles the Bald in the same century discover the frequency of these 
 disorders ; and such acts of violence were become so common that by many 
 they were hardly considered as criminal. For this reason the inferior judges, 
 called " centenarii," were required to take an oath that they would neither 
 commit any robbery themselves, nor protect such as were guilty of that 
 crime. (Capitul., edit. Baluz., vol. ii. pp. 63, 68.) The historians of the 
 ninth and tenth centuries give pathetic descriptions of these disorders. 
 Some remarkable passages to this purpose are collected by Mat. Jo. Beehr., 
 Rer. Mecleb., lib. viii. p. 603. They became so frequent and audacious 
 that the authority of the civil magistrate was unable to repress them. 
 The ecclesiastical jurisdiction was called in to aid it. Councils were held 
 with great solemnity, the bodies of the saints were brought thither, and, in 
 presence of their sacred relics, anathemas were denounced against robbers 
 and other violators of the public peace. (Bouquet, Recueil des Hist., torn. 
 x. pp. 360, 431, 536.) One of these forms of excommunication, issued 
 A.D. 988, is still preserved, and is so singular, and composed with eloquence 
 of such a peculiar kind, that it will not perhaps be deemed unworthy of a 
 place here. After the usual introduction, and mentioning the outrage 
 which gave occasion to the anathema, it runs thus : " Obtenebrescant oculi 
 vestri, qui coucupiverunt ; arescant manus, quse rapuerunt ; debilitentui 
 oitnia membra, quse adjuverunt. Semper laboretis, nee requiem inve- 
 niatis, fructuque vestri laboris privemini. Formidetis, et paveatis, a 
 facie persequentis et non persequentis hostis, ut tabescendo deficiatis. 
 Sit portio vestra cum Juda traditore Domini, in terra mortis et tenebrarum ; 
 donee corda vestra ad satisfactionem plenam convertantur. Ne cesseiit 
 A vobis hse maledictiones, scelerum vestrorum persecu* rices, quanuliu 
 permanebitis in peccato pervasionis. Amen, Fiat, Fiat" Bouquet, ibid.. 
 p. 517.
 
 256 PBOOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE xxx. 
 
 NOTE XXX. Sect I. p. 79. 
 
 With respect to the progress of commerce, which I have described, 
 p. 74, etc., it may be observed that the Italian states carried on some 
 commerce with the cities of the Greek empire as early as the age 
 of Charlemagne, and imported into their own country the rich com- 
 modities of the East. (Murat., Antiq., Ital., vol. ii. p. 882.) In the 
 tenth century the Venetians had opened a trade with Alexandi la in Egypt 
 (Ibid.) The inhabitants of Amalfi and Pisa had likewise extended theil 
 trade to the same ports. (Murat., ib., pp. 884, 885.) The effects of the 
 crusades in increasing the wealth and commerce of the Italian states, and 
 particularly that which they carried on with the East, I have explained, 
 p. 29 of this volume. They not only imported the Indian commodities 
 from the East, but established manufactories of curious fabric in their 
 own country. Some of these are enumerated by Muratori in his Dis- 
 sertations concerning the arts and the weaving of the Middle Ages. 
 (Antiq. Ital., vol. ii. pp. 349, 399.) They made great progress par- 
 ticularly in the manufacture of silk, which had long been peculiar to 
 the eastern provinces of Asia. Silk stuffs were of such high price in 
 ancient Rome that only a few persons of the first rank were able to 
 purchase them. Under Aurelian, A.D. 270, a pound of silk was equal 
 in value to a pound of gold. " Absit ut auro fila pensentur. Libra 
 enim auri tune libra serici fait" (Vopisctis in Aureliano.) Justinian, 
 in the sixth century, introduced the art of rearing silk-worms into Greece, 
 which rendered the commodity somewhat more plentiful, though still it 
 was of such great value as to remain an article of luxury or magnificence, 
 reserved only for persons of the first order, or for public solemnities. 
 Roger I., king of Sicily, about the year 1130, carried off a number of 
 artificers in the silk-trade from Athens, and settling them in Palermo, 
 introduced the culture of silk into his kingdom, from which it was com- 
 municated to other parts of Italy. (Giannon., Hist, of Naples, b. xi. c. 7.) 
 This seems to have rendered silk so common, that about the middle 
 of the fourteenth century a thousand citizens of Genoa appeared in one 
 procession clad in silk robes. Sugar is likewise a production of the 
 East. Some plants of the sugar-cane were brought from Asia ; and the 
 first attempt to cultivate them in Sicily was made about the middle of 
 the twelfth century. From thence they were transplanted into the 
 southern provinces of Spain. From Spain they were carried to the 
 Canary and Madeira Isles, and at length into the New World. Ludovico 
 Guicciardini, in enumerating the goods imported into Antwerp about the 
 year 1500, mentions the sugar which they received from Spain and 
 Portugal as a considerable article. He describes that sugar as the product 
 of the Madeira and Canary Islands. (Descritt de' Paesi Bassi, pp. 180, 
 181.) The sugar-cane was introduced into the West Indies before that 
 time ; but the cultivation of it was not so improved or so extensive as 
 to furnish an article of much consequence in commerce. In the Middle 
 Ages, though sugar was not raised in such quantities, or employed for so 
 many purposes as to become one of the common necessaries of life, it
 
 NOTE xxx.] PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 257 
 
 appears to have been a considerable article in the commerce of the Italian 
 states. 
 
 These various commodities with which the Italians furnished the other 
 nations of Europe procured them a favourable reception in every king- 
 dom. They were established in France in the thirteenth century with 
 most extensive immunities. They not only obtained every indulgence 
 favourable to their commerce, but personal rights and privileges were 
 granted to them which the natives of the kingdom did not enjoy. (Ordon., 
 torn. iv. p. 668.) By a special proviso they were exempted from the 
 droit d'aubaine. (Ibid., p. 670.) As the Lombards (a name frequently 
 given to all Italian merchants in many parts of Europe) engrossed the 
 trade of every kingdom in which they settled, they became masters of its 
 cash. Money, of course, was in their hands not only a sign of the value 
 of other commodities, but became an object of commerce itself. They 
 dealt largely as bankers. In an ordinance, A.D. 1295, we ind them 
 styled mercatores and campsores. They carried on this as well as other 
 branches of their commerce with somewhat of that rapacious spirit which 
 is natural to monopolizers who are not restrained by the competition of 
 rival traders. An absurd opinion which prevailed in the Middle Ages 
 was, however, in some measure the cause of their exorbitant demands, and 
 may be pleaded in apology for them. Trade cannot be carried on with 
 advantage unless the persons who lend a sum of money are allowed a 
 certain premium for the use of it, as a compensation for the risk which 
 they run in permitting another to traffic with their stock. This premium 
 is fixed by law in all commercial countries, and is called the legal interest 
 of money. But the fathers of the Church had preposterously applied 
 the prohibitions of usury in Scripture to the payment of legal interest, 
 and condemned it as a sin. The schoolmen, misled by Aristotle, whose 
 sentiments they followed implicitly, and without examination, adopted the 
 same error, and enforced it. (Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws 
 t>f England, vol. ii. p. 455.) Thus the Lombards found themselves 
 engaged in a traffic which was everywhere deemed criminal and odious. 
 They were liable to punishment if detected. They were not satisfied, 
 therefore, with that moderate premium which they might have claimed if 
 their trade had been open and authorized by law. They exacted a sum 
 proportional to the danger and infamy of a discovery. Accordingly, we 
 find that it was usual for them to demand twenty per cent, for the use of 
 money in the thirteenth century. (Murat., Antiq. Ital., vol. L p. 893.) 
 About the beginning of that century the countess of Flanders was obliged 
 to borrow money in order to pay her husband's ransom. She procured 
 the sum requisite either from Italian merchants or from Jews. The 
 lowest interest which she paid to them was above twenty per cent., and 
 some of them exacted near thirty. (Martene and Durand., Thesaur. 
 Anecdotorum, vol. i p. 886.) In the fourteenth century, A.D. 1311, 
 Philip IV. fixed the interest which might be legally exacted in the fairs 
 of Champagne at twenty per cent. (Ordon., torn. i. p. 484.) The interest 
 of money in Aragon was somewhat lower. James I., A.D. 1242, fixed it 
 by law at eighteen per cent. (Petr. de Marca, Marca, sive Limes Hispan., 
 App. 1433.) As late as the year 1490, it appears that the interest of 
 money in Placentia was at the rate of forty per cent. This is the more 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 PEOOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE xxx 
 
 extraordinary because at that time the commerce of the Italian states waa 
 become considerable. (Memorie storiche de Piacenza, torn. viii. p. 104, 
 Piac., 1760.) It appears from Lud. Guicciardini that Charles V. had 
 fixed the rate of interest in his dominions in the Low Countries at twelve 
 per cent., and at the time when he wrote, about the year 1560, it waa 
 not uncommon to exact more than that sum. He complains of this as 
 exorbitant, and points out its bad effects both on agriculture and commerce. 
 (Descritt. de' Paesi Bassi, p. 172.) This high interest of money is alone 
 a proof that the profits on commerce were exorbitant, and that it was not 
 carried on to great extent. The Lombards were likewise established in 
 England in the thirteenth century, and a considerable street in the city 
 of London still bears their name. They enjoyed great privileges, and 
 carried on an extensive commerce, particularly as bankers. (See Anderson's 
 ChronoL Deduction, vol. i. pp. 137, 160, 204, 231, where the statutes 
 or other authorities which confirm this are quoted.) But the chief mart 
 for Italian commodities was at Bruges. Navigation was then so imperfect 
 that to sail from any port in the Baltic, and to return again was a voyage 
 too great to be performed in one summer. For that reason, a magazine 
 or storehouse, half-way between the commercial cities in the North and 
 those in Italy, became necessary. Bruges was pitched upon as the most 
 convenient station. That choice introduced vast wealth into the Low 
 Countries. Bruges was at once the staple for English wool, for the woollen 
 and linen manufactures of the Netherlands, for the naval stores and other 
 bulky commodities of the North, and for the Indian commodities as well 
 as domestic productions imported by the Italian states. The extent of 
 its commerce in Indian goods with Venice alone appears from one fact. 
 In the year 1318 five Venetian galeasses laden with Indian commodities 
 arrived at Bruges in order to dispose of their cargoes at the fair. These 
 galeasses were vessels of very considerable burden. (L. Guic., Descritt. 
 de' Paesi Bassi, p. 174.) Bruges was the greatest emporium in all Europe. 
 Many proofs of this occur in the historians and records of the thirteenth 
 and fourteenth centuries. But, instead of multiplying quotations, I shall 
 refer my readers to Anderson, vol. L pp. 12, 137, 213, 246, etc. The 
 nature of this work prevents me from entering into any more minute 
 detail, but there are some detached facts which give a high idea of the 
 wealth both of the Flemish and Italian commercial states. The duke of 
 Brabant contracted his daughter to the Black Prince, son of Edward III. 
 of England, A.D. 1339, and gave her a portion which we may reckon to 
 be of equal value with three hundred thousand pounds of our present 
 money. (Rymer's Foedera, vol. v. p. 113.) John Galeazzo Visconti, 
 duke of Milan, concluded a treaty of marriage between his daughter and 
 Lionel, duke of Clarence, Edward's third son, A.D. 1367, and granted her 
 a portion equal to two hundred thousand pounds of our present money. 
 (Rymer's Fcedera, voL vi p. 547.) These exorbitant sums, so far 
 exceeding what was then granted by the most powerful monarchs, acd 
 which appear extraordinary even in the present age, when the wealth of 
 Europe is so much increased, must have arisen from the riches which 
 flowed into those countries from their extensive and lucrative commerce. 
 The first source of wealth to the towns situated on the Baltic Sea seems 
 to have been the herring-fishery, the shoals of herring!? frequenting at
 
 HOTE xxx.] PEOOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 259 
 
 that time the coasts of Sweden and Denmark in the same manner as they 
 now resort to the British coasts. The effects of this fishery are thus 
 described by an author of the thirteenth century. The Danes, says he, 
 who were formerly clad in the poor garb of sailors, are now clothed in 
 scarlet, purple, and fine linen. For they abound with wealth flowing 
 from their annual fishery on the coast of Schonen ; so that all nations 
 resort to them, bringing their gold, silver, and precious commodities, 
 that they may purchase herrings, which the Divine bounty bestows upon 
 them. Arnoldus Lubecensis, ap. Conring., de Urbib. German., 87. 
 
 The Hanseatic League is the most powerful commercial confederacy 
 known in history. Its origin towards the close of the twelfth century, 
 and the objects of its union, are described by Knipschildt, Tractatus 
 Historico-Politico-Juridicus de Juribus Civitat. Imper., lib. i. cap. 4. 
 Anderson has mentioned the chief facts with respect to their commercial 
 progress, the extent of the privileges which they obtained in different 
 countries, their successful wars with several monarchs, as well as the 
 spirit and zeal with which they contended for those liberties and rights 
 without which it is impossible to carry on commerce to advantage. The 
 vigorous efforts of a society of merchants attentive only to commercial 
 objects could not fail of diffusing new and more liberal ideas concerning 
 justice and order in every country of Europe where they settled. 
 
 In England the progress of commerce was extremely slow ; and the 
 causes of this are obvious. During the Saxon Heptarchy, England, split 
 into many petty kingdoms, which were perpetually at variance with each 
 other, exposed to the fierce incursions of the Danes and other Northern 
 pirates, and sunk in barbarity and ignorance, was in no condition to 
 cultivate commerce, or to pursue any system of useful and salutary 
 policy. When a better prospect began to open, by the union of the 
 kingdom under one monarch, the Norman Conquest took place. This 
 occasioned such a violent shock, as well as such a sudden and total 
 revolution of property, that the nation did not recover from it during 
 several reigns. By the time that the constitution began to acquire some 
 stability, and the English had so incorporated with their conquerors as 
 to become one people, the nation engaged with no less ardour than 
 imprudence in support of the pretensions of their sovereigns to the crown 
 of France, and long wasted its vigour and genius in its wild efforts to 
 conquer that kingdom. When, by ill success and repeated disappoint- 
 ments, a period was at last put to this fatal frenzy, and the nation, 
 beginning to enjoy some repose, had leisure to breathe and to gather new 
 strength, the destructive wars between the houses of York and Lancaster 
 broke out, and involved the kingdom in the worst of all calamities. Thus, 
 besides the common obstructions of commerce occasioned by the nature 
 of the feudal government, and the state of manners during the Middle 
 Ages, its progress in England was retarded by peculiar causes. Such a 
 succession of events adverse to the commercial spirit was sufficient to have 
 checked its growth although every other circumstance had favoured it. 
 The English were accordingly one of the last nations in Europe who 
 availed themselves of those commercial advantages which were natural 
 or peculiar to their country. Before the reign of Edward III., all the 
 wool of England, except a small quantity wrought into coarse cloths for 
 
 s 2
 
 260 PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE xxxi. 
 
 home consumption, was sold to the Flemings or Lombards, and manu- 
 factured by them. Though Edward, A.D. 1326, began to allure some 
 of the Flemish weavers to settle in England, it was long before the 
 English were capable of fabricating cloth for foreign markets, and the 
 export of unwrought wool still continued to be the chief article of their 
 commerce. (Anderson, passim.) All foreign commodities were brought 
 into England by the Lombards or Hanseatic merchants. The English 
 ports were frequented by ships both from the North and South of Europe, 
 and they tamely allowed foreigners to reap all the profits arising from 
 ihe supply of their wants. The first commercial treaty of England on 
 record is that with Haquin, king of Norway, A.D. 1217. (Anders., voL i. 
 p. 108.) But the English did not venture to trade in their own ships 
 to the Baltic until the beginning of the fourteenth century. (Ibid., p. 151.) 
 It was after the middle of the fifteenth before they sent any ship into the 
 Mediterranean. (Ibid., p. 177.) Nor was it long before this period 
 that their vessels began to visit the ports of Spain or Portugal. But 
 though I have pointed out the slow progress of the English commerce as 
 a fact little attended to, and yet meriting consideration, the concourse of 
 foreigners to the ports of England, together with the communication 
 among all the different countries in Europe, which went on increasing 
 from the beginning of the twelfth century, is sufficient to justify all the 
 observations and reasonings in the text concerning the influence of commerce 
 on the state of manners and of society. 
 
 NOTE XXXI. Sect. III. p. 144. 
 
 I have not been able to discover the precise manner in which the 
 justiza was appointed. Among the claims of the junta or union formed 
 against James I., A.D. 1264, this was one : that the king should not 
 nominate any person to be justiza without the consent or approbation of 
 the ricos hombres, or nobles. (Zurita, Anales de Aragon, vol. i. p. 180.) 
 But the king, in his answer to their remonstrance, asserts " that it was 
 established by immemorial practice, and was conformable to the laws of 
 the kingdom, that the king, in virtue of his royal prerogative, should 
 name the justiza." (Zurita, ibid., 181 ; Blanca, 656.) From another 
 passage in Zurita, it appears that while the Aragonese enjoyed the 
 privilege of the union, i.e., the power of confederating against their 
 sovereign as often as they conceived that he had violated any of their 
 rights and immunities, the justiza was not only nominated by the king, 
 but held his office during the king's pleasure. Nor was this practice 
 attended with any bad effects, as the privilege of the union was a sufficient 
 and effectual check to any abuse of the royal prerogative. But when the 
 privilege of the union was abolished as dangerous to the order and peace 
 of society, it was agreed that the justiza should continue in office during 
 life. Several kings, however, attempted to remove justizas who were 
 obnoxious to them, and they sometimes succeeded in the attempt. In 
 order to guard against this encroachment, which would have destroyed the 
 intention of the institution, and have rendered the justiza the dependant 
 and tool of the crown, instead of the guardian of the people, a law waa 
 enacted in the cortes, A.D. 1442, ordaining that the justiza should continue
 
 NOTE xxxi.] PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 2G1 
 
 in office during life, and should not be removed from it unless by the 
 authority of the cortes. (Fueros y Observancias del Reyno de Aragon, 
 lib. i. p. 22.) By former laws, the person of the justiza had been declared 
 sacred, and he was responsible only to the cortes. (Ibid., p. 15, b.) Zurita 
 and Blanca, who both published their histories while the justiza of Aragon 
 retained the full exercise of his privileges and jurisdiction, have neglected 
 to explain several circumstances with regard to the office of that respectable 
 magistrate, because they addressed their works to their countrymen, who 
 were well acquainted with every particular concerning the functions of a 
 judge to whom they looked up as to the guardian of their liberties. It is 
 vain to consult the later historians of Spain about any point with respect 
 to which the excellent historians whom I have named are silent. The 
 ancient constitution of their country was overturned, and despotism 
 established on the ruin of its liberties, when the writers of this and the 
 preceding century composed their histories, and on that account they had 
 little curiosity to know the nature of those institutions to which their 
 ancestors owed the enjoyment of freedom, or they were afraid to describe 
 them with much accuracy. The spirit with which Mariana, his continuator 
 Miniana, and Ferreras, write their histories, is very different from that of 
 the two historians of Aragon from whom I have taken my account of the 
 constitution of that kingdom. 
 
 Two circumstances concerning the justiza, besides those which I have 
 mentioned in the text, are worthy of observation. 1. None of the ricos 
 hombres, or noblemen of the first order, could be appointed justiza. He 
 was taken out of the second class of cavalleros, who seem to have been 
 nearly of the same condition or rank with gentlemen or commoners in 
 Great Britain. (Fueros y Observancias del Reyno, etc. lib. i. p. 21, b.) 
 The reason was, by the laws of Aragon the ricos hombres were not subject 
 to capital punishment ; but, as it was necessary for the security of liberty 
 that the justiza should be accountable for the manner in which he executed 
 the high trust reposed in him, it was a powerful restraint upon him to know 
 that he was liable to be punished capitally. (Blanca, pp. 657, 756 ; 
 Zurita, torn. ii. p. 229 ; Fueros y Observancias, lib. ix. pp. 182, b. 183.) 
 It appears, too, from many passages in Zurita that the justiza was 
 appointed to check the domineering and oppressive spirit of the nobles, as 
 well as to set bounds to the power of the monarch, and therefore he was 
 chosen from an order of citizens equally interested in opposing both. 
 
 2. A magistrate possessed of such vast powers as the justiza might have 
 exercised them in a manner pernicious to the state if he himself had been 
 subject to no control A constitutional remedy was on that account 
 provided against this danger. Seventeen persons were chosen by lot in 
 each meeting of the cortes. These formed a tribunal called the court of 
 inquisition into the office of justiza. This court met at three stated terms 
 in each year. Every person had liberty of complaining to it of any 
 iniquity or neglect of duty in the justiza, or in the inferior judges who 
 acted in his name. The justiza and his deputies were called to answer 
 for their conduct. The members of the court passed sentence by ballot 
 They might punish by degradation, confiscation of goods, or even with 
 death. The law which erected this court and regulated the form of its 
 procedure was enacted A.D. 1461. (Zurita, Anales, iv. 102 ; Blanca,
 
 262 PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. I NOTE 
 
 Comment Rer. Aragon., 770.) Previous to this period, inquiry was 
 made into the conduct of the justiza, though not with the same 
 formality. He was, from the first institution of the office, subject to the 
 review of the cortes. The constant dread of such an impartial and severe 
 inquiry into his behaviour was a powerful motive to the vigilant and 
 faithful discharge of his duty. A remarkable instance of the authority 
 of the justiza when opposed to that of the king occurs in the year 1386 
 By the constitution of Aragon, the eldest son or heir-apparent of the 
 crown possessed considerable power and jurisdiction in the kingdom. 
 (Fueros y Observancias del Reyno de Aragon, lib. i. p. 16.) Peter IV., 
 instigated by a second wife, attempted to deprive his son of this, and 
 enjoined his subjects to yield him no obedience. The prince immediately 
 applied to the justiza, " the safeguard and defence," says Zurita, " against 
 all violence and oppression." The justiza granted him the firma de derecho, 
 the effect of which was that upon his giving surety to appear in judgment 
 he could not be deprived of any immunity or privilege which he possessed, 
 but in consequence of a legal trial before the justiza and of a sentence 
 pronounced by him. This was published throughout the kingdom, and, 
 notwithstanding the proclamation in contradiction to this which had been 
 issued by the king, the prince continued in the exercise of all his rights, 
 and his authority was universally recognised. Zurita, Anales de Aragon, 
 torn. iL p. 385. 
 
 NOTE XXXII. Sect III. p. 145. 
 
 I have been induced, by the concurring testimony of many respectable 
 authors, to mention this as the constitutional form of the oath of allegiance 
 which the Aragonese took to their sovereigns. I must acknowledge, 
 however, that I have not found this singular oath in any Spanish author 
 whom I have had an opportunity of consulting. It is mentioned neither 
 by Zurita, nor Blanca, nor Argensola, nor Sayas, who were all historio- 
 graphers appointed by the cortes of Aragon to record the transactions of 
 the kingdom. All these writers possess a merit which is very rare among 
 historians. They are extremely accurate in tracing the progress of the 
 laws and constitution of their country. Their silence with respect to this 
 creates some suspicion concerning the genuineness of the oath. But as it 
 is mentioned by so many authors, who produce the ancient Spanish words 
 in which it is expressed, it is probable that they have taken it from some 
 writer of credit whose works have not fallen into my hands. The spirit 
 of the oath is perfectly agreeable to the genius of the Aragonese corstitu- 
 tion. Since the publication of the first edition, the learned M. Totze, 
 Professor of History at Batzow, in the duchy of Mecklenburg, has been so 
 good as to point out to me a Spanish author of great authority who has 
 published the words of this oath. It is Antonio Perez, a native of 
 Aragon, secretary to Philip II. The words of the oath are, " Nos que 
 valemos tanto como vos, os hazemos nuestro rey y senor, con tal que 
 nos guardeys nuestros fueros y libertades, y si No, No." Las Obras y 
 Relaciones de Ant Perez, 8vo, por Juan de la Planche, 1631, p. 143. 
 
 The privilege of union which I have mentioned in the preceding note 
 ami alluded to in the text is indeed one of the most singular which could
 
 WOTE xxxii.] PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 263 
 
 take place in a regular government, and the oath that I have quoted ex- 
 presses nothing more than this constitutional privilege entitled the 
 Aragonese to perform. If the king or his ministers violated any of the 
 laws or immunities of the Aragonese, and did not grant immediate redress 
 in consequence of their representations and remonstrances, the nobles of 
 the first rank, or ricos hombres de natura, y de mesnada, the equestrian 
 order, or the nobility of the second class, called hidalgos y infanciones, 
 together with the magistrates of cities, might, either in the cortes or in a 
 voluntary assembly, join in union, and, binding themselves by mutual 
 oaths and the exchange of hostages to be faithful to each other, they might 
 require the king, in the name and by the authority of this body corporate, 
 to grant them redress. If the king refused to comply with their request, 
 or took arms in order to oppose them, they might, in virtue of the privilege 
 of union, instantly withdraw their allegiance from the king, refuse to ac- 
 knowledge him as their sovereign, and proceed to elect another monarch ; 
 nor did they incur any guilt or become liable to any prosecution on that 
 account. (Blanca, Com. Rer. Arag., 661, 669.) This union did not re- 
 semble the confederacies in other feudal kingdoms. It was a constitutional 
 association, in which legal privileges were vested, which issued its man- 
 dates under a common seal, and proceeded in all its operations by regular 
 and ascertained forms. This dangerous right was not only claimed, but 
 exercised. In the year 1287 the Aragonese formed a union in opposition 
 to Alfonso III., and obliged that king not only to comply with their de- 
 mands, but to ratify a privilege so fatal to the power of the crown. 
 (Zurita, Anales, torn. i. p. 322.) In the year 1347 a union was formed 
 against Peter IV. with equal success, and a new ratification of the privilege 
 was extorted. (Zurita, torn. ii. p. 202.) But soon after, the king having 
 defeated the leaders of the union in battle, the privilege of union was 
 finally abrogated in the cortes, and all the laws or records which contained 
 any confirmation of it were cancelled or destroyed. The king, in presence 
 of the cortes, called for the act whereby he had ratified the union, and, 
 having wounded his hand with his poniard, he held it above the record. 
 " That privilege," says he, " which has been so fatal to the kingdom, and 
 so injurious to royalty, should be effaced with the blood of a king." 
 (Zurita, torn. ii. p. 229.) The law abolishing the union is published, 
 Fueros y Observancias, lib. ix. p. 1 78. "From that period the justiza be- 
 came the constitutional guardian of public liberty, and his power and juris- 
 diction occasioned none of those violent convulsions which the tumultuary 
 privilege of the union was apt to produce. The constitution of Aragon, 
 however, still remained extremely free. One source of this liberty arose 
 from the early admission of the representatives of cities into the cortes. It 
 seems probable from Zurita that burgesses were constituent members of 
 the cortes from its first institution. He mentions a meeting of cortes, 
 A.D. 1133, in which the procuradores de las ciudades y villas were present. 
 (Tom. i. p. 51.) This is the constitutional language in which their presence 
 is declared in the cortes, after the journals of that court were regularly 
 kept. It is probable that an historian so accurate as Zurita would not 
 have used these words if he had not taken them from some authentic record. 
 It was more than a century after this period before the representatives of 
 cities formed a constituent part in the supreme assemblies of the other
 
 264 PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE xxxii. 
 
 European nations. The free spirit of the Aragonese government is con- 
 spicuous in many particulars. The cortes not only opposed the attempts 
 of their kings to increase their revenue or to extend their prerogative, but 
 they claimed rights and exercised powers which will appear extraordinary 
 even in a country accustomed to the enjoyment of liberty. In the year 
 1286 the cortes claimed the privilege of naming the members of the king's 
 council and the officers of his household, and they seem to have obtained 
 it for some time. (Zurita, torn. i. pp. 303, 307.) It was the privilege 
 of the cortes to name the officers who commanded the troops raised by 
 their authority. This seems to be evident from a passage in Zurita. 
 When the cortes, in the year 1503, raised a body of troops to be em- 
 ployed in Italy, it passed an act empowering the king to name the 
 officers who should command them (Zurita, torn. v. p. 274) ; which 
 plainly implies that without this warrant it did not belong to him in 
 virtue of his prerogative. In the Fueros y Observancias del Reyno de 
 Aragon, two general declarations of the rights and privileges of the 
 Aragonese are published, the one in the reign of Pedro I., A.D. 1283, 
 and the other in that of James II., A.D. 1325. They are of such a 
 length that I cannot insert them ; but it is evident from these that not 
 only the privileges of the nobility, but the rights of the people, personal 
 as well as political, were at that period more extensive and better under- 
 stood than in any kingdom in Europe. (Lib. i. pp. 7, 9.) The oath by 
 which the king bound himself to observe those rights and liberties of the 
 people was very solemn. (Ibid., p. 14, b, and p. 15.) The cortes of 
 Aragon discovered riot only the jealousy and vigilance which are peculiar 
 to free states, in guarding the essential parts of the constitution, but they 
 were scrupulously attentive to observe the most minute forms and cere- 
 monies to which they were accustomed. According to the established laws 
 and customs of Aragon, no foreigner had liberty to enter the hall in which 
 the cortes assembled. Ferdinand, in the year 1481, appointed his queen, 
 Isabella, regent of the kingdom while he was absent during the course of 
 the campaign. The law required that a regent should take the oath of 
 fidelity in presence of the cortes ; but, as Isabella was a foreigner, before 
 she could be admitted the cortes thought it necessary to pass an act autho- 
 rizing the serjeant-porter to open the door of the hall and to allow her to 
 enter : "so attentive were they," says Zurita, " to observe their laws and 
 forms, even such as may seem the most minute." Tom. iv. p. 313. 
 
 The Aragonese were no less solicitous to secure the personal rights of 
 individuals than to maintain the freedom of the constitution ; and the 
 spirit of their statutes with respect to both was equally liberal. Two facts 
 relative to this matter merit observation. By an express statute in the 
 year 1335 it was declared to be unlawful to put any native Aragonese to 
 the torture. If he could not be convicted by the testimony of witnesses, 
 he was instantly absolved. (Zurita, torn. ii. p. 66.) Zurita records the 
 regulation with the satisfaction natural to an historian when he contem- 
 plates the humanity of his countrymen. He compares the laws of Aragon 
 to those of Rome, as both exempted citizens and freemen from such igno- 
 minious and cruel treatment and had recourse to it only in. the trial of 
 slaves. Zurita had reason to bestow such an encomium on the laws of 
 his country. Torture was at that time permitted by the laws of every
 
 kcxns xxxm.] PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 265 
 
 other nation in Europe. Even in England, from which the mild spirit 
 of legislation has long banished it, torture was not at that time unknown. 
 Observations on the Statutes, chiefly the more Ancient, etc., p. 66. 
 
 The other fact shows that the same spirit which influenced the legisla- 
 ture prevailed among the people. In the year 1485 the religious steal of 
 Ferdinand and Isabella prompted them to introduce the Inquisition into 
 Aragon. Though the Aragonese were no less superstitiously attached than 
 the other Spaniards to the Roman Catholic faith, and no less desirous to 
 root out the seeds of error and of heresy which the Jews and Moors had 
 scattered, yet they took arms against the inquisitors, murdered the chief 
 inquisitor, and long opposed the establishment of that tribunal. The 
 reason which they gave for their conduct was, that the mode of trial in the 
 Inquisition was inconsistent with liberty. The criminal was not confronted 
 with the witnesses, he was not acquainted with what they deposed against 
 him, he was subjected to torture, and the goods of persons condemned were 
 confiscated. Zurita, Anales, torn. iv. p. 341. 
 
 The form of government in the kingdom of Valencia and principality 
 of Catalonia, which were annexed to the crown of Aragon, was likewise 
 extremely favourable to liberty. The Valencians enjoyed the privilege of 
 union in the same manner with the Aragonese. But they had no magis- 
 trate resembling the justiza. The Catalonians were no less jealous of their 
 liberties than the two other nations, and no less bold in asserting them. 
 But it is not necessary for illustrating the following history to enter into 
 any further detail concerning the peculiarities in the constitution of these 
 kingdoms. 
 
 NOTE XXXIII. Sect. III. p. 146. 
 
 I have searched in vain among the historians of Castile for such infor- 
 mation as might enable me to trace the progress of laws and government 
 in Castile, or to explain the nature of the constitution with the same degree 
 of accuracy wherewith I have described the political state of Aragon. It 
 is manifest, not only from the historians of Castile, but from its ancient 
 laws, particularly the Fuero Juzgo, that its monarchs were originally 
 elective. (Ley es, 2, 5, 8.) They were chosen by the bishops, the nobility, 
 and the people. (Ibid.) It appears from the same venerable code of laws 
 that the prerogative of the Castilian monarchs was extremely limited. 
 Villaldiego, in his commentary on the Fuero Juzgo, produces many facts 
 and authorities in confirmation of both these particulars. Dr. Geddes, who 
 was well acquainted with Spanish literature, complains that he could find 
 no author who gave a distinct account of the cortes or supreme assembly 
 of the nation, or who described the manner in which it was held, or men- 
 tioned the precise number of members who had a right to sit in it He 
 produces, however, from Gil Gonzales d'Avila, who published a history of 
 Henry II., the writ of summons to the town of Abula, requiring it to 
 choose representatives to appear in the cortes which he called to meet 
 A.D. 1390. From this we learn that prelates, dukes, marquises, the 
 masters of the three military orders, condes, and ricos hombres, were re- 
 quired to attend. These composed the bodies of ecclesiastics and nobles, 
 which formed two members of the legislature. The :ities which sent
 
 266 PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE xxxv. 
 
 members to that meeting of the cortes were forty-eight. The number of 
 representatives (for the cities had right to choose more or fewer according 
 to their respective dignity) amounted to a hundred and twenty-five. 
 (Geddes, Miscellaneous Tracts, vol. L p. 331.) Zurita, having occasion 
 to mention the cortes which Ferdinand held at Toro, A.D. 1505, in order 
 to secure for himself the government of Castile after the death of Isabella, 
 records, with his usual accuracy, the names of the members present, and 
 of the cities which they represented. From that list it appears that only 
 eighteen cities had deputies in this assembly. (Anales de Aragon, torn. vi. 
 p. 3.) What was the occasion of this great difference in the number of 
 cities represented in these two meetings of the cortes, I am unable to 
 explain. 
 
 NOTE XXXIV. Sect. III. p. 148. 
 
 A great part of the territory in Spain was engrossed by the nobility. 
 L. Marinseus Siculus, who composed his treatise De Rebus Hispaniae during 
 the reign of Charles V., gives a catalogue of the Spanish nobility, together 
 with the yearly rent of their estates. According to his account, which he 
 affirms was as accurate as the nature of the subject would admit, the sum 
 total of the annual revenue of their lands amounted to one million four 
 hundred and eighty-two thousand ducats. If we make allowance for the 
 great difference in the value of money in the fifteenth century from that 
 which it now bears, and consider that the catalogue of Marinaeus includes 
 only the titulados, or nobility whose families were distinguished by some 
 honorary title, their wealth must appear very great. (L. Marinaeus, ap. 
 Schott., Script. Hispan., vol. i. p. 323.) The commons of Castile, in their 
 contests with the crown, which I shall hereafter relate, complain of the 
 extensive property of the nobility as extremely pernicious to the kingdom. 
 In one of their manifestoes they assert that from Valladolid to St. Jago in 
 Galicia, which was a hundred leagues, the crown did not possess more than 
 three villages. All the rest belonged to the nobility, and could be sub- 
 jected to no public burden. (Sandoval, Vida del Emperador Carlos V., 
 vol. i. p. 422.) It appears from the testimony of authors quoted by Bova- 
 dilla that these extensive possessions were bestowed upon the ricos hombres, 
 hidalgos, and cavalleros by the kings of Castile in reward for the assistance 
 which they had received from them in expelling the Moors. They like- 
 wise obtained by the same means a considerable influence in the cities, 
 many of which anciently depended upon the nobility. Politica para 
 Corregidores, Amb., 1750, foL, vol. i. pp. 440, 442. 
 
 Nora XXXV. Sect. III. p. 150. 
 
 I have been able to discover nothing certain, as I observed, Note XVIII., 
 with respect to the origin of communities or free cities in Spain. It is 
 probable that as soon as the considerable towns were recovered from the 
 Moors the inhabitants who fixed their residence in them, being persons of 
 distinction and credit, had all the privilege of municipal government and 
 jurisdiction conferred upon them. Many striking proofs occur of the 
 Bplendoxir, wealth, and power of the Spanish cities. Hieronymufi Paulua
 
 KOTE xxxvi.] PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 267 
 
 wrote a description of Barcelona in the year 1491, and compares the 
 dimensions of the town to that of Naples, and the elegance of its buildings, 
 the variety of its manufactures, and the extent of its commerce, to Flo- 
 rence. (Hieron. Paulus, ap. Schott., Script. Hisp., vol. iL p. 844.) 
 Marinseus describes Toledo as a large and populous city. A great number 
 of its inhabitants were persons of quality and of illustrious rank. Its 
 commerce was great. It carried on with great activity and success the 
 manufactures of silk and wool ; and the number of inhabitants employed 
 in these two branches of trade amounted nearly to ten thousand. (Marin., 
 ubi supra, p. 308.) " I know no city," says he, " that I would prefer to 
 Valladolid for elegance and splendour." (Ibid., p. 312.) We may form 
 some estimate of its populousness from the following circumstances. The 
 citizens having taken arms in the year 1516 in order to oppose a measure 
 concerted by Cardinal Ximenes, they mustered in the city, and in the 
 territory which belonged to it, thirty-thousand fighting-men. (Sandoval, 
 Vida del Emper. Carlos V., torn, i p. 81.) The manufactures carried on 
 in the towns of Spain were not intended merely for home consumption ; 
 they were exported to foreign countries, and their commerce was a consider- 
 able source of wealth to the inhabitants. The maritime laws of Barcelona 
 are the foundation of mercantile jurisprudence in modern times, as the 
 Leges Rhodiae were among the ancients. All the commercial states in 
 Italy adopted these laws and regulated their trade according to them. 
 (Sandi, Storia civile Veneziana, vol. ii. p. 865.) It appears from several 
 ordinances of the kings of France that the merchants of Aragon and Castile 
 were received on the same footing and admitted to the same privileges with 
 those of Italy. (Ordonnances des Roys, etc., torn, ii. p. 135, torn. iii. 
 pp. 166, 504, 635.) Cities in such a flourishing state became a respect- 
 able part of the society, and were entitled to a considerable share in the 
 legislature. The magistrates of Barcelona aspired to the highest honour a 
 Spanish subject can enjoy, that of being covered in the presence of their 
 sovereign, and of being treated as grandees of the kingdom. Origen de la 
 Dignidad de Grande de Castilla, por Don Alonso Carillo, Madrid, 1657, 
 p. ia 
 
 NOTE XXXVL Sect IIL p. 162. 
 
 The military order of St. Jago, the most honourable and opulent of the 
 three Spanish orders, was instituted about the year 1170. The bull of 
 confirmation by Alexander III. is dated A.D. 1176. At that time a con- 
 siderable part of Spain still remained under subjection to the Moors, and 
 the whole country was much exposed to depredations not only of the 
 enemy, but of banditti. It is no wonder, then, that an institution the 
 object of which was to oppose the enemies of the Christian faith, and to 
 restrain and punish those who disturbed the public peace, should be ex- 
 tremely popular and meet with general encouragement The wealth and 
 power of the order became so great that, according to one historian, the 
 Grand Master of St. Jago was the person in Spain of greatest power and 
 dignity next to the king. (JSL Anton. Nebrissensis, ap. Schott, Script. 
 Hisp., i. 812.) Another historian observes that the order possessed every 
 thing in Castile that a king would most desire to obtain. (Zurita, Anales,
 
 268 PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE xxxvi. 
 
 v. 22.) The knights took the vows of obedience, of poverty, and of con- 
 jugal chastity. By the former they were bound implicitly to obey the 
 commands of their grand master. The order could bring into the field a 
 thousand men-at-arms. (Ml. Ant. Nebriss., p. 813.) If, as we have 
 reason to believe, these men-at-arms were accompanied as was usual at th.it 
 age, this was a formidable body of cavalry. There belonged to this order 
 eighty-four commanderies, and two hundred priories and other benefices. 
 (Dissertations sur la Che Valerie, par Hon. de Ste. Marie, p. 262.) It is 
 obvious how formidable to his sovereign the command of these troops, the 
 administration of such revenues, and the disposal of so many offices must 
 have rendered a subject. The other two orders, though inferior to that of 
 St. Jago in power and wealth, were nevertheless very considerable frater- 
 nities. When the conquest of Granada deprived the knights of St. Jago 
 of those enemies against whom their zeal was originally directed, supersti- 
 tion found out a new object in defence of which they engaged to employ 
 their courage. To their usual oath they added the following clause : " We 
 do swear to believe, to maintain, and to contend in public and private, 
 that the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, our Lady, was conceived 
 without the stain of original sin." This addition was made about the 
 middle of the seventeenth century. (Honord de Ste. Marie, Dissertations, 
 etc., p. 263.) Nor is such a singular engagement peculiar to the order 
 of St. Jago. The members of the second military order in Spain, that of 
 Calatrava, equally zealous to employ their prowess in defence of the honours 
 of the Blessed Virgin, have likewise professed themselves her true knights. 
 Their vow, conceived in terms more theologically accurate than that of 
 St. Jago, may afford some amusement to an English reader. " I vow to 
 God, to the grand master, and to you who here represent his person, that 
 now, and forever, I will maintain and contend that the Virgin Mary, 
 Mother of God, our Lady, was conceived without original sin, and never 
 incurred the pollution of it ; but that in the moment of her happy concep- 
 tion, and of the union of her soul with her body, the Divine grace pre- 
 vented and preserved her from original guilt, by the merits of the passion 
 and death of Christ, our Redeemer, her future Son, foreseen in the Divine 
 counsel, by which she was truly redeemed, and by a more noble kind of 
 redemption than any of the children of Adam. In the belief of this truth, 
 and in maintaining the honour of the most Holy Virgin, through the 
 strength of Almighty God, I will live and will die." (Definiciones de la 
 Orden de Calatrava, conforme al Capitulo General en 1652, fol., Madr., 
 1748, p. 153.) Though the Church of Rome hath prudently avoided to 
 give its sanction to the doctrine of the immaculate conception, and the two 
 great monastic orders of St. Dominic and St. Francis have espoused oppo- 
 site opinions concerning it, the Spaniards are such ardent champions for 
 the honour of the Virgin that when the present king of Spain instituted a 
 new military order in the year 1771, in commemoration of the birth of his 
 grandson, he put it under the immediate protection of the most Holy Mary 
 in the mystery of her immaculate conception. (Constituciones de la real 
 y distinguida Orden Espafiola de Carlos III., p. 7.) To undertake the 
 defence of the Virgin Mary's honour had such a resemblance to that species 
 of refined gallantry which was the original object of chivalry, that the zeal 
 with which the military orders bound themselves, by a solemn vow, to
 
 VOTE xxxvn.] PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 269 
 
 defend it, was worthy of a true knight in those ages when the spirit of the 
 institution subsisted in full vigour. But in the present age it must excite 
 some surprise to see the institution of an illustrious order connected with 
 a doctrine so extravagant and destitute of any foundation in Scripture. 
 
 NOTE XXXVIL Sect III. p. 154. 
 
 I have frequently had occasion to take notice of the defects in police 
 during the Middle Ages, occasioned by the feebleness of government and 
 the want of proper subordination among the different ranks of men. I 
 have observed in a former note that this greatly interrupted the inter- 
 course between nations, and even between different places in the same 
 kingdom. The descriptions which the Spanish historians give of the 
 frequency of rapine, murder, and every act of violence, in all the provinces 
 of Spain, are amazing, and present to us the idea of a society but little 
 removed from the disorder and turbulence of that which has been called a 
 state of nature. (Zurita, Anales de Arag., i. 175 ; ML Ant. Nebrissensis, 
 Rer. a Ferdin., Gestar. Hist., ap. Schottum, ii. 849.) Though the excess 
 of these disorders rendered the institution of the santa hermandad necessary, 
 great care was taken at first to avoid giving any offence or alarm to the 
 nobility. The jurisdiction of the judges of the hermandad was expressly 
 confined to crimes which violated the public peace. All other offences 
 were left to the cognizance of the ordinary judges. If a person was 
 guilty of the most notorious perjury, in any trial before a judge of the 
 hermandad, he could not punish him, but was obliged to remit the 
 case to the ordinary judge of the place. (Commentaria in Regias 
 Hispan. Constitut., per Alph. de Azevedo, pars. v. p. 223, etc., fol., 
 Duaci, 1612.) Notwithstanding these restrictions, the barons were 
 early sensible how much the establishment of the hermandad would 
 encroach on their jurisdiction. In Castile some opposition was made 
 to the institution ; but Ferdinand had the address to obtain the consent 
 of the constable to the introduction of the hermandad into that part of 
 the kingdom where his estate lay ; and by that means, as well as the 
 popularity of the institution, he surmounted every obstacle that stood 
 in its way. (JE,l. Ant. Nebrissen, 851.) In Aragon the nobles combined 
 against it with great spirit ; and Ferdinand, though he supported it with 
 vigour, was obliged to make some concessions in order to reconcile them. 
 (Zurita, Anales de Arag., iv. :356.) The power and revenue of the 
 hermandad in Castile seem to have been very great. Ferdinand, when 
 preparing for the war against the Moors of Granada, required of the 
 hermandad to furnish him sixteen thousand beasts of burden, together 
 with eight thousand men to conduct them, and he obtained what he 
 demanded. (ML Ant Nebriss., 881.) The hermandad has been found 
 to be of so much use in preserving peace and restraining or detecting 
 crimes that it is still continued in Spain ; but. as it is no longer necessary 
 either for moderating the power of the nobility or extending that of the 
 crown, the vigour and authority of the institution diminish gradually.
 
 270 PEOOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE xxxvra. 
 
 NOTE XXXVIIL Sect IIL p. 156. 
 
 Nothing is more common among antiquaries, and there is not a more 
 copious source of error, than to decide concerning the institutions and 
 manners of past ages by the forms and ideas which prevail in their own 
 times. The French lawyers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, 
 having found their sovereigns in possession of absolute power, seem to 
 think it a duty incumbent on them to maintain that such unbounded 
 authority belonged to the crown in every period of their monarchy. 
 " The government of France," says M. de Re'al, very gravely, " is purely 
 monarchical at this day, as it was from the beginning. Our kings were 
 absolute originally, as they are at present" (Science du Gouvernement, 
 torn. ii. p. 31.) It is impossible, however, to conceive two states of civil 
 society more unlike to each other than that of the French nation under 
 Clovis and that under Louis XV. It is evident from the codes of laws of 
 the various tribes which settled in Gaul and the countries adjacent to it, 
 as well as from the history of Gregory of Tours, and other early annalists, 
 that among all these people the form of government was extremely rude 
 and simple, and that they had scarcely began to acquire the first rudiments 
 of that order and police which are necessary in extensive societies. The 
 king or leader had the command of soldiers or companions, who followed 
 his standard from choice, not by constraint. I have produced the clearest 
 evidence of this, Note VI. An event related by Gregory of Tours, lib. iv. 
 c. 14, affords the most striking proof of the dependence of the early French 
 kings on the sentiments and inclination of their people. Clotaire I. having 
 marched at the head of his army, in the year 553, against the Saxons, 
 that people, intimidated at his approach, sued for peace, and offered to pay 
 a large sum to the offended monarch. Clotaire was willing to close with 
 what they proposed. But his army insisted to be led forth to battle. The 
 king employed all his eloquence to persuade them to accept of what the 
 Saxons were ready to pay. The Saxons, in order to soothe them, increased 
 their original offer. The king renewed his solicitations ; but the army, 
 enraged, rushed upon the king, tore his tent in pieces, dragged him out of 
 it, and would have slain him on the spot, if he had not consented to lead 
 them instantly against the enemy. 
 
 If the early monarchs of France possessed such limited authority, even 
 while at the head of their army, their prerogative during peace will be 
 found to be still more confined. They ascended the throne not by any 
 hereditary right, but in consequence of the election of their subjects. In 
 order to avoid an unnecessary number of quotations, I refer my readers to 
 Hottomanni Franco-Gallia, cap. vi. p. 47, edit. 1573, where they will find 
 the fullest proof of this from Gregory of Tours, Amoinus, and the most 
 authentic historians of the Merovingian kings. The effect of this electiou 
 was not to invest them with absolute power. Whatever related to the 
 general welfare of the nation was submitted to public deliberation, and 
 determined by the suffrage of the people, in the annual assemblies called 
 " les champs de Mars " and " les champs de Mai." These assemblies were 
 called champs, because, according to the custom of all the barbarous nations, 
 they were held in the open air in some plain capable of containing the
 
 NOTE xxxviri.] PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 271 
 
 vast number of persons who had a right to be present (Jo. Jac. Sorberua 
 de Comitiis Veterum German orum, voL i. 19, etc.) They were denomi- 
 nated Champs de Mars and de Mai, from the months in which they wore 
 heW. Every freeman seems to have had a right to be present in these 
 assemblies. (Sorberus, ibid., 133, etc.) The ancient annals of the 
 Franks Describe the persons who were present in the assembly held A.D 
 788, in these words ; " In placito Ingelheimensi conveniunt pontihces, 
 mujores, minores, sacerdotes, reguli, duces, comites, praefecti, cives, 
 oppidani." (Apud Sorber., 304.) There every thing that concerned 
 the happiness of their country, says an ancient historian, every thing that 
 could be of benefit to the Franks, was considered and enjoined. (Frede- 
 garius, ap. Du Cange, Glossar., voc. Campus Martii.) Chlotharius II. 
 describes the business and acknowledges the authority of these assemblies. 
 " They are called," says he, " that whatever relates to the common safety 
 may be considered and resolved by common deliberation ; and whatever 
 they determined, to that I will conform." (Amoinus de Gest Franc., 
 lib. iv. c. i., ap. Bouquet, Recueil, iii. 116.) The statutory clauses or 
 words of legislative authority in the decrees issued in these assemblies run 
 not in the name of the king alone. " We have treated," says Childebert, 
 in a decree, A.D. 532, in the assembly of March, " together with our nobles, 
 concerning some affairs, and we now publish the conclusion, that it may 
 come to the knowledge of all." (Childeb. Deeret., ap. Bouquet, Recueil des 
 Histor., torn. iv. p. 3.) "We have agreed together with our vassals." 
 (Ibid., 2.) " It is agreed in the assembly in which we are all united." 
 (Ibid., 4.) The Salic laws, the most venerable monument of French 
 jurisprudence, were enacted in the same manner. " Dictaverunt Salicam 
 legem proceres ipsius gentis, qui tune temporis apud earn erant rectores. 
 Sunt autem electi de pluribus viri quatuor qui per tres Mallos con- 
 venientes, omnes causarum origir/i-? ?olicite discurrendo, tractantes de 
 eingulis, judicium decreverunt hoc modo." (Praef. Leg. Salic., ap. Bou- 
 quet, ibid., p. 122.) " Hoc decretum est apud regem et principes ejus, 
 et apud cunctum populum christianum, qui intra regnum Merwingorum 
 consistunt." (Ibid., p. 124.) Nay, even in their charters the kings of 
 the first race are careful to specify that they were granted with the consent 
 of their vassals. " Ego Childebertus, rex, una cum consensu et voluntate 
 Francorum," etc., A.D. 558. (Bouquet, ibid., 622.) " Chlotharius III. 
 una cum patribus nostris, episcopis, optimatibus, caeterisque palatii nostri 
 ministris," A.D. 664. (Ibid., 648.) " De consensu fidelium nostrorum." 
 (Mably, Observ., torn. L p. 239.) The historians likewise describe the 
 functions of the king in the national assemblies in such terms as imply 
 that his authority there was extremely small, and that every thing de- 
 pended on the court itself. " Ipse rex," says the author of Annales Fran- 
 corum, speaking of the Field of March, " sedebat in sella regia, circum- 
 atante exercitu, praecipiebatque is, die illo, quicquid a Francis decretum 
 erat." Bouquet, Recueil, torn. ii. p. 647. 
 
 That the general assemblies exercised supreme jurisdiction over all per- 
 sons and with respect to all causes is so evident as to stand in need of 
 no proof. The trial of Brunehaut, A.D. 613, how unjust soever the 
 sentence against her may be, as related by Fredegarius (Chron., cap. 42, 
 Bouquet, ibid., 430), is in itself sufficient proof of this. The notorious
 
 272 -PROOFS AND ILLUSTEATIONS. [NOTE xxxvin. 
 
 violence and iniquity of the sentence serve to demonstrate the extent of 
 jurisdiction which this assembly possessed, as a prince so sanguinary as 
 CJothaire II. thought the sanction of its authority would be sufficient to 
 justify his rigorous treatment of the mother and grandmother of so many 
 kings. 
 
 With respect to conferring donatives on the prince, we may observe 
 that among nations whose manners and political institutions are simple, 
 the public, as well as individuals, having few wants, they are little 
 acquainted with taxes, and free uncivilized tribes disdain to submit to 
 uny stated imposition. This was remarkably the case of the Germans, 
 and of all the various peo'ple that issued from that country. Tacitus 
 pronounces two tribes not to be of German origin, because they submitted 
 to pay taxes. (De Morib. Germ., c. 43.) And, speaking of another tribe 
 according to the ideas prevalent in Germany, he says, " They were not 
 degraded by the imposition of taxes." (Ibid., c. 29.) Upon the settle- 
 ment of the Franks in Gaul we may conclude that, while elated with 
 the consciousness of victory, they would not renounce the high-spirited 
 ideas of their ancestors or voluntarily submit to a burden which they 
 regarded as a badge of servitude. The evidence of the earliest records 
 and historians justifies this conclusion. M. de Montesquieu, in the 
 twelfth and subsequent chapters of the thirteenth book of L'Esprit des 
 Loix, and M. de Mably, Observations sur 1'Histoire de France, torn. i. 
 p. 247, have investigated this fact with great attention, and have proved 
 clearly that the property of freemen among the Franks was not subject 
 to any stated tax ; that the state required nothing from persons of this 
 rank but military service at their own expense, and that they should 
 entertain the king in their houses when he was upon any progress through 
 his dominions, or his officers when sent on any public employment, 
 furnishing them with carriages and horses. Monarchs subsisted almost 
 entirely upon the revenues of their own domains, and upon the perquisites 
 arising from the administration of justice, together with a few small 
 fines and forfeitures exacted from such as had been guilty of certain 
 trespasses. It is foreign from my subject to enumerate these. The 
 reader may find them in Observations de M. de Mably, vol. i. p. 267. 
 
 When any extraordinary aid was granted by freemen to their sovereign 
 it was purely voluntary. In the annual assembly of March or May it 
 was the custom to make the king a present of money, of horses or arms, 
 or of some other thing of value. This was an ancient custom, and 
 derived from their ancestors the Germans. " Mos est civitatibus, ultro 
 ac viritim conferre principibus, vel armentorum, vel frugum, quod pro 
 honore acceptum, etiam necessitatibus subvenit." (Tacit., de Mor. Germ., 
 c, 15.) These gifts, if we may form a judgment concerning them from 
 the general terms in which they are mentioned by the ancient historians, 
 were considerable, and made no small part of the royal revenue. Many 
 passages to this purpose are produced by M. Du Cange, Dissert. IV. sur 
 Joinville, p. 153. Sometimes a conquered people specified the gift which 
 they bound themselves to pay annually, and it was exacted as a debt if 
 they failed. (Anales Metenses, ap. Du Cange, ibid., p. 155.) It is 
 probable that the first step towards taxation was to ascertain the value 
 of these gifts, which were originally gratuitous, and to compel the people
 
 NOTE xxxviii.] PitOOb'S AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 273 
 
 to pay the sum at which they were rated. Still, however, some memory 
 of their original was preserved, and the aids granted to monarchs in 
 all the kingdoms of Europe were termed benevolences or free gifts. 
 
 The kings of the second race in France were raised to the throne 
 by the election of the people. " Pepinus rex pius," says an author 
 who wrote a few years after the transaction which he records, " per 
 authoritatein papae, et unctionem sancti chrismatis et electionem omnium 
 Francorum in regni solio sublimatus est." (Clausula de Pepini Con- 
 secratione, ap. Bouq., Recueil des Histor., torn. v. p. 9.) At the same 
 time, as the chief men of the nation had transferred the crown from one 
 family to another, an oath was exacted of them that they should 
 maintain on the throne the family which they had now promoted : " ut 
 nunquam de alterius lumbis regem in aevo praesumant eligere." (Ibid., 
 p. 10.) This oath the nation faithfully observed during a considerable 
 space of time. The posterity of Pepin kept possession of the throne ; 
 but with respect to the manner of dividing their dominions among their 
 children, princes were obliged to consult the general assembly of the 
 nation. Thus, Pepin himself, A.D. 768, appointed his two sons, Charles 
 and Carlomannus, to reign as joint sovereigns ; but he did this " una cum 
 consensu Francorum et procerum suorum seu et episcoporum," before 
 whom he laid the matter in their general assembly. (Conventus apud 
 Sanctum Dionysium, Capitular., vol. i. p. 187.) This destination the 
 French confirmed in a subsequent assembly, which was called upon the 
 death of Pepin ; for, as Eginhart relates, they not only appointed them 
 kings, but by their authority they regulated the limits of their respective 
 territories. (Vita Car. Magni, ap. Bouquet, Recueil, torn. v. p. 90.) 
 In the same manner, it was by the authority of the supreme assemblies 
 that any dispute which arose among the descendants of the royal family 
 was determined. Charlemagne recognizes this important part of their 
 jurisdiction, and confirms it, in his charter concerning the partition of his 
 dominions ; for he appoints that, in case of any uncertainty with respect 
 to the right of the several competitors, he whom the people choose shall 
 succeed to the crown. Capitular., vol. i. p. 442. 
 
 Under the second race of kings, the assemblies of the nation, dis- 
 tinguished by the name of conventiis, malli, placita, were regularly 
 assembled once a year at least, and frequently twice in the year. One 
 of the most valuable monuments of the history of France is the treatise 
 of Hincmarus, archbishop of Rheims, De Ordine Palatii. He died A.D. 
 882, only sixty-eight years after Charlemagne, and he relates in that short 
 discourse the facts which were communicated to him by Adalhardus, a 
 minister and confidant of Charlemagne. From him we learn that this 
 great monarch never failed to hold the general assembly of his subjects 
 every year. " In quo placito generalitas universorum majorum tarn 
 clericorum quam laicorum conveniebat." (Hincm., Oper., edit. Sirmondi, 
 vol. ii. c. 29, p. 211.) In these assemblies matters which related to the 
 general safety and state of the kingdom were always discussed before 
 they entered upon any private or less important business. (Ibid., c. 33, 
 p. 213.) His immediate successors imitated his example, and transacted 
 no affair of importance without the advice of their great council. 
 
 Under the second race of kings the genius of the French government 
 
 YOL. I. T
 
 274 PEOOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE xxxvm. 
 
 continued to be in a good measure democratical. The nobles, the dignified 
 ecclesiastics, and the great officer? of the crown were not the only members 
 of the national council ; the people, or the whole body of freemen, either 
 in person or by their representatives, had a right to be present in it. 
 Hincmarus, in describing the manner of holding the general assemblies, says 
 that if the weather was favourable they met in the open air ; but if 
 otherwise, they had different apartments allotted to them ; so that the 
 dignified clergy were separated from the laity, and the " comites vel 
 hujusmodi principes sibimet honorificabiliter a caetera nmltitudine segre- 
 garentur." (Ibid., c. 35, p. 114.) Agobardus, archbishop of Lyons, thus 
 describes a national council in the year 833, wherein he was present : 
 " Qui ubique conventus extitit ex reverendissimis episcopis, et magnifi- 
 centissimis viris illustribus, collegio quoque abbatuin et comitum, pro- 
 miscuseque setatis et dignitatis populo." The ccetera multitude of Hincmarus 
 is the same with the populus of Agobardus, and both describe the inferior 
 order of freemen, the same who were afterwards known in France by the 
 name of the third estate, and in England by the name of commons. The 
 people, as well as the members of higher dignity, were admitted to a 
 share of the legislative power. Thus, by a law, A.D. 803, it is ordained, 
 " That the question shall be put to the people with respect to every new 
 law, and if they shall agree to it they shall confirm it by their signature." 
 (Capit., vol. i. p. 394.) There are two capitularia which convey to us a 
 full idea of the part which the people took in the administration of 
 government. When they felt the weight of any grievance, they had a 
 right to petition the sovereign for redress. One of these petitions, in 
 which they desire that ecclesiastics might be exempted from bearing arms 
 and from serving in person against the enemy, is still extant. It is 
 addressed to Charlemagne, A.D. 803, and expressed in such terms as could 
 have been used only by men conscious of liberty, and of the extensive 
 privileges which they possessed. They conclude with requiring him to 
 grant their demand if he wished that they should any longer continue 
 faithful subjects to him. That great monarch, instead of being offended 
 or surprised at the boldness of their petition, received it in a most gracious 
 manner, and signified his willingness to comply with it. But, sensible 
 that he himself did not possess legislative authority, he promises to lay 
 the matter before the next general assembly, that such things as were of 
 common concern to all might be there considered and established by 
 common consent. (Capitul., torn. i. pp. 405 409.) As the people by 
 their petitions brought matters to be proposed in the general assembly, 
 we learn from another capitulare the form in which they were approved 
 there and enacted as laws. The propositions were read aloud, and then 
 the people were required to declare whether they assented to them or not. 
 They signified their assent by crying three times, " We are satisfied ; " and 
 then the capitulare was confirmed by the subscription of the monarch, 
 the clergy, and the chief men of the laity. (Capitul., torn. i. p. 627, 
 A.D. 822.) It seems probable from a capitulare of Carolus Calvus, A.D. 
 851, that the sovereign could not refuse his assent to what was proposed 
 and established by his subjects in the general assembly. (Tit. ix. 6 ; 
 Capitul., vol. ii. p. 47.) It is unnecessary to multiply quotations con- 
 cerning th*i legislative power of the national assembly of France under
 
 NOTE xxxix.] PEOOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 275 
 
 the second race, or concerning its right to determine with regard to peace 
 and war. The uniform style of the Capitularia is an abundant confirma- 
 tion of the former. The reader who desires any further information with 
 respect to the latter may consult Les Origines ou 1'ancien Gouvemement 
 de la France, etc., torn. iii. p. 87, etc. What has been said with respect 
 to the admission of the people or their representatives into the supreme 
 assembly merits attention, not only in tracing the progress of the French 
 government, but on account of the light which it throws upon a similar 
 question agitated in England concerning the time when the commons 
 became part of the legislative body in that kingdom. 
 
 NOTE XXXIX. SECT. III. p. 158 
 
 That important change which the constitution of France underwent 
 when the legislative power was transferred from the great council of the 
 nation to the king has been explained by the French antiquaries with 
 less care than they bestow in illustrating other events in their history. 
 For that reason I have endeavoured with greater attention to trace the 
 steps which led to this memorable revolution. I shall here add some 
 particulars which tend to throw additional light upon it. The Leges 
 Salicae, the Leges Burgundionum, and other codes published by the several 
 tribes which settled in Gaul were general laws extending to every person, 
 to every province and district where the authority of those tribes was 
 acknowledged. But they seem to have become obsolete ; and the reason 
 of their falling into disuse is very obvious. Almost the whole property 
 of the nation was allodial when these laws were framed. But when the 
 ''eudal institutions became general, and gave rise to an infinite variety of 
 questions peculiar to that species of tenure, the ancient codes were of no 
 use in deciding with regard to these, because they could not contain 
 regulations applicable to cases which did not exist at the time when they 
 were compiled. This considerable change in the nature of property made 
 it necessary to publish the new regulations contained in the capitularm, 
 Many of these, as is evident from the perusal of them, were public laws 
 extending to the whole French nation, in the general assembly of which 
 they were enacted. The weakness of the greater part of the monarcha 
 of the second race, and the disorder into which the nation was thrown 
 by the depredations of the Normans, encouraged the barons to usurp an 
 independent power formerly unknown in France. The nature and extent 
 of that jurisdiction which they assumed I have formerly considered. 
 The political union of the kingdom was at an end, its ancient constitution 
 was dissolved, and only a feudal relation subsisted between the king and 
 Ids vassals. The regal jurisdiction extended no further than the domains 
 of the crown. Under the last kings of the second race these were reduced 
 almost to nothing. Under the first kings of the third race they com- 
 prehended little more than the patrimonial estate of Hugh Capet, which 
 he annexed to the crown. Even with this accession they continued to 
 be of small extent. (Velly, Hist de France, torn. iii. p. 32.) Many of 
 the most considerable provinces in France did not at first acknowledge 
 Hugh Capet as a lawful monarch. There are still extant several charters, 
 granted during the first years of Ms reign, with this renutkable clause in 
 
 T 2
 
 276 PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE xxxnc. 
 
 the form of dating the charter : " Deo regnante, rege expectante, regnante 
 Domino nostro Jesu Christo Francis autem contra jus regnum usurpante 
 Ugone rege." (Bouquet, Recueil, torn. x. p. 544.) A monarch whose 
 title was thus openly disputed was not in a condition to assert the royal 
 jurisdiction, or to limit that of the barons. 
 
 All these circumstances rendered it easy for the barons to usurp the 
 rights of royalty within their own territories. The Capitularia became no 
 less obsolete than the ancient laws ; local customs were everywhere intro- 
 duced, and became the sole rule by which all civil transactions were con- 
 ducted and all causes were tried. The wonderful ignorance which became 
 general in France during the ninth and tenth centuries contributed to the 
 introduction of customary law. Few persons, except ecclesiastics, could 
 read ; and as it was not in the power of such illiterate persons to have 
 recourse to written laws, either as their guide in business or their rule in 
 administering justice, the customary law, the knowledge of which was 
 preserved by tradition, universally prevailed. 
 
 During this period the general assembly of the nation seems not to 
 have been called, nor to have once exerted its legislative authority. Local 
 customs regulated and decided everything. A striking proof of this 
 occurs in tracing the progress of the French jurisprudence. The last of 
 the Capitularia collected by M. Baluze was issued in the year 921, by 
 Charles the Simple. A hundred and thirty years elapsed from that 
 period to the publication of the first ordinance of the kings of the third 
 race, contained in the great collection of M. Lauriere, and the first ordi- 
 nance which appears to be an act of legislation extending to the whole 
 kingdom is that of Philip Augustus, A.D. 1 190. (Ordon., torn. i. pp. 1,18.) 
 During that long period of two hundred and sixty-nine years all transac- 
 tions were directed by local customs, and no addition was made to the 
 statutory law of France. The ordinances previous to the reign of Philip 
 Augustus contain regulations the authority of which did not extend beyond 
 the king's domains. 
 
 Various instances occur of the caution with which the kings of France 
 ventured at first to exercise legislative authority. M. 1'Abbd de Mably 
 produces an ordinance of Philip Augustus, A.D. 1206, concerning the 
 Jews, who in that age were in some measure the property of the lord in 
 whose territories they resided. But it is rather a treaty of the king with 
 the Countess of Champagne and the Compte de Dampierre, than an act of 
 royal power ; and the regulations in it seem to be established not so much 
 by his authority as by their consent (Observat. sur 1'Hist. de France, 
 ii p. 355.) In the same manner an ordinance of Louis VIII. concerning 
 the Jews, A.D. 1223, is a contract between the king and his nobles with 
 respect to their manner of treating that unhappy race of men. (Ordon. , 
 torn, i p. 47.) The Establissemens of St. Louis, though well adapted to 
 serve as general laws to the whole kingdom, were not published as such, 
 but only as a complete code of customary law, to be of authority within the 
 king's domains. The wisdom, the equity, and the order conspicuous in 
 that code of St. Louis procured it a favourable reception throughout the 
 kingdom. The veneration due to the virtues and good intentions of its 
 author contributed not a little to reconcile the nation to that legislative 
 authority which the king began to assume. Soon after the reign of
 
 NOTE XL.] PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 277 
 
 St. Louis, the idea of the king's possessing supreme legislative powei 
 became common. " If," says Beaumanoir, " the king makes any estab- 
 lishment specially for his own domain, the barons may nevertheless adhere 
 to their ancient customs r t/ut if the establishment be general it shall be 
 current throughout the whole kingdom, and we ought to believe that such 
 establishments are made with mature deliberation, and for the general 
 good." (Coust. de Beauvoisis, c. 48, p. 265.) Though the kings of the 
 third race did not call the general assembly of the nation during the long 
 period from Hugh Capet to Philip the Fair, yet they seem to have con- 
 sulted the bishops and barons who happened to be present in their court, 
 with respect to any new law which they published. Examples of this 
 occur, Ordon., torn. L p. 3 et 5. This practice seems to have continued as 
 late as the reign of St. Louis, when the legislative authority of the crown 
 was well established. (Ordon., torn. L p. 58, A.D. 1246.) This attention 
 paid to the barons facilitated the kings' acquiring such full possession of 
 the legislative power as enabled them afterwards to exercise it without 
 observing that formality. 
 
 The assemblies distinguished by the name of the states-general were 
 first called A.D. 1302, and were held occasionally from that period to the 
 year 1614, since which time they have not been summoned. These were 
 very different from the ancient assemblies of the French nation under the 
 kings of the first and second race. There is no point with respect to 
 which the French antiquaries are more generally agreed than in main- 
 taining that the states-general had no suffrage in the passing of laws and 
 possessed no proper legislative jurisdiction. The whole tenor of the 
 French history confirms this opinion. The form of proceeding in the 
 states-general was this. The king addressed himself, at opening the 
 meeting, to the whole body assembled in one place, and laid before them 
 the affairs on account of which he had summoned them. Then the depu- 
 ties of each of the three orders, of nobles, of clergy, and of the third 
 estate, met apart, and prepared their cahier, or memorial, containing their 
 answer to the propositions which had been made to them, together with 
 the representations which they thought proper to lay before the king. 
 These answers and representations were considered by the king in his 
 council, and generally gave rise to an ordinance. These ordinances were 
 not addressed to the three estates in common. Sometimes the king ad- 
 dressed an ordinance to each of the estates in particular. Sometimes he 
 mentioned the assembly of the three estates. Sometimes mention is made 
 only of the assembly of that estate to which the ordinance is addressed. 
 Sometimes no mention at all is made of the assembly of estates, which 
 suggested the propriety of enacting the law. Preface au torn. iii. des 
 Ordon., p. xx. 
 
 Thus the states-general had only the privilege of advising and remon- 
 strating ; the legislative authority resided in the king alone. 
 
 NOTE XL. Sect III. p. 162. 
 
 If the parliament of Paris be considered only as the supreme court of 
 justice, everything relative to its origin and jurisdiction is clear and 
 obvious. It is the ancient court of the king's palace, new-modelled,
 
 278 PROOFS AND ILLUSTEATIONS. [NOTE xu 
 
 rendered stationary, arid invested with an extensive and ascertained juris- 
 diction. The power of this court while employed in this part of its 
 functions is not the object of present consideration. The pretensions of 
 the parliament to control the exercise of the legislative authority, and its 
 claim of a right to interpose with respect to public affairs and the political 
 administration of the kingdom, lead to inquiries attended with great 
 difficulty. As the officers and members of the parliament of Paris were 
 anciently nominated by the king, were paid by him, and on several occa- 
 sions were removed by him at pleasure (Chronic, scandaleuse de Louis XI. 
 chez les Mem. de Comines, torn. ii. p. 51, edit, de M. Lenglet de Fresnoy), 
 they cannot be considered as representatives of the people, nor could they 
 claim any share in the legislative power as acting in their name. We 
 must therefore search for some other source of this high privilege. 1. The 
 parliament was originally composed of the most eminent persons in the 
 kingdom. The peers of France, ecclesiastics of the highest order, and 
 noblemen of illustrious birth, were members of it, to whom were added 
 some clerks and councillors learned in the laws. (Pasquier, Recherches, 
 p. 44, etc. ; Encyclopedic, torn, xii art. Parlement, pp. 3, 5.) A court 
 thus constituted was properly a committee of the states-general of the 
 kingdom, and was composed of those barons and fideles whom the kings of 
 France were accustomed to consult with regard to every act of jurisdiction 
 or legislative authority. It was natural, therefore, during the intervals 
 between the meetings of the states-general, or during those periods when 
 that assembly was not called, to consult the parliament, to lay matters of 
 public concern before it, and to obtain its approbation and concurrence, 
 before any ordinance was published, to which the people were required to 
 conform. 2. Under the second race of kings, every new law was reduced 
 into proper form by the chancellor of the kingdom, was proposed by him 
 to the people, and, when enacted, was committed to him to be kept 
 among the public records, that he might give authentic copies of it to all who 
 should demand them. (Hincm., de Ord. Palat., c. 16 ; Capitul. Car. Calv., 
 tit. xiv. 11, tit. xxxiii.) The chancellor presided in the parliament of 
 Paris at its first institution. (Encyclopedic, torn. iii. art. Chancelier, p. 88.) 
 It was, therefore, natural for the king to continue to employ him in his 
 ancient functions of framing, taking into his custody, and publishing the 
 ordinances which were issued. To an ancient copy of the Capitularia of 
 Charlemagne the following words are subjoined : " Anno tertio clementis- 
 simi domini nostri Caroli Augusti, sub ipso anno, hsec facta Capitula sunt, 
 et consignata Stephano comiti, ut hsec manifesta faceret Parisiis mallo 
 publico, et ilia legere faceret coram scabineis, quod ita et fecit, et omnes 
 in uno consenserunt, quod ipsi voluissent observare usque in posterum, 
 etiam omnes scabinei, episcopi, abbates, comites, manu propria subter 
 signaverunt" (Bouquet, Recueil, torn. v. p. 663.) Mallus signifies not 
 only the public assembly of the nation, but the court of justice held by 
 the comes, or missus dominicus. Scabinei were the judges, or the assessors 
 of the judges, in that court. Here, then, seems to be a very early instance 
 not only of laws being published in a court of justice, but of their being 
 verified or confirmed by the subscription of the judges. If this was the 
 common practice, it naturally introduced the verifying of edicts in the 
 parliament of Paris. But this conjecture I propose with that diffidence
 
 NOTE iL.] PROOFS AND ILLUSTEATIONS. 270 
 
 which I have felt in all my reasonings concerning the laws and institutions 
 of foreign nations. 3. This supreme court of justice in France was digni- 
 fied with the appellation of parliament, the name by which the general 
 assembly of the nation was distinguished towards the close of the second 
 race of kings ; and men, both in reasoning and in conduct, were wonder- 
 fully influenced by the similarity of names. The preserving the ancient 
 names of the magistrates established while the republican government 
 subsisted in Home enabled Augustus and his successors to assume new 
 powers with less observation and greater ease. The bestowing the same 
 name in France upon two courts which were extremely different contri- 
 buted not a little to confound their jurisdictions and functions. 
 
 All these circumstances concurred in leading the kings of France to 
 avail themselves of the parliament of Paris as the instrument of reconciling 
 the people to the exercise of legislative authority by the crown. The 
 French, accustomed to see all new laws examined and authorized before 
 they were published, did not sufficiently distinguish between the effect of 
 performing this in the national assembly or in a court appointed by the 
 king. But as that court was composed of respectable members, and who 
 were well skilled in the laws of their country, when any new edict received 
 its sanction, that was sufficient lo dispose the people to submit to it. 
 
 When the practice of verifying and registering the royal edicts in the 
 parliament of Paris became common, the parliament contended that this 
 was necessary in order to give them legal authority. It was established as 
 a fundamental maxim in French jurisprudence that no law could be pub- 
 lished in any other manner ; that without this formality no edict or ordi- 
 nance could have any effect ; that the people were not bound to obey it, 
 and ought not to consider it as an edict or ordinance, until it was verified 
 in the supreme court after free deliberation. (Roche-flavin des Parlemens 
 de France, 4to, Gen., 1621, p. 921.) The parliament, at different times, 
 hath, with great fortitude and integrity, opposed the will of their sovereigns, 
 and, notwithstanding their repeated and peremptory requisitions and com- 
 mands, hath refused to verify and publish such edicts as it conceived to be 
 oppressive to the people or subversive of the constitution of the kingdom. 
 Roche-flavin reckons that between the year 1562 and the year 1589 the 
 parliament refused to verify more than a hundred edicts of the kings. 
 (Ibid., 925.) Many instances of the spirit and constancy with which the 
 parliaments of France opposed pernicious laws and asserted their own pri- 
 vileges are enumerated by Limnaeus in his Notitise Regni Franciae, lib. i. 
 c. 9, p. 224. 
 
 But the power of the parliament to maintain and defend this privilege 
 bore no proportion to its importance, or to the courage with which the 
 members asserted it. When any monarch was determined that an edict 
 should be carried into execution, and found the parliament inflexibly re- 
 solved not to verify or publish it, he could easily supply this defect by the 
 plenitude of his regal power. He repaired to the parliament in person, he 
 took possession of his seat of justice, and commanded the edict to be read, 
 verified, registered, and published in his presence. Then, according to 
 another maxim of French law, the king himself being present, neither the 
 parliament nor any magistrate whatever can exercise any authority or per- 
 form any function. " Adveniente principe, cessat magistrates." (Roche-
 
 280 PEOOFe AND ILLUSTEATIONS. [NOTE XLII. 
 
 flavin, ibid., pp. 928, 929 ; Encyclopedic, torn, be., art. Lit. de Justice, 
 p. 581.) Eoche-flavin mentions several instances of kings who actually 
 exerted this prerogative, so fatal to the residue of the rights and liberties 
 transmitted to the French by their ancestors. Pasquier produces some 
 instances of the same kind. (Eech., p. 61.) Limnseus enumerates many 
 other instances ; but the length to which this note has swelled prevents me 
 from inserting them at length, though they tend greatly to illustrate this 
 important article in the French history (p. 245). Thus, by an exertion of 
 prerogative which, though violent, seems to be constitutional, and is justi- 
 fied by innumerable precedents, all the efforts of the parliament to limit 
 and control the king's legislative authority are rendered ineffectual. 
 
 I have not attempted to explain the constitution or jurisdiction of any 
 parliament in France but that of Paris. All of them are formed upon the 
 model of that most ancient and respectable tribunal, and all my observa- 
 tions concerning it will apply with full force to them. 
 
 NOTB XLL Sect III. p. 166. 
 
 The humiliating posture in which a great emperor implored absolution 
 is an event so singular that the words in which Gregory himself describes 
 it merit a place here, and convey a striking picture of the arrogance of that 
 pontiff : " Per triduum, ante portam castri, deposito ornni regio cultu, 
 miserabiliter, utpote discalceatus, et laneis indutus, persistens, non prius 
 cum multo fletu apostolicae miserationis auxilium et consolationem implorari 
 destitit, quam omnes qui ibi aderant, et ad quos rumor ille pervenit, ad 
 tun tarn pietatem, et compassionis misericordiam movit, ut pro eo multis preci- 
 bus et lacrymis intercedentes, omnes quidem insolitam nostrje mentis duri- 
 tiem mirarentur ; nonnulli vero in nobis non apostolicsD sedis gravitatem, 
 sed quasi tyrannicse feritatis crudelitatem esse clamarunt" Epist Gregor., 
 ap. Memorie della Contessa Matilda da Fran. Mar. Fiorentini, Lucca, 1756, 
 voL i p. 174. 
 
 NOTE XLII. Sect III. p. 174. 
 
 As I have endeavoured in the history to trace the various steps in the 
 progress of the constitution of the empire, and to explain the peculiari- 
 ties in its policy very fully, it is not necessary to add much by way of 
 illustration. What appears to be of any importance I shall range under 
 distinct heads. 
 
 1. With respect to the power, jurisdiction, and revenue of the emperors. 
 A very just idea of these may be formed by attending to the view which 
 Pfeffel gives of the rights of the emperors at two different periods. The 
 first at the close of the Saxon race, A.D. 1024. These, according to his 
 enumeration, were the right of conferring all the great ecclesiastical bene- 
 fices in Germany ; of receiving the revenues of them during a vacancy ; of 
 mortmain, or of succeeding to the effects of ecclesiastics who died intestate. 
 The right of confirming or of annulling the elections of the popes. The 
 right of assembling councils, and of appointing their* to decide concerning 
 the affairs of the Church. The right of conferring the title of king upon 
 their vassals. The right of granting vacant fiefs. The right of receiving
 
 NOTE XLII.] PEOOFS AND ILLUSTBATIONS. 281 
 
 the revenues of the empire, whether arising from the imperial domains, from 
 imposts and tolls, from gold or silver mines, from the taxes paid by the 
 Jews, or from forfeitures. The right of governing Italy as its proper sove- 
 reigns. The right of erecting free cities and of establishing fairs in them. 
 The right of assembling the diets of the empire and of fixing the time of 
 their duration. The right of coining money, and of conferring that privi- 
 lege on the states of the empire. The right of administering both high 
 and low justice within the territories of the different states. (Abre'ge, 
 p. 160.) The other period is at the extinction of the emperors of the 
 families of Luxemburg and Bavaria, A.D. 1437. According to the same 
 author, the imperial prerogatives at that time were the right of conferring 
 all dignities and titles, except the privilege of being a state of the empire. 
 The right of preces primaries, or of appointing once during their reign a 
 dignitary in each chapter or religious house. The right of granting dispen- 
 sations with respect to the age of majority. The right of erecting cities, 
 and of conferring the privilege of coining money. The right of calling the 
 meetings of the diet and of presiding in them. (Abrdge*, etc., p. 507.) 
 It were easy to show that Mr. Pfeffel is well founded in all these assertions, 
 and confirm them by the testimony of the most respectable authors. In 
 the one period the emperors appear as mighty sovereigns with extensive 
 prerogatives ; in the other, as the heads of a confederacy with very limited 
 powers. 
 
 The revenues of the emperors decreased still more than their authority. 
 The early emperors, and particularly those of the Saxon line, besides their 
 great patrimonial or hereditary territories, possessed an extensive domain 
 both in Italy and Germany, which belonged to them as emperors. Italy 
 belonged to the emperors as their proper kingdom, and the revenues which 
 they drew from it were very considerable. The first alienations of the 
 imperial revenue were made in that country. The Italian cities, having 
 acquired wealth, and aspiring at independence, purchased their liberty from 
 different emperors, as I have observed, Note XV. The sums which they 
 paid, and the emperors with whom they concluded these bargains, are men- 
 tioned by Gasp. Klockius de JSrario, Norimb., 1671, p. 85, etc. Charles IV. 
 and his son Wenceslaus dissipated all that remained of the Italian 
 branch of the domain. The German domain lay chiefly upon the banks 
 of the Rhine, and was under the government of the counts palatine. It is 
 not easy to mark out the boundaries or to estimate the value of this ancient 
 domain, which has been so long incorporated with the territories of different 
 princes. Some hints with respect to it may be found in the glossary of 
 Speidelius, which he has entitled Speculum Juridico-Philologico-Politico- 
 Historicum Observationum, etc., Norimb., 1673, voL L pp. 679, 1045. 
 A more full account of it is given by Klockius de JSrario, p. 84. Besides 
 this, the emperors possessed considerable districts of land lying intermixed 
 with the estates of the dukes and barons. They were accustomed to visit 
 these frequently, and drew from their vassals in each what was sufficient to 
 support their court during the time of their residence among them. (An- 
 nalistse, ap. Struv., torn. i. p. 611.) A great part of these detached posses- 
 sions was seized by the nobles during the long interregnum, or during the 
 wars occasioned by the contests between the emperors and the court of 
 Rome. At the same time that such encroachments were made on the filed
 
 282 PROOFS AND ILLUSTEATIONS. [NOTE XLII. 
 
 or territorial property of the emperors, they were robbed almost entirely of 
 their casual revenues, the princes and barons appropriating to themselves 
 taxes and duties of every kind, which had usually been paid to them. 
 (Pfeffel, Abre'ge', p. 374.) The profuse and inconsiderate ambition of 
 Charles IV. squandered whatever remained of the imperial revenues after 
 so many defalcations. He, in the year 1376, in order to prevail with the 
 electors to choose his son Wenceslaus king of the Romans, promised each of 
 them a hundred thousand crowns. But being unable to pay so large a sum, 
 and eager to secure the election to his son, he alienated to the three eccle- 
 siastical electors, and to the count palatine, such countries as still belonged 
 to the imperial domain on the banks of the Rhine, and likewise made over 
 to them all the taxes and tolls then levied by the emperors in that district. 
 Trithemius, and the author of the Chronicle of Magdeburg, enumerate the 
 territories and the taxes which were thus alienated, and represent this as 
 the last and fatal blow to the imperial authority. (Struv., Corp., vol. i. 
 p. 437.) From that period the shreds of the ancient revenues possessed by 
 the emperors have been so inconsiderable that, in the opinion of Speidelius, 
 all that they yield would be so far from defraying the expense of support- 
 ing their household that they would not pay the charge of maintaining the 
 posts established in the empire. (Speidelii Speculum, etc., vol. i. p. 680.) 
 These funds, inconsiderable as they were, continued to decrease. Granvelle, 
 the minister of Charles V., asserted in the year 1546, in presence of 
 several of the German princes, that his master drew no money at all from 
 the empire. (Sleid., History of the Reformation, Lond., 1689, p. 372.) 
 The same is the case at present. (Traits' du Droit publique de 1'Empire, 
 par M. le Coq de Villeray, p. 55.) From the reign of Charles IV., whom 
 Maximilian called the " pest of the empire," the emperors have depended 
 entirely on their hereditary dominions as the chief and almost the only 
 source of their power, and even of their subsistence. 
 
 2. The ancient mode of electing the emperors, and the various changes 
 which it underwent, require some illustration. The imperial crown was 
 originally attained by election, as well as those of most monarchies in 
 Europe. An opinion long prevailed among the antiquaries and public 
 lawyers of Germany that the right of choosing the emperors was vested in 
 the archbishops of Mentz, Cologne, and Treves, the king of Bohemia, the 
 duke of Saxony, the marquis of Brandenburg, and the count palatine of the 
 Rhine, by an edict of Otho III., confirmed by Gregory V. about the year 
 !J96. But the whole tenor of history contradicts this opinion. It appears 
 that from the earliest period in the history of Germany the person who was 
 to reign over all was elected by the suffrage of all. Thus, Conrad I. was 
 elected by all the people of the Franks, say some annalists ; by all the 
 princes and chief men, say others ; by all the nations, say others. (See 
 their words, Struv., Corp., p. 211 ; Conringius de German. Imper. Repub. 
 Acroamata Sex., Ebroduni, 1654, p. 103.) In the year 1024, posterior to 
 the supposed regulations of Otho III., Conrad II. was elected by all the 
 chief men, and his election was approved and confirmed by the people. 
 (Struv., Corp., p. 284.) At the election of Lotharius II., A.D. 1125, sixty 
 thousand persons of all ranks were present. He was named by the chief 
 men, and their nomination was approved by the people. (Struv., Corp., 
 p. 357.) The first author who mentions the seven electors is Martinus
 
 NOTE xi.ii.] PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 283 
 
 Polonus, who flourished in the reign of Frederic II., which ended A.D. 
 1250. We find that in all the ancient elections to which I have referred 
 the princes of the greatest power and authority were allowed by their coun- 
 trymen to name the person whom they wished to appoint emperor, and the 
 people approved or disapproved of their nomination. This privilege of 
 voting first is called by the German lawyers the right of prcetaocation. 
 (PfefFel, Abre'ge', p. 316.) This was the first origin of the exclusive right 
 which the electors acquired. The electors possessed the most extensive 
 territories of any princes in the empire ; all the great offices of the state 
 were in their hands by hereditary right ; as soon as they obtained or 
 engrossed so much influence in the election as to be allowed the right of 
 prsetaxation, it was vain to oppose their will, and it even became unneces- 
 sary for the inferior ecclesiastics and barons to attend, when they had no 
 other function but that of confirming the deed of these more powerful 
 princes by their assent. During times of turbulence, the subordinate 
 members of the Germanic body could not resort to the place of election 
 without a retinue of armed vassals, the expense of which they were obliged 
 to defray out of their own revenues ; and, finding their attendance to be 
 unnecessary, they were unwilling to waste them to no purpose. The 
 rights of the seven electors were supported by all the descendants and 
 allies of their powerful families, who shared in the splendour and influence 
 ivhich they enjoyed by this distinguishing privilege. (Pfeffel, Abrege*, 
 p. 376.) The seven electors were considered as the representatives of all 
 the orders which composed the highest class of German nobility. There 
 were three archbishops, chancellors of the three great districts into which 
 the empire was anciently divided, one king, one duke, one marquis, and 
 one count. All these circumstances contributed to render the introduction 
 of this considerable innovation into the constitution of the Germanic body 
 extremely easy. Every thing of importance relating to this branch of the 
 political state of the empire is well illustrated by Onuphrius Panvanius, 
 an Augustinian monk of Verona, who lived in the reign of Charles V. 
 His treatise, if we make some allowance for that partiality which he 
 expresses in favour of the powers which the popes claimed in the empire, 
 has the merit of being one of the first works in which a controverted point 
 in history is examined with critical precision and with a proper atten- 
 tion to that evidence which is derived from records or the testimony of 
 contemporary historians. It is inserted by Goldastus in his Politica 
 Imperialia, p. 2. 
 
 As the electors have engrossed the sole right of choosing the emperors, 
 they have assumed likewise that of deposing them. This high power the 
 electors have not only presumed to claim, but have ventured, in more than 
 one instance, to exercise. In the year 1298 a part of the electors deposed 
 Adolphus of Nassau and substituted Albert of Austria in his place. The 
 reasons on which they found their sentence show that this deed flowec 1 
 from factious, not from public-spirited, motives. (Struv., Corp., vol. i. 
 p. 540.) In the first year of the fifteenth century the electors deposed 
 Wenceslaus and placed the imperial crown on the head of Rupert, elector 
 palatine. The act of deposition is still extant. (Goldasti Constit., vol. i 
 p. 379.) It is pronounced in the name and by the authority of the 
 doctors, and confirmed by several prelates and barons of the empire,
 
 284 PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE xm. 
 
 who were present. These exertions of the electoral power demonstrate 
 that the imperial authority was sunk very low. 
 
 The other privileges of the electors, and the rights of the electoral 
 college, are explained by the writers on the public law in Germany. 
 
 3. With respect to the diets, or general assemblies of the empire, it 
 would be necessary, if my object were to write a particular history of 
 Germany, to enter into a minute detail concerning the forms of assembling 
 them, the persons who have a right to be present, their division into 
 several colleges or benches, the objects of their deliberation, the mode 
 in which they carry on their debates or give their suffrages, and the 
 authority of their decrees or recesses. But, as my only object is to 
 give the outlines of the constitution of the German empire, it will be 
 sufficient to observe that originally the diets of the empire were exactly 
 the same with the assemblies of March and of May, held by the kings 
 of France. They met at least once a year. Every freeman had a right 
 to be present. They were assemblies in which a monarch deliberated 
 with his subjects concerning their common interest. (Arumseus de Comitiis 
 Rom. German. Imperil, 4to, Jenae, 1660, cap. 7, no. 20, etc.) But when 
 the princes, dignified ecclesiastics, and barons acquired territorial and in- 
 dependent jurisdiction, the diet became an assembly of the separate states, 
 which formed the confederacy of which the emperor was head. While the 
 constitution of the empire remained in its primitive form, attendance on 
 the diets was a duty, like the other services due from feudal subjects to 
 their sovereign, which the members were bound to perform in person ; 
 and if any member who had a right to be present in the diet neglected 
 to attend in person, he not only lost his vote, but was liable to a heavy 
 penalty. (Arumaeus de Comit., c. 5, no. 40.) Whereas, from the time 
 that the members of the diet became independent states, the right of 
 suffrage was annexed to the territory or dignity, not to the person. The 
 members, if they could not, or would not, attend in person, might send 
 their deputies, as princes send ambassadors, and they were entitled to 
 exercise all the rights belonging to their constituents. (Ibid., no. 42, 
 46, 49.) By degrees, and upon the same principle of considering the diet 
 as an assembly of independent states, in which each confederate had the 
 right of suffrage, if any member possessed more than one of those states or 
 characters which entitle to a seat in the diet, he was allowed a proportional 
 number of suffrages. (Pfeffel, Abre'ge, p. 622.) From the same cause, 
 the imperial cities, as soon as they became free and acquired supreme and 
 independent jurisdiction within their own territories, were received as 
 members of the diet. The powers of the diet extend to every thing relative 
 to the common concern of the Germanic body or that can interest or affect 
 it as a confederacy. The diet takes no cognizance of the interior administra- 
 tion in the different states, unless that happens to disturb or threaten the 
 general safety. 
 
 4. With respect to the imperial chamber, the jurisdiction of which has 
 been the great source of order and tranquillity in Germany, it is necessary 
 to observe that this court was instituted in order to put an end to the 
 calamities occasioned by private wars in Germany. I have already traced 
 the rise and progress of this practice, and pointed out its pernicious effects 
 as fully as their extensive influence during the Middle Ages required. In
 
 WOTE XLII.] PEOOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 285 
 
 Germany, private wars seem to have been more frequent and productive of 
 worse consequences than in the other countries of Europe. There are 
 obvious reasons for this. The nobility of Germany were extremely numer- 
 ous, and the causes of their dissension multiplied in proportion. The 
 territorial jurisdiction which the German nobles acquired was more com- 
 plete than that possessed by their order in other nations. They became, 
 in reality, independent powers, and they claimed all the privileges of that 
 character. The long interregnum from A.D. 1256 to A.D. 1273 accus- 
 tomed them to an uncontrolled license, and led them to forget that subor- 
 dination which is necessary in order to maintain public tranquillity. At the 
 time when the other monarchs of Europe began to acquire such an increase 
 of power and revenues as added new vigour to their government, the autho- 
 rity and revenues of the emperors continued gradually to decline. The 
 diets of the empire, which alone had authority to judge between such 
 mighty barons, and power to enforce its decisions, met very seldom. 
 (Conring., Acroamata, p. 234.) The diets, when they did assemble, were 
 often composed of several thousand members (Chronic. Constant., ap. 
 Struv., Corp., i. 546), and were tumultuary assemblies, ill qualified to 
 decide concerning any question of right. The session of the diet con- 
 tinued only two or three days (Pfeffel, Abre'ge, p. 244) ; so that they had 
 no time to hear or discuss any cause that was in the smallest degree 
 intricate. Thus Germany was left, in some measure, without any court 
 of judicature capable of deciding the contests between its more powerful 
 members, or of repressing the evils occasioned by their private wars. 
 
 All the expedients which were employed in other countries of Europe 
 in order to restrain this practice, and which I have described, Note XXL, 
 were tried in Germany with little effect. The confederacies of the nobles 
 and of the cities, and the division of Germany into various circles, which 
 I mentioned in that note, were found likewise insufficient. As a last 
 remedy, the Germans had recourse to arbiters, whom they called austregce. 
 The barons and states in different parts of Germany joined in conven- 
 tions, by which they bound themselves to refer all controversies that 
 might arise between them to the determination of austregce, and to submit 
 to their sentences as final These arbiters are named sometimes in the 
 treaty of convention, an instance of which occurs in Ludewig, Reliquiae 
 Manuscr. omnis Mvi, vol. ii. p. 212 ; sometimes they were chosen by 
 mutual consent upon occasion of any contest that arose ; sometimes they 
 were appointed by neutral persons ; and sometimes the choice was left to 
 be decided by lot. (Datt., de Pace Publica Imperii, lib. i. cap. 27, no. 60, 
 etc.; Speidelius, Speculum, etc., voc. Austmg., p. 95.) Upon the intro- 
 duction of this practice, the public tribunals of justice became in a great 
 measure useless, and were almost entirely deserted. 
 
 In order to re-establish the authority of government, Maximilian I. 
 instituted the imperial chamber at the period which I have mentioned. 
 This tribunal consisted originally of a president, who was always a noble- 
 man of the n st order, and of sixteen judges. The president was appointed 
 by the emperor, and the judges partly by him, and partly by the states, 
 according to forms which it is unnecessary to describe. A sum was 
 imposed, with their own consent, on the states of the empire, for paying 
 the salaries of the judges and officers in this court The imperial
 
 286 PROOFS AND ILLUSTEATIONS. [NOTE xun. 
 
 chamber was established first at Frankfort-on-the-Main. During the reign 
 of Charles V. it was removed to Spires, and continued in that city above 
 a century and a half. It is now fixed at "Wetzlar. This court takes 
 cognizance of all questions concerning civil right between the states of 
 the empire, and passes judgment in the last resort, and without appeal. 
 To it belongs likewise the privilege of judging in criminal causes, which 
 may be considered as connected with the preservation of the public peace. 
 Pfeffel, Abrege", p. 560. 
 
 All causes relating to points of feudal right or jurisdiction, together 
 with such as respect the territories which hold of the empire in Italy, 
 belong properly to the jurisdiction of the aulic council. This tribunal 
 was formed upon the model of the ancient court of the palace instituted 
 by the emperors of Germany. It depended not upon the states of the 
 empire, but upon the emperor, he having the right of appointing at 
 pleasure all the judges of whom it is composed. Maximilian, in order 
 to procure some compensation for the diminution of his authority by the 
 powers vested in the imperial chamber, prevailed on the diet, A.D. 1512, 
 to give its consent to the establishment of the aulic council. Since that 
 time it has been a great object of policy in the court of Vienna to extend 
 the jurisdiction and support the authority of the aulic council, and to 
 circumscribe and weaken those of the imperial chamber. The tedious 
 forms and dilatory proceedings of the imperial chamber have furnished 
 the emperors with pretexts for doing so. " Lites Spirse," according to 
 the witticism of a German lawyer, " spirant, sed nunquam expirant." 
 Such delays are unavoidable in a court composed of members named by 
 many different states jealous of each other. Whereas the judges of the 
 ;iulic council, depending upon one master, and being responsible to him 
 filone, are more vigorous and decisive. Puffendorf, De Statu Imper. 
 German., cap. y. 20 ; Pfeffel, Abrege', p. 581. 
 
 Nora XLIII. Sect. III. p. 177. 
 
 The description which I have given of the Turkish government is con- 
 formable to the accounts of the most intelligent travellers who have visited 
 that empire. The Count de Marsigli, in his treatise concerning the mili- 
 tary state of the Turkish empire, ch. vi, and the author of Observations 
 on the Religion, Laws, Government, and Mann- rs of the Turks, published 
 at London, 1768, vol. i. p. 81, differ from other writers who have described 
 the political constitution of that powerful monarchy. As they had oppor- 
 tunity, during their long residence in Turkey, to observe the order and 
 justice conspicuous in several departments of administration, they seem 
 unwilling to admit that it should be denominated a despotism. But when 
 the form of government in any country is represented to be despotic, this 
 does not suppose that the power of the monarch is continually exerted in 
 acts of violence, injustice, and cruelty. Under political constitutions of 
 every species, unless when some frantic tyrant happens to hold the sceptre, 
 the ordinary administration of government must be conformable to the 
 principles of justice, and, if not active in promoting the welfare of the 
 people, cannot certainly have their destruction for its object. A state 
 in which the sovereign possesses the absolute command of a vast military
 
 NOTB JLLUI.] PEOOFS AND ILLUSTEATIONS. 287 
 
 force, together with the disposal of an extensive revenue, in which the 
 people have no privileges and no part either immediate or remote in legis- 
 lation, in which there is no body of hereditary nobility, jealous of their 
 own rights and distinctions, to stand as an intermediate order between the 
 prince and the people, cannot be distinguished by any name but that of a 
 despotism. The restraints, however, which I have mentioned, arising from 
 the capiculy and from religion, are powerful. But they are not such as 
 change the nature or denomination of the government. When a despotic 
 prince employs an armed force to support his authority, he commits the 
 supreme power to their hands. The praetorian bands in Rome dethroned, 
 murdered, and exalted their princes in the same waiiion manner with the 
 soldiery of the Porte at Constantinople. But, notwithstanding this, the 
 Roman emperors have been considered by all political writers as possessing 
 despotic powers. 
 
 The author of Observations on the Religion, Laws, Government, and 
 Manners of the Turks, in a preface to the second edition of his work, hath 
 made some remarks on what ia contained in this note and in that part of 
 the text to which it refers. It is with diffidence I set my opinion in 
 opposition to that of a person who has observed the government of the 
 Turks with attention and has described it with abilities. But, after a 
 careful review of the subject, to me the Turkish government still appears 
 of such a species as can be ranged in no class but that to which political 
 writers have given the name of despotism. There is not in Turkey any 
 constitutional restraint upon the will of the sovereign, or any barrier to 
 circumscribe the exercise of his power, but the two which I have men- 
 tioned : one afforded by religion, the principle upon which the authority 
 of the sultan is founded, the other by the army, the instrument which 
 he must employ to maintain his power. The author represents the 
 iilema, or body of the law, as an intermediate order between the 
 monarch and the people. (Pref., p. 30.) But whatever restraint the 
 authority of the ulema may impose upon the sovereign is derived from 
 religion. The moulahs out of whom the mufti and other chief officers of 
 the law must be chosen, are ecclesiastics. It is as interpreters of the 
 Koran or divine will that they are objects of veneration. The check, then, 
 which they give to the exercise of arbitrary power is not different from one 
 of those of which I took notice. Indeed, this restraint cannot be very 
 considerable. The mufti, who is the head of the order, as well as every 
 inferior officer of law, is named by the sultan, and is removable at his 
 pleasure. The straii^e means employed by the ulema in 1 746 to obtain 
 the dismission of a minister whom they hated is a manifest proof that they 
 possess but little constitutional authority which can serve as a restraint 
 upon the will of the sovereign. (Observat., p. 92 of 2d edit.) If the 
 author's idea be just, it is astonishing that the body of the law should have 
 no method of remonstrating against the errors of administration but by 
 setting fire to the capital. 
 
 The author seems to consider the capiculy, or soldiery of the Porte, 
 neither as formidable instruments of the sultan's power nor as any restraint 
 upon the exercise of it. His reasons for this opinion are that the number 
 of the capiculy is small in proportion to the other troops which compose 
 the Turkish armies, and that in time of peace they are undisciplined.
 
 288 PEOOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE XLIV. 
 
 (Pref., 2d edit., p. 23, etc.) But the troops stationed in a capital, though 
 their number be not great, are always masters of the sovereign's person and 
 power. The praetorian bands bore no proportion to the legionary troops in 
 the frontier provinces. The soldiery of the Porte are more numerous, and 
 must possess power of the same kind, and be equally formidable, sometimes 
 to the sovereign, and oftener to the people. However much the discipline 
 of the janizaries may be neglected at present, it certainly was not so in that 
 age to which alone my description of the Turkish government applies. 
 The author observes (Pref., p. 29) that the janizaries never deposed any 
 sultan of themselves, but that some form of law, true or false, has been 
 observed, and that either the mufti, or some other minister of religion, has 
 announced to the unhappy prince the law which renders him unworthy of 
 the throne. (Observ., p. 102.) This will always happen. In every 
 revolution, though brought about by military power, the deeds of the sol- 
 diery must be confirmed and carried into execution with the civil and reli- 
 gious formalities peculiar to the constitution. 
 
 This addition to the note may serve as a further illustration of my own 
 sentiments, but is not made with an intention of entering into any controversy 
 with the author of Observations, etc., to whom I am indebted for the 
 obliging terms in which he has expressed his remarks upon what I had 
 advanced. Happy were it for such as ventured to communicate their 
 opinions to the world, if every animadversion upon them were conveyed 
 with the same candid and liberal spirit. In one particular, however, he 
 seems to have misapprehended what I meant. (Pref., p. 17.) I certainly 
 did not mention his or Count Marsigli's long residence in Turkey as a cir- 
 cumstance which should detract from the weight of their authority. I 
 took notice of it in justice to my readers, that they might receive my 
 opinion with distrust, as it differed from that of persons whose means of 
 information were so far superior to mine. 
 
 NOTE: XLIV. Sect III. p. 178. 
 
 The institution, the discipline, and privileges of the janizaries are 
 described by all the authors who give any account of the Turkish govern- 
 ment. The manner in which enthusiasm was employed in order to inspire 
 them with courage is thus related by Prince Cantemir : " When Amurath I. 
 had formed them into a body, he sent them to Haji Bektash, a Turkish 
 saint, famous for his miracles and prophecies, desiring him to bestow on 
 them a banner, to pray God for their success, and to give them a name. 
 The saint, when they appeared in his presence, put the sleeve of his gown 
 upon one of their heads, and said, Let them be called Yengicheri. Let 
 their countenance be ever bright, their hands victorious, their swords keen ; 
 let their spear always hang over the heads of their enemies, and wherever 
 they go, may they return with a shining face." (History of the Ottoman 
 Empire, p. 38.) The number of janizaries at the first institution of the 
 body was not considerable. Under Solyman, in the year 1521, they 
 amounted to twelve thousand. Since that time their number has 
 greatly increased. (Marsigli, Etat etc., ch. xvi. p. 68.) Though Soly- 
 man possessed such abilities and authority as to restrain this formidable 
 body within the bounds of obedience, yet its tendency to limit the power
 
 NOTE XLV.] PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 of the sultans was, even in that age, foreseen by sagacious observers. 
 Nicolas Daulphinois, who accompanied M. d'Aramon, ambassador from 
 Henry II. of France to Solyman, published an account of his travels, in 
 which he describes and celebrates the discipline of the janizaries, but at 
 the same time predicts that they would one day become formidable to their 
 masters, and act the same part at Constantinople as the praetorian bands had 
 done at Rome. Collection of Voyages from the Earl of Oxford's Library, 
 voL i. p. 699. 
 
 NOTE XLV. Sect III. p. 168. 
 
 Solyman the Magnificent, to whom the Turkish historians have given the 
 surname of canuni, or insti tutor of rules, first brought the finances and 
 military establishment of the Turkish empire into a regular form. He 
 divided the military force into the capiculy, or soldiery of the Porte, 
 which was properly the standing army, and serrataculy, or soldiers 
 appointed to guard the frontiers. The chief strength of the latter 
 consisted of those who held timariots and ziams. These were portions 
 of land granted to certain persons for life, in much the same manner as 
 the military fiefs among the nations of Europe, in return for which 
 military service was performed. Solyman, in his Canun-Nam, or book 
 of regulations, fixed with great accuracy the extent of these lands in each 
 province of his empire, appointed the precise number of soldiers each 
 person who held a timariot or a ziam should bring into the field, and 
 established the pay which they should receive while engaged in service. 
 Count Marsigli and Sir Paul Rycaut have given extracts from this book 
 of regulations, and it appears that the ordinary establishment of the 
 Turkish army exceeded a hundred and fifty thousand men. When these 
 were added to the soldiery of the Porte, they formed a military power 
 greatly superior to what any Christian state could command in the 
 sixteenth century. (Marsigli, Etat Militaire, etc., p. 136 ; Rycaut's State 
 of the Ottoman Empire, book iii. ch. ii.) As Solyman, during his active 
 reign, was engaged so constantly in war, that his troops were always in 
 the field, the serrataculy became almost equal to the janizaries themselves 
 in discipline and valour. 
 
 It is not surprising, then, that the authors of the sixteenth century 
 should represent the Turks as far superior to the Christians both in the 
 knowledge and in the practice of the art of war. Quicciardini informs 
 us that the Italians learned the art of fortifying towns from the Turks. 
 (Histor., lib. xv. p. 266.) Busbequius, who was ambassador from the 
 emperor Ferdinand to Solyman, and who had opportunity to observe the 
 state both of the Christian and Turkish armies, published a discourse 
 concerning the best manner of carrying on war against the Turks, in 
 which he points out at great length the immense advantages which the 
 infidels possessed with respect to discipline and military improvements 
 of every kind. (Busbequii Opera, edit. Elzevir, p. 393, etc.) The 
 testimony of other authors might be added, if the matter were in any 
 degree doubtful. 
 
 Before I conclude these Proofs and Illustrations, I ought to explain the 
 reason of two omissions in them : one of which it is necessary to mention 
 VOL. T. V
 
 290 PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [NOTE XLV. 
 
 on my own account, the other to obviate an objection to this part of the 
 work. 
 
 In all my inquiries and disquisitions concerning the progress of govern- 
 ment, manners, literature, and commerce during the Middle Ages, as well 
 as in my delineations of the political constitution of the different states 
 of Europe at the opening of the sixteenth century, I have not once 
 mentioned M. de Voltaire, who in his Essai sur I'Histoire generale has 
 reviewed the same period, and has treated of all these subjects. This 
 does not proceed from an inattention to the works of that extraordinary 
 man, whose genius, no less enterprising than universal, has attempted 
 almost eveiy different species of literary composition. In many of these 
 he excels. In all, if he had left religion untouched, he is instructive and 
 agreeable. But, as he seldom imitates the example of modern historians 
 in citing the authors from whom they derived their information, I could 
 not with propriety appeal to his authority in confirmation of any doubtful 
 or unknown fact. I have often, however, followed him as my guide in 
 these researches ; and he has not only pointed out the facts with respect 
 to which it was of importance to inquire, but the conclusions which it 
 was proper to draw from them. If he had at the same time mentioned 
 the books which relate these particulars, a great part of my labour would 
 have been unnecessary, and many of his readers who now consider him 
 only as an entertaining and lively writer would find that he is a learned 
 and well-informed historian. 
 
 As to the other omission, every intelligent reader must have observed 
 that I have not entered, either in the historical part of this volume or in 
 the Proofs and Illustrations, into the same detail with respect to the ancient 
 laws and customs of the British kingdoms as concerning those of the other 
 European nations. As the capital facts with regard to the progress of 
 government and manners in their own country are known to most of my 
 readers, such a detail appeared to me to be less essential. Such facts and 
 observations, however, as were necessary towards completing my design in 
 this part of the work, I have mentioned under the different articles which 
 are the subjects of my disquisitions. The state of government in all the 
 nations of Europe having been nearly the same during several ages, nothing 
 can tend more to illustrate the progress of the English constitution than a 
 careful inquiry into the laws and customs of the kingdoms on the Continent. 
 This source of information has been too much neglected by the English 
 antiquaries and lawyers. Filled with admiration of that happy constitution 
 now established in Great Britain, they have been more attentive to its 
 forms and principles than to the condition and ideas of remote times, which 
 in almost every particular differ from the present. While engaged in per- 
 using the laws, charters, and early historians of the Continental kingdoms, 
 I have often been led to think that an attempt to illustrate the progress of 
 English jurisprudence and policy by a comparison with those of other 
 kingdoms in a similar situation would be of great utility, and might throw 
 much light on some points which are now obscure, and decide others which 
 h;we been long controverted.
 
 HISTORY OF THE REIGN 
 
 OF THE 
 
 EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH.
 
 HISTORY OF THE EEIGN 
 
 OT THX 
 
 EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 Birth of Charles V. His Hereditary Dominions. Philip and Joanna, 
 his Parents. Birth of Ferdinand, his Brother. Death of Isabella, 
 Philip's Attempts to obtain the Government of Castile, The 
 Regent Ferdinand marries a Niece of the French King to exclude 
 Philip and his. Daughter. The Castilian Nobility declare for Philip. 
 Philip and Joanna proclaimed. Death of Philip. Incapacity of 
 Joanna. Ferdinand made Regent. His Acquisition of Territory. 
 His Death. Education of Charles V. Cardinals Ximenes and 
 Adrian. Charles acknowledged King. Ximeues strengthens the 
 Royal Power; is opposed by the Nobles. War in Navarre and in 
 Africa. Peace with France, Charles visits Spain. His Ingrati- 
 tude towards Ximenes. Death of the Latter. Discontent of the 
 Castilians. Corruption of the King's Flemish Favourites. Recep- 
 tion of Charles in Aragon. Death of the Emperor Maximilian. 
 Charles and Francis I. Competitors for the Empire. Views of the 
 other Reigning Potentates. Assembly of the Electors. The Crown 
 offered to Frederic of Saxony. He declines in Favour of Charles, 
 who is chosen. Discontent of the Spaniards. Insurrection in 
 Valencia. The Cortes of Castile summoned to meet in Galicia. 
 Charles appoints Regents, and embarks for the Low Countries. 
 
 CHARLES V. was born at Ghent on the 24th day of 
 February, in the year 1500. His father, Philip the 
 Handsome, archduke of Austria, was the son of the 
 emperor Maximilian, and of Mary, the only child of 
 Charles the Bold, the last prince of the house of Bur- 
 gundy. His mother, Joanna, was the second daughter
 
 294 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK i. 
 
 of Ferdinand, king of Aragon, and of Isabella, queen of 
 Castile. 
 
 A long train of fortunate events had opened the way 
 for this young prince to the inheritance of more exten- 
 sive dominions than any European monarch since Charle- 
 magne had possessed. Each of his ancestors had 
 acquired kingdoms or provinces towards which their 
 prospect of succession was extremely remote. The 
 rich possessions of Mary of Burgundy had been destined 
 for another family, she having been contracted by her 
 father to the only son of Louis XI. of France ; but that 
 capricious monarch, indulging his hatred to her family, 
 chose rather to strip her of part of her territories by 
 force than to secure the whole by marriage ; and by this 
 misconduct, fatal to his posterity, he threw all the 
 Netherlands and Franche-Comte into the hands of a 
 rival. Isabella, the daughter of John II. of Castile, far 
 from having any prospect of that noble inheritance 
 which she transmitted to her grandson, passed the early 
 part of her life in obscurity and indigence. But the 
 Castilians, exasperated against her brother, Henry IV., 
 an ill-advised and vicious prince, publicly charged him 
 with impotence and his queen with adultery. Upon his 
 demise, rejecting Joanna, whom Henry had uniformly, 
 and even on his death-bed, owned to be his lawful 
 daughter, and whom an assembly of the states had 
 acknowledged to be the heir of his kingdom, they 
 obliged her to retire into Portugal and placed Isabella on 
 the throne of Castile. Ferdinand owed the crown of 
 Aragon to the unexpected death of his elder brother, and 
 acquired the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily by violating 
 the faith of treaties and disregarding the ties of blood. 
 To all these kingdoms. Christopher Columbus, by an 
 effort of genius and of intrepidity the boldest and most 
 successful that is recorded in the annals of mankind, 
 added a new world, the wealth of which became one 

 
 BOOK i.] EMPEEOE CHARLES THE FIFTH. 295 
 
 considerable source of the power and grandeur of the 
 Spanish monarchs. 
 
 Don John, the only son of Ferdinand and Isabella, 
 and their eldest daughter, the Queen of Portugal, being 
 cut off, without issue, in the flower of youth, all their 
 hopes centred in Joanna and her posterity. But as her 
 husband, the archduke, was a stranger to the Spaniards, 
 it was thought expedient to invite him into Spain, that 
 by residing among them he might accustom himself to 
 their laws and manners ; and it was expected that the 
 cortes, or assembly of states, whose authority was then so 
 great in Spain that no title to the crown was reckoned valid 
 unless it received their sanction, would acknowledge his 
 right of succession, together with that of the infanta, 
 his wife. Philip and Joanna, passing through France in 
 their way to Spain, were entertained in that kingdom 
 with the utmost magnificence. The archduke did 
 homage to Louis XII. for the earldom of Flanders, and 
 took his seat as a peer of the realm in the parliament of 
 Paris. They were received in Spain with every mark of 
 honour that the parental affection of Ferdinand and 
 Isabella, or the respect of their subjects, could devise ; 
 and their title to the crown was soon after acknowledged 
 by the cortes of both kingdoms. 
 
 But amidst these outward appearances of satisfaction 
 and joy some secret uneasiness preyed upon the mind of 
 each of these princes. The stately and reserved cere- 
 monial of the Spanish court was so burdensome to 
 Philip, a prince young, gay, affable, fond of society and 
 of pleasure, that he soon began to express a desire of 
 returning to his native country, the manners of which 
 were more suited to his temper. Ferdinand, observing 
 the declining health of his queen, with whose life he 
 knew that his right to the government of Castile must 
 cease, easily foresaw that a prince of Philip's disposition, 
 and who already discovered an extreme impatience to
 
 296 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK i. 
 
 reign, would never consent to his retaining any degree 
 of authority in that kingdom ; and the prospect of this 
 diminution of his power awakened the jealousy of that 
 ambitious monarch. 
 
 Isabella beheld with the sentiments natural to a 
 mother the indifference and neglect with which the 
 archduke treated her daughter, who was destitute of 
 those beauties of person as well as those accomplish- 
 ments of mind which fix the affections of a husband. 
 Her understanding, always weak, was often disordered. 
 She doted on Philip with such an excess of childish and 
 indiscreet fondness as excited disgust rather than affec- 
 tion. Her jealousy, for which her husband's behaviour 
 gave her too much cause, was proportioned to her love, 
 and often broke out in the most extravagant actions. 
 Isabella, though sensible of her defects, could not help 
 pitying her condition, which was soon rendered alto- 
 gether deplorable by the archduke's abrupt resolution of 
 setting out in the middle of winter for Flanders and of 
 leaving her in Spain. Isabella entreated him not to 
 abandon his wife to grief and melancholy, which might 
 prove fatal to her, as she was near the time of her 
 delivery. Joanna conjured him to put off his journey 
 for three days only, that she might have the pleasure of 
 celebrating the festival of Christmas in his company. 
 Ferdinand, after representing the imprudence of his 
 leaving Spain before he had time to become acquainted 
 with the genius or to gain the affections of the people 
 who were one day to be his subjects, besought him at 
 least not to pass through France, with which kingdom 
 he was then at open war. Philip, without regarding 
 either the dictates of humanity or the maxims of pru- 
 dence, persisted in his purpose, and on the 22nd of 
 December set out for the Low Countries by the way of 
 France. 1 
 
 1 Petri Martyris Anglerii Epistolae, 250, 253.
 
 BOOK i.] EMPEROB CHAELES THE FIFTH. 
 
 From the moment of his departure, Joanna sunk into 
 a deep and sullen melancholy, 2 and while she was in 
 that situation bore Ferdinand, her second son, for whom 
 the power of his brother Charles afterwards procured 
 the kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia, and to whom 
 he at last transmitted the imperial sceptre. Joanna was 
 the only person in Spain who discovered no joy at the 
 birth of this prince. Insensible to that, as well as to 
 every other pleasure, she was wholly occupied with the 
 thoughts of returning to her husband ; nor did she in 
 any degree recover tranquillity of mind until she arrived 
 at Brussels next year. 3 [1504.] 
 
 Philip, in passing through France, had an interview 
 with Louis XII., and signed a treaty with him, by 
 which he hoped that all the differences between France 
 and Spain would have been finally terminated. But 
 Ferdinand, whose affairs at that time were extremely 
 prosperous in Italy, where the superior genius of Gron- 
 salvo de Cordova, the great captain, triumphed on every 
 occasion over the arms of France, did not pay the least 
 regard to what his son-in-law had concluded, and carried 
 on hostilities with greater ardour than ever. 
 
 From this time Philip seems not to have taken any 
 part in the affairs of Spain, waiting in quiet till the 
 death either of Ferdinand or of Isabella should open the 
 way to one of their thrones. The latter of these events 
 was not far distant. The untimely death of her son and 
 eldest daughter had made a deep impression on the 
 mind of Isabella ; and as she could derive but little 
 consolation for the losses which she had sustained either 
 from her daughter Joanna, whose infirmities daily 
 increased, or from her son-in-law, who no longer pre- 
 served even the appearance of a decent respect towards 
 that unhappy princess, her spirits and health began 
 
 2 Petri Martyris Anglerii Epia- 3 Mariana, lib. 27, c. 11, 14. 
 
 tolsse, 255. Fle'chier, Vie de Xime'nes, i. 191.
 
 298 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK i. 
 
 gradually to decline, and, after languishing some 
 months, she died at Medina del Campo on the 26th of 
 November, 1504. She was no less eminent for virtue 
 than for wisdom ; and, whether we consider her be- 
 haviour as a queen, as a wife, or as a mother, she is 
 justly entitled to the high encomiums bestowed upon 
 her by the Spanish historians. 4 
 
 A few weeks before her death, she made her last will, 
 and, being convinced of Joanna's incapacity to assume 
 the reins of government into her own hands, and having 
 no inclination to commit them to Philip, with whose 
 conduct she was extremely dissatisfied, she appointed 
 Ferdinand regent or administrator of the affairs of 
 Castile until her grandson Charles should attain the 
 age of twenty. She bequeathed to Ferdinand likewise 
 one-half of the revenues which should arise from the 
 Indies, together with the grand masterships of the three 
 military orders, dignities which rendered the person 
 who possessed them almost independent, and which 
 Isabella had for that reason annexed to the crown. 5 But 
 before she signed a deed so favourable to Ferdinand she 
 obliged him to swear that he would not, by a second 
 marriage, or by any other means, endeavour to deprive 
 Joanna or her posterity of their right of succession to 
 any of his kingdoms. 6 
 
 Immediately upon the queen's death, Ferdinand re- 
 signed the title of king of Castile, and issued orders 
 to proclaim Joanna and Philip the sovereigns of that 
 kingdom. But at the same time he assumed the charac- 
 ter of regent, in consequence of Isabella's testament; 
 and not long after, he prevailed on the cortes of Castile 
 to acknowledge his right to that office. This, however, 
 he did not procure without difficulty, nor without dis- 
 
 4 P. Martyr. Ep., 279. raa, Hist g&idr. d'Espagne, torn. 
 
 6 P. Martyr, Ep., 277. Mari- viii p. 263. 
 ana, Hist., Hb. 28, c. 11. Ferre- " Mariana, Hist., lib. 28, c. 14.
 
 BOOK i.] EMPEROE CHARLES THE FIFTH. 290 
 
 covering such symptoms of alienation and disgust among 
 the Castilians as filled him with great uneasiness. The 
 union of Castile and Aragon for almost thirty years had 
 not so entirely extirpated the ancient and hereditary 
 enmity which subsisted between the natives of these 
 kingdoms that the Castilian pride could submit without 
 murmuring to the government of a king of Aragon. 
 Ferdinand's own character, with which the Castilians 
 were well acquainted, was far from rendering his au- 
 thority desirable. Suspicious, discerning, severe, and 
 parsimonious, he was accustomed to observe the most 
 minute actions of his subjects with a jealous attention, 
 and to reward their highest services with little libe- 
 rality ; and they were now deprived of Isabella, whose 
 gentle qualities, and partiality to her Castilian subjects, 
 often tempered his austerity or rendered it tolerable. 
 The maxims of his government were especially odious 
 to the grandees ; for that artful prince, sensible of the 
 dangerous privileges conferred upon them by the feudal 
 institutions, had endeavoured to curb their exorbitant 
 power 7 by extending the royal jurisdiction, by pro- 
 tecting their injured vassals, by increasing the immuni- 
 ties of cities, and by other measures equally prudent. 
 From all these causes a formidable party among the 
 Castilians united against Ferdinand, and, though the 
 persons who composed it had not hitherto taken any 
 public step in opposition to him, he plainly saw that 
 upon the least encouragement from their new king they 
 would proceed to the most violent extremities. 
 
 There was no less agitation in the Netherlands upon 
 receiving the accounts of Isabella's death and of Fer- 
 dinand's having assumed the government of Castile. 
 Philip was not of a temper tamely to suffer himself to 
 be supplanted by the ambition of his father-in-law. If 
 Joanna's infirmities and the nonage of Charles rendered 
 
 ' Mariana, Hist., lib. 28, c. 12.
 
 300 REIGN OF THE [BOOK i. 
 
 them incapable of government, he, as a husband, was 
 the proper guardian of his wife, and, as a father, the 
 natural tutor of his son. Nor was it sufficient to oppose 
 to these just rights, and to the inclination of the people 
 of Castile, the authority of a testament the genuineness 
 of which was perhaps doubtful, and its contents to him 
 appeared certainly to be iniquitous. A keener edge 
 was added to Philip's resentment, and new vigour in- 
 fused into his councils, by the arrival of Don John 
 Manuel. He was Ferdinand's ambassador at the im- 
 perial court, but upon the first notice of Isabella's death 
 repaired to Brussels, flattering himself that under a 
 young and liberal prince he might attain to power and 
 honours which he could never have expected in the 
 service of an old and frugal master. He had early 
 paid court to Philip, during his residence in Spain, 
 with such assiduity as entirely gained his confidence, 
 and, having been trained to business under Ferdinand, 
 could oppose his schemes with equal abilities, and with 
 arts not inferior to those for which that monarch was 
 distinguished. 8 
 
 By the advice of Manuel, ambassadors were de- 
 spatched to require Ferdinand to retire into Aragon, 
 and to resign the government of Castile to those per- 
 sons whom Philip should intrust with it until his own 
 arrival in that kingdom. Such of the Castilian nobles 
 as had discovered any dissatisfaction with Ferdinand's 
 administration were encouraged by every method to 
 oppose it. At the same time a treaty was concluded 
 with Louis XII. , by which Philip flattered himself that 
 he had secured the friendship and assistance of that 
 monarch. 
 
 Meanwhile, Ferdinand employed all the arts of ad- 
 dress and policy in order to retain the power of which 
 he had got possession. By means of Conchillos, an 
 
 8 Zurita. Armies de Aragon, torn. vi. p. 12.
 
 BOOK i.] EMPEEOE OHAKLES THE FIFTH. 301 
 
 Aragonian gentleman, he entered into a private ne- 
 gotiation with Joanna, and prevailed on that weak 
 princess to confirm, by her authority, his right to the 
 regency. But this intrigue did not escape the pene- 
 trating eye of Don John Manuel: Joanna's letter of 
 consent was intercepted, Conchillos was thrown into a 
 dungeon, she herself confined to an apartment in the 
 palace, and all her Spanish domestics secluded from her 
 presence. 9 
 
 The mortification which the discovery of this intrigue 
 occasioned to Ferdinand was much increased by his 
 observing the progress which Philip's emissaries made 
 in Castile. Some of the nobles retired to their castles ; 
 others to the towns in which they had influence ; they 
 formed themselves into confederacies and began to 
 assemble their vassals. Ferdinand's court was almost 
 totally deserted, not a, person of distinction but 
 Ximenes, archbishop of Toledo, the duke of' Alva, and 
 the marquis of Denia, remaining there ; while the 
 houses of Philip's ambassadors were daily crowded with 
 noblemen of the highest rank. 
 
 Exasperated at this universal defection, and morti- 
 fied, perhaps, with seeing all his schemes defeated by 
 a younger politician, Ferdinand resolved, in defiance 
 of the law of nature and of decency, to deprive his 
 daughter and her posterity of the crown of Castile, 
 rather than renounce the regency of that kingdom. 
 His plan for accomplishing this was no less bold than 
 the intention itself was wicked. He demanded in 
 marriage Joanna, the supposed daughter of Henry IV., 
 on the belief of whose illegitimacy Isabella's right to 
 the crown of Castile was founded ; and by reviving the 
 claim of this princess, in opposition to which he him- 
 self had formerly led armies and fought battles, he 
 hoped once more to get possession of the throne of 
 
 9 P. Martyr, Ep., 287. Zurita, Anales, vL 14.
 
 302 EEION OP THE [BOOK L 
 
 that kingdom. But Emanuel, king of Portugal, in 
 whose dominions Joanna resided at that time, having 
 married one of Ferdinand's daughters by Isabella, re- 
 fused his consent to that unnatural match; and the 
 unhappy princess herself, having lost all relish for the 
 objects of ambition by being long immured in a con- 
 vent, discovered no less aversion to it. 10 
 
 The resources, however, of Ferdinand's ambition 
 were not exhausted. Upon meeting with a repulse in 
 Portugal, he turned towards France, and sought in 
 marriage Germaine de Foix, a daughter of the viscount 
 of Narbonne ; and of Mary, the sister of Louis XII. 
 The war which that monarch had carried on against 
 Ferdinand in Naples had been so unfortunate that he 
 listened with joy to a proposal which furnished him 
 with an honourable pretence for concluding peace ; and 
 though no prince was ever more remarkable than Ferdi- 
 nand for making all his passions bend to the maxims of 
 interest or become subservient to the purposes of am- 
 bition, yet so vehement was his resentment against his 
 son-in-law that the desire of gratifying it rendered 
 him regardless of every other consideration. In order 
 to be revenged of Philip by detaching Louis from his 
 interest, and in order to gain a chance of excluding 
 him from his hereditary throne of Aragon and the 
 dominions annexed to it, he was ready once more to 
 divide Spain into separate kingdoms, though the union 
 of these was the great glory of his reign and had been 
 the chief object of his ambition ; he consented to 
 restore the Neapolitan nobles of the French faction 
 to their possessions and honours, and submitted to the 
 ridicule of marrying, in an advanced age, a princess 
 of eighteen. 11 
 
 10 Sandoval, Hist, of Civil "Wars ll P. Martyr. Ep., 290, 292. 
 in Castile, Lond., 1655, p. 5. Mariana, lib. 28, c. 16, 17. 
 Zurita, Anales de Aragon, vi 213.
 
 BOOK i.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 303 
 
 The conclusion of this match, which deprived Philip 
 of his only ally and threatened him with the loss of so 
 many kingdoms, gave him a dreadful alarm, and con- 
 vinced Don John Manuel that there was now a necessity 
 of taking other measures with regard to the affairs of 
 Spain. 12 He accordingly instructed the Flemish am- 
 bassadors in the court of Spain to testify the strong 
 desire which their master had of terminating all differ- 
 ences between him and Ferdinand in an amicable man- 
 ner, and his Avillingness to consent to any conditions 
 that would re-establish the friendship which ought to 
 subsist between a father and a son-in-law. Ferdinand, 
 though he had made and broken more treaties than any 
 prince of any age. was apt to confide so far in the sin- 
 cerity of other men, or to depend so much upon his 
 own address and their weakness, as to be always ex- 
 tremely fond of a negotiation. He listened with eager- 
 ness to the declarations, and soon concluded a treaty 
 at Salamanca, in which it was stipulated that the gov- 
 ernment of Castile should be carried on in the joint 
 names of Joanna, of Ferdinand, and of Philip, and 
 that the revenues of the crown, as well as the right of 
 conferring offices, should be shared between Ferdinand 
 and Philip by an equal division. 13 
 
 Nothing, however, was farther from Philip's thoughts 
 than to observe this treaty. His sole intention in pro- 
 posing it was to amuse Ferdinand and to prevent him 
 from taking any measures for obstructing his voyage 
 into Spain. It had that effect. Ferdinand, sagacious 
 as he was, did not for some time suspect his design; 
 and though, when he perceived it, he prevailed on the 
 king of France not only to remonstrate against the 
 archduke's journey, but to threaten hostilities if he 
 should undertake it, though he solicited the duke of 
 
 12 P. Martyr. Ep., 293. 19. P. Martyr. Ep., 293, 294 
 
 13 Zurita, Anales de Aragon, vi.
 
 304 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK i. 
 
 Gueldres to attack his son-in-law's dominions in the 
 Low Countries, Philip and his consort nevertheless 
 set sail with a numerous fleet and a good body of land- 
 forces. They were obliged by a violent tempest to 
 take shelter in England, where Henry VII., in com- 
 pliance with Ferdinand's solicitations, detained them 
 upwards of three months : 14 at last they were permitted 
 to depart, and, after a more prosperous voyage, they 
 arrived in safety at Corunna in Galicia, nor durst Fer- 
 dinand attempt, as he once intended, to oppose their 
 landing by force of arms. |~1506.] 
 
 The Castilian nobles, who had been obliged hitherto 
 to conceal or to dissemble their sentiments, now de- 
 clared openly in favour of Philip. From every corner 
 of the kingdom, persons of the highest rank, with 
 numerous retinues of their vassals, repaired to their 
 new sovereign. The treaty of Salamanca was univer- 
 sally condemned, and all agreed to exclude from the 
 government of Castile a prince who, by consenting to 
 disjoin Aragon and Naples from that crown, discovered 
 so little concern for its true interests. Ferdinand, 
 meanwhile, abandoned by almost all the Castilians, dis- 
 concerted by their revolt, and uncertain whether he 
 should peaceably relinquish his power or take arms in 
 order to maintain it, earnestly solicited an interview 
 with his son-in-law, who, by the advice of Manuel, 
 studiously avoided it. Convinced at last, by seeing the 
 number and zeal of Philip's adherents daily increase, 
 that it was vain to think of resisting such a torrent, 
 Ferdinand consented, by treaty, to resign the regency of 
 Castile into the hands of Philip, to retire into his here- 
 ditary dominions of Aragon, and to rest satisfied with 
 the masterships of the military orders, and that share 
 of the revenue of the Indies which Isabella had be- 
 queathed to him. Though an interview between the 
 
 14 Ferreras, Hist., viii. 285.
 
 BOOK i.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 305 
 
 princes was no longer necessary, it was agreed to on 
 both sides from motives of decency. Philip repaired 
 to the place appointed with a splendid retinue of Cas- 
 tilian nobles and a considerable body of armed men. 
 Ferdinand appeared without any pomp, attended by a 
 few followers mounted on mules, and unarmed. On 
 that occasion Don John Manuel had the pleasure of 
 displaying before the monarch whom he had deserted 
 the extensive influence which he had acquired over 
 his new master ; while Ferdinand suffered, in presence 
 of his former subjects, the two most cruel mortifica- 
 tions which an artful and ambitious prince can feel, 
 being at once overreached in conduct and stripped of 
 power. 18 
 
 Not long after, he retired into Aragon ; and, hoping 
 that some favourable accident would soon open the way 
 to his return into Castile, he took care to protest, 
 though with great secrecy, that the treaty concluded 
 with his son-in-law, being extorted by force, ought to 
 be deemed void of all obligation. 16 
 
 Philip took possession of his new authority with a 
 youthful joy. The unhappy Joanna, from whom he 
 derived it, remained, during all these contests, under 
 the dominion of a deep melancholy; she was seldom 
 allowed to appear in public ; her father, though he had 
 often desired it, was refused access to her ; and Philip's 
 chief object was to prevail on the cortes to declare her 
 incapable of government, that an undivided power 
 might bo lodged in his hands until his son should attain 
 to full age. But such was the partial attachment of 
 the Castilians to their native princess that, though 
 Manuel had the address to gain some members of the 
 cortes assembled at Valladolid, and others were willing 
 
 1S Zurita, Anales de Aragon, vi 16 Zurita, Anales de Aragon, vi 
 
 64. M ariana, lib. 28, c. 19, 20. 68. Ferreras, Hist. viii. 290. 
 P. Mart -r. Ep., 304, 305, etc. 
 
 VOL. I. X
 
 306 REIGN OF THE [BOOK i. 
 
 to gratify their new sovereign in his first request, the 
 great body of the representatives refused their consent 
 to a declaration which they thought so injurious to the 
 blood of their monarchs. 17 They were unanimous, 
 however, in acknowledging Joanna and Philip queen 
 and king of Castile, and their son Charles prince of 
 Asturias. 
 
 This was almost the only memorable event during 
 Philip's administration. A fever put an end to his life 
 in the twenty-eighth year of his age, when he had not 
 enjoyed the regal dignity, which he had been so eager to 
 obtain, full three months. 18 
 
 The whole royal authority in Castile ought, of course, 
 to have devolved upon Joanna. But the shock occa- 
 sioned by a disaster so unexpected as the death of her 
 husband completed the disorder of her understanding 
 and her incapacity for government. During all the 
 time of Philip's sickness, no entreaty could prevail on 
 her, though in the sixth month of her pregnancy, to 
 leave him for a moment. When he expired, however, 
 she did not shed one tear or utter a single groan. Her 
 grief was silent and settled. She continued to watch 
 the dead body with the same tenderness and attention 
 as if it had been alive, 19 and, though at last she per- 
 mitted it to be buried, she soon removed it from the 
 tomb to her own apartment. There it was laid upon a 
 bed of state, in a splendid dress; and, having heard 
 from some monk a legendary tale of a king who revived 
 after he had been dead fourteen years, she kept her 
 eyes almost constantly fixed on the body, waiting for 
 the happy moment of its return to life. Nor was this 
 capricious affection for her dead husband less tinctured 
 with jealousy than that which she had borne to him 
 when alive. She did not permit any of her female 
 
 17 Zurita, Anales de Aragon, vi 18 Mariana, lib. 28, c. 23. [1506 ] 
 
 76 19 P. Martyr, Ep., 316.
 
 BOOK i.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 307 
 
 attendants to approach the bed on which his corpse 
 was laid; she would not suffer any woman who did 
 not belong to her family to enter the apartment ; and, 
 rather than grant that privilege to a midwife, though a 
 very aged one had been chosen on purpose, she bore the 
 princess Catharine without any other assistance than 
 that of her own domestics. 20 
 
 A woman in such a state of mind was little capable 
 of governing a great kingdom ; and Joanna, who made 
 it her sole employment to bewail the loss and to pray 
 for the soul of her husband, would have thought her 
 attention to public affairs an impious neglect of those 
 duties which she owed to him. But though she de- 
 clined assuming the administration herself, yet, by a 
 strange caprice of jealousy, she refused to commit it 
 to any other person; and no entreaty of her subjects 
 could persuade her to name a regent, or even to sign 
 such papers as were necessary for the execution of justice 
 and the security of the kingdom. 
 
 The death of Philip threw the Castilians into the 
 greatest perplexity. It was necessary to appoint a 
 regent, both on account of Joanna's frenzy and the 
 infancy of her son; and as there was not among the 
 nobles any person so eminently distinguished, either 
 by superiority in rank or abilities, as to be called by 
 the public voice to that high office, all naturally turned 
 their eyes either towards Ferdinand or towards the 
 emperor Maximilian. The former claimed that dignity 
 as administrator for his daughter, and by virtue of the 
 testament of Isabella; the latter thought himself the 
 legal guardian of his grandson, whom, on account of 
 his mother's infirmities, he already considered as king 
 of Castile. Such of the nobility as had lately been 
 most active in compelling Ferdinand to resign the 
 government of the kingdom trembled at the thoughts 
 
 * Mariana, Hist., lib. 29, c. 3, 5. P. Martyr, Ep., 318, 324. 328, 332. 
 
 X 2
 
 308 REIGN OF THE [BOOK i. 
 
 of his being restored so soon to his former dignity. 
 They dreaded the return of a monarch not apt to for- 
 give, and who to those defects with which they were 
 already acquainted added that resentment which the 
 remembrance of their behaviour, and reflection upon 
 his own disgrace, must naturally have excited. Though 
 none of these objections lay against Maximilian, he 
 was a stranger to the laws and manners of Castile ; he 
 had not either troops or money to support his preten- 
 sions, nor could his claim be admitted without a public 
 declaration of Joanna's incapacity for government, an 
 indignity to which, notwithstanding the notoriety of 
 her distemper, the delicacy of the Castilians could not 
 bear the thoughts of subjecting her. 
 
 Don John Manuel, however, and a few of the nobles 
 who considered themselves most obnoxious to Ferdi- 
 nand's displeasure, declared for Maximilian, and offered 
 to support his claim with all their interest. Maximilian, 
 always enterprising and decisive in council, though 
 feeble and dilatory in execution, eagerly embraced the 
 offer. But a series of ineffectual negotiations was the 
 only consequence of this transaction. The emperor, 
 as usual, asserted his right in a high strain, promised a 
 great deal, and performed nothing. 21 
 
 A few days before the death of Philip, Ferdinand 
 had set out for Naples, that by his own presence he 
 might put an end with greater decency to the vice- 
 royalty of the Great Captain, whose important services 
 and cautious conduct did not screen him from the sus- 
 picions of his jealous master. Though an account of 
 his son-in-law's death reached h' n at Porto-fino, in the 
 territories of Genoa, he was so solicitous to discover 
 the secret intrigues which he supposed the Great Cap- 
 tain to have been carrying on, and to establish his own 
 authority on a firm foundation in the Neapolitan do- 
 
 :1 Mariana, lib. 29, c. 7. Zurita, Anales de Aragon, vi. 93.
 
 BOOK i.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 309 
 
 minions by removing him from the supreme command 
 there, that rather than discontinue his voyage he chose 
 to leave Castile in a state of anarchy, and even to risk 
 by this delay his obtaining possession of the govern- 
 ment of that kingdom. 22 
 
 Nothing but the great abilities and prudten conduct 
 of his adherents could have prevented the bad effects 
 of this absence. At the head of these was Ximenes, 
 archbishop of Toledo, who, though he had been raised 
 to that dignity by Isabella contrary to the inclination 
 of Ferdinand, and though he could have no expectation 
 of enjoying much power under the administration of a 
 master little disposed to distinguish him by extraordi- 
 nary marks of attention, was nevertheless so disinter- 
 ested as to prefer the welfare of his country before his 
 own grandeur, and to declare that Castile could never 
 be so happily governed as by a prince whom long 
 experience had rendered thoroughly acquainted with 
 its true interest. The zeal of Ximenes to bring over 
 his countrymen to this opinion induced him to lay 
 aside somewhat of his usual austerity and haughtiness. 
 He condescended on this occasion to court the dis- 
 affected nobles, and employed address, as well as argu- 
 ments, to persuade them. Ferdinand seconded his 
 endeavours with great art ; and by concessions to some 
 of the grandees, by promises to others, and by letters 
 full of complaisance to all, he gained many of his most 
 violent opponents. 23 Though many cabals were formed, 
 and some commotions were excited, yet when Ferdi- 
 nand, after having settled the affairs of Naples, arrived 
 in Castile, he entered upon the administration without 
 opposition. The prudence with which he exercised his 
 authority in that kingdom equalled the good fortune by 
 which he had recovered it. By a moderate but steady 
 
 22 Zurita, Anales de Aragon, vi. * Ibid., vl 87, 94, 109. 
 
 85.
 
 310 REIGN OF THE [BOOK I. 
 
 administration, free from partiality and from resentment^ 
 he entirely reconciled the Castilians to his person, and 
 secured to them, during the remainder of his life, as 
 much domestic tranquillity as was consistent with the 
 genius of the feudal government, which still subsisted 
 among them in full vigour. 24 
 
 Nor was the preservation of tranquillity in his heredi- 
 tary kingdoms the only obligation which the Archduke 
 Charles owed to the wise regency of his grandfather. 
 It was his good fortune, during that period, to have 
 very important additions made to the dominions over 
 which he was to reign. On the coast of Barbary, Oran, 
 and other conquests of no small value, were annexed to 
 the crown of Castile by Cardinal Ximenes, who, with a 
 spirit very uncommon in a monk, led in person a nume- 
 rous army against the Moors of that country, and, with a 
 generosity and magnificence still more singular, defrayed 
 the whole expense of the expedition out of his own 
 revenues. 25 In Europe, Ferdinand, under pretences no 
 less frivolous than unjust, as well as by artifices the 
 most shameful and treacherous, expelled John d'Albret, 
 the lawful sovereign, from the throne of Navarre, and, 
 seizing that kingdom, extended the limits of the Spanish 
 monarchy from the Pyrenees on the one hand to the 
 frontiers of Portugal on the other. 26 
 
 It was not, however, the desire of aggrandizing the 
 archduke which influenced Ferdinand in this or in any 
 other of his actions. He was more apt to consider that 
 young prince as a rival who might one day wrest out of 
 his hands the government of Castile, than as a grandson 
 for whose interest he was entrusted with the adminis- 
 tration. This jealousy soon begot aversion, and even 
 hatred, the symptoms of which he was at no pains to 
 conceal. Hence proceeded his immoderate joy when 
 
 24 Mariana, lib. 29, c. 10. 26 Ibid., lib. 30, c. 11, 12, 18, 
 
 * Ibid., lib. 29, c. 18. 24.
 
 BOOK i.] EMPEROE CHARLES THE FIFTH. 311 
 
 his young queen was delivered of a son, whose life 
 would have deprived Charles of the crowns of Aragon, 
 Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia ; and upon the untimely 
 death of that prince he discovered, for the same reason, 
 an excessive solicitude to have other children. This 
 impatience hastened, in all probability, the accession of 
 Charles to the crown of Spain. Ferdinand, in order to 
 procure a blessing of which, from his advanced age and 
 the intemperance of his youth, he could have little pro- 
 spect, had recourse to his physicians, and by their prescrip- 
 tion took one of those potions which are supposed to add 
 vigour to the constitution, though they more frequently 
 prove fatal to it. This was its effect on a frame so 
 feeble and exhausted as that of Ferdinand ; for though 
 he survived a violent disorder which it at first occa- 
 sioned, it brought on such an habitual langour and 
 dejection of mind as rendered him averse from any 
 serious attention to public affairs, and fond of frivolous 
 amusements, on which he had not hitherto bestowed 
 much time. 27 Though he now despaired of having any 
 son of his own, his jealousy of the archduke did not 
 abate, nor could he help viewing him with that aversion 
 which princes often bear to their successors. In order 
 to gratify this unnatural passion, he made a will ap- 
 pointing Prince Ferdinand, who, having been born and 
 educated in Spain, was much beloved by the Spaniards, 
 to be regent of all his kingdoms until the arrival of the 
 archduke his brother ; and by the same deed he settled 
 upon him the grand-mastership of the three military 
 orders. The former of these grants might have put it 
 in the power of the young prince to have disputed the 
 throne with his brother ; the latter would, in any event, 
 have rendered him almost independent of him. 
 
 Ferdinand retained to the last that jealous love of 
 
 27 Zurita, Anales de Aragon, vi. gensola, Anales de Aragon, lib. L 
 347. P. Martyr. Ep., 531. Ar- p. 4.
 
 312 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK I. 
 
 power which was so remarkable through his whole life. 
 Unwilling, even at the approach of death, to admit a 
 thought of relinquishing any portion of his authority, 
 he removed continually from place to place, in order 
 to fly from his distemper, or to forget it. Though his 
 strength declined every day, none of his attendants 
 durst mention his condition; nor would he admit his 
 father-confessor, who thought such silence criminal and 
 unchristian, into his presence. At last the danger be- 
 came so imminent that it could be no longer concealed. 
 Ferdinand received the intimation with a decent forti- 
 tude ; and, touched, perhaps, with compunction at the 
 injustice which he had done his grandson, or influenced 
 by the honest remonstrances of Carvajal, Zapara, and 
 Vargas, his most ancient and faithful councillors, who 
 represented to him that by investing Prince Ferdinand 
 with the regency he would infallibly entail a civil war 
 on the two brothers, and by bestowing on him the 
 grand-mastership of the military orders would strip the 
 crown of its noblest ornament and chief strength, he 
 consented to alter his will with respect to both these 
 particulars. By a new deed he left Charles the sole 
 heir of all his dominions, and allotted to Prince Ferdi- 
 nand, instead of that throne of which he thought 
 himself almost secure, an inconsiderable establishment 
 of fifty thousand ducats a year. 28 He died a few hours 
 after signing this will, on the 23rd day of January, 
 1516. 
 
 Charles, to whom such a noble inheritance descended 
 by his death, was near the full age of sixteen. He had 
 hitherto resided in the Low Countries, his paternal 
 dominions. Margaret of Austria, his aunt, and Mar- 
 garet of York, the sister of Edward IV. of England, 
 
 ' 8 Mariana, Hist, lib. 30, c. ult. Argensola, Analea de Aragon, lib. 
 Zurita, Anales de Aragon, vi. L p. 11. 
 401. P. Martyr. Ep., 565, 566.
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 EMPEROR CHARLES TOE FIFTH. 
 
 and widow of Charles the Bold, two princesses of great 
 virtue and abilities, had the care of forming his early 
 youth. Upon the death of his father the Flemings 
 committed the government of the Low Countries to 
 his grandfather, the Emperor Maximilian, with the 
 name rather than the authority of regent. 29 Maxi- 
 milian made choice of William de Croy, lord of Chievres, 
 to superintend the education of the young prince his 
 grandson. 30 That nobleman possessed in an eminent 
 
 29 Pontius Heuterus, Rerum Aus- 
 triacarum Lib. XV., Lov., 1649, 
 lib. viL c. 2, p. 155. 
 
 3 The French historians, upon 
 the authority of M. de Bellay, 
 Me'moires, p. 11, have unanimous- 
 ly asserted that, Philip by his last 
 will having appointed the king of 
 France to have the direction of his 
 son's education, Louis XII., with 
 a disinterestedness suitable to the 
 confidence reposed in him, named 
 Chievres for that office. Even the 
 President He'nault has adopted this 
 opinion. (Abrege' Chron., A.D. 
 1507.) Varillas, in his usual man- 
 ner, pretends to have seen Philip's 
 testament. (Pract. de 1'Educa- 
 tion des Princes, p. 16.) But the 
 Spanish, German, and Flemish his- 
 torians concur in contradicting this 
 assertion of the French authors. 
 It appears from Heuterus, a con- 
 temporary Flemish historian of great 
 authority, that Louis XII., by con- 
 senting to the marriage of Ger- 
 maine de Foix with Ferdinand, had 
 lost much of that confidence which 
 Philip once placed in him ; that 
 his disgust was increased by the 
 French king's giving in marriage to 
 the count of Angoule'me his eldest 
 daughter, whom he had formerly 
 betrothed to Charles (Heuter., Rer. 
 Austr. lib. v. p. 151) ; that the 
 French, a short time before Philip's 
 
 death, had violated the peace which 
 subsisted between them and the 
 Flemings, and Philip had com- 
 plained of this injury and was 
 ready to resent it. (Heuter., ibid.) 
 All these circumstances render it 
 improbable that Philip, who made 
 his will a few days before he died 
 (Heuter., p. 152), should commit 
 the education of his son to Louis 
 XII. In confirmation of these 
 plausible conjectures positive testi- 
 mony can be produced. It appears 
 from Heuterus that Philip, when 
 he set out for Spain, had intrusted 
 Chievres both with the care of hia 
 son's education and with the go- 
 vernment of his dominions in the 
 Low Countries (Heuter., lib. vii. 
 p. 153); that an attempt was made, 
 soon after Philip's death, to have 
 the emperor Maximilian appointed 
 regent during the minority of hia 
 grandson, but, this being opposed, 
 Chievres seems to have continued 
 to discharge both the offices which 
 Philip had committed to him (Heu- 
 ter., ibid., 153, 155) ; that in 
 the beginning of the year 1508 the 
 Flemings invited Maximilian to ac- 
 cept of the regency, to which he 
 consented, and appointed his daugh- 
 ter Margaret, together with a coun- 
 cil of Flemings, to exercise the 
 supreme authority when he him- 
 self should at any time be absent.
 
 31 4 REIGN OF THE [BOOK i. 
 
 degree tlie talents which fitted him for such an im- 
 portant office, and discharged the duties of it with 
 great fidelity. Under Chievres, Adrian of Utrecht 
 acted as preceptor. This preferment, which opened 
 his way to the highest dignities an ecclesiastic can 
 attain, he owed not to his birth, for that was extremely 
 mean, nor to his interest, for he was a stranger to the 
 arts of a court, but to the opinion which his country- 
 men entertained of his learning. He was indeed no 
 inconsiderable proficient in those frivolous sciences 
 which during several centuries assumed the name of 
 philosophy, and had published a commentary, which 
 was highly esteemed, upon The Book of Sentences, a 
 famous treatise of Petrus Lombardus, considered at 
 that time as the standard system of metaphysical 
 theology. But, whatever admiration these procured 
 him in an illiterate age, it was soon found that a man 
 accustomed to the retirement of a college, unacquainted 
 with the world, and without any tincture of taste or 
 elegance, was by no means qualified for rendering 
 science agreeable to a young prince. Charles, accord- 
 ingly, discovered an early aversion to learning, and an 
 excessive fondness for those violent and martial exer- 
 cises to excel in which was the chief pride, and almost 
 the only study, of persons of rank in that age. 
 Chievres encouraged this taste, either from a desire 
 of gaining his pupil by indulgence, or from too slight 
 an opinion of the advantages of literary accomplish- 
 ments. 31 He instructed him, however, with great care 
 
 He likewise named Chievres as Barlandus, Chronic. Brabant., ibid., 
 
 governor, and Adrian of Utrecht p. 25 ; and by Haraeus, AnnaL 
 
 as preceptor to his son. (Heuter., Brab., vol. ii. p. 520, etc. 
 ibid., 155, 157.) What Heuterus 31 Jovii Vita Adriani, p. 91. 
 
 relates with respect to this matter Struvii Corpus Hist. Germ., ii. 
 
 is confirmed by Moringus, in Vita 967. P. Heuter., Rer. Austr., lib. 
 
 Adriani apud Analecta Casp. Bur- vii. c. 3, p. 157. 
 muimi de Adriano, cap. 10 ; by
 
 BOOK i.] EMPEKOB CHARLES THE FIFTH. 315 
 
 in the arts of government ; he made him study the 
 history not only of his own kingdoms, but of those 
 with which they were connected ; he accustomed him, 
 from the time of his assuming the government of 
 Flanders, in the year 1515, to attend to business; he 
 persuaded him to peruse all papers relating to public 
 affairs, to be present at the deliberations of his privy- 
 councillors, and to propose to them himself those 
 matters concerning which he required their opinion. 32 
 From such an education Charles contracted habits of 
 gravity and recollection which scarcely suited his time 
 of life. The first openings of his genius did not indi- 
 cate that superiority which its maturer age displayed. 33 
 He did not discover in his youth the impetuosity of 
 spirit which commonly ushers in an active and enter- 
 prising manhood. Nor did his early obsequiousness to 
 Chievres and his other favourites promise that capacious 
 and decisive judgment which afterwards directed the 
 affairs of one-half of Europe. But his subjects, dazzled 
 with the external accomplishments of a graceful figure 
 and manly address, and viewing his character with 
 that partiality which is always shown to princes during 
 their youth, entertained sanguine hopes of his adding 
 lustre to those crowns which descended to him by the 
 death of Ferdinand. 
 
 The kingdoms of Spain, as is evident from the view 
 which I have given of their political constitution, were 
 at that time in a situation which required an admi- 
 nistration no less vigorous than prudent. The feudal 
 institutions, which had been introduced into all its 
 different provinces by the Goths, the Suevi, and the 
 Vandals, subsisted in great force. The nobles, who were 
 powerful and warlike, had long possessed all the exorbi- 
 tant privileges which these institutions vested in their 
 
 32 Mdmoires de Bellay, 8vo, Par., c 1, p. 184. 
 1573, p. 11. P. Heuter., lib. viii. 33 P. Martyr. Ep., 569, 655.
 
 316 HEIGN OF THE [BOOK t. 
 
 order. The cities in Spain were more numerous and 
 more considerable than the genius of feudal government, 
 naturally unfavourable to commerce and to regular 
 police, seemed to admit. The personal rights and poli- 
 tical influence which the inhabitants of these cities had 
 acquired were extensive. The royal prerogative, cir- 
 cumscribed by the privileges of the nobility and by the 
 pretensions of the people, was confined within very 
 narrow limits. Under such a form of government, the 
 principles of discord were many, the bond of union 
 was extremely feeble, and Spain felt not only all the 
 inconveniences occasioned by the defects in the feudal 
 system, but was exposed to disorders arising from the 
 peculiarities in its own constitution. 
 
 During the long administration of Ferdinand, no 
 internal commotion, it is true, had arisen in Spain. 
 His superior abilities had enabled him to restrain the 
 turbulence of the nobles and to moderate the jealousy 
 of the commons. By the wisdom of his domestic 
 government, by the sagacity with which he conducted 
 his foreign operations, and by the high opinion that 
 his subjects entertained of both, he had preserved 
 among them a degree of tranquillity greater than was 
 natural to a constitution in which the seeds of discord 
 and disorder were so copiously mingled. But by the 
 death of Ferdinand these restraints were at once Avith- 
 drawn ; and faction and discontent, from being long 
 repressed, were ready to break out with fiercer 
 animosity. 
 
 In order to prevent these evils, Ferdinand had in his 
 last will taken a most prudent precaution, by appoint- 
 ing Cardinal Ximenes, Archbishop of Toledo, to be 
 sole regent of Castile until the arrival of his grandson 
 in Spain. The singular character of this man, and the 
 extraordinary qualities which marked him out for that 
 office at such a juncture, merit a particular description.
 
 BOOK i.] EMPEROR CUAELES THE FIFTH. 317 
 
 He was descended of an honourable, not of a wealthy, 
 family ; and, the circumstances of his parents, as well 
 as his own inclinations, having determined him to f. liter 
 into the Church, he early obtained benefices of great 
 value, and which placed him in the way of the highest 
 preferment. All these, however, he renounced at once, 
 and, after undergoing a very severe novitiate, assumed 
 the habit of St. Francis in a monastery of Observantine 
 friars, one of the most rigid orders in the Eomish 
 Church. There he soon became eminent for his un- 
 common austerity of manners, and for those excesses 
 of superstitious devotion which are the proper charac- 
 teristics of the monastic life. But, notwithstanding 
 these extravagances, to which weak and enthusiastic 
 minds alone are usually prone, his understanding, natu- 
 rally penetrating and decisive, retained its full vigour, 
 and acquired him such great authority in his own order 
 as raised him to be their provincial. His reputation 
 for sanctity soon procured him the office of father-con- 
 fessor to Queen Isabella, which he accepted with the 
 utmost reluctance. He preserved in a court the same 
 austerity of manners which had distinguished him in 
 the cloister. He continued to make all his journeys 
 on foot ; he subsisted only upon alms ; his acts of mor- 
 tification were as severe as ever, and his penances as 
 rigorous. Isabella, pleased with her choice, conferred 
 on him, not long after, the archbishopric of Toledo, 
 which, next to the papacy, is the richest dignity in the 
 Church of Rome. This honour he declined with the 
 firmness which nothing but the authoritative injunction 
 of the pope was able to overcome. Nor did this height 
 of promotion change his manners. Though obliged 
 to display in public that magnificence which became 
 his station, he himself retained his monastic severity. 
 Under his pontifical robes he constantly wore the coarse 
 frock of St. Francis, the rents in which he used to patch
 
 318 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK i. 
 
 with his own hands. He at no time used linen, but 
 was commonly clad in hair-cloth. He slept always in 
 his habit, most frequently on the ground, or on boards, 
 rarely in a bed. He did not taste any of the delicacies 
 which appeared at his table, but satisfied himself with 
 that simple diet which the rule of his order prescribed. 34 
 Notwithstanding these peculiarities, so opposite to the 
 manners of the world, he possessed a thorough know- 
 ledge of its affairs ; and no sooner was he called by his 
 station, and by the high opinion which Ferdinand and 
 Isabella entertained of him, to take a principal share in 
 the administration, than he displayed talents for business 
 which rendered the fame of his wisdom equal to that 
 of his sanctity. His political conduct, remarkable for 
 the boldness and originality of all his plans, flowed 
 from his real character, and partook both of its virtues 
 and its defects. His extensive genius suggested to 
 him schemes vast and magnificent. Conscious of the 
 integrity of his intentions, he pursued these with unre- 
 mitting and undaunted firmness. Accustomed from his 
 early youth to mortify his own passions, he showed 
 little indulgence towards those of other men. Taught 
 by his system of religion to check even his most inno- 
 cent desires, he was the enemy of everything to which 
 he could affix the name of elegance or pleasure. Though 
 free from any suspicion of cruelty, he discovered in all 
 his commerce with the world a severe inflexibility of 
 mind, and austerity of character, peculiar to the monastic 
 profession, and which can hardly be conceived in a 
 country where that is unknown. 
 
 Such was the man to whom Ferdinand committed 
 the regency of Castile ; and though Ximenes was then 
 near fourscore, and perfectly acquainted with the labour 
 and difficulty of the office, his natural intrepidity of 
 
 34 Histoire de 1'Aclministration Baudier, 4to, 1635, p 13. 
 du Cardinal Ximdnes, par Mich.
 
 BOOK i.] EMPEEOE CHAELES THE FIFTH. 319 
 
 mind, and zeal for the public good, prompted him to 
 accept of it without hesitation. Adrian of Utrecht, who 
 had been sent into Spain a few months before the 
 death of Ferdinand, produced full powers from the 
 archduke to assume the name and authority of regent 
 upon the demise of his grandfather ; but such was the 
 aversion of the Spaniards to the government of a 
 stranger, and so unequal the abilities of the two com- 
 petitors, that Adrian's claim would at once have been 
 rejected if Ximenes himself, from complaisance to his 
 new master, had not consented to acknowledge him as 
 regent and to carry on the government in conjunction 
 with him. By this, however, Adrian acquired a dignity 
 merely nominal. Ximenes, though he treated him with 
 great decency, and even respect, retained the whole 
 power in his own hands. 36 
 
 The cardinal's first care was to observe the motions 
 of the infant Don Ferdinand, who, having been flattered 
 with so near a prospect of supreme power, bore the dis- 
 appointment of his hopes with greater impatience than 
 a prince at a period of life so early could have been 
 supposed to feel. Ximenes, under pretence of pro- 
 viding more effectually for his safety, removed him 
 from Gruadalupe, the place in which he had been 
 educated, to Madrid, where he fixed the residence of 
 the court. There he was under the cardinal's own eye, 
 and his conduct, with that of his domestics, was watched 
 with the utmost attention. 36 
 
 The first intelligence he received from the Low 
 Countries gave greater disquiet to the cardinal, and 
 convinced him how difficult a task it would be to 
 conduct the affairs of an inexperienced prince under 
 the influence of councillors unacquainted with the laws 
 
 " Gometius de Eeb. gest Xime- i. c. 2. Baudier, Hist, de Ximrf- 
 nil, p. 150, fol., Compl, 1569. nfes, p. 118. 
 
 3i; Miiiiaiiau Contiu. Murianse, lib.
 
 320 BEIGN OP THE [BOOK i. 
 
 and manners of Spain. No sooner did the account 
 of Ferdinand's death reach Brussels, than Charles, by 
 the advice of his Flemish ministers, resolved to assume 
 the title of king. By the laws of Spain, the sole right 
 of the crowns both of Castile and of Aragon belonged 
 to Joanna ; and, though her infirmities disqualified her 
 from governing, this incapacity had not been declared 
 by any public act of the cortes in either kingdom ; 
 so that the Spaniards considered this resolution not 
 only as a direct violation of their privileges, but as 
 an unnatural usurpation in a son on the prerogatives 
 of a mother, towards whom, in her present unhappy 
 situation, he manifested a less delicate regard than 
 her subjects had always expressed. 37 The Flemish 
 court, however, having prevailed both on the pope 
 and on the emperor to address letters to Charles as 
 king of Castile, the former of whom it was pre- 
 tended had a right as head of the Church, and the 
 latter as head of the empire, to confer this title, 
 instructions were sent to Ximenes to prevail on the 
 Spaniards to acknowledge it. Ximenes, though he had 
 earnestly remonstrated against the measure, as no less 
 unpopular than unnecessary, resolved to exert all his 
 authority and credit in carrying it into execution, and 
 immediately assembled such of the nobles as were then 
 at court. What Charles required was laid before them ; 
 and when, instead of complying with his demands, 
 they began to murmur against such an unprecedented 
 encroachment on their privileges, and to talk high of 
 the rights of Joanna and their oath of allegiance to 
 her, Ximenes hastily interposed, and, with that firm 
 and decisive tone which was natural to him, told 
 them that they were not called now to deliberate, but 
 to obey ; that their sovereign did not apply to them for 
 advice, but expected submission ; and " this day," 
 
 37 P, Martyr. Ep., 563.
 
 UOOK i.] EMPEKOR OHAELES THE FIFTH. 321 
 
 added he, " Charles shall be proclaimed king of Castile 
 in Madrid; and the rest of the cities, I doubt not, 
 will follow its example." On the spot he gave orders 
 for that purpose; 38 and, notwithstanding the novelty 
 of the practice, and the secret discontents of many 
 persons of distinction, Charles's title was universally 
 recognized. In Aragon, where the privileges of the 
 subject were more extensive, and the abilities as well 
 as authority of the archbishop of Saragossa, whom 
 Ferdinand had appointed regent, were far inferior to 
 those of Ximenes, the same obsequiousness to the will 
 of Charles did not appear, nor was he acknowledged 
 there under any other character but that of prince, 
 until his arrival in Spain. 89 
 
 Ximenes, though possessed only of delegated power, 
 which, from his advanced age, he could not expect to 
 enjoy long, assumed, together with the character of 
 regent, all the ideas natural to a monarch, and adopted 
 schemes for extending the regal authority, which he 
 pursued with as much intrepidity and ardour as if he 
 himself had been to reap the advantages resulting from 
 their success. The exorbitant privileges of the Cas- 
 tilian nobles circumscribed the prerogative of the 
 prince within very narrow limits. These privileges the 
 cardinal considered as so many unjust extortions from 
 the crown, and determined to abridge them. Dan- 
 gerous as the attempt was, there were circumstances 
 in his situation which promised him greater success 
 than any king of Castile could have expected. His 
 strict and prudent economy of his archiepiscopal 
 revenues furnished him with more ready money than 
 the crown could at any time command ; the sanctity 
 of his manners, his charity and munificence, rendered 
 him the idol of the people ; and the nobles themselves, 
 
 38 Gometius, p. 152, etc. Bait- " P. Martyr. Ep., 572. 
 dier, Hist, de Ximenes, p. 121. 
 
 VOL. I. *
 
 322 REIGN OF THE [BOOK *. 
 
 not suspecting any danger from him, did not observe 
 his motions with the same jealous attention as they would 
 have watched those of one of their monarchs. 
 
 Immediately upon his accession to the regency, 
 several of the nobles, fancying that the reins of govern- 
 ment would, of consequence, be somewhat relaxed, 
 began to assemble their vassals, and to prosecute, by 
 force of arms, private quarrels and pretensions which 
 the authority of Ferdinand had obliged them to dissemble 
 or to relinquish. But Ximenes, who had taken into pay 
 a good body of troops, opposed and defeated all their 
 designs with unexpected vigour and facility ; and, though 
 he did not treat the authors of these disorders with any 
 cruelty, he forced them to acts of submission extremely 
 mortifying to the haughty spirit of Castilian grandees. 
 
 But while the cardinal's attacks were confined to 
 individuals, and every act of rigour was justified by 
 the appearance of necessity, founded on the forms of 
 justice and tempered with a mixture of lenity, there 
 was scarcely room for jealousy or complaint. It was 
 not so with his next measure, which, by striking at a 
 privilege essential to the nobility, gave a general alarm 
 to the whole order. By the feudal constitution, the 
 military power was lodged in the hands of the nobles, 
 and men of an inferior condition were called into the 
 field only as their vassals and to follow their banners, 
 A king with scanty revenues and a limited prerogative 
 depended on these potent barons in all his operations. 
 It was with their forces he attacked his enemies, and 
 with them he defended his kingdom. While at the 
 head of troops attached warmly to their own im- 
 mediate lords and accustomed to obey no other com- 
 mands, his authority was precarious and his efforts 
 feeble. From this state Ximenes resolved to deliver 
 the crown ; and as mercenary standing armies were 
 unknown under the feudal government, and would
 
 BOOK i.] EMPEEOR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 323 
 
 have been odious to a martial and generous people, 
 he issued a proclamation commanding every city in 
 Castile to enrol a certain number of its burgesses, in 
 order that they might be trained to the use of arms on 
 Sundays and holidays; he engaged to provide officers 
 to command them at the public expense, and, as an 
 encouragement to the private men, promised them an 
 exemption from all taxes and impositions. The fre- 
 quent incursions of the Moors from Africa, and the 
 necessity of having some force always ready to oppose 
 them, furnished a plausible pretence for this innova- 
 tion. The object really in view was to secure the king 
 a body of troops independent of his barons and which 
 might serve to counterbalance their power. 40 The 
 nobles were not slow in perceiving what was his inten- 
 tion, and saw how effectually the scheme which he had 
 adopted would accomplish his end; but as a measure 
 which had the pious appearance of resisting the pro- 
 gress of the infidels was extremely popular, and as any 
 opposition to it arising from their order alone would 
 have been imputed wholly to interested motives, they 
 endeavoured to excite the cities themselves to refuse 
 obedience and to inveigh against the proclamation as 
 inconsistent with their charters and privileges. In 
 consequence of their instigation, Burgos, Valladolid, 
 and several other cities rose in open mutiny. Some 
 of the grandees declared themselves their protectors. 
 Violent remonstrances were presented to the king. 
 His Flemish councillors were alarmed. Ximenes alone 
 continued firm and undaunted ; and, partly by terror, 
 partly by entreaty, by force in some instances, and by 
 forbearance in others, he prevailed on all the refractory 
 cities to comply. 41 During his administration he con- 
 
 40 Minianae Continuatio Marianae, 41 P. Martyr. Ep., 556, etc. 
 
 foL, Hag., 1733, p. 3. Gometius, p. J 60, etc. 
 
 T *
 
 324 REIGN OP THE [BOOK i. 
 
 tinued to execute his plan with vigour ; but soon after 
 his death it was entirely dropped. 
 
 His success in this scheme for reducing the exorbi- 
 tant power of the nobility encouraged him to attempt 
 a diminution of their possessions, which were no less 
 exorbitant. During the contests and disorders insepa- 
 rable from the feudal government, the nobles, ever 
 attentive to their own interest, and taking advantage 
 of the weakness or distress of their monarchs, had 
 seized some parts of the royal demesnes, obtained 
 grants of others, and, having gradually wrested almost 
 the whole out of the hands of the prince, had annexed 
 them to their own estates. The titles by which most 
 of the grandees held these lands were extremely de- 
 fective : it was from some successful usurpation which 
 the crown had been too feeble to dispute, that many 
 derived their only claim to possession. An inquiry 
 carried back to the origin of these encroachments, 
 which were almost coeval with the feudal system, was 
 impracticable ; and, as it would have stripped every 
 nobleman in Spain of great part of his lands, it must 
 have excited a general revolt. Such a step was too 
 bold even for the enterprising spirit of Ximenes. He 
 confined himself to the reign of Ferdinand, and, beginning 
 with the pensions granted during that time, refused 
 to make any farther payment, because all right to them 
 expired with his life. He then called to account such 
 as had acquired crown lands under the administration 
 of that monarch, and at once resumed whatever he had 
 alienated. The effects of these revocations extended to 
 many persons of high rank ; for though Ferdinand was 
 a prince of little generosity, yet he and Isabella having 
 been raised to the throne of Castile by a powerful fac- 
 tion of the nobles, they were obliged to reward the zeal 
 of their adherents with great liberality, and the royal 
 demesnes were their only fund for that purpose. The
 
 BOOK i.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 325 
 
 addition made to the revenue of the crown by these 
 revocations, together with his own frugal economy, 
 enabled Ximenes not only to discharge all the debts 
 which Ferdinand had left, and to remit considerable 
 sums to Flanders, but to pay the officers of his new 
 militia, and to establish magazines not only more 
 numerous, but better furnished with artillery, arms, 
 and warlike stores, than Spain had ever possessed in 
 any former age. 42 The prudent and disinterested ap- 
 plication of these sums was a full apology to the people 
 for the rigour with which they were exacted. 
 
 The nobles, alarmed at these repeated attacks, began 
 to think of precautions for the safety of their order. 
 Many cabals were formed, loud complaints were uttered, 
 and desperate resolutions taken ; but before they pro- 
 ceeded to extremities they appointed some of their 
 number to examine the powers in consequence of which 
 the cardinal exercised acts of such high authority. The 
 admiral of Castile, the Duke de Infantado, and the 
 Conde de Benevento, grandees of the first rank, were 
 intrusted with this commission. Ximenes received them 
 with cold civility, and, in answer to their demand, 
 produced the testament of Ferdinand, by which he was 
 appointed regent, together with the ratification of that 
 deed by Charles. To both these they objected ; and 
 he endeavoured to establish their validity. As the con- 
 versation grew warm, he led them insensibly towards a 
 balcony, from which they had a view of a large body 
 of troops under arms, and of a formidable train of 
 artillery. " Behold," says he, pointing to these, and 
 raising his voice, " the powers which I have received 
 from his Catholic majesty. With these I govern Castile ; 
 and with these I will govern it until the king, youi 
 oaaster and mine, takes possession of his king- 
 
 J2 Flechier, Vie de Ximtfnfc, ii 600
 
 326 fcEIGN OF THE [BOOK t 
 
 dom." 43 A declaration so bold and haughty silenced them 
 and astonished their associates. To take arms against a 
 man aware of his danger and prepared for his defence 
 was what despair alone would dictate. All thoughts 
 of a general confederacy against the cardinal's adminis- 
 tration were laid aside ; and, except for some slight com- 
 motions excited by the private resentment of par- 
 ticular noblemen, the tranquillity of Castile suffered no 
 interruption. 
 
 It was not only from the opposition of the Spanish 
 nobility that obstacles arose to the execution of the 
 cardinal's schemes ; he had a constant struggle to 
 maintain with the Flemish ministers, who, presuming 
 upon their favour with the young king, aimed at direct- 
 ing the affairs of Spain, as well as those of their own 
 country. Jealous of the great abilities and independent 
 spirit of Ximenes, they considered him rather as a rival 
 who might circumscribe their power than as a minister 
 who by his prudence and vigour was adding to the 
 grandeur and authority of their master. Every com- 
 plaint against his administration was listened to with 
 pleasure by the courtiers in the Low Countries. Un- 
 necessary obstructions were thrown by their means in 
 the way of all his measures ; and though they could not 
 either with decency or safety deprive him of the office 
 of regent, they endeavoured to lessen his authority by 
 dividing it. They soon discovered that Adrian of 
 Utrecht, already joined with him in office, had neither 
 genius nor spirit sufficient to give the least check to his 
 proceedings ; and therefore Charles, by their advice, 
 added to the commission of regency La Chau, a Flemish 
 gentleman, and afterwards Amerstorf, a nobleman of 
 Holland, the former distinguished for his address, the 
 latter for his firmness. Ximenes, though no stranger to 
 the malevolent intention of the Flemish courtiers, received 
 
 43 Fl&hier, ii. 551. Ferreras, Hist, viii 433.
 
 OOK i.j EMPEROK CHAELES THE FIFTH. 327 
 
 these new associates with, all the external marks of dis- 
 tinction due to the office with which they were invested; 
 but when they came to enter upon business he abated 
 nothing of that air of superiority with which he had 
 treated Adrian, and still retained the sole direction of 
 affairs. The Spaniards, more averse, perhaps, than any 
 other people to the government of strangers, approved of 
 all his efforts to preserve his own authority. Even the 
 nobles, influenced by this national passion and forgetting 
 their jealousies and discontents, chose rather to see the 
 supreme power in the hands of one of their countrymen 
 whom they feared than in those of foreigners, whom they 
 hated. 
 
 Ximenes, though engaged in such great schemes of 
 domestic policy and embarrassed by the artifices and 
 intrigues of the Flemish ministers, had the burden of 
 two foreign wars to support. The one was in Navarre, 
 which was invaded by its unfortunate monarch, John 
 d'Albret. The death of Ferdinand, the absence of 
 Charles, the discord and disaffection which reigned 
 among the Spanish nobles, seemed to present him with 
 a favourable opportunity of recovering his dominions. 
 The cardinal's vigilance, however, defeated a measure 
 so well concerted. As he foresaw the danger to which 
 that kingdom might be exposed, one of his first acts of 
 administration was to order thither a considerable body 
 of troops. While the king was employed with one part 
 of his army in the siege of St. Jean Pied en Port, Villalva, 
 an officer of great experience and courage, attacked the 
 other by surprise and cut it to pieces. The king in- 
 stantly retreated with precipitation, and an end was put 
 to the war. 44 But as Navarre was filled at that time 
 with towns and castles slightly fortified and weakly 
 garrisoned, which, being unable to resist an enemy, 
 served only to furnish him with places of retreat, 
 
 44 P. Martyr. Ep., 570.
 
 328 EEIQN OP THE [BOOK i, 
 
 Ximenes, always bold and decisive in his measures, 
 ordered every one of these to be dismantled, except 
 Pampeluna, the fortifications of which he proposed to 
 render very strong. To this uncommon precaution 
 Spain owes the possession of Navarre. The French, 
 since that period, have often entered and have as often 
 overrun the open country. While they were exposed 
 to all the inconveniences attending an invading army, 
 the Spaniards have easily drawn troops from the neigh- 
 bouring provinces to oppose them ; and the French, 
 having no place of any strength to which they could 
 retire, have been obliged repeatedly to abandon their 
 conquest with as much rapidity as they gained it. 
 
 The other war, which he carried on in Africa against 
 the famous adventurer Horuc Barbarossa, who from a 
 private corsair raised himself, by his singular valour and 
 address, to be king of Algiers and Tunis, was far from 
 being equally successful. The ill conduct of the Spanish 
 general and the rash valour of his troops presented 
 Barbarossa with an easy victory. Many perished in the 
 battle, more in the retreat, and the remainder returned 
 into Spain covered with infamy. The magnanimity, 
 however, with which the cardinal bore this disgrace, 
 the only one he experienced during his administration, 
 added new lustre to his character. 45 Great composure 
 of temper under a disappointment was not expected 
 from a man so remarkable for the eagerness and impa- 
 tience with which he urged on the execution of all his 
 schemes. 
 
 This disaster was soon forgotten ; while the conduct 
 of the Flemish court proved the cause of constant un- 
 easiness not only to the cardinal but to the whole Spanish 
 nation. All the great qualities of Ghievres, the prime 
 minister and favourite of the young king, were sullied 
 with an ignoble and sordid avarice. The accession of 
 
 46 Gometius, lib. vi p. 179.
 
 BOOK I.] EMPEROIl CHAKLES THE FIl'TH. 329 
 
 his master to the crown of Spain opened a new and 
 copious source for the gratification of this passion. 
 During the time of Charles's residence in Flanders the 
 whole tribe of pretenders to offices or to favour resorted 
 thither. They soon discovered that without the patronage 
 of Chievres it was vain to hope for preferment ; nor did 
 they want sagacity to find out the proper method of 
 securing his protection. Great sums of money were 
 drawn out of Spain. Every thing was venal and dis- 
 posed of to the highest bidder. After the example of 
 Chievres, the inferior Flemish ministers engaged in this 
 traffic, which became as general and avowed as it was 
 infamous. 46 The Spaniards were filled with rage when 
 they beheld offices of great importance to the welfare of 
 their country set to sale by strangers, unconcerned for 
 its honour or its happiness. Ximenes, disinterested in 
 his whole administration, and a stranger, from his native 
 grandeur of mind, to the passion of avarice, inveighed 
 with the utmost boldness against the venality of the 
 Flemings. He represented to the king, in strong terms, 
 the murmurs and indignation which their behaviour 
 excited among a free and high-spirited people, and 
 besought him to set out without loss of time for Spain, 
 that by his presence he might dissipate the clouds which 
 were gathering all over the kingdom. 47 
 
 Charles was fully sensible that he had delayed too 
 long to take possession of his dominions in Spain. 
 Powerful obstacles, however, stood in his way and de- 
 tained him in the Low Countries. The war which the 
 League of Cambray had kindled in Italy still subsisted ; 
 though during its course the armies of all the parties 
 engaged in it had changed their destination and their 
 objects. France was now in alliance with Venice, 
 which it had at first combined to destroy. Maximilian 
 and Ferdinand had for some years earned on hostilities 
 
 46 Miniana, Contin., lib. i. c. 2. 47 P. Martyr. Ep., 576
 
 330 REIGN OF THE [BOOK L 
 
 against France, their original ally, to the valour of 
 whose troops the confederacy had been indebted in a 
 great measure for its success. Together with his king- 
 doms, Ferdinand transmitted this war to his grandson ; 
 and there was reason to expect that Maximilian, always 
 fond of new enterprises, would persuade the young 
 monarch to enter into it with ardour. But the Flemings, 
 who had long possessed an extensive commerce, which 
 during the League of Cambray had grown to a great 
 height upon the ruins of the Venetian trade, dreaded a 
 rupture with France ; and Chievres, sagacious to discern 
 the true interest of his country, and not warped on this 
 occasion by his love of wealth, warmly declared for 
 maintaining peace with the French nation. Francis I., 
 destitute of allies, and solicitous to secure his late con- 
 quests in Italy by a treaty, listened with joy to the first 
 overtures of accommodation. Chievres himself con- 
 ducted the negotiation in the name of Charles. Gouffier 
 appeared as plenipotentiary for Francis. Each of them 
 had presided over the education of th prince whom he 
 represented. They had both adopted the same pacific 
 system, and were equally persuaded that the union of 
 the two monarchs was the happiest event for themselves, 
 as well as for their kingdoms. In such hands the 
 negotiation did not languish. A few days after opening 
 their conferences at Noyon, they concluded a treaty of 
 confederacy and mutual defence between the two 
 monarchs, the chief articles in which were that Francis 
 should give in marriage to Charles his eldest daughter, 
 the princess Louise, an infant of a year old, and, as her 
 dowry, should make over to him all his claims and pre- 
 tensions upon the kingdom of Naples ; that, in con- 
 sideration of Charles's being already in possession of 
 Naples, he should, until the accomplishment of the mar- 
 riage, pay a hundred thousand crowns a year to the 
 French king, and the half of that sum annually as long
 
 BOOK L] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 331 
 
 as the princess had no children ; that when Charles shall 
 arrive in Spain the heirs of the king of Navarre may 
 represent to him their right to that kingdom, and if, 
 after examining their claim, he does not give them satis- 
 faction, Francis shall be at liberty to assist them with all 
 his forces. 48 This alliance not only united Charles and 
 Francis, but obliged Maximilian, who was unable alone 
 to cope with the French and Venetians, to enter into a 
 treaty with those powers, which put a final period to the 
 bloody and tedious war that the League of Cambray had 
 occasioned. Europe enjoyed a few years of universal 
 tranquillity, and was indebted for that blessing to two 
 princes whose rivalship and ambition kept it in per- 
 petual discord and agitation during the remainder of 
 their reigns. 
 
 By the treaty of Noyon, Charles secured a safe pas- 
 sage into Spain. It was not, however, the interest of 
 his Flemish ministers that he should visit that kingdom 
 soon. While he resided in Flanders, the revenues of 
 the Spanish crown were spent there, and they engrossed, 
 without any competitors, all the effects of their 
 monarch's generosity ; their country became the seat of 
 government, and all favours were dispensed by them. 
 Of all these advantages they ran the risk of seeing 
 themselves deprived from the moment that their sove- 
 reign entered Spain. The Spaniards would naturally 
 assume the direction of their own affairs ; the Low 
 Countries would be considered only as a province of 
 that mighty monarchy ; and they who now distributed 
 the favours of the prince to others must then be content 
 to receive them from the hands of strangers. But what 
 Chievres chiefly wished to avoid was an interview 
 between the king and Ximenes. On the one hand, the 
 wisdom, the integrity, and the magnanimity of that 
 prelate gave him a wonderful ascendant over the minds 
 
 48 Leonard, Recueil des Traites, toin. ii. p. 69.
 
 332 fcElGN OF THE [BOOK t. 
 
 of men ; and it was extremely probable that these great 
 qualities, added to the reverence due to his age and 
 office, would command the respect of a young prince 
 who, capable of noble and generous sentiments himself, 
 would, in proportion to his admiration of the cardinal's 
 virtues, lessen his deference towards persons of another 
 character. Or, on the other hand, if Charles should 
 allow his Flemish favourites to retain all the influence 
 over his councils which they at present possessed, it was 
 easy to foresee that the cardinal would remonstrate 
 loudly against such an indignity to the Spanish nation, 
 and vindicate the rights of his country with the same 
 intrepidity and success with which he had asserted the 
 prerogatives of the crown. For these reasons, all his 
 Flemish councillors combined to retard his departure ; 
 and Charles, unsuspicious, from want of experience, and 
 fond of his native country, suffered himself to be un- 
 necessarily detained in the Netherlands a whole year 
 after signing the treaty of Noyon. 
 
 The repeated entreaties of Ximenes, the advice of his 
 grandfather Maximilian, and the impatient murmurs of 
 his Spanish subjects, prevailed on him at last to embark. 
 He was attended not only by Chievres, his prime 
 minister, but by a numerous and splendid train of the 
 Flemish nobles, fond of beholding the grandeur or of 
 sharing in the bounty of their prince. After a dan- 
 gerous voyage, he landed at Villa Viciosa, in the 
 province of Asturias, and was received with such loud 
 acclamations of joy as a new monarch, whose arrival was 
 so ardently desired, had reason to expect. The Spanish 
 nobility resorted to their sovereign from all parts of 
 the kingdom, and displayed a magnificence which the 
 Flemings were nnable to emulate. 49 
 
 Ximenes, who considered the presence of the king as 
 the greatest blessing to his dominions, was advancing 
 
 49 P. Martyr. Ep., 599, 601.
 
 BOOK I.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 333 
 
 towards the coast as fast as the infirm state of his 
 health would permit, in order to receive him. During 
 his regency, and notwithstanding his extreme old age, 
 he had abated in no degree the rigour or frequency of 
 his mortifications ; and to these he added such laborious 
 assiduity in business as would have worn out the most 
 youthful and vigorous constitution. Every day he 
 employed several hours in devotion ; he celebrated mass 
 in person ; he even allotted some space for study. Not- 
 withstanding these occupations, he regularly attended 
 the council ; he received and read all papers presented 
 to him; he dictated letters and instructions, and took 
 under his inspection all business, civil, ecclesiastical, or 
 military. Every moment of his time was filled up with 
 some serious employment. The only amusement in 
 which he indulged himself, by way of relaxation after 
 business, was to canvass, with a few friars and other 
 divines, some intricate article in scholastic theology. 
 Wasted by such a course of life, the infirmities of age 
 daily grew upon him. On his journey, a violent dis- 
 order seized him at Bos Equillos, attended with un 
 common symptoms, which his followers considered as 
 the effect of poison, 50 but could not agree whether the 
 crime ought to be imputed to the hatred of the Spanish 
 nobles or to the malice of the Flemish courtiers. This 
 accident obliging him to stop short, he wrote to Charles, 
 and with his usual boldness advised him to dismiss all 
 the strangers in his train, whose numbers and credit 
 gave offence already to the Spaniards and would ere 
 long alienate the affections of the whole people. At the 
 same time, he earnestly desired to have an interview 
 with the king, that he might inform him of the state of 
 the nation and the temper of his subjects. To prevent 
 this, not only the Flemings but the Spanish grandees 
 employed all their address, and industriously kept 
 
 M Miniana, Con tin., lib. i c. 3.
 
 334 EEIGN OP THE [BOOK i. 
 
 Charles at a distance from Aranda, the place to which 
 the cardinal had removed. Through their suggestions, 
 every measure that he recommended was rejected, the 
 utmost care was taken to make him feel, and to point 
 out to the whole nation, that his power was on the 
 decline ; even in things purely trivial, such a choice was 
 always made as was deemed most disagreeable to him. 
 Ximenes did not bear this treatment with his usual 
 fortitude of spirit. Conscious of his own integrity and 
 merit, he expected a more grateful return from a prince 
 to whom he delivered a kingdom more flourishing than 
 it had been in any former age, together with authority 
 more extensive and better established than the most 
 illustrious of his ancestors had ever possessed. He could 
 not therefore, on many occasions, refrain from giving 
 vent to his indignation and complaints. He lamented 
 the fate of his country, and foretold the calamities which 
 it would suffer from the insolence, the rapaciousness, and 
 ignorance of strangers. While his mind was agitated by 
 these passions, he received a letter from the king, in 
 which, after a few cold and formal expressions of regard, 
 he was allowed to retire to his diocese, that, after a life 
 of such continued labour, he might end his days in tran- 
 quillity. This message proved fatal to Ximenes. His 
 haughty mind, it is probable, could not survive disgrace ; 
 perhaps his generous heart could not bear the prospect 
 of the misfortunes ready to fall on his country. Which- 
 soever of these opinions we embrace, certain it is that he 
 expired a few hours after reading the letter. 51 The 
 variety, the grandeur, and the success of his schemes, 
 during a regency of only twenty months, leave it doubt- 
 ful whether his sagacity in council, his prudence in 
 conduct, or his boldness in execution deserve the greatest 
 praise. His reputation is still high in Spain, not only 
 
 61 Marsollier, Vie de Xime'nes, etc. Baudier, Hist, de Xime'nea, 
 p. 447. Gometius, lib. vii. p. 206, ii p. 208.
 
 BOOK i.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 335 
 
 for wisdom, but for sanctity ; and he is the only prime 
 minister mentioned in history whom his contemporaries 
 reverenced as a saint, 52 and to whom the people under 
 his government ascribed the power of working miracles. 
 
 Soon after the death of Ximenes, Charles made his 
 public entry, with great pomp, into Yalladolid, whither 
 he had summoned the cortes of Castile. Though he 
 assumed on all occasions the name of king, that title 
 had never been acknowledged in the cortes. The 
 Spaniards considering Joanna as possessed of the sole 
 right to the crown, and no example of a son's having 
 enjoyed the title of king during the life of his parents 
 occurring in their history, the cortes discovered all that 
 scrupulous respect for ancient forms, and that aversion 
 to innovation, which are conspicuous in popular assem- 
 blies. The presence, however, of their prince, the 
 address, the artifices, and the threats of his ministers, 
 prevailed on them at last to proclaim him king, in con- 
 junction with his mother, whose name they appointed 
 to be placed before that of her son in all public acts. 
 But when they made this concession they declared 
 that if at any future period Joanna should recover the 
 exercise of reason, the whole authority should return 
 into her hands. At the same time, they voted a free 
 gift of six hundred thousand ducats, to be paid in 
 three years, a sum more considerable than had ever been 
 granted to any former monarch. 53 
 
 Notwithstanding this obsequiousness of the cortes to 
 the will of the king, the most violent symptoms of dis- 
 satisfaction with his government began to break out in 
 the kingdom. Chievres had acquired over the mind of 
 the young monarch the ascendant not only of a tutor, 
 but of a parent. Charles seemed to hae no sentiments 
 
 " Fldcliier, Vie de Xim^nfes, ii. P. Martyr. Ep. 608. Sandoval, 
 746. p. 12. 
 
 53 Miniana, Contin., lib. i c. 3.
 
 336 REIGN OF THE [BOOK i. 
 
 but those which, his minister inspired, and scarcely 
 uttered a word but what he put into his mouth. He 
 was constantly surrounded by Flemings ; no person got 
 access to him without their permission ; nor was any 
 admitted to audience but in their presence. As he spoke 
 the Spanish language very imperfectly, his answers were 
 always extremely short, and often delivered with hesi- 
 tation. From all these circumstances, many of the 
 Spaniards were led to believe that he was a prince of a 
 slow and narrow genius. Some pretended to discover 
 a strong resemblance between him and his mother, and 
 began to whisper that his capacity for government would 
 never be far superior to hers ; and though they who had 
 the best opportunity of judging concerning his character 
 maintained that, notwithstanding such unpromising ap- 
 pearances, he possessed a large fund of knowledge as 
 well as of sagacity, 54 yet all agreed in condemning his 
 partiality towards the Flemings, and his attachment to 
 his favourites, as unreasonable and immoderate. Un- 
 fortunately for Charles, these favourites were unworthy 
 of his confidence. To amass wealth seems to have been 
 their only aim ; and, as they had reason to fear that 
 either their master's good sense or the indignation of 
 the Spaniards might soon abridge their power, they 
 hastened to improve the present opportunity, and their 
 avarice was the more rapacious because they expected 
 their authority to be of no long duration. All honours, 
 offices, and benefices were either engrossed by the 
 Flemings or publicly sold by them. Chievres, his wife, 
 and Sauvage, whom Charles, on the death of Ximenes, 
 had imprudently raised to be chancellor of Castile, vied 
 with each other in all the refinements of extortion and 
 venality. Not only the Spanish historians, who, from 
 resentment, may be suspected of exaggeration, but Peter 
 Martyr Angleria, an Italian, who resided at that time in 
 
 54 Sandoval, p. 31, P. Martyr. Ep. 655.
 
 POOR i.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 337 
 
 the court of Spain and who was under no temptation to 
 deceive the persons to whom his letters are addressed, 
 give a description which is almost incredible of the 
 insatiable and shameless covetousness of the Flemings. 
 According to Angleria's calculation, which he asserts 
 to be extremely moderate, they remitted into the Low 
 Countries, in the space of ten months, no less a sum 
 than a million and one hundred thousand ducats. The 
 nomination of William de Croy, Chievres's nephew, a 
 young man not of canonical age, to the archbishopric 
 of Toledo, exasperated the Spaniards more than all these 
 exactions. They considered the elevation of a stranger 
 to the head of their Church and to the richest benefice 
 in the kingdom not only as an injury, but as an insult 
 to the whole nation ; both clergy and laity, the former 
 from interest, the latter from indignation, joined in 
 exclaiming against it. 55 
 
 Charles, leaving Castile thus disgusted with his 
 administration, set out for Saragossa, the capital of 
 Aragon, that he might be present in the cortes of that 
 kingdom. On his way thither he took leave of his 
 brother Ferdinand, whom he sent into Germany on the 
 pretence of visiting their grandfather, Maximilian, in 
 his old age. To this prudent precaution Charles owed 
 the preservation of his Spanish dominions. During 
 the violent commotions which arose there soon after 
 this period, the Spaniards would infallibly have offered 
 the crown to a prince who was the darling of the whole 
 nation ; nor did Ferdinand want ambition, or coun- 
 sellors, that might have prompted him to accept of the 
 offer. 56 
 
 The Aragonese had not hitherto acknowledged Charles 
 as king, nor would they allow the cortes to be assembled 
 
 55 Sandoval, pp. 28-31. P. Mar- c. 3, p. 8. 
 
 tyr. Ep., 608, 611,613, 614, 622, 56 P. Martyr. Ep., 619. Ferre- 
 
 623, 639. Miniana, Contin., lib. i ras, viii. 460. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 338 &EIGN OF THE [BOOK i. 
 
 in his name, but in that of the justiza, to whom during 
 an interregnum this privilege belonged. 57 The opposi- 
 tion Charles had to struggle with in the cortes of 
 Aragon was more violent and obstinate than that which 
 he had overcome in Castile : after long delays, how- 
 ever, and with much difficulty, he persuaded the mem- 
 bers to confer on him the title of king, in conjunction 
 with his mother. At the same time he bound himself, 
 by that solemn oath which the Aragonese exacted of 
 their kings, never to violate any of their rights or 
 liberties. When a donative was demanded, the mem- 
 bers were still more intractable ; many months elapsed 
 before they would agree to grant Charles two hundred 
 thousand ducats, and that sum they appropriated so 
 strictly for paying debts of the crown, which had long 
 been forgotten, that a very small part of it came into 
 the king's hands. What had happened in Castile taught 
 them caution, and determined them rather to satisfy the 
 claims of their fellow-citizens, how obsolete soever, than 
 to furnish strangers the means of enriching themselves 
 with the spoils of their country. 58 
 
 During these proceedings of the cortes, ambassadors 
 arrived at Saragossa from Francis I. and the young 
 king of Navarre, demanding the restitution of that 
 kingdom in terms of the treaty of Noyon. But neither 
 Charles, nor the Castilian nobles whom he consulted 
 on this occasion, discovered any inclination to part 
 with this acquisition. A conference held soon after at 
 Montpellier, in order to bring this matter to an amicable 
 issue, was altogether fruitless : while the French urged 
 the injustice of the usurpation, the Spaniards were 
 attentive only to its importance. 59 
 
 From Aragon, Charles proceeded to Catalonia, where 
 he wasted much time, encountered more difficulties, 
 
 47 P. Martyr. Ep., 605. M Ibid., 605, 633, 640 
 
 M Ibid., 615-634.
 
 BOOK i.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE ElETH. 339 
 
 and gained less money. The Flemings were now be- 
 come so odious in every province of Spain by their 
 exactions that the desire of mortifying them and of 
 disappointing their avarice augmented the jealousy 
 with which a free people usually conduct their deli- 
 berations. 
 
 The Castilians, who had felt most sensibly the weight 
 and rigour of the oppressive schemes carried on by the 
 Flemings, resolved no longer to submit with a tameness 
 fatal to themselves, and which rendered them the ob- 
 jects of scorn to their fellow-subjects in the other king- 
 doms of which the Spanish monarchy was composed. 
 Segovia, Toledo, Seville, and several other cities of the 
 first rank, entered into a confederacy for the defence 
 of their rights and privileges; and, notwithstanding 
 the silence of the nobility, who on this occasion dis- 
 covered neither the public spirit nor the resolution 
 which became their order, the confederates laid before 
 the king a full view of the state of the kingdom and 
 of the maladministration of his favourites. The prefer- 
 ment of strangers, the exportation of the current coin, 
 the increase of taxes, were the grievances of which 
 they chiefly complained ; and of these they demanded 
 redress with that boldness which is natural to a free 
 people. These remonstrances, presented at first at 
 Saragossa, and renewed afterwards at Barcelona, Charles 
 treated with great neglect. The confederacy, however, 
 of these cities, at this juncture, was the beginning of 
 that famous union among the commons of Castile, 
 which not long after threw the kingdom into such 
 violent convulsions as shook the throne and almost over- 
 turned the constitution. 60 
 
 Soon after Charles's arrival at Barcelona he received 
 the account of an event which interested him much 
 more than the murmurs of the Castilians or the scruples 
 
 60 P. Martyr. Ep,, 630. Ferreras, viiL 464. 
 
 l 2
 
 340 EEIGN OP THE [BOOK i. 
 
 of the cortes of Catalonia. This was the death of the 
 emperor Maximilian, an occurrence of small impor- 
 tance in itself, for he was a prince conspicuous neither 
 for his virtues, nor his power, nor his abilities, but 
 rendered by its consequences more memorable than any 
 that had happened during several ages. It broke that 
 profound and universal peace which then reigned in the 
 Christian world; it excited a rivalship between two 
 princes, which threw all Europe into agitation, and 
 kindled wars more general and of longer duration than 
 had hitherto been known in -<nodern times. 
 
 The revolutions occasioned by the expedition of the 
 French, king, Charles VIII., into Italy, had inspired 
 the European princes with new ideas concerning the 
 importance of the imperial dignity. The claims of 
 the empire upon some of the Italian states were numer- 
 ous ; its jurisdiction over others was extensive ; and 
 though the former had been almost abandoned, and the 
 latter seldom exercised, under princes of slender abili- 
 ties and of little influence, it was obvious that in the 
 hands of an emperor possessed of power or of genius 
 they might be employed as engines for stretching his 
 dominion over the greater part of that country. Even 
 Maximilian, feeble and UL steady as his conduct always 
 was, had availed himself of the infinite pretensions 
 of the empire, and had reaped advantage from every 
 war and every negotiation in Italy during his reign. 
 These considerations, added to the dignity of the station, 
 confessedly the first among Christian princes, and to 
 the rights inherent in the office, which, if exerted 
 with vigour, were far from being inconsiderable, ren- 
 dered the imperial crown more than ever an object oi 
 ambition. 
 
 Not long before his death, Maximilian had discovered 
 great solicitude to preserve this dignity in the Austrian 
 family, and co procure the king of Spain to be chosen
 
 BOOK i.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 341 
 
 his successor. But he himself having never been 
 crowned by the pope, a ceremony deemed essential in 
 that age, was considered only as emperor elect. Though 
 historians have not attended to that distinction, neither 
 the Italian nor German chancery bestowed any other 
 title upon him than that of King of the Romans; 
 and, no example occurring in history of any person's 
 being chosen a successor to a king of the Romans, the 
 Germans, always tenacious of their forms, and unwilling 
 to confer upon Charles an office for which their con- 
 stitution knew no name, obstinately refused to gratify 
 Maximilian in that point. 61 
 
 By his death this difficulty was at once removed, and 
 Charles openly aspired to that dignity which his grand- 
 father had attempted, without success, to secure for 
 him. At the same time, Francis I., a powerful rival, 
 entered the lists against him ; and the attention of all 
 Europe was fixed upon this competition, no less illus- 
 trious from the high rank of the candidates than from 
 the importance of the prize for which they contended. 
 Each of them urged his pretensions with sanguine 
 expectations and with no unpromising prospect of 
 success. Charles considered the imperial crown as 
 belonging to him of right, from its long continuance 
 in the Austrian line ; he knew that none of the German 
 princes possessed power or influence enough to appear 
 as his antagonist; he flattered himself that no con- 
 sideration would induce the natives of Germany to exalt 
 any foreign prince to a dignity which during so many 
 ages had been deemed peculiar to their own nation, 
 and least of all that they would confer this honour upon 
 Francis I., the sovereign of a people whose genius and 
 laws and manners differed so widely from those of the 
 
 61 Guicciardini, lib. xiii. p. 15. P. Heuter., Rer. Austr., lib. vii. c. 
 Hist gen^r. d'Allemagne, par. P. 17, p. 179, lib. viii c. 2, p. 183. 
 Barre, torn, viii part 1, p. 1087.
 
 342 REIGN OF THE [BOOK i. 
 
 Germans that it was hardly possible to establish any 
 cordial union between them ; he trusted not a little to 
 the effect of Maximilian's negotiations, which, though 
 they did not attain their ends, had prepared the minds 
 of the Germans for his elevation to the imperial throne ; 
 but what he relied on as a chief recommendation was 
 the fortunate situation of his hereditary dominions in 
 Germany, which served as a natural barrier to the em- 
 pire against the encroachments of the Turkish power. 
 The conquests, the abilities, and the ambition of Sultan 
 Selim II. had spread over Europe, at that time, a general 
 and well-founded alarm. By his victories over the 
 Mamelukes, and the extirpation of that gallant body of 
 men, he had not only added Egypt and Syria to his 
 empire, but had secured to it such a degree of internal 
 tranquillity that he was ready to turn against Christen- 
 dom the whole force of his arms, which nothing hitherto 
 had been able to resist. The most effectual expedient 
 for stopping the progress of this torrent seemed to be 
 the election of an emperor possessed of extensive terri- 
 tories in that country where its first impression would 
 be felt, and who, besides, could combat this formid- 
 able enemy with all the forces of a powerful monarchy 
 and with all the wealth furnished by the mines of the 
 New World or the commerce of the Low Countries. 
 These were the arguments by which Charles publicly 
 supported his claim ; and to men of integrity and 
 reflection they appeared to be not only plausible, but 
 convincing. He did not, however, trust the success 
 of his cause to these alone. Great sums of money were 
 remitted from Spain ; all the refinements and artifices 
 of negotiation were employed; and a considerable 
 body of troops, kept on foot at that time by the states 
 of the circle of Suabia, was secretly taken into his 
 pay. The venal were gained by presents ; the ob- 
 jections of the more scrupulous were answered or
 
 BOOK i] EMPEROR CHAELES THE FIFTH. 343 
 
 eluded ; some feeble princes were threatened and 
 overawed. 6 * 
 
 On the other hand, Francis supported his claim with 
 equal eagerness and no less confidence of its being 
 well founded. His emissaries contended that it was 
 now high time to convince the princes of the house of 
 Austria that the imperial crown was elective, and not 
 hereditary ; that other persons might aspire to an honour 
 which their arrogance had accustomed them to regard 
 as the property of their family; that it required a 
 sovereign of mature judgment and of approved abilities 
 to hold the reins of government in a country where such 
 unknown opinions concerning religion had been pub- 
 lished as had thrown the minds of men into an un- 
 common agitation, which threatened the most violent 
 effects ; that a young prince, without experience, and 
 who had hitherto given no specimens of his genius for 
 command, was no fit match for Selim, a monarch grown 
 old in the art of war and in course of victory , whereas 
 a king who in his early youth had triumphed over the 
 valour and discipline of the Swiss, till then reckoned 
 invincible, would be an antagonist not unworthy the 
 conqueror of the East; that the fire and impetuosity 
 of the French cavalry, added to the discipline and 
 stability of the German infantry, would form an army 
 so irresistible that instead of waiting the approach of 
 the Ottoman forces it might carry hostilities into the 
 heart of their dominions ; that the election of Charles 
 would be inconsistent with a fundamental constitution, 
 by which the person who holds the crown of Naples is 
 excluded from aspiring to the imperial dignity ; that 
 his elevation to that honour would soon kindle a war in 
 Italy, on account of his pretensions to the duchy of 
 Milan, the effects of which could not fail of reaching 
 
 6i Guicc., lib xiii. p. 159. Slei- 14. Struvii, Corp. Hist German., 
 dan, History of the Reformation, ii 971, note 20.
 
 344 REIGN OF THE [BOOK i. 
 
 the empire and might prove fatal to it. 63 But while 
 the French amhassadors enlarged upon these and other 
 topics of the same kind in all the courts of Germany, 
 Francis, sensible of the prejudices entertained against 
 him as a foreigner, unacquainted with the German lan- 
 guage or manners, endeavoured to overcome these, and 
 to gain the favour of the princes, by immense gifts and 
 "by infinite promises. As the expeditious method of 
 transmitting money, and the decent mode of conveying 
 a bribe, by bills of exchange, were then little known, 
 the French ambassadors travelled with a train of horses 
 loaded with treasure, an equipage not very honourable 
 for that prince by whom they were employed, and 
 infamous for those to whom they were sent. 64 
 
 The other European princes could not remain indif- 
 ferent spectators of a contest the decision of which 
 so nearly affected every one of them. Their common 
 interest ought naturally to have formed a general com- 
 bination, in order to disappoint both competitors and 
 to prevent either of them from obtaining such a 
 pre-eminence in power and dignity as might prove 
 dangerous to the liberties of Europe. But the ideas 
 with respect to a proper distribution and balance of 
 power were so lately introduced into the system of 
 European policy that they were not hitherto objects 
 of sufficient attention. The passions of some princes, 
 the want of foresight in others, and the fear of giving 
 offence to the candidates, hindered such a salutary 
 union of the powers of Europe, and rendered them 
 either totally negligent of the public safety or kept 
 them from exerting themselves with vigour in its 
 behalf. 
 
 83 Guicc., lib. riii p. 160. p. 4, 
 
 Sleid., p. 16. Geor. Sabini de M M&noireg du Marshal de 
 
 Elect. Car. V. Historia apud Scar- Fleuranges, p. 296. 
 dii Script. Ker. German., vol. ii
 
 BOOK i.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 845 
 
 The Swiss cantons, though they dreaded the eleva 
 tion of either of the contending monarchs, and though 
 they wished to have seen some prince whose dominions 
 were less extensive, and whose power was more mode- 
 rate, seated on the imperial throne, were prompted, 
 however, by their hatred of the French nation, to give 
 an open preference to the pretensions of Charles, while 
 they used their utmost influence to frustrate those of 
 Francis. 65 
 
 The Venetians easily discerned that it was the in- 
 terest of their republic to have both the rivals set 
 aside ; but their jealousy of the house of Austria, 
 whose ambition and neighbourhood had been fatal to 
 their grandeur, would not permit them to act up to 
 their own ideas, and led them hastily to give the 
 sanction of their approbation to the claim of the French 
 king. 
 
 It was equally the interest, and more in the power, 
 of Henry VIII. of England to prevent either Francis 
 or Charles from acquiring a dignity which would raise 
 them so far above other monarchs. But, though Henry 
 often boasted that he held the balance of Europe in his 
 hands, he had neither the steady attention, the accurate 
 discernment, nor the dispassionate temper which that 
 delicate function required. On this occasion it morti- 
 fied his vanity so much, to think that he had not 
 entered early into that noble competition which re- 
 flected such honour upon the two antagonists, that he 
 took a resolution of sending an ambassador into Ger- 
 many and of declaring himself a candidate for the 
 imperial throne. The ambassador, though loaded with 
 caresses by the German princes and the pope's nuncio, 
 informed his master that he could hope for no success 
 in a claim which he had been so late in preferring. 
 Henry, imputing his disappointment to that circum- 
 
 65 Sabinus, p. 6.
 
 846 REIGN OF THE [BOOK i. 
 
 stance alone, and soothed with this ostentatious display 
 of his own importance, seems to have taken no further 
 part in the matter, either by contributing to thwart 
 both his rivals or to promote one of them. 66 
 
 Leo X., a pontiff no less renowned for his political 
 abilities than for his love of the arts, was the only 
 prince of the age who observed the motions of the two 
 contending monarchs with a prudent attention or who 
 discovered a proper solicitude for the public safety. 
 The imperial and papal jurisdiction interfered in so 
 many instances, the complaints of usurpation were so 
 numerous on both sides, and the territories of the 
 Church owed their security so little to their own force 
 and so much to the weakness of the powers around 
 them, that nothing was so formidable to the court of 
 liome as an emperor with extensive dominions or of 
 enterprising genius. Leo trembled at the prospect of 
 beholding the imperial crown placed on the head of 
 the king of Spain and of Naples and the master of the 
 New World ; nor was he less afraid of seeing a king 
 of France, who was duke of Milan and lord of Genoa, 
 exalted to that dignity. He foretold that the election 
 of either of them would be fatal to the independence 
 of the holy see, to the peace of Italy, and perhaps to 
 the liberties of Europe. But to oppose them with any 
 prospect of success required address and caution in 
 proportion to the greatness of their power and their 
 opportunities of taking revenge. Leo was defective in 
 neither. He secretly exhorted the German princes to 
 place one of their own number on the imperial throne, 
 which many of them were capable of filling with 
 honour. He put them in mind of the constitution by 
 which the kings of Naples were forever excluded from 
 that dignity. 67 He warmly exhorted the French king 
 
 66 M&noires de Fleuranges, 314. 67 Goldasti, Constitutiones Impe- 
 
 Herbert, History of Henry VIII, riales, Francof., 1 763, voL i p. 439.
 
 BOOK i.] EMPEEOB OHAELES THE FIFTH. 347 
 
 to persist in his claim, not from any desire that he 
 should gain his end, but, as he foresaw that the Ger- 
 mans would be more disposed to favour the king of 
 Spain, he hoped that Francis himself, when he dis- 
 covered his own chance of success to be desperate, 
 would be stimulated by resentment and the spirit of 
 rivalship to concur with all his interest in raising some 
 third person to the head of the empire ; or, on the other 
 hand, if Francis should make an unexpected progress, 
 he did not doubt but that Charles would be induced, 
 by similar motives, to act the same part ; and thus, by 
 a prudent attention, the mutual jealousy of the two 
 rivals might be so dexterously managed as to disappoint 
 both. But this scheme, the only one which a prince 
 in Leo's situation could adopt, though concerted with 
 great wisdom, was executed with little discretion. The 
 French ambassadors in Germany fed their master with 
 vain hopes ; the pope's nuncio, being gained by them, 
 altogether forgot the instructions which he had re- 
 ceived ; and Francis persevered so long and with such 
 obstinacy in urging his own pretensions as rendered all 
 Leo's measures abortive. 68 
 
 Such were the hopes of the candidates, and the 
 views of the different princes, when the diet was 
 opened according to form at Frankfort. The right of 
 choosing an emperor had long been vested in seven 
 great princes, distinguished by the name of electors, 
 the origin of whose office, as well as the nature and 
 extent of their powers, have already been explained. 
 These were, at that time, Albert of Brandenburg, 
 archbishop of Mentz ; Herman Count de Wied, arch- 
 bishop of Cologne ; Eichard de Greiffenklau, arch- 
 bishop of Triers ; Lewis, king of Bohemia ; Lewis, 
 count palatine of the Rhine ; Frederic, duke of Saxony ; 
 and Joachim I., marquis of Brandenburg. Notwith- 
 
 w Guicciar., lib. xiii, 161,
 
 348 REIGN OP THE [BOOK I. 
 
 standing the artful arguments produced by the am- 
 bassadors of the two kings in favour of their respective 
 masters, and in spite of all their solicitations, intrigues, 
 and presents, the electors did not forget that maxim 
 on which the liberty of the German constitution was 
 thought to be founded. Among the members of the 
 Germanic body, which is a great republic composed of 
 states almost independent, the first principle of patriotism 
 is to depress and limit the power of the emperor ; and 
 of this idea, so natural under such a form of govern- 
 ment, a German politician seldom loses sight. No 
 prince of considerable power or extensive dominions 
 had for some ages been raised to the imperial throne. 
 To this prudent precaution many of the great families 
 in Germany owed the splendour and independence 
 which they had acquired during that period. To 
 elect either of the contending monarchs would have 
 been a gross violation of that salutary maxim, would 
 have given to the empire a master instead of a head, 
 and would have reduced themselves from the rank 
 of being almost his equals to the condition of his 
 subjects. 
 
 Full of these ideas, all the electors turned their eyes 
 towards Frederic, duke of Saxony, a prince of such 
 eminent virtue and abilities as to be distinguished by 
 the name of the sage, and with one voice they offered 
 him the imperial crown. He was not dazzled with 
 that object, which monarchs so far superior to him in 
 power courted with such eagerness ; and, after de- 
 liberating upon the matter a short time, he rejected 
 it with a magnanimity and disinterestedness no less 
 singular than admirable. " Nothing," he observed, 
 " could be more impolitic than an obstinate adherence 
 to a maxim which, though sound and just in many 
 cases, was not applicable to all. In times of tran- 
 quillity," said he, " we wish for an emperor who has
 
 BOOK i.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 349 
 
 not power to invade our liberties ; times of danger 
 demand one who is able to secure our safety. The 
 Turkish armies, led by a gallant and victorious mon- 
 arch, are now assembling. They are ready to pour in 
 upon Germany with a violence unknown in former 
 ages. New conjunctures call for new expedients. The 
 imperial sceptre must be committed to some hand 
 more powerful than mine or that of any other German 
 prince. We possess neither dominions, nor revenues, 
 nor authority, which enable us to encounter such a 
 formidable enemy. Kecourse must be had in this 
 exigency to one of the rival monarchs. Each of them 
 can bring into the field forces sufficient for our de- 
 fence. But as the king of Spain is of German extrac- 
 tion, as he is a member and prince of the empire by 
 the territories which descend to him from his grand- 
 father, as his dominions stretch along that frontier 
 which lies most exposed to the enemy, his claim is 
 preferable, in my opinion, to that of a stranger to our 
 language, to our blood, and to our country ; and there- 
 fore 1 give my vote to confer on him the imperial crown." 
 This opinion, dictated by such uncommon generosity 
 and supported by arguments so plausible, made a deep 
 impression on the electors. The king of Spain's am- 
 bassadors, sensible of the important service which 
 Frederic had done their master, sent him a consider- 
 able sum of money, as the first token of that prince's 
 gratitude. But he who had greatness of mind to refuse 
 a crown disdained to receive a bribe ; and, upon their 
 entreating that at least he would permit them to dis- 
 tribute part of that sum among his attendants, he 
 replied that he could not prevent them from accepting 
 what should be offered, but whoever took a single florin 
 should be dismissed next morning from his service. 69 
 
 9 P. Daniel, an historian of con- question the truth of this account 
 si ' rable name, seems to call in of Frederic's behaviour in refusing
 
 350 fcEiGN OF THE [BOOK i. 
 
 No prince in Germany could now aspire to a dignity 
 which Frederic had declined, for reasons applicable to 
 them all. It remained to make a choice between the 
 two great competitors. But besides the prejudice in 
 Charles's favour arising from his birth, as well as the 
 situation of his German dominions, he owed not a 
 little to the abilities of the Cardinal de Gurk, and the 
 zeal of Erard de la Mark, bishop of Liege, two of his 
 ambassadors, who had conducted their negotiations 
 with more prudence and address than those intrusted 
 by the French king. The former, who had long been 
 the minister and favourite of Maximilian, was well ac- 
 quainted with the art of managing the Germans ; and 
 the latter, having been disappointed of a cardinal's hat 
 by Francis, employed all the malicious ingenuity with 
 which the desire for revenge inspires an ambitious 
 mind, in thwarting the measures of that monarch. 
 The Spanish party among the electors daily gained 
 ground ; and even the pope's nuncio, being convinced 
 that it was vain to make any further opposition, en- 
 deavoured to acquire some merit with the future em- 
 peror, by offering voluntarily, in the name of his master, 
 a dispensation to hold the imperial crown in conjunction 
 with that of Naples. 70 
 
 the imperial crown, because it is express. Seckendorf, in his Coin- 
 not mentioned by Georgius Sabinus mentarius Historicus et Apologeti- 
 in his History of the Election and cus de Lutheranismo, p. 121, has 
 Coronation of Charles V., torn. iii. examined this fact with his usual 
 p. 63. But no great stress ought to industry, and has established its 
 be laid on an omission in a super- truth by the most undoubted evi- 
 ficial author, whose treatise, though dence. To these testimonies which 
 dignified with the name of History, he has collected, I may arid the de- 
 contains only such an account of cisive one of Cardinal Cajetan, the 
 the ceremonial of Charles's election pope's legate at Frankfort, in his 
 as is usually published in Germany letter, July 5th, 1519. Epistros 
 on like occasions. (Scard. Eer. des Princes, &c., recueillies par Rus- 
 Germ. Script, voL iL p. 1.) The celli, traduictes par Belforest, Par., 
 testimony of Erasmus, lib. xiii epist. 1572, p. 60. 
 4, and that of Sleidan, p. 18, are 7U Freheri Her. German. Scrip-
 
 BOOK i.] EMPEROB CHAELES THE FIFTH. 351 
 
 On the 28th of June, five months and ten days after 
 che death of Maximilian, this important contest, which 
 had held all Europe in suspense, was decided. Six of 
 the electors had already declared for the king of Spain ; 
 and the archbishop of Triers, the only firm adherent to 
 the French interest, having at last joined his brethren, 
 Charles was, by the unanimous voice of the electoral 
 college, raised to the imperial throne. 71 
 
 But though the electors consented, from various 
 motives, to promote Charles to that high station, they 
 discovered at the same time great jealousy of his ex- 
 traordinary power, and endeavoured, with the utmost 
 solicitude, to provide against his encroaching on the 
 privileges of the Germanic body. It had long been 
 the custom to demand of every new emperor a con- 
 firmation of these privileges, and to require a promise 
 that he never would violate them in any instance. 
 While princes who were formidable neither from extent 
 of territory nor of genius possessed the imperial throne, 
 a general and verbal engagement to this purpose was 
 deemed sufficient security. But, under an emperor so 
 powerful as Charles, other precautions seemed neces- 
 sary. A capitulation, or claim of right, was formed, in 
 which the privileges and immunities of the electors, of 
 the princes of the empire, of the cities, and of every other 
 member of the Germanic body, are enumerated. This 
 capitulation was immediately signed by Charles's am- 
 bassadors in the name of their master, and he himself, 
 at his coronation, confirmed it in the most solemn 
 manner. Since that period, the electors have continued 
 to prescribe the same conditions to all his successors ; 
 and the capitulation, or mutual contract between the 
 emperor and his subjects, is considered in Germany as 
 
 tores, vol. iii. 172, cur. Struvii, AT- 71 Jac. Aug. Thuan., Hist, sui 
 gent, 1717. Giannone, Hist, of Temporis, edit Bulkley, lib. i. c. 9. 
 Naples, ii. 495.
 
 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK I. 
 
 a strong barrier against the progress of the imperial 
 power, and as the great charter of their liberties, to 
 which they often appeal. 72 
 
 The important intelligence of his election was con- 
 veyed in nine days from Frankfort to ] Barcelona, where 
 Charles was still detained by the obstinacy of the Cata- 
 lonian cortes, which had not hitherto brought to an 
 issue any of the affairs which camo before it. He re- 
 ceived the account with the joy natural to a young and 
 aspiring mind on an accession of power and dignity 
 which raised him. so far above the other princes of 
 Europe. Then it was that those vast prospects which 
 allured him during his whole administration began to 
 open, and from this era we may date the formation, and 
 are able to trace the gradual progress, of a grand system 
 of enterprising ambition, which renders the history of 
 his reign so worthy of attention. 
 
 A trivial circumstance first discovered the effects of 
 this great elevation on the mind of Charles. In all the 
 public writs which he now issued as king of Spain, he 
 assumed the title of majesty, and required it from his 
 subjects as a mark of their respect. Before that time, 
 all the monarchs of Europe were satisfied with the 
 appellation of highness or grace; but the vanity of 
 other courts soon led them to imitate the example of 
 the Spanish. The epithet of majesty is no longer a 
 mark of pre-eminence. The most inconsiderable mon- 
 archs in Europe enjoy it, and the arrogance of the 
 greater potentates has invented no higher denomina- 
 tions. 73 
 
 The Spaniards were far from viewing the promotion 
 of their king to the imperial throne with the same 
 
 72 Pfeffel, Abrade 1'HiBtoiredu 73 Minianae Contin. Mar., p. 13. 
 
 Droit publique d'Allemagne, 590. Ferreras, viii. 475. M&noires 
 
 Limnei Capitulat Imp. Epistres Hist, de la Houssaie, torn. i. p. 53, 
 
 dea Princes par Ruscelli, p. 60. etc.
 
 BOOK i.] EMPEROR OHAELES THE FIFTH. 353 
 
 satisfaction which he himself felt. To be deprived of 
 the presence of their sovereign, and to be subjected to 
 the government of a viceroy and his conncil, a species 
 of administration often oppressive and always disagree- 
 able, were the immediate and necessary consequences 
 of this new dignity. To see the blood of their country- 
 men shed in quarrels wherein the nation had no concern, 
 to behold its treasures wasted in supporting the splen- 
 dour of a foreign title, to be plunged in the chaos of 
 Italian and German politics, were effects of this event 
 almost as unavoidable. From all these considerations, 
 they concluded that nothing could have happened more 
 pernicious to the Spanish nation; and the fortitude 
 and public spirit of their ancestors, who, in the cortes 
 of Castile, prohibited Alphonso the Wise from leaving 
 the kingdom in order to receive the imperial crown, 
 were often mentioned with the highest praise, and 
 pronounced to be extremely worthy of imitation at this 
 juncture. 74 
 
 But Charles, without regarding the sentiments or 
 murmurs of his Spanish subjects, accepted of the im- 
 perial dignity which the count palatine, at the head of 
 a solemn embassy, offered him in the name of the 
 electors, and declared his intention of setting out soon 
 for Germany in order to take possession of it. This 
 was the more necessary because, according to the forms 
 of the German constitution, he could not, before the 
 ceremony of a public coronation, exercise any act of 
 jurisdiction or authority. 78 
 
 Their certain knowledge of this resolution augmented 
 so much the disgust of the Spaniards that a sullen and 
 refractory spirit prevailed among persons of all ranks. 
 The pope having granted the king the tenths of all 
 ecclesiastical benefices in Castile, to assist him in carry- 
 
 74 Sandoval, L p. 32. Minianae 76 Sabinus, P. Barre, viii. 1086. 
 Contin., p. 14. 
 
 VOL. i. A A
 
 854 EEIGN OF THE [ROOK L 
 
 ing on war with greater vigour against the Turks, a con- 
 vocation of the clergy unanimously refused to levy that 
 sum, upon pretence that it ought never to be exacted 
 but at those times when Christendom was actually in- 
 vaded by the infidels; and though Leo, in order to 
 support his authority, laid the kingdom under an in- 
 terdict, so little regard was paid to a censure which was 
 universally deemed unjust, that Charles himself applied 
 to have it taken off. Thus the Spanish clergy, besides 
 their merit in opposing the usurpations of the pope and 
 disregarding the influence of the crown, gained the 
 exemption which they had claimed. 76 
 
 The commotions which arose in the kingdom of 
 Valencia, annexed to the crown of Aragon, were more 
 formidable, and produced more dangerous and lasting 
 effects. A seditious monk having by his sermons ex- 
 cited the citizens of Valencia, the capital city, to take 
 arms, and to punish certain criminals in a tumultuary 
 manner, the people, pleased with this exercise of power, 
 and with such a discovery of their own importance, 
 not only refused to lay down their arms, but formed 
 themselves into troops and companies, that they might 
 be regularly trained to martial exercises. To obtain 
 some security against the oppression of the grandees 
 was the motive of this association, and proved a power- 
 ful boiid of union ; for as the aristocratical privileges 
 and independence were more complete in Valencia than 
 in any other of the Spanish kingdoms, the nobles, being 
 scarcely accountable for their conduct to any superior, 
 treated the people not only as vassals but as slaves. 
 They were alarmed, however, at the progress of this 
 unexpected insurrection, as it might encourage the 
 people to attempt shaking off the yoke altogether ; but, 
 as they could not repress them without taking arms, it 
 became necessary to have recourse to the emperor, and 
 
 76 P. Martyr. Ep., 462. Ferreras, viii 473.
 
 BOOK i.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 355 
 
 to desire his permission to attack them. At the same 
 time the people made choice of deputies to represent 
 their grievances and to implore the protection of their 
 sovereign. Happily for the latter, they arrived at court 
 when Charles was exasperated to a high degree against 
 the nobility. As he was eager to visit Germany, where 
 his presence became every day more necessary, and as 
 his Flemish courtiers were still more impatient to return 
 into their native country, that they might carry thithef 
 the spoils which they had amassed in Castile, it was 
 impossible for him to hold the cortes of Valencia in per- 
 son. He had for that reason empowered the Cardinal 
 Adrian to represent him in that assembly, and in his 
 name to receive their oath of allegiance, to confirm their 
 privileges with the usual solemnities, and to demand of 
 them a free gift. But the Yalencian nobles, who con- 
 sidered this measure as an indignity to their country > 
 which was no less entitled than his other kingdoms to 
 the honour of their sovereign's presence, declared that 
 by the fundamental laws of the constitution they could 
 neither acknowledge as king a person who was absent, 
 jior grant him any subsidy ; and to this declaration they 
 adhered with a haughty and inflexible obstinacy. 
 Charles, piqued by their behaviour, decided in favour 
 of the people, and rashly authorized them to continue in 
 arms. Their deputies returned in triumph, and were 
 received by their fellow-citizens as the deliverers of 
 their country. The insolence of the multitude increas- 
 ing with their success, they expelled all the nobles out 
 of the city, committed the government to magistrates of 
 their own election, and entered into an association, dis- 
 tinguished by the name of germanada or brotherhood, 
 which proved the source not only of the wildest dis- 
 orders, but of the most fatal calamities, in that king- 
 dom. 77 
 
 77 P. Martyr. Ep., 651. Ferreras, viii. 376, 485. 
 
 A A2
 
 356 REIGN OF THE [BOOK i. 
 
 Meanwhile, the kingdom of Castile was agitated with 
 no less violence. No sooner was the emperor's intention 
 to leave Spain made known, than several cities of the 
 first rank resolved to remonstrate against it, and to crave 
 redress once more of those grievances which they had 
 formerly laid before him. Charles artfully avoided ad- 
 mitting their deputies to audience ; and, as he saw from 
 this circumstance how difficult it would be at this junc- 
 ture to restrain the mutinous spirit of the greater cities, 
 he summoned the cortes of Castile to meet at Compos- 
 tella, a town in Galicia. His only reason for calling that 
 assembly was the hope of obtaining another donative ; 
 for, as his treasury had been exhausted in the same 
 proportion that the riches of his ministers increased, 
 he could not, without some additional aid, appear in 
 Germany with splendour suited to the imperial dignity. 
 To appoint a meeting of the cortes in so remote a 
 province, and to demand a new subsidy before the time 
 for paying the former was expired, were innovations of 
 a most dangerous tendency, and among a people not 
 only jealous of their liberties, but accustomed to supply 
 the wants of their sovereigns with a very frugal hand, 
 excited a universal alarm. The magistrates of Toledo 
 remonstrated against both these measures in a very high 
 tone ; the inhabitants of Yalladolid, who expected that 
 the cortes should have been held in that city, were so 
 enraged that they took arms in a tumultuary manner ; 
 and if Charles, with his" foreign counsellors, had not 
 fortunately made their escape during a violent tempest, 
 they would have massacred all the Flemings, and have 
 prevented him from continuing his journey towards 
 Compostella. 
 
 Every city through which he passed petitioned against 
 holding a cortes in Galicia, a point with regard to which 
 Charles was inflexible. But though the utmost influ- 
 ence had been exerted by the ministers in order to pro-
 
 BOOK i.] EMPEROR CHAELES THE FIFTH. 357 
 
 cure a choice of representatives favourable to their 
 designs, such was the temper of the nation that at the 
 opening of the assembly there appeared among many 
 of the members unusual symptoms of ill-humour, which 
 threatened a fierce opposition to all the measures of the 
 court. No representatives were sent by Toledo ; for 
 the lot, according to which, by ancient custom, the 
 election was determined in that city, having fallen upon 
 two persons devoted to the Flemish ministers, their 
 fellow-citizens refused to grant them a commission in 
 the usual form, and in their stead made choice of two 
 deputies, whom they empowered to repair to Compos- 
 tella and to protest against the lawfulness of the cortes 
 assembled there. The representatives of Salamanca 
 refused to take the usual oath of fidelity unless Charles 
 consented to change the place of meeting. Those of 
 Toro, Madrid, Cordova, and several other places declared 
 the demand of another donative to be unprecedented, 
 unconstitutional, and unnecessary. All the arts, how- 
 ever, which influence popular assemblies, bribes, pro- 
 mises, threats, and even force, were employed in order 
 to gain members. The nobles, soothed by the respectful 
 assiduity with which Chievres and the other Flemings 
 paid court to them, or instigated by a mean jealousy of 
 that spirit of independence which they saw rising among 
 the commons, openly favoured the pretensions of the 
 . court, or at the utmost did not oppose them ; and at 
 last, in contempt not only of the sentiments of the 
 nation, but of the ancient forms of the constitution, 
 a majority voted to grant the donative for which the 
 emperor had applied. 78 Together with this grant, 
 the cortes laid before Charles a representation of those 
 grievances whereof his people complained, and in their 
 name craved redress; but he, having obtained from 
 them all that he could expect, paid no attention to this 
 78 P. Martyr. Ep., 663. Sandoval, p. 32, etc.
 
 358 BEIGN OF CHARLES THE FIFTH. [BOOK t. 
 
 ill-timed petition, which it was no longer dangerous to 
 disregard. 79 
 
 As nothing now retarded his embarkation, he dis- 
 closed his intention with regard to the regency of Castile 
 during his absence, which he had hitherto kept secret, 
 and nominated Cardinal Adrian to that office. The 
 viceroyalty of Aragon he conferred on Don John de 
 Lanuza ; that of Valencia on Don Diego de Mendoza, 
 Conde de Melito. The choice of the two latter was 
 universally acceptable ; but the advancement of Adrian, 
 though the only Fleming who had preserved any re- 
 putation among the Spaniards, animated the Castilians 
 with new hatred against foreigners; and even the 
 nobles, who had so tamely suffered other inroads upon 
 the constitution, felt the indignity offered to their own 
 order by his promotion, and remonstrated against it as 
 being illegal. But Charles's desire of visiting Germany, 
 as well as the impatience of his ministers to leave Spain, 
 were now so much increased that, without attending to 
 the murmurs of the Castilians, or even taking time to 
 provide any remedy against an insurrection in Toledo, 
 which at that time threatened, and afterwards produced, 
 most formidable effects, he sailed from Corunna on the 
 22d of May ; and by setting out so abruptly in quest of 
 a new crown he endangered a more important one of 
 which he was already in possession. 80 
 
 79 Sandoval, p. 84. * P. Martyr. Ep., 670. Sandoval, p. 86.
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 Rivalry between Charles and Francis I. for the Empire. They negotiate 
 with the Pope, the Venetians, and Henry VIII. of England. 
 Character of the latter. Cardinal Wolsey. Charles visits England. 
 Meeting between Henry VIII. and Francis I. Coronation of Charles. 
 Solyman the Magnificent. The Diet convoked at Worms. The 
 Reformation. Sale of Indulgences by Leo X. Tetzel. Luther. 
 Progress of his Opinions. Is summoned to Rome. His Appearance 
 before the Legate. He appeals to a General Council. Luther 
 questions the Papal Authority. Reformation in Switzerland. Ex- 
 communication of Luther. Reformation in Germany. Causes of 
 the Progress of the Reformation. The Corruption in the Roman 
 Church. Power and Ill-Conduct of the Clergy. Venality of the 
 Roman Court. Effects of the Invention of Printing. Erasmus. 
 The Diet at Worms. Edict against Luther. He is seized and con- 
 fined at Wartburg. His Doctrines condemned by the University of 
 Paris, and controverted by Henty VIII. of England. Henry VIII. 
 favours the Emperor Charles against Francis I. Leo X. makes a 
 Treaty with Charles. Death of Chievres. Hostilities in Navarre 
 and in the Low Countries. Siege of Mdzieres. Congress at Calais. 
 League against France. Hostilities in Italy. Death of Leo X. 
 Defeat of the French. Henry VIII. declares War against France. 
 Charles visits England. Conquest of Rhodes by Solyman. 
 
 MANY concurring circumstances not only called 
 Charles's thoughts towards the affairs of Germany, but 
 rendered his presence in that country necessary. The 
 electors grew impatient of so long an interregnum; 
 his hereditary dominions were disturbed by intestine 
 commotions ; and the new opinions concerning religion 
 made such rapid progress as required the most serious 
 consideration. But, above all, the motions of the 
 French king drew his attention, and convinced him that 
 it was necessary to take measures for his own defence 
 with no less speed than vigour. 
 
 When Charles and Francis entered the lists as candi-
 
 360 REIGN OP THE [BOOK n 
 
 dates for the imperial dignity, they conducted their 
 rivalship with many professions of regard for each 
 other, and with repeated declarations that they would 
 not suffer any tincture of enmity to mingle itself with 
 this honourable emulation. " We both court the same 
 mistress," said Francis, with his usual vivacity ; " each 
 ought to urge his suit with all the address of which he 
 is master : the most fortunate will prevail, and the other 
 must rest contented." 1 But though two young and 
 high-spirited princes, and each of them animated with 
 the hope of success, might be capable of forming such a 
 generous resolution, it was soon found that they pro- 
 mised upon a moderation too refined and disinterested 
 for human nature. The preference given to Charles in 
 the sight of all Europe mortified Francis extremely, and 
 inspired him with all the passions natural to disap- 
 pointed ambition. To this was owing the personal 
 jealousy and rivalship which ^subsisted between the two 
 monarchs during their whole reign ; and the rancour of 
 these, augmented by a real opposition of interest, which 
 gave rise to many unavoidable causes of discord, involved 
 them in almost perpetual hostilities. Charles had paid 
 no regard to the principal article in the treaty of Noyon, 
 by refusing oftener than once to do justice to John 
 d'Albret, the excluded monarch of Navarre, whom 
 Francis was bound in honour and prompted by interest 
 to restore to his throne. The French king had preten- 
 sions to the crown of Naples, of which Ferdinand had 
 deprived his predecessor by a most unjustifiable breach 
 of faith. The emperor might reclaim the duchy of 
 Milan as a fief of the empire, which Francis had seized, 
 and still kept in possession, without having received 
 investiture of it from the emperor. Charles considered 
 the duchy of Burgundy as the patrimonial domain of his 
 ancestors, wrested from them by the unjust policy of 
 
 1 Guic., lib. xiii. p. 169.
 
 BOOK ii.] EMPEEOE CHARLES THE FIFTH. 361 
 
 Louis XI., and observed with the greatest jealousy the 
 strict connections which Francis had formed with the 
 duke of Gueldres, the hereditary enemy of his family. 
 
 When the sources of discord were so many and 
 various, peace could be of no long continuance, even 
 between princes the most exempt from ambition or 
 emulation. But as the shock between two such mighty 
 antagonists could not fail of being extremely violent, 
 they both discovered no small solicitude about its con- 
 sequences, and took time not only to collect and to 
 ponder their own strength and to compare it with that 
 of their adversary, but to secure the friendship or assist- 
 ance of the other European powers. 
 
 The pope had equal reason to dread the two rivals, 
 and saw that he who prevailed would become absolute 
 master in Italy. If it had been in his power to engage 
 them in hostilities without rendering Lombardy the 
 theatre of war, nothing would have been more agree- 
 able to him than to see them waste each other's strength 
 in endless quarrels. But this was impossible. Leo 
 foresaw that on the first rupture between the two 
 monarchs the armies of France and Spain would take 
 the field in the Milanese ; and while the scene of their 
 operations was so near, and the subject for which they 
 contended so interesting to him, he could not long 
 remain neuter. He was obliged, therefore, to adapt his 
 plan of conduct to his political situation. He courted 
 and soothed the emperor and king of France with equal 
 industry and address. Though warmly solicited by each 
 of them to espouse his cause, he assumed all the appear- 
 ances of entire impartiality, and attempted to conceal 
 his real sentiments under that profound dissimulation 
 which seems to have been affected by most of the Italian 
 politicians in that age. 
 
 The views and interests of the Venetians were not 
 different from those of the pope ; nor were they less
 
 362 REIGN Ol 1 THE [BOOK n. 
 
 solicitous to prevent Italy from becoming the seat of 
 war, and their own republic from being involved in the 
 quarrel. But through all Leo's artifices, and notwith- 
 standing his high pretensions to a perfect neutrality, it 
 was visible that he leaned towards the emperor, from 
 whom he had both more to fear and more to hope than 
 from Francis ; and it was equally manifest that if it 
 became necessary to take a side the Venetians would, 
 from motives of the same nature, declare for the king 
 of France. No considerable assistance, however, was 
 to be expected from the Italian states, who were jealous 
 to an extreme degree of the Transalpine powers, and 
 careful to preserve the balance even between them, 
 unless when they were seduced to violate this favourite 
 maxim of their policy by the certain prospect of some 
 great advantage to themselves. 
 
 But the chief attention both of Charles and of 
 Francis was employed in order to gain the king of 
 England, from whom each of them expected assistance 
 more effectual and afforded with less political caution. 
 Henry VIII. had ascended the throne of that kingdom 
 in the year 1509, with such circumstances of advantage 
 as promised a reign of distinguished felicity and splen- 
 dour. The union in his person of the two contending 
 titles of York and Lancaster, the alacrity and emulation 
 with which both factions obeyed his commands, not only 
 enabled him to exert a degree of vigour and authority 
 in his domestic government which none of his prede- 
 cessors could have safely assumed, but permitted him to 
 take a share in the affairs of the Continent, from which 
 the attention of the English had long been diverted by 
 their unhappy intestine divisions. The great sums of 
 money which his father had amassed rendered him the 
 most wealthy prince in Europe. The peace which had 
 subsisted under the cautious administration of that 
 monarch had been of sufficient length to recruit the
 
 BOOK n.] EMPEEOE CHARLES THE FIFTH. 363 
 
 population of the kingdom after the desolation of the 
 civil wars, but not so long as to enervate its spirit ; and 
 the English,* ashamed of having rendered their own 
 country so long a scene of discord and bloodshed, were 
 eager to display their valour in some foreign war, and 
 to revive the memory of the victories gained on the 
 Continent by their ancestors. Henry's own temper 
 perfectly suited the state of his kingdom and the dispo- 
 sition of his subjects. Ambitious, active, enterprising, 
 and accomplished in all the martial exercises which in 
 that age formed a chief part in the education of persons 
 of noble birth and inspired them with an early love of 
 war, he longed to engage in action, and to signalize the 
 beginning of his reign by some remarkable exploit. An 
 opportunity soon presented itself ; and the victory at 
 Guinegate, together with the successful sieges of Terou- 
 enne and Tournay, though of little utility to England, 
 reflected great lustre on its monarch, and confirmed the 
 idea which foreign princes entertained of his power and 
 consequence. So many concurring causes, added to the 
 happy situation of his own dominions, which secured 
 them from foreign invasion, and to the fortunate cir- 
 cumstance of his being in possession of Calais, which 
 served not only as a key to France, but opened an easy 
 passage into the Netherlands, rendered the king of 
 England the natural guardian of the liberties of Europe, 
 and the arbiter between the emperor and French monarch. 
 Henry himself was sensible of this singular advantage, 
 and convinced that, in order to preserve the balance 
 even, it was his office to prevent either of the rivals from 
 acquiring such superiority of power as might be fatal to 
 the other, or formidable to the rest of Christendom. 
 But he was destitute of the penetration, and still more 
 of the temper, which such a delicate function required. 
 Influenced by caprice, by vanity, by resentment, by 
 affection, he was incapable of forming any regular and
 
 364 HEIGN OF THE L*<> K tt 
 
 extensive system of policy or of adhering to it with 
 steadiness. His measures seldom resulted from attention 
 to the general welfare or from a deliberate regard to his 
 own interest, but were dictated by passions which ren- 
 dered him blind to both, and prevented his gaining that 
 ascendant in the affairs of Europe, or from reaping such 
 advantages to himself, as a prince of greater art, though 
 with inferior talents, might have easily secured. 
 
 All the impolitic steps in Henry's administration 
 must not, however, be imputed to defects in his own 
 character ; many of them were owing to the violent 
 passions and insatiable ambition of his prime minister 
 and favourite, Cardinal Wolsey. This man, from one 
 of the lowest ranks in life, had risen to a height of 
 power and dignity to which no English subject ever 
 arrived, and governed the haughty, presumptuous, and 
 untractable spirit of Henry with absolute authority. 
 Great talents, and of very different kinds, fitted him 
 for the two opposite stations of minister and of favourite. 
 His profound judgment, his unwearied industry, his 
 thorough acquaintance with the state of the kingdom, 
 his extensive knowledge of the views and interest of 
 foreign courts, qualified him for that uncontrolled 
 direction of affairs with which he was intrusted. The 
 elegance of his manners, the gaiety of his conversation, 
 his insinuating address, his love of magnificence, and 
 his proficiency in those parts of literature of which 
 Henry was fond, gained him the affection and confi- 
 dence of the young monarch. Wolsey was far from 
 employing this vast and almost royal power to promote 
 cither the true interest of the nation or the real grandeur 
 of his master. Rapacious at the same time, and profuse, 
 he was insatiable in desiring wealth. Of boundless 
 ambition, he aspired after new honours with an eager- 
 ness unabated by his former success ; and being rendered 
 presumptuous by his uncommon elevation, as well as by
 
 BOOK ii.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 365 
 
 the ascendant which he had gained over a prince who 
 scarcely brooked advice from any other person, he dis- 
 covered in his whole demeanour the most overbearing 
 haughtiness and pride. To these passions he himself 
 sacrificed every consideration ; and whoever endeavoured 
 to obtain his favour, or that of his master, found it 
 necessary to soothe and to gratify them. 
 
 As all the states of Europe sought Henry's friendship 
 at that time, all courted his minister with incredible 
 attention and obsequiousness, and strove, by presents, 
 by promises, or by flattery, to work upon his avarice, 
 his ambition, or his pride. 2 Francis had, in the year 
 1518, employed Bonnivet, admiral of France, one of 
 his most accomplished and artful courtiers, to gain this 
 haughty prelate. He himself bestowed on him every 
 mark of respect and confidence. He consulted him 
 with regard to his most important affairs, and received 
 his responses with implicit deference. By these arts, 
 together with the grant of a large pension, Francis 
 attached the cardinal to his interest, who persuaded his 
 master to surrender Tournay to France, to conclude a 
 treaty of marriage between his daughter, the princess 
 Mary, and the dauphin, and to consent to a personal 
 interview with the French king. 3 From that time the 
 most familiar intercourse subsisted between the two 
 courts ; Francis, sensible of the great value of Wolsey's 
 friendship, laboured to secure the continuance of it by 
 every possible expression of regard, bestowing on him, 
 in all his letters, the honourable appellations of father, 
 tutor, and governor. 
 
 Charles observed the progress of this ur^n with the 
 utmost jealousy and concern. His near atfini'v to the 
 king of England gave him some title to nifi friendship; 
 and soon after his accession to the throne ol ruddle he 
 
 2 Fiddes's Life of Wolsey, 166. 3 Herbert's History of Henry 
 
 Rymer's Fredera, xiii. 718. VIII., 30 Rymer, xiii. 624.
 
 366 REIGN OF THE [BOOK n. 
 
 had attempted to ingratiate himself with Wolsey, by 
 settling on him a pension of three thousand livres. His 
 chief solicitude at present was to prevent the intended 
 interview with Francis, the effects of which upon two 
 young princes, whose hearts were no less susceptible of 
 friendship than their manners were capable of inspiring 
 it, he extremely dreaded. But after many delays, occa- 
 sioned by difficulties with respect to the ceremonial, and 
 by the anxious precautions of both courts for the safety 
 of their respective sovereigns, the time and place of 
 meeting were at last fixed. Messengers had been sent 
 to different courts, inviting all comers who were gentle- 
 men to enter the lists at tilt and tournament against the 
 two monarchs and their knights. Both Francis and 
 Henry loved the splendour of these spectacles too well, 
 and were too much delighted with the graceful figure 
 which they made on such occasions, to forego the pleasure 
 or glory which they expected from such a singular and 
 brilliant assembly. Nor was the cardinal less fond of 
 displaying his own magnificence in the presence of two 
 courts, and of discovering to the two nations the extent 
 of his influence over both their monarchs. Charles, 
 finding it impossible to prevent the interview, endea- 
 voured to disappoint its effects, and to preoccupy the 
 favour of the English monarch and his minister by an 
 act of complaisance still more flattering and more un- 
 common. Having sailed from Corunna, as has already 
 been related, he steered his course directly towards 
 England, and, relying wholly on Henry's generosity for 
 his own safety, landed at Dover. This unexpected visit 
 surprised the nation. Wolsey, however, was well ac- 
 quainted with the emperor's intention. A negotiation, 
 unknown to the historians of that age, had been carried 
 on between him and the court of Spain ; this visit had 
 been concerted ; and Charles granted the cardinal, whom 
 he calls his most dear friend^ an additional pension of
 
 BOOK ii.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 367 
 
 seven thousand ducats. 4 Henry, who was then at Can- 
 terbury, in his way to France, immediately despatched 
 Wolsey to Dover in order to welcome the emperor, and, 
 being highly pleased with an event so soothing to his 
 vanity, hastened to receive with suitable respect a guest 
 who had placed in him such unbounded confidence. 
 Charles, to whom time was precious, stayed only four 
 days in England ; but during that short space he had the 
 address not only to give Henry favourable impressions 
 of his character and intentions, but to detach Wolsey 
 entirely from the interest of the French king. All the 
 grandeur, the wealth, and the power which the cardinal 
 possessed did not satisfy his ambitious mind while there 
 was one step higher to which an ecclesiastic could ascend. 
 The papal dignity had for some time been the object of 
 his wishes ; and Francis, as the most effectual method 
 of securing his friendship, had promised to favour his 
 pretensions, on the first vacancy, with all his interest. 
 But as the emperor's influence in the college of cardinals 
 was greatly superior to that of the French king, Wolsey 
 grasped eagerly at the offer which that artful prince 
 had made him, of exerting it vigorously in his behalf ; 
 and, allured by this prospect, which under the pontifi- 
 cate of Leo, still in the prime of his life, was a very 
 distant one, he entered with warmth into all the em- 
 peror's schemes. No treaty, however, was concluded at 
 that time between the two monarchs ; but Henry, in 
 return for the honour which Charles had done him, pro- 
 mised to visit him in some place of the Low Countries 
 immediately after taking leave of the French king. 
 
 His interview with that prince was in an open plain 
 between Ghiisnes and Ardres, where the two kings and 
 their attendants displayed their magnificence with such 
 emulation and profuse expense as procured it the name 
 of the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Feats of chivalry, 
 
 4 Rymer, xiii. 714.
 
 308 REIGN OF THE [BOOK n. 
 
 parties of gallantry, together with such exercises and 
 pastimes as were in that age reckoned manly or elegant, 
 rather than serious business, occupied both courts during 
 eighteen days that they continued together. 5 Whatever 
 impression the engaging manners of Francis, or the 
 liberal and unsuspicious confidence with which he treated 
 Henry, made on the mind of that monarch, was soon 
 effaced by "Wolsey's artifices, or by an interview he had 
 with the emperor at Gravelines, which was conducted 
 with less pomp than that near Guisnes, but with greater 
 attention to what might be of political utility. 
 
 This assiduity with which the two greatest monarchs 
 in Europe paid court to Henry appeared to him a 
 plain acknowledgment that he held the balance in his 
 hands, and convinced him of the justness of the motto 
 he had chosen, " That whoever he favoured would pre- 
 vail." In this opinion he was confirmed by an offer 
 which Charles made, of submitting any difference that 
 might arise between him and Francis to his sole arbi- 
 tration. Nothing could have the appearance of greater 
 candour and moderation than the choice of a judge who 
 was reckoned the common friend of both. But, as the 
 emperor had now attached Wolsey entirely to his in- 
 
 5 The French and English his- of Bretagne, the English gained 
 torians describe the pomp of this the prize. After this, the kings of 
 interview, and the various spec- France and England retired to a 
 tacles, with great minuteness. One tent, where they drank together, 
 circumstance mentioned by the and the king of England, seizing 
 Mare'schal de Fleuranges, who was the king of France by the collar, 
 present, and which must appear sin- said, ' My brother, I must wrestle 
 gular in the present age, is com- with you,' and endeavoured once 
 monly omitted. " After the tour- or twice to trip up his heels ; but the 
 nament," says he, " the French and king of France, who is a dexterous 
 English wrestlers made their ap- wrestler, twisted him round, and 
 pearance, and wrestled in presence threw him on the earth with pro- 
 of the kings and the ladies ; and as digious violence. The king of Eng- 
 there were many stout wrestlers land wanted to renew the combat, 
 there, it afforded excellent pastime ; but was prevented." Me'moires de 
 but as the king of France had Fleuranges, 12mo, Paris, 1753, p. 
 neglected to bring any wrestlers out 329.
 
 BOOK ii.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFrH. 369 
 
 terest, no proposal could be more insidious, nor, as 
 appeared by the sequel, more fatal to the French 
 king. 6 
 
 Charles, notwithstanding his partial fondness for the 
 Netherlands, the place of his nativity, made no long 
 stay there, and, after receiving the homage and con- 
 gratulations of his countrymen, hastened to Aix-la- 
 Chapelle, the place appointed by the golden bull for 
 the coronation of the emperor. There, in presence 
 of an assembly more numerous and splendid than had 
 appeared on any former occasion, the crown of Charle- 
 magne was placed on his head, with all the pompous 
 solemnity which the Germans affect in their public 
 ceremonies, and which they deem essential to the 
 dignity of their empire. 7 
 
 Almost at the same time Solyman the Magnificent, 
 one of the most accomplished, enterprising, and vic- 
 torious of the Turkish sultans, a constant and formid- 
 able rival to the emperor, ascended the Ottoman 
 throne. It was the peculiar glory of that period to 
 produce the most illustrious monarchs who have at any 
 one time appeared in Europe. Leo, Charles, Francis, 
 Henry, and Solyman were each of them possessed of 
 talents that might have rendered any age wherein they 
 happened to nourish conspicuous. But such a constel- 
 lation of great princes shed uncommon lustre on the 
 sixteenth century. In every contest great power, as 
 well as great abilities, were set in opposition ; the 
 efforts of valour and conduct on one side, counter- 
 balanced by an equal exertion of the same qualities on 
 the other, not only occasioned such a variety of events 
 as renders the history of that period interesting, but 
 served to check the exorbitant progress of any of those 
 princes, and to prevent their attaining such pre-eminence 
 
 6 Herbert, 37. ronat. Car. V., ap. Goldast. Polit 
 
 7 Hartman, Mauri Relatio To- Imperial. Franc., 1614, fol., p. 264 
 
 VOL. JL B B
 
 370 BEIGN OP THfi t BOOK a - 
 
 in power as would have been fatal to the liberty and 
 happiness of mankind. 
 
 The first act of the emperor's administration was to 
 appoint a diet of the empire to be held at Worms on 
 the 6th of January, 1521. In his circular letters to 
 the different princes, he informed them that he had 
 called this assembly in order to concert with them the 
 most proper measures for checking the progress of 
 those new and dangerous opinions which threatened 
 to disturb the peace of Germany and to overturn the 
 religion of their ancestors. 
 
 Charles had in view the opinions which had been 
 propagated by Luther and his disciples since the year 
 1517. As these led to that happy reformation in re- 
 ligion which rescued one part of Europe from the papal 
 yoke, mitigated its rigour in the other, and produced a 
 revolution in the sentiments of mankind, the greatest 
 as well as the most beneficial that has happened since 
 the publication of Christianity, not only the events 
 which at first gave birth to such opinions, but the causes 
 which rendered their progress so rapid and successful, 
 deserve to be considered with minute attention. 
 
 To overturn a system of religious belief founded 
 on ancient and deep-rooted prejudices, supported by 
 power, and defended with no less art than industry, 
 to establish in its room doctrines of the most contrary 
 genius and tendency, and to accomplish all this, not 
 by external violence or the force of arms, are opera- 
 tions which historians the least prone to credulity and 
 superstition ascribe to that Divine Providence which 
 with infinite ease can bring about events which to 
 human sagacity appear impossible. The interposition 
 of heaven in favour of the Christian religion at its first 
 publication was manifested by miracles and prophecies 
 wrought and uttered in confirmation of it. Though 
 none of the Eeformers possessed, or pretended to pos-
 
 BOOK n.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 371 
 
 sess, these supernatural gifts, yet that wonderful pre- 
 paration of circumstances which disposed the minds of 
 men for receiving their doctrines that singular com- 
 bination of causes which secured their success, and 
 enabled men destitute of power and of policy to triumph 
 over those who employed against them extraordinary 
 efforts of both may be considered as no slight proof 
 that the same hand which planted the Christian religion 
 protected the Eeformed faith, and reared it from be- 
 ginnings extremely feeble to an amazing degree of 
 vigour and maturity. 
 
 Tt was from causes seemingly fortuitous, and from a 
 source very inconsiderable, that all the mighty effects 
 of the Reformation flowed. Leo X., when raised to 
 the papal throne, found the revenues of the Church 
 exhausted by the vast projects of his two ambitious 
 predecessors, Alexander VI. and Julius II. His own 
 temper, naturally liberal and enterprising, rendered 
 him incapable of that severe and patient economy 
 which the situation of his finances required. On the 
 contrary, his schemes for aggrandizing the family of 
 Medici, his love of splendour, his taste for pleasure, and 
 his magnificence in rewarding nien of genius, involved 
 him daily in new expenses, in order to provide a fund 
 for which, he tried every device that the fertile inven- 
 tion of priests had fallen upon to drain the credulous 
 multitude of their wealth. Among others, he had re- 
 course to a sale of indulgences. According to the doc- 
 trine of the Eomish Church, all the good works of the 
 saints over and above those which were necessary 
 towards their own justification are deposited, together 
 with the infinite merits of Jesus Christ, in one inex- 
 haustible treasury. The keys of this were committed 
 to St. Peter, and to his successors the popes, who may 
 open it at pleasure, and, by transferring a portion of 
 this superabundant merit to any particular person for a 
 
 B B 2
 
 372 REIGN OF THE [BOOK n. 
 
 sum of money, may convey to him either the pardon 
 of his own sins, or a release for any one in whose hap- 
 piness he is interested from the pains of purgatory. 
 Such indulgences were first invented in the eleventh 
 century by Urban II. as a recompense for those who 
 went in person upon the meritorious enterprise of con- 
 quering the Holy Land. They were afterwards granted 
 to those who hired a soldier for that purpose, and in 
 process of time were bestowed on such as gave money 
 for accomplishing any pious work enjoined by the 
 pope. 8 Julius II. had bestowed indulgences on all who 
 contributed towards building the church of St. Peter 
 at Eome ; and, as Leo was carrying on that magnifi- 
 cent and expensive fabric, his grant was founded on the 
 same pretence. 9 
 
 The right of promulgating these indulgences in Ger- 
 many, together with a share in the profits arising from 
 the sale of them, was granted to Albert, elector of 
 Mentz and archbishop of Magdeburg, who, as his chief 
 agent for retailing them in Saxony, employed Tetzel, a 
 Dominican friar, of licentious morals, but of an active 
 spirit, and remarkable for his noisy and popular elo- 
 quence. He, assisted by the monks of his order, exe- 
 cuted the commission with great zeal and success, but 
 with little discretion or decency ; and though, by mag- 
 nifying excessively the benefit of their indulgences, 10 
 
 8 History of the Council of Trent, solution used by Tetzel : " May our 
 
 by F. Paul, p. 4. Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon 
 
 u Pallav., Hist. Cone. Trident., thee, and absolve thee by the merits 
 
 p. 4. of his most holy passion. And I, 
 
 10 As the form of these indul- by his authority, that of his blessed 
 gences, and the benefits which they Apostles Peter and Paul, and of the 
 were supposed to convey, are un- most holy pope, granted and coin- 
 known in Protestant countries, and mitted to me in these parts, do 
 little understood, at present, in absolve thee, first from all eccle- 
 several places where the Roman siastical censures, in whatever man- 
 Catholic religion is established, I ner they have been incurred, and 
 have, for the information of my then from all thy sins, transgres- 
 readers, translated the form of ab- aions, and excesses, how enonnoui
 
 BOOK II.] 
 
 EMPEEOR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 
 
 373 
 
 and by disposing of them at a very low price, they 
 carried on for some time an extensive and lucrative 
 traffic among the credulous and the ignorant, the ex- 
 travagance of their assertions, as well as the irregulari- 
 ties in their conduct, came at last to give general 
 offence. The princes and nobles were irritated at see- 
 ing their vassals drained of so much wealth in order 
 to replenish the treasury of a profuse pontiff. Men of 
 piety regretted the delusion of the people, who, being 
 taught to rely for the pardon of their sins on the 
 
 soever they may be, even from such 
 as are reserved for the cognizance 
 of the holy see ; and as far as the 
 keys of the Holy Church extend, I 
 remit to you all punishment which 
 you deserve in purgatory on their 
 account, and I restore you to the 
 holy sacraments of the Church, to 
 the unity of the faithful, and to that 
 innocence and purity which you 
 possessed at baptism ; so that, when 
 you die, the gates of punishment 
 shall be shut, and the gates of the 
 paradise of delight shall be opened ; 
 and if you shall not die at present, 
 this grace shall remain in full force 
 when you are at the point of death. 
 In the name of the Father, and of 
 the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." 
 Seckend., Comment., lib. i., p. 14. 
 The terms in which Tetzel and 
 his associates described the benefits 
 of indulgences, and the necessity of 
 purchasing them, are so extrava- 
 gant that they appear to be almost 
 incredible. If any man (said they) 
 purchase letters of indulgence, his 
 soul may rest secure with respect 
 to its salvation. The souls con- 
 fined in purgatory, for whose re- 
 demption indulgences are purchased, 
 as soon as the money tinkles in the 
 chest, instantly escape from that 
 place of torment and ascend into 
 
 heaven. That the efficacy of in- 
 dulgences was so great that the 
 most heinous sins, even if one 
 should violate (which was impossi- 
 ble) the mother of God, would be 
 remitted and expiated by them, and 
 the person be freed both from 
 punishment and guilt. That this 
 was the unspeakable gift of God, in 
 order to reconcile men to himself. 
 That the cross erected by the preach- 
 ers of indulgences was as efficacious 
 as the cross of Christ itself. Lo ! 
 the heavens are open ; if you enter 
 not now, when will you enter? For 
 twelve pence you may redeem the 
 soul of your father out of purgatory ; 
 and are you so ungrateful that you 
 will not rescue your parent from 
 torment ? If you had but one coat, 
 you ought to strip yourself instantly, 
 and sell it, in order to purchase 
 such benefits, etc. These, and many 
 such extravagant expressions, are 
 selected out of Luther's works by 
 Chemnitius in his Examen Concilii 
 Tridentini, apud Henn. von der 
 Hardt, Hist. Liter. Reform., pars 
 iv. p. 6. The same author has 
 published several of Tetzel's dis- 
 courses, which prove that these ex- 
 pressions were neither singular not 
 exaggerated. Ibid., p. 14.
 
 374 REIGN OF THE [BOOK n. 
 
 indulgences which they purchased, did not think it 
 incumbent on them either to study the doctrines taught 
 by genuine Christianity or to practise the duties which 
 it enjoins. Even the most unthinking were shocked at 
 the scandalous behaviour of Tetzel and his associates, 
 who often squandered, in drunkenness, gaming, and 
 low debauchery, those sums which were piously be- 
 stowed in hopes of obtaining eternal happiness ; and 
 all began to wish that some check were given to this 
 commerce, no less detrimental to society than destructive 
 to religion. 
 
 Such was the favourable juncture, and so disposed 
 were the minds of his countrymen to listen to his 
 discourses, when Martin Luther first began to call in 
 question the efficacy of indulgences, and to declaim 
 against the vicious lives and false doctrines of the per- 
 sons employed in promulgating them. Luther was a 
 native of Eisleben, in Saxony, and, though born of 
 poor parents, had received a learned education, during 
 the progress of which he gave many indications of 
 uncommon vigour and acuteness of genius. His mind 
 was naturally susceptible of serious sentiments, and 
 tinctured with somewhat of that religious melancholy 
 which delights in the solitude and devotion of a 
 monastic life. The death of a companion, killed by 
 lightning at his side in a violent thunder-storm, made 
 such an impression on his mind as oo-operated with his 
 natural temper in inducing him to retire into a con- 
 vent of Augustinian friars, where, without suffering the 
 entreaties of his parents to divert him from what he 
 thought his duty to God, he assumed the habit of that 
 order. He soon acquired great reputation, not only 
 for piety, but for his love of knowledge and his un- 
 wearied application to study. He had been taught the 
 scholastic philosophy and theology, which were then in 
 rogue, by very able masters, and wanted not penetra-
 
 BOOK H.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 375 
 
 tion to comprehend all the niceties and distinctions 
 with which they abound; but his understanding, na- 
 turally sound, and superior to everything frivolous, soon 
 became disgusted with those subtle and uninstructive 
 sciences, and sought for some more solid foundation of 
 knowledge and of piety in the Holy Scriptures. Having 
 found a copy of the Bible, which lay neglected in the 
 library of his monastery, he abandoned all other pur- 
 suits, and devoted himself to the study of it with such 
 eagerness and assiduity as astonished the monks, who 
 were little accustomed to derive their theological no- 
 tions from that source. The great progress which he 
 made in this uncommon course of study augmented so 
 much the fame both of his sanctity and of his learn- 
 ing, that Frederic, elector of Saxony, having founded 
 a university at Wittemberg on the Elbe, the place of 
 his residence, Luther was chosen first to teach philo- 
 sophy, and afterwards theology, there, and discharged 
 both offices in such a manner that he was deemed the 
 chief ornament of that society. 
 
 While Luther was at the height of his reputation and 
 authority, Tetzel began to publish indulgences in the 
 neighbourhood of Wittemberg, and to ascribe to them 
 the same imaginary virtues which had in other places 
 imposed on the credulity of the people. As Saxony 
 was not more enlightened than the other provinces of 
 Germany, Tetzel met with prodigious success there. 
 It was with the utmost concern that Luther beheld the 
 artifices of those who sold, and the simplicity of those 
 who bought, indulgences. The opinions of Thomas 
 Aquinas and the other schoolmen, on which the doc- 
 trine of indulgences was founded, had already lost 
 much of their authority with him ; and the Scriptures, 
 which he began to consider as the great standard of 
 theological truth, afforded no countenance to a practice 
 squally subversive of faith and of morals. His warm
 
 376 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK n. 
 
 and impetuous temper did not suffer him long to con- 
 ceal such important discoveries, or to continue a silent 
 spectator of the delusion of his countrymen. From 
 the pulpit in the great church of Wittemberg he in- 
 veighed hitterly against the irregularities and vices of 
 the monks who published indulgences ; he ventured to 
 examine the doctrines which they taught, and pointed 
 out to the people the danger of relying for salvation 
 upon any other means than those appointed by God in 
 his word. The boldness and novelty of these opinions 
 drew great attention, and, being recommended by the 
 authority of Luther's personal character and delivered 
 with a popular and persuasive eloquence, they made a 
 deep impression on his hearers. Encouraged by the 
 favourable reception of his doctrines among the people, 
 he wrote to Albert, elector of Mentz and archbishop of 
 Magdeburg, to whose jurisdiction that part of Saxony 
 was subject, and remonstrated warmly against the false 
 opinions, as well as wicked lives, of the preachers of 
 indulgences; but he found that prelate too deeply in- 
 terested in their success to correct their abuses. His 
 next attempt was to gain the suffrage of men of learn- 
 ing. For this purpose he published ninety -five theses, 
 containing his sentiments with regard to indulgences. 
 These he proposed, not as points fully established or 
 of undoubted certainty, but as subjects of inquiry and 
 disputation ; he appointed a day on which the learned 
 were invited to impugn them, either in person or by 
 writing ; to the whole he subjoined solemn protesta- 
 tions of his high respect for the apostolic see, and of 
 his implicit submission to its authority. No opponent 
 appeared at the time prefixed ; the theses spread over 
 Germany with astonishing rapidity ; they were read 
 with the greatest eagerness ; and all admired the bold- 
 ness of the man who had ventured not only to call in 
 question the plenitude of papal power, but to attack the
 
 BOOK ii.] EMI'EEOR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 377 
 
 Dominicans, armed with all the terrors of inquisitorial 
 authority. 11 
 
 The friars of St. Augustine, Luther's own order, 
 though addicted with no less obsequiousness than the 
 other monastic fraternities to the papal see, gave no 
 check to the publication of these uncommon opinions. 
 Luther had, by his piety and learning, acquired extra- 
 ordinary authority among his brethren ; he professed 
 the highest regard for the authority of the pope ; his 
 professions were at that time sincere ; and as a secret 
 enmity, excited by interest or emulation, subsists among 
 all the monastic orders in the Romish Church, the 
 Augustinians were highly pleased with his invectives 
 against the Dominicans, and hoped to see them exposed 
 to the hatred and scorn of the people. Nor was his 
 sovereign, the elector of Saxony, the wisest prince at 
 that time in Germany, dissatisfied with this obstruction 
 which Luther threw in the way of the publication of 
 indulgences. He secretly encouraged the attempt, and 
 flattered himself that this dispute among the ecclesias- 
 tics themselves might give some check to the exactions 
 of the court of Rome, which the secular princes had 
 long, though without success, been endeavouring to 
 oppose. 
 
 Many zealous champions immediately arose to defend 
 opinions on which the wealth and power of the Church 
 were founded, against Luther's attacks. In opposition 
 to his theses, Tetzel published counter-theses at Frank- 
 fort on the Oder ; Eccius, a celebrated divine of Augs- 
 burg, endeavoured to refute Luther's notions ; and 
 Prierias, a Dominican friar, master of the sacred palace, 
 and inquisitor- general, wrote against him with all the 
 virulence of a scholastic disputant. But the manner in 
 which they conducted the controversy did little service 
 
 11 Lutheri Opera, Jense, 1612, of Council of Trent, by F. Paul, p. 
 vol. i. praefat. 3, p. 2, 66. Hist. 4. Seckend., Com. ApoL, p. 16.
 
 378 
 
 EEION OF THE 
 
 [BOOK n. 
 
 to their cause. Luther attempted to combat indulgences 
 by arguments founded in reason or derived from Scrip- 
 ture ; they produced nothing in support of them but the 
 sentiments of schoolmen, the conclusions of the canon 
 law, and the decrees of popes. 12 The decision of judges 
 so partial and interested did not satisfy the people, who 
 began to call in question the authority even of these 
 venerable guides, when they found them standing in 
 direct opposition to the dictates of reason and the deter- 
 minations of the Divine law. 1 * 
 
 18 F. Paul, p. 6. Seckend.,p.40. 
 Pallavic., p. 8. 
 
 13 Seckend.,p. 30. Guicciardini 
 has asserted two things with regard 
 to the first promulgation of indul- 
 gences : 1. That Leo bestowed a 
 gift of the profits arising from the 
 sale of indulgences in Saxony, and 
 the adjacent provinces of Germany, 
 upon his sister Magdalen, the wife 
 of Francescetto Cibo. (Guic., lib. 
 xiii. 168.) 2. That Arcemboldo, 
 a Genoese ecclesiastic, who had 
 been bred a merchant, and still 
 retained all the activity and ad- 
 dress of that profession, was ap- 
 pointed by her to collect the money 
 which should be raised. F. Paul 
 has followed him in both these par- 
 ticulars ; and adds that the Augus- 
 tinians in Saxony had been imme- 
 morially employed in preaching in- 
 dulgences, but that Arcemboldo and 
 his deputies, hoping to gain more 
 by committing this trust to the 
 Dominicans, had made their bar- 
 gain with Tetzel, and that Luther 
 was prompted at first to oppose 
 Tetzel and his associates by a desire 
 of taking revenge for this injury of- 
 fered to his order. (F. Paul, p. 5.) 
 Almost all historians since their 
 time, Popish as well as Protestant, 
 have, without examination, admitted 
 these assertions to be true upon 
 
 their authority. But, notwithstand- 
 ing the concurring testimony of two 
 authors so eminent both for exact- 
 ness and veracity, we may observe 
 1. That Felix Contolori, who 
 searched the pontifical archives 
 for the purpose, could not find this 
 pretended grant to Leo's sister in 
 any of those registers where it must 
 necessarily have been recorded. 
 (Pallav., p. 5.) 2. That the profits 
 arising from indulgences in Saxony 
 and the adjacent countries had 
 been granted, not to Magdalen, but 
 to Albert, archbishop of Mentz, 
 who had the right of nominating 
 those who published them. (Seek., 
 p. 12 ; Luth. Oper., i., Praef. p. i. ; 
 Pallav., p. 6.) 3. That Arcemboldo 
 never had concern in the publica- 
 tion of indulgences in Saxony : his 
 district was Flanders and the Upper 
 and Lower Bhine. (Seek., p. 14 ; 
 Pallav., p. 6.) 4. That Luther 
 and his adherents never mentioned 
 this grant of Leo's to his sister, 
 though a circumstance of which they 
 could hardly have been ignorant, 
 and which they would have been 
 careful not to suppress. 5. The 
 publication of indulgences in Ger- 
 many was not usually committed 
 to the Augustinians. The promul- 
 gation of them, at three different 
 periods under Julius II., was granted
 
 BOOK ii.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 379 
 
 Meanwhile, these novelties in Luther's doctrines, 
 which interested all Germany, excited little attention 
 and no alarm in the court of Rome. Leo, fond of 
 elegant and refined pleasures, intent upon great schemes 
 of policy, a stranger to theological controversies, and 
 apt to despise them, regarded with the utmost indiffer- 
 ence the operations of an obscure friar who, in the heart 
 of Germany, carried on a scholastic disputation in a 
 barbarous style. Little did he apprehend, or Luther 
 himself dream, that the effects of this quarrel would 
 be so fatal to the papal see. Leo imputed the whole 
 to monastic enmity and emulation, and seemed inclined 
 not to interpose in the contest, but to allow the Augus- 
 tinians and Dominicans to wrangle about the matter 
 with their usual animosity. 
 
 The solicitations, however, of Luther's adversaries, 
 who were exasperated to a high degree by the boldness 
 and severity with which he animadverted on their 
 writings, together with the surprising progress which 
 his opinions made in different parts of Germany, roused 
 at last the attention of the court of Rome, and obliged 
 Leo to take measures for the security of the Church 
 
 to the Franciscans ; the Dominicans his opposition to their opinions and 
 had been employed in the same vices proceeded from more laud- 
 office a short time before the present able motives. (Seek., p. 1ft, 32; 
 period. (Pallav., p. 46.) 6. The Lutheri Opera, i. p. 64, 6.) 8. A 
 promulgation of those indulgences diploma of indulgences is published 
 which first excited Luther's indig- by Henn. von der Hardt. ficm 
 nation was intrusted to the arch- which it appears that the name of 
 bishop of Mentz, in conjunction with the guardian of the Franciscans is 
 the guardian of the Franciscans ; retained together with that of the 
 but the latter having declined ac- archbishop, although the former 
 cepting of that trust, the sole right did not act. The limits of the 
 became vested in the archbishop. country to which thoir commission 
 (Pallav., 6; Seek., 16, 17.) 7. Lu- extended, namely, the diocese of 
 ther was not instigated by his supe- Mentz, Magdeburg, Halberstadt, and 
 riors among the Augustinians to the territories of the marquis of 
 attack the Dominicans, their rivals, Brandenburg, are mentioned in that 
 or to depreciate indulgences because diploma. Hist. Literaria Reformat, 
 they were promulgated by them : pars iv. p. 14.
 
 I.EIGN OF THE [BOOK n. 
 
 against an attack that now appeared too serious to be 
 despised. For this end, he summoned Luther to appear 
 at Borne, within sixty days, before the auditor of the 
 chamber and the inquisitor-general, Prierias, who had 
 written against him, whom he empowered jointly to 
 examine his doctrines and to decide concerning them. 
 He wrote, at the same time, to the elector of Saxony, 
 beseeching him not to protect a man whose heretical 
 and profane tenets were so shocking to pious ears, and 
 enjoined the provincial of the Augustinians to check 
 by his authority the rashness of an arrogant monk, 
 which brought disgrace upon the order of St. Augus- 
 tine and gave offence and disturbance to the whole 
 Church. [1518.] 
 
 From the strain of these letters, as well as from the 
 nomination of a judge so prejudiced and partial as 
 Prierias, Luther easily saw what sentence he might 
 expect at Eome. He discovered, for that reason, the 
 utmost solicitude to have his cause tried in Germany 
 and before a less suspected tribunal. The professors in 
 the university of Wittemberg, anxious for the safety of 
 a man who did so much honour to their society, wrote 
 to the pope, and, after employing several pretexts to 
 excuse Luther from appearing at Koine, entreated Leo 
 to commit the examination of his doctrines to some 
 persons of learning and authority in Germany. The 
 elector requested the same thing of the pope's legate 
 at the diet of Augsburg ; and as Luther himself, who 
 at that time was so far from having any intention to 
 disclaim the papal authority that he did not even 
 entertain the smallest suspicion concerning its divine 
 original, had written to Leo a most submissive letter, 
 promising an unreserved compliance with his will, the 
 pope gratified them so far as to empower his legate in 
 Geiniany, Cardinal Cajetan, a Dominican, eminent for
 
 BOOK it.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 381 
 
 scholastic learning, and passionately devoted to the 
 Eoinan see, to hear and determine the cause. 
 
 Luther, though he had good reason to decline a judge 
 chosen among his avowed adversaries, did not hesitate 
 about appearing before Cajetan, and, having obtained 
 the emperor's safe-conduct, immediately repaired to 
 Augsburg. The cardinal received him with decent re- 
 spect, and endeavoured at first to gain upon him by 
 gentle treatment. The cardinal, relying on the supe- 
 riority of his own talents as a theologian, entered into 
 a formal dispute with Luther concerning the doctrines 
 contained in his theses. 14 But the weapons which they 
 employed were so different, Cajetan appealing to papal 
 decrees and the opinions of schoolmen, and Luther 
 resting entirely on the authority of Scripture, that the 
 contest was altogether fruitless. The cardinal relin- 
 quished the character of a disputant, and, assuming that 
 of a judge, enjoined Luther, by virtue of the apostolic 
 powers with which he was clothed, to retract the errors 
 which he had uttered with regard to indulgences and 
 the nature of faith, and to abstain for the future from 
 the publication of new and dangerous opinions. Luther, 
 fully persuaded of the truth of his own tenets, and con- 
 firmed in the belief of them by the approbation which 
 they had met with among persons conspicuous both for 
 learning and piety, was surprised at this abrupt mention 
 of a recantation before any endeavours were used to 
 convince him that he was mistaken. He had flattered 
 himself that in a conference concerning the points in 
 dispute with a prelate of such distinguished abilities he 
 should be able to remove many of those imputations 
 with which the ignorance or malice of his antagonists 
 
 14 In the former editions I as- sobre, in his Histoire de la Re'for- 
 
 serted, upon the authority of Father mation, vol. i. p. 121, etc., has 
 
 Paul, that Cajetan thought it be- satisfied me that I was mistaken, 
 
 neath his dignity to enter into any See also Seckend., lib. i. p. 46, eta 
 dispute with Luther ; but M. Beau-
 
 382 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK u. 
 
 had loaded him ; but the high tone of authority that 
 the cardinal assumed extinguished at once all hopes of 
 this kind, and cut off every prospect of advantage from 
 the interview. His native intrepidity of mind, however, 
 did not desert him. He declared with the utmost firm- 
 ness that he could not, with a safe conscience, renounce 
 opinions which he believed to be true ; nor should any 
 consideration ever induce him to do what would be so 
 base in itself and so offensive to God. At the same 
 time, he continued to express no less reverence than 
 formerly for the authority of the apostolic see ; 15 he 
 signified hs willingness to submit the whole controversy 
 to certain universities which he named, and promised 
 neither to write nor to preach concerning indulgences 
 for the future, provided his adversaries were likewise 
 enjoined to be silent with respect to them. 16 All these 
 offers Cajetan disregarded or rejected, and still insisted 
 peremptorily on a simple recantation, threatening him 
 with ecclesiastical censures, and forbidding him to appeal- 
 again in his presence unless he resolved instantly to 
 comply with what he had required. This haughty and 
 violent manner of proceeding, as well as other circum- 
 stances, gave Luther's friends such strong reasons to 
 suspect that even the imperial safe-conduct would not 
 be able to protect him from the legate's power and 
 resentment, that they prevailed on him to withdraw 
 secretly from Augsburg and to return to his own 
 country. But before his departure, according to a form 
 of which there had been some examples, he prepared a 
 solemn appeal from the pope, ill informed at that time 
 concerning his cause, to the pope when he should receive 
 more full information with respect to it. 17 
 
 Cajetan, enraged at Luther's abrupt retreat and at 
 
 15 LutL, Oper., voL i. p. 164. Seckend., p. 45. LutL, Oper., 
 
 16 Ibid., 160. i. 163. 
 
 17 Sleid., Hist, of Reform., p. 7.
 
 BOOK ii.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 383 
 
 the publication of his appeal, wrote to the elector of 
 Saxony, complaining of both, and requiring him, as he 
 regarded the peace of the Church or the authority of 
 its head, either to send that seditious monk a prisoner 
 to Rome, or to banish him out of his territories. It 
 was not from theological considerations that Frederic 
 had hitherto countenanced Luther : he seems to have 
 been much a stranger to controversies of that kind, 
 and to have been little interested in them. His pro- 
 tection flowed almost entirely, as hath been already 
 observed, from political motives, and was afforded with 
 great secrecy and caution. He had neither heard any 
 of Luther's discourses nor read any of his books ; and 
 though all Germany resounded with his fame, he had 
 never once admitted him into his presence. 18 But upon 
 this demand which the cardinal made, it became neces- 
 sary to throw off somewhat of his former reserve. He 
 had been at great expense and had bestowed much 
 attention on founding a new university, an object of 
 considerable importance to every German prince; and, 
 foreseeing how fatal a blow the removal of Luther would 
 be to its reputation, 19 he, under various pretexts and 
 with many professions of esteem for the cardinal, as 
 well as of reverence for the pope, not only declined 
 complying with either of his requests, but openly dis 
 covered great concern for Luther's safety. 20 
 
 The inflexible rigour with which Cajetan insisted on 
 a simple recantation gave great offence to Luther's 
 followers in that age, and hath since been censured as 
 imprudent by several popish writers. But it was im- 
 possible for the legate to act another part. The judges 
 before whom Luther had been required to appear at 
 Rome were so eager to display their zeal against his 
 
 18 Seckend., p. 27. Sleid., Hist, SlekL, Hist, p. 10. Lutk, 
 p. 12. Oper., i. 172. 
 
 19 Weekend., p. 59.
 
 384 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK n. 
 
 errors, that, without waiting for the expiration of sixty 
 days allowed him in the citation, they had already 
 con lomned him as a heretic. 21 Leo had, in several of 
 his briefs and letters, stigmatized him as a child of 
 iniquity and a man given up to a reprobate sense. 
 Nothing less, therefore, than a recantation could save 
 the honour of the Church, whose maxim it is never to 
 abandon the smallest point that it has established, and 
 which is even precluded, by its pretensions to infalli- 
 bility, from having it in its power to do so. 
 
 Luther's situation at this time was such as would 
 have filled any other person with the most disquieting 
 apprehensions. He could not expect that a prince so 
 prudent and cautious as Frederic would on his account 
 set at defiance the thunders of the Church, and brave 
 the papal power, which had crushed some of the most 
 powerful of the German emperors. He knew what 
 veneration was paid, in that age, to ecclesiastical de- 
 cisions ; what terrors ecclesiastical censures carried 
 along with them, and how easily these might intimi 
 date and shake a prince who was rather his protector 
 from policy than his disciple from conviction. If he 
 should be obliged to quit Saxony, he had no prospect of 
 any other asylum, and must stand exposed to whatever 
 punishment the rage or bigotry of his enemies could inflict. 
 Though sensible of his danger, he discovered no symp- 
 toms of timidity or remissness, but continued to vindicate 
 his own conduct and opinions and to inveigh against those 
 of his adversaries with more vehemence than ever. 22 
 
 But as every step taken by the court of Eome, par- 
 ticularly the irregular sentence by which he had been 
 so precipitately declared a heretic, convinced Luther that 
 Leo would soon proceed to the most violent measures 
 against him, he had recourse to the only expedient in 
 
 J1 Luther., Oper., L 161. ** Seckend., p. 59.
 
 BOOK ii.] EMPEROE CHAELES THE FIFTH. 385 
 
 his power in order to prevent the effect of the papal 
 censures. He appealed to a general council, which he 
 affirmed to be the representative of the Catholic Church 
 and superior in power to the pope, who, being a fallible 
 man, might err, as St. Peter, the most perfect of his 
 predecessors, had erred. 23 
 
 It soon appeared that Luther had not formed rash 
 conjectures concerning the intentions of the Romish 
 Church. A bull of a date prior to his appeal was issued 
 by the pope, in which he magnifies the virtue and 
 efficacy of indulgences, in terms as extravagant as any 
 of his predecessors had ventured to use in the darkest 
 ages; and, without applying such palliatives or men- 
 tioning such concessions as a more enlightened period 
 and the disposition in the minds of many men at that 
 juncture seemed to call for, he required all Christians 
 to assent to what he delivered as the doctrine of the 
 Catholic Church, and subjected those who should hold 
 or teach any contrary opinion to the heaviest ecclesias- 
 tical censures. 
 
 Among Luther's followers, this bull, which they 
 considered as an unjustifiable effort of the pope in 
 order to preserve that rich branch of his revenue which 
 arose from indulgences, produced little effect. But 
 among the rest of his countrymen, such a clear decision 
 of the sovereign pontiff against him, and enforced by 
 such dreadful penalties, must have been attended with 
 consequences very fatal to his cause, if these had not 
 been prevented in a great measure by the death of the 
 emperor Maximilian, whom both his principles and his 
 interest prompted to support the authority of the holy 
 see. In consequence of this event, the vicariat of that 
 part of Germany which is governed by the Saxon laws 
 devolved to the elector of Saxony ; and under the 
 shelter of his friendly administration Luther not only 
 
 23 Sleid., Hist, 12, Luth., Oper , i. 179. 
 vou, i. CO
 
 386 EEION OF THE [BOOK n. 
 
 * 
 enjoyed tranquillity, but his opinions were suffered, 
 
 during the interregnum which preceded Charles's elec- 
 tion, to take root in different places and to grow up to 
 some degree of strength and firmness. At the same 
 time, as the election of an emperor was a point more 
 interesting to Leo than a theological controversy, which 
 he did not understand, and of which he could not foresee 
 the consequences, he was so extremely solicitous not to 
 irritate a prince of such considerable influence in the 
 electoral college as Frederic, that he discovered a great 
 unwillingness to pronounce the sentence of excommuni- 
 cation against Luther, which his adversaries continually 
 demanded with the most clamorous importunity. 
 
 To these political views of the pope, as well as to his 
 natural aversion from severe measures, was owing the 
 suspension of any further proceedings against Luther 
 for eighteen months. Perpetual negotiations, however, 
 in order to bring the matter to some amicable issue, 
 were carried on during that space. The manner in 
 which these were conducted having given Luther many 
 opportunities of observing the corruption of the court 
 of Eome, its obstinacy in adhering to established errors, 
 and its indifference about truth, however clearly pro- 
 posed or strongly proved, he began to utter some doubts 
 with regard to the divine original of the papal authority. 
 A public disputation was held upon this important 
 question at Leipsic, between Luther and Eccius, one of 
 his most learned and formidable antagonists ; but it was 
 as fruitless and indecisive as such scholastic combats 
 usually prove. Both parties boasted of having obtained 
 the victory ; both were confirmed in their own opinions ; 
 and no progress was made towards deciding the point in 
 controversy. 24 
 
 Nor did the spirit of opposition to the doctrines and 
 usurpations of the Eomish Church break out in Saxony 
 
 24 LutL, Oper.. L 199.
 
 BOOK ii.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH 387 
 
 alone : an attack no less violent, and occasioned by the 
 same causes, was made upon them about this time in 
 Switzerland. The Franciscans, being intrusted with the 
 promulgation of indulgences in that country, executed 
 their commission with the same indiscretion and rapa- 
 ciousness which had rendered the Dominicans so odious 
 in Germany. They proceeded, nevertheless, with unin- 
 terrupted success, until they arrived at Zurich. There 
 Zuinglius, a man not inferior to Luther himself in zeal 
 and intrepidity, ventured to oppose them ; and teing 
 animated with a republican boldness, and free rrom 
 those restraints which subjection to the will of a prince 
 imposed on the German Eeformer, he advanced with 
 more daring and rapid steps to overturn the whole fabric 
 of the established religion. 25 The appearance of such a 
 vigorous auxiliary, and the progress which he made, 
 was, at first, matter of great joy to Luther. On the 
 other hand, the decrees of the Universities of Cologne 
 and Louvain, which pronounced his opinions to be erro- 
 neous, afforded great cause of triumph to his adversaries. 
 But the undaunted spirit of Luther acquired additional 
 fortitude from every instance of opposition ; and, pushing 
 on his inquiries and attacks from one doctrine to another, 
 he began to shake the firmest foundations on which the 
 wealth or power of the Church was established. Leo 
 came at last to be convinced that all hopes of reclaiming 
 him by forbearance were vain ; several prelates of great 
 wisdom exclaimed, no less than Luther's personal adver- 
 saries, against the pope's unprecedented lenity in per- 
 mitting an incorrigible heretic, who during three years 
 had been endeavouring to subvert everything sacred, 
 and venerable, still to remain within the bosom of the 
 Church ; the dignity of the papal see rendered the most 
 vigorous proceedings necessary ; the new emperor, it 
 was hoped, would support its authority ; nor did it seem 
 
 SleicL, Hist, 22. Seckend., 59. 
 
 o o 2
 
 388 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK n. 
 
 probable that the elector of Saxony would so far forget 
 his usual caution as to set himself in opposition to their 
 united power. The college of cardinals was often assem- 
 bled, in order to prepare the sentence with due delibera- 
 tion, and the ablest canonists were consulted how it 
 might be expressed with unexceptionable formality. At 
 last, on the 15th of June, 1520, the bull, so fatal to the 
 Church of Eome, was issued. Forty-one propositions, 
 extracted out of Luther's works, are therein condemned 
 as heretical, scandalous, and offensive to pious ears ; all 
 persons are forbidden to read his writings upon pain of 
 excommunication ; such as had any of them in their 
 custody were commanded to commit them to the flames ; 
 he himself, if he did not within sixty days publicly 
 recant his errors and burn his books, is pronounced an 
 obstinate heretic, is excommunicated, and delivered unto 
 Satan for the destruction of his flesh; and all secular 
 princes are required, under pain of incurring the same 
 censure, to seize his person, that he might be punished 
 as his crimes deserved. 26 
 
 The publication of this bull in Germany excited 
 various passions in different places. Luther's adversaries 
 exulted, as if his party and opinions had been crushed 
 at once by such a decisive blow. His followers, whose 
 reverence for the papal authority daily diminished, read 
 Leo's anathemas with more indignation than terror. In 
 some cities the people violently obstructed the promulga- 
 tion of the bull ; in others, the persons who attempted 
 to publish it were insulted, and the bull itself was torn 
 in pieces and trodden under foot. 27 
 
 This sentence, which he had for some time expected, 
 did not disconcert or intimidate Luther. After renewing 
 his appeal to the general council, he published remarks 
 upon the bull of excommunication ; and, being now 
 
 * Pallav., 27. Lutk, Oper., i. 423. 27 Seckend., p. 1J6.
 
 HOOK n.J EMPEROE CHARLES THE FIFTH. 389 
 
 persuaded that Leo had been guilty both of impiety and 
 injustice in his proceedings against him, he boldly de- 
 clared the pope to be that man of sin, or Antichrist, 
 whose appearance is foretold in the New Testament ; he 
 declaimed against his tyranny and usurpations with 
 greater violence than ever; he exhorted all Christian 
 princes to shake off such an ignominious yoke, and 
 boasted of his own happiness in being marked out as 
 the object of ecclesiastical indignation, because he had 
 ventured to assert the liberty of mankind. Nor did he 
 confine his expressions of contempt for the papal power 
 to words alone : Leo having, in execution of the bull, 
 appointed Luther's books to be burnt at Eome, he, by 
 way of retaliation, assembled all the professors and 
 students in the University of Wittemberg, and with 
 great pomp, in presence of a vast multitude of specta- 
 tors, cast the volumes of the canon law, together with 
 the bull of excommunication, into the flames ; and his 
 example was imitated in several cities of Germany. The 
 manner in which he justified this action was still more 
 offensive than the action itself. Having collected from 
 the canon law some of the most extravagant propositions 
 with regard to the plenitude and omnipotence of the 
 papal power, as well as the subordination of all secular 
 jurisdiction to the authority of the holy see, he published 
 these with a commentary, pointing out the impiety of 
 such tenets and their evident tendency to subvert all civil 
 government. 28 
 
 Such was the progress which Luther had made, and 
 such the state of his party, when Charles arrived in 
 Germany. No secular prince had hitherto embraced 
 Luther's opinions ; no change in the established forms 
 of worship had been introduced ; and no encroachments 
 had been made upon the possessions or jurisdiction of 
 the clergy ; neither party had yet proceeded to action ; 
 88 Lutk, Oper., ii 316.
 
 390 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK n. 
 
 and the controversy, though conducted with great heat 
 and passion on both sides, was still carried on with its 
 proper weapons, with theses, disputations, and replies. 
 A deep impression, however, was made upon the minds 
 of the people ; their reverence for ancient institutions 
 and doctrines was shaken ; and the materials were already 
 scattered which kindled into the combustion that soon 
 spread over all Germany. Students crowded from every 
 province of the empire to Wittemberg ; and under 
 Luther himself, Melancthon, Carlostadius, and other 
 masters then reckoned eminent, imbibed opinions which, 
 on their return, they propagated among their country- 
 men, who listened to them with that fond attention 
 which truth, when accompanied with novelty, naturally 
 commands. 29 
 
 During the course of these transactions the court of 
 Borne, though under the direction of one of its ablest 
 pontiffs, neither formed its schemes with that profound 
 sagacity nor executed them with that steady perse- 
 verance which had long rendered it the most perfect 
 model of political wisdom to the rest of Europe. When 
 Luther began to declaim against indulgences, two differ- 
 ent methods of treating him lay before the pope, by 
 adopting one of which the attempt, it is probable, might 
 have been crushed, and by the other it might have been 
 rendered innocent. If Luther's first departure from the 
 doctrines of the Church had instantly drawn upon him 
 the weight of its censures, the dread of these might have 
 restrained the elector of Saxony from protecting him, 
 might have deterred the people from listening to his 
 discourses, or even might have overawed Luther him- 
 self ; and his name, like that of many good men before 
 his time, would now have been known to the world only 
 for his honest but ill-timed effort to correct the corrup- 
 tions of the Eomish Church. On the other hand, if the 
 
 29 Seckend., 59.
 
 BOOK n.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 
 
 pope had early testified some displeasure with the vices 
 and excesses of the friars who had been employed in 
 publishing indulgences, if he had forbidden the men- 
 tioning of controverted points in discourses addressed to 
 the people, if he had enjoined the disputants on both 
 sides to be silent, if he had been careful not to risk the 
 credit of the Church by defining articles which had 
 hitherto been left undetermined, Luther would probably 
 have stopped short at his first discoveries : he would not 
 have been forced, in self-defence, to venture upon new 
 ground, and the whole controversy might possibly have 
 died away insensibly, or, being confined entirely to the 
 schools, might have been carried on with as little detri- 
 ment to the peace and unity of the Romish Church as 
 that which the Franciscans maintained with the Do- 
 minicans concerning the immaculate conception, or that 
 between the Jansenists and Jesuits concerning the opera- 
 tions of grace. But Leo, by fluctuating between these 
 opposite systems, and by embracing them alternately, 
 defeated the effects of both. By an improper exertion 
 of authority, Luther was exasperated, but not restrained. 
 By a mistaken exercise of lenity, time was given for his 
 opinions to spread, but no progress was made towards 
 reconciling him to the Church ; and even the sentence 
 of excommunication, which at another juncture might 
 have been decisive, was delayed so long that it became 
 at last scarcely an object of terror. 
 
 Such a series of errors in the measures of a court 
 seldom chargeable with mistaking its own true interest 
 is not more astonishing than the wisdom which appeared 
 in Luther's conduct. Though a perfect stranger to the 
 maxims of worldly wisdom, and incapable, from the 
 impetuosity of his temper, of observing them, he was 
 led naturally, by the method in which he made his 
 discoveries, to carry on his operations in a manner 
 which contributed more to their success than if every
 
 392 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK n. 
 
 step he took had been prescribed by the most artful 
 policy. At the time when he set himself to oppose 
 Tetzel, he was far from intending that reformation which 
 he afterwards effected, and would have trembled with 
 horror at the thoughts of what at last he gloried in 
 accomplishing. The knowledge of truth was not poured 
 into his mind all at once by any special revelation ; he 
 acquired it by industry and meditation, and his progress, 
 of consequence, was gradual. The doctrines of popery 
 are so closely connected that the exposing of one error 
 conducted him naturally to the detection of others ; and 
 all the parts of that artificial fabric were so united 
 together that the pulling down of one loosened the 
 foundation of the rest and rendered it more easy to over- 
 turn them. In confuting the extravagant tenets con- 
 cerning indulgences, he was obliged to inquire into the 
 true cause of our justification and acceptance with God. 
 The knowledge of that discovered to him by degrees the 
 inutility of pilgrimages and penances ; the vanity of 
 relying on the intercession of saints ; the impiety of 
 worshipping them ; the abuses of auricular confession ; 
 and the imaginary existence of purgatory. The detec- 
 tion of so many errors led him, of course, to consider 
 the character of the clergy who taught them ; and their 
 exorbitant wealth, the severe injunction of celibacy, 
 together with the intolerable rigour of monastic vows, 
 appeared to him the great sources of their corruption. 
 From thence it was but one step to call in question the 
 divine original of the papal power, which authorized 
 and supported such a system of errors. As the unavoid- 
 able result of the whole, he disclaimed the infallibility 
 of the pope, the decisions of schoolmen, or any other 
 human authority, and appealed to the word of God as 
 the only standard of theological truth. To this gradual 
 progress Luther owed his success. His hearers were 
 not shocked at first by any proposition too repugnant
 
 BOOK ii.] EMPEROB CHARLES THE FIFTH. 398 
 
 to their ancient prejudices or too remote from estab- 
 lished opinions. They were conducted insensibly from 
 one doctrine to another. Their faith and conviction 
 were able to keep pace with his discoveries. To the 
 same cause was owing the inattention, and even indiffer- 
 ence, with which Leo viewed Luther's first proceedings. 
 A direct or violent attack upon the authority of the 
 Church would at once have drawn upon Luther the 
 whole weight of its vengeance ; but as this was far from 
 his thoughts, as he continued long to profess great 
 respect for the pope, and made repeated offers of sub- 
 mission to his decisions, there seemed to be no reason 
 for apprehending that he would prove the author of any 
 desperate revolt ; and he was suffered to proceed, step 
 by step, in undermining the constitution of the Church, 
 until the remedy applied at last came too late to produce 
 any effect. 
 
 But whatever advantages Luther's cause derived, 
 either from the mistakes of his adversaries or from his 
 own good conduct, the sudden progress and firm estab- 
 lishment of his doctrines must not be ascribed to these 
 alone. The same corruptions in the Church of Rome 
 which he condemned had been attacked long before 
 his time. The same opinions which he now propagated 
 had been published in different places, and were sup- 
 ported by the same arguments. Waldus in the twelfth 
 century, Wickliff in the fourteenth, and Huss in the 
 fifteenth, had inveighed against the errors of popery 
 with great boldness, and confuted them with more inge- 
 nuity and learning than could have been expected in 
 those illiterate ages in which they flourished. But all 
 these premature attempts towards a reformation proved 
 abortive. Such feeble lights, incapable of dispelling 
 the darkness which then covered the Church, were soon 
 extinguished ; and though the doctrines of these pious 
 men produced some effects and left some traces in the
 
 394 REIGN OF THE [BOOK 11. 
 
 countries where they taught, they were neither extensive 
 nor considerable. Many powerful causes contributed to 
 facilitate Luther's progress, which either did not exist, 
 or did not operate with full force, in their days ; and 
 at that critical and mature juncture when he appeared, 
 circumstances of every kind concurred in rendering 
 each step that he took successful. 
 
 The long and scandalous schism which divided the 
 Church during the latter part of the fourteenth and the 
 beginning of the fifteenth centuries had a great effect in 
 diminishing the veneration with which the world had 
 been accustomed to -view the papal dignity. Two or 
 three contending pontiffs roaming about Europe at a 
 time, fawning on the princes whom they wanted to gain, 
 extorting large sums of money from the countries which 
 acknowledged their authority, excommunicating their 
 rivals, and cursing those who adhered to them, dis- 
 credited their pretensions to infallibility and exposed 
 both their persons and their office to contempt. The 
 laity, to whom all parties appealed, came to learn that 
 some right of private judgment belonged to them, and 
 acquired the exercise of it so far as to choose, among 
 these infallible guides, whom they would please to follow. 
 The proceedings of the councils of Constance and Basil 
 spread this disrespect for the Romish see still wider, 
 and, by their bold exertion of authority in deposing and 
 electing popes, taught men that there was in the Church 
 a jurisdiction superior even to the papal power, which 
 they had long believed to be supreme. 
 
 The wound given on that occasion to the papal autho- 
 rity was scarcely healed up when the pontificates of 
 Alexander VI. and Julius II., both able princes, but 
 detestable ecclesiastics, raised new scandal in Christen- 
 dom. The profligate morals of the former in private 
 life, the fraud, the injustice, and cruelty of his public 
 administration, place him on a level with those tyrants
 
 n.] EMPEROR CHAELES THE FIFTH. 395 
 
 whose deeds are the greatest reproach to human nature. 
 The latter, though a stranger to the odious passions 
 which prompted his predecessor to commit so many 
 unnatural crimes, was under the dominion of a restless 
 and ungovernable ambition, that scorned all considera- 
 tions of gratitude, of decency, or of justice, when they 
 obstructed the execution of his schemes. It was hardly 
 possible to be firmly persuaded that the infallible know- 
 ledge of a religion whose chief precepts are purity and 
 humility was deposited in the breasts of the profligate 
 Alexander or the overbearing Julius. The opinion of 
 those who exalted the authority of a council above that 
 of the pope spread wonderfully under their pontificates ; 
 and as the emperor and French kings, who were alter- 
 nately engaged in hostilities with those active pontiffs, 
 permitted and even encouraged their subjects to expose 
 their vices with all the violence of invective and all the 
 petulance of ridicule, men's ears being accustomed to 
 these were not shocked with the bold or ludicrous dis- 
 courses of Luther and his followers concerning the papal 
 dignity. 
 
 Nor were such excesses confined to the head of the 
 Church alone. Many of the dignified clergy, secular 
 as well as regular, being the younger sons of noble 
 families, who had assumed the ecclesiastical character 
 for no other reason but that they found in the Church 
 stations of great dignity and affluence, were accustomed 
 totally to neglect the duties of their office, and indulged 
 themselves without reserve in all the vices to which great 
 wealth and idleness naturally give birth. Though the 
 inferior clergy were prevented by their poverty from 
 imitating the expensive luxury of their superiors, yet 
 gross ignorance and low debauchery rendered them as 
 contemptible as the others were odious. 30 The severe 
 
 30 The corrupt state of the Church ledged by an author who was both 
 prior to the Reformation is acknow- abundantly able to judge concerning
 
 396 
 
 REIGN OF THE 
 
 [BOOK it 
 
 and unnatural law of celibacy, to which both were 
 equally subject, occasioned such irregularities that u 
 several parts of Europe the concubinage of priests was 
 not only permitted, but enjoined. The employing of 
 a remedy so contrary to the precepts of the Christian 
 religion is the strongest proof that the crimes it was 
 intended to prevent were both numerous and flagrant. 
 Long before the sixteenth century, many authors of 
 great name and authority give such descriptions of the 
 dissolute morals of the clergy as seem almost incredible 
 in the present age. 31 The voluptuous lives of ecclesias- 
 tics occasioned great scandal, not only because their 
 
 this matter and who was not over- 
 forward to confess it. " For some 
 years," says Bellarmine, " before 
 the Lutheran and Calvinistic here- 
 sies were published, there was not 
 (as contemporary authors testify) 
 any severity in ecclesiastical judica- 
 tories, any discipline with regard 
 to morals, any knowledge of sacred 
 literature, any reverence for divine 
 things : there was not almost any 
 religion remaining." Bellarminus, 
 Concio xxviii., Oper., torn. vi. col. 
 296, edit. Colon., 1617, apud Ger- 
 desii Hist. Evan. Eenovati, vol. i. 
 p. 25. 
 
 31 Centum Gravamina Nation. 
 German, in Fascicule Eer. expetend. 
 et fugiendarum, per Ortuinum Gra- 
 tium, vol. L p. 361. See innumer- 
 able passages to the same purpose 
 in the Appendix, or second volume, 
 published by Edw. Brown. See 
 also Herm. von der Hardt, Hist. 
 Lit. Reform., pars, iii, and the vast 
 collections of Wai chins in his four 
 volumes of Monumenta Medii Mvi, 
 Getting., 1757. The authors I 
 have quoted enumerate the vices of 
 the clergy. When they ventured 
 upon actions manifestly criminal, 
 we may conclude that they would 
 
 be less scrupulous with respect to 
 the decorum of behaviour. Ac- 
 cordingly, their neglect of the decent 
 conduct suitable to their profession 
 seems to have given great offence. 
 In order to illustrate this, I shall 
 transcribe one passage, because it 
 is not taken from any author whose 
 professed purpose it was to de- 
 scribe the improper conduct of the 
 clergy, and who, from prejudice or 
 artifice, may be supposed to aggra- 
 vate the charge against them. The 
 emperor Charles IV., in a letter to 
 the archbishop of Mentz, A.D. 1359, 
 exhorting him to reform the dis- 
 orders of the clergy, thus expresses 
 himself : " De Christi patrimonio, 
 ludos, hastiludia et torneamenta 
 exercent ; habitum militarem cum 
 praetextis aureis et argenteis gestant, 
 et calceos militares ; comam et 
 barbam nutriunt, et nihil quod aJ. 
 vitam et ordinem ecclesiasticum 
 spectat, ostendunt. Militaribus se 
 duntaxat et secularibus actibus, 
 vita et moribus, in suse salutis dis- 
 pendiuin, et generale populi scanda- 
 lum, immiscent." Codex Diploma- 
 ticus Anecdotoruin, per Val. Ferd 
 Gudenum, 4to, voL iii. p. 438
 
 BOOK n.] EMPEEOE CHARLES THE FIFTH. 397 
 
 manners were inconsistent with their sacred character, 
 but the laity, being accustomed to see several of them 
 raised from the lowest stations to the greatest affluence, 
 did not show the same indulgence to their excesses as 
 to those of persons possessed of hereditary wealth or 
 grandeur ; and, viewing their condition with more envy, 
 they censured their crimes with greater severity. 
 Nothing, therefore, could be more acceptable to Luther's 
 hearers than the violence with which he exclaimed 
 against the immoralities of churchmen ; and every per- 
 son in his audience could, from his own observation, 
 confirm the truth of his invectives. 
 
 The scandal of these crimes was greatly increased by 
 the facility with which such as committed them obtained 
 pardon. In all the European kingdoms, the importance 
 of the civil magistrate, under forms of government ex- 
 tremely irregular and turbulent, made it necessary to 
 relax the rigour of justice; and, upon payment of a 
 certain fine or composition prescribed by law, judges 
 were accustomed to remit further punishment, even of 
 the most atrocious crimes. The court of Rome, always 
 attentive to the means of augmenting its revenues, 
 imitated this practice, and, by a preposterous accom- 
 modation of it to religious concerns, granted its pardons 
 to such transgressors as gave a sum of money in order 
 to purchase them. As the idea of a composition for 
 crimes was then familiar, this strange traffic was so far 
 from shocking mankind, that it soon became general ; 
 and, in order to prevent any imposition in carrying it 
 on, the officers of the Roman chancery published a book 
 containing the precise sum to be exacted for the pardon 
 of every particular sin. A deacon guilty of murder 
 was absolved for twenty crowns. A bishop, or abbot, 
 might assassinate for three hundred livres. Any ecclesi- 
 astic might violate his vows of chastity, even with the 
 most aggravating circumstances, for the third part of
 
 398 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK n. 
 
 that sum. Even such shocking crimes as occur seldom 
 in human life, and perhaps exist only in the impure 
 imagination of a casuist, were taxed at a very moderate 
 rate. When a more regular and perfect mode of dis- 
 pensing justice came to be introduced into civil courts, 
 the practice of paying a composition for crimes went 
 gradually into disuse; and, mankind having acquired 
 more accurate notions concerning religion and morality, 
 the conditions on which the courts of Home bestowed its 
 pardons appeared impious, and were considered as one 
 great source of ecclesiastical corruption. 32 
 
 This degeneracy of manners among the clergy might 
 have been tolerated, perhaps, with greater indulgence, 
 if their exorbitant riches and power had not enabled 
 them at the same time to encroach on the rights of 
 every other order of men. It is the genius of super- 
 stition, fond of whatever is pompous or grand, to set no 
 bounds to its liberality towards persons whom it esteems 
 sacred, and to think its expressions of regard defective 
 unless it hath raised them to the height of wealth and 
 authority. Hence flowed the extensive revenues and 
 jurisdiction possessed by the Church in every country 
 in Europe, and which were become intolerable to the 
 laity, from whose undiscerning bounty they were at first 
 derived. 
 
 The burden, however, of ecclesiastical oppression had 
 fallen with such peculiar weight on the Germans as 
 rendered them, though naturally exempt from levity 
 and tenacious of their ancient customs, more inclinable 
 than any people in Europe to listen to those who called 
 on them to assert their liberty. During the long con- 
 tests between the popes and the emperors concerning 
 
 32 FascicuL Rer. expet et fug., L Banck et Tuppius. Texa Cancel 
 
 355. J. G. Schelhornii Amoenit. Romanae, edit. Francof., 1651, pas- 
 
 Literar. Francof., 1725, voL ii. p. sim. 
 369. Diction, de Bayle, artic.
 
 BOOK it,] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 399 
 
 the right of investiture, and the wars which these occa- 
 sioned, most of the considerable German ecclesiastics 
 joined the papal faction ; and while engaged in rebellion 
 against the head of the empire, they seized the imperial 
 domains and revenues and usurped the imperial juris- 
 diction within their own dioceses. Upon the re-esta- 
 blishment of tranquillity, they still retained these usur- 
 pations ; as if by the length of an unjust possession they 
 had acquired a legal right to them. The emperors, too 
 feeble to wrest them out of their hands, were obliged to 
 grant the clergy fiefs of those ample territories; and 
 they enjoyed all the immunities, as well as honours, 
 which belonged to feudal barons. By means of these, 
 many bishops and abbots in Germany were not only 
 ecclesiastics, but princes ; and their character and man- 
 ners partook more of the license too frequent amoug the 
 latter, than of the sanctity which became the former. 33 
 
 The unsettled state of government in Germany, and 
 the frequent wars to which that country was exposed, 
 contributed in another manner towards aggrandizing 
 ecclesiastics. The only property, during those times 
 of anarchy, which enjoyed security from the oppression 
 of the great, or the ravages of war, was that which 
 belonged to the Church. This was owing not only to 
 the great reverence for the sacred character prevalent in 
 those ages, but to a superstitious dread of the sentence 
 of excommunication, which the clergy were ready to 
 denounce against all who invaded their possessions. 
 Many, observing this, made a surrender of their lands 
 to ecclesiastics, and, consenting to hold them in fee of 
 the Church, obtained, as its vassals, a degree of safety 
 which without this device they were unable to procure. 
 By such an increase of the number ot* their vassals, the 
 power of ecclesiastics received a real and permanent 
 
 " F, Paul, History of Ecclesiastical Benefices, p. 107
 
 400 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK 11. 
 
 -augmentation ; and, as lands held in fee by the limited 
 tenures common in those ages of tea returned to the 
 persons on whom the fief depended, considerable addi- 
 tions were made in this way to the property of the 
 clergy. 34 
 
 The solicitude of the clergy in providing for the 
 safety of their own persons was still greater than that 
 which they displayed in securing their possessions ; 
 and their efforts to attain it were still more successful. 
 As they were consecrated to the priestly office with 
 much outward solemnity, were distinguished from the 
 rest of mankind by a peculiar garb and manner of life, 
 and arrogated to their order many privileges which do 
 not belong to other Christians, they naturally became 
 the objects of excessive veneration. As a superstitious 
 spirit spread, they were regarded as beings of a supe- 
 rior species to the profane laity, whom it would be 
 impious to try by the same laws or to subject to the 
 same punishments. This exemption from civil juris- 
 diction, granted at first to ecclesiastics as a mark of 
 respect, they soon claimed as a j oint of right. This 
 valuable immunity of the priesthood is asserted not 
 only in the decrees of popes and councils, but was con- 
 firmed in the most ample form by many of the greatest 
 emperors. 35 As long as the clerical character remained, 
 the person of an ecclesiastic was in some degree sacred ; 
 and unless he were degraded from his office the un- 
 hallowed hand of the civil judge durst not touch him. 
 But, as the power of degradation was lodged in the 
 spiritual courts, the difficulty and expense of obtaining 
 such a sentence too often secured absolute impunity 
 to offenders. Many assumed the clerical character for 
 no other reason than that it might screen them from 
 
 34 F. Paul, Hist of Eccles. Benef.. 35 Goldasti Const! tut. Imperial., 
 
 p. 66. Boulainvilliers, Etat de Francof., 1673, voL ii pp. 92, 
 France, torn. i. p. 169, Lond., 1737, 107.
 
 BOOK ii.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 401 
 
 the punishment which their actions deserved. 36 The 
 German nobles complained loudly that these anointed 
 malefactors, as they called them, 37 seldom suffered capi- 
 tally, even for the most atrocious crimes ; and their 
 independence of the civil magistrate is often mentioned 
 in the remonstrances of the diets, as a privilege equally 
 pernicious to society and to the morals of the clergy. 
 
 While the clergy asserted the privileges of their own 
 order with so much zeal, they made continual encroach- 
 ments upon those of the laity. All causes relative to 
 matrimony, to testaments, to usury, to legitimacy of 
 birth, as well as those which concerned ecclesiastical 
 revenues, were thought to be so connected with religion 
 that they could be tried only in the spiritual courts. 
 Not satisfied with this ample jurisdiction, which ex- 
 tended to one-half of the subjects that gave rise to 
 litigation among men, the clergy, with wonderful in- 
 dustry, and by a thousand inventions, endeavoured to 
 draw all other causes into their own courts. 38 As they 
 had engrossed almost the whole learning known in the 
 Dark Ages, the spiritual judges were commonly so far 
 superior in knowledge and abilities to those employed 
 in the secular courts that the people at first favoured 
 any stretch that was made to bring their affairs under 
 he cognizance of a judicature on the decisions of which 
 they could rely with more perfect confidence than on 
 those of the civil courts. Thus, the interest of the 
 Church and the inclination of the people, concurring to 
 elude the jurisdiction of the lay-magistrate, soon reduced 
 it almost to nothing. 39 By means of this, vast power 
 accrued to ecclesiastics, and no inconsiderable addition 
 was made to their revenue by the sums paid in those 
 ages to the persons who administered justice. 
 
 ** Rymer's Fcedera, voL xiii p. 3S Giannone, History of Naples, 
 
 532. book xix. 3. 
 
 37 Centum Gravam., 31 3a Centum Gravam., 9, 56, 64, 
 
 VOL. 1. D D
 
 402 REIGN OF ME TBOOK it. 
 
 The penalty by which the spiritual courts enforced 
 their sentences added great weight and terror to their 
 jurisdiction. The censure of excommunication was 
 instituted originally for preserving the purity of the 
 'Church ; that obstinate offenders, whose impious tenets 
 or profane lives were a reproach to Christianity, might 
 be cut 'off from the society of tlie faithful : this, eccle- 
 siastics did not scruple to convert into an engine for 
 promoting their own power, and they inflicted it on the 
 most frivolous occasions. Whoever despised any of their 
 decisions, even concerning civil matters, immediately 
 incurred this dreadful censure, which not only excluded 
 them from all the privileges of a Christian, but deprived 
 them of their rights as men and citizens ; 40 and the 
 dread of this rendered even the most fierce and tur- 
 bulent spirits obsequious to the authority of the Church. 
 
 Nor did the clergy neglect the proper methods of 
 preserving the wealth and power which they had ac- 
 quired with such industry and address. The posses- 
 sions of the Church, being consecrated to God, were 
 declared to be unalienable; so that the funds of a 
 society which was daily gaining and could never lose, 
 grew to be immense. In Germany, it was computed 
 that the ecclesiastics had got into their hands more than 
 one-half of the national property. 41 In other countries 
 the proportion varied; but the share belonging to the 
 Church was everywhere prodigious. These vast pos- 
 sessions were not subject to the burdens imposed on 
 the lands of the laity. The German clergy were ex- 
 empted by law from all taxes ; 42 and if, on an extra- 
 ordinary emergence, ecclesiastics were pleased to grant 
 some aid towards supplying the public exigencies, this 
 was considered as a free gift flowing from their own 
 
 40 Centum Gravam., 34. per., ii 79, 108. Pfeffel, Hist du 
 
 41 Ibid., 28. Droit Pub]., 350, 374. 
 a Id., ibid Goldasti Const Iin-
 
 BOOK ii.) EMPEEOE CHAELES THE FIFTH. 403 
 
 generosity, which the civil magistrate had no title to 
 demand, far less to exact. In consequence of this 
 strange solecism in government, the laity in Germany 
 had the mortification to find themselves loaded with 
 excessive impositions, because such as possessed the 
 greatest property were freed from any obligation to 
 support or defend the state. 
 
 Grievous, however, as the exorbitant wealth and 
 numerous privileges of the clerical order were to the 
 other members of the Germanic body, they would have 
 reckoned it some mitigation of the evil if these had been 
 possessed only by ecclesiastics residing among them- 
 selves, who would have been less apt to make an im- 
 proper use of their riches or to exercise their rights 
 with unbecoming rigour. But the bishops of Rome 
 having early put in a claim, the boldest that ever 
 human ambition suggested, of being supreme and in- 
 fallible heads of the Christian Church, they, by their 
 profound policy and unwearied perseverance, by their 
 address in availing themselves of every circumstance 
 which occurred, by taking advantage of the superstitiou 
 of some princes, of the necessities of others, and of the 
 credulity of the people, at length established their pre- 
 tensions, in opposition both to the interest and common 
 sense of mankind. Germany was the country which 
 these ecclesiastical sovereigns governed with most 
 absolute authority. They excommunicated and deposed 
 some of its most illustrious emperors, and excited their 
 subjects, their ministers, and even their children, to 
 take arms against them. Amidst these contests, the 
 popes continually extended their own immunities, spoil- 
 ing the secular princes gradually of their most valuable 
 prerogatives ; and the German Church felt all the rigour 
 of that oppression which flows from subjection to foreign 
 dominion and foreign exactions. 
 
 The right of conferring benefices, which the popes 
 
 DD 2
 
 404 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK n. 
 
 usurped during that period of confusion, was an acquisi- 
 tion of great importance, and exalted the ecclesiastical 
 power upon the ruins of the temporal. The emperors 
 and other princes of Germany had long been in posses- 
 sion of this right, which served to increase both their 
 authority and their revenue ; but by wresting it out of 
 their hands the popes were enabled to fill the empire 
 with their own creatures ; they accustomed a great body 
 of every prince's subjects to depend, not upon him, but 
 upon the Eoman see ; they bestowed upon strangers the 
 richest benefices in every country, and drained their 
 wealth to supply the luxury of a foreign court. Even 
 the patience of the most superstitious ages could no 
 longer bear such oppression ; and so loud and frequent 
 were the complaints and murmurs of the Germans that 
 the popes, afraid of irritating them too far, consented, 
 contrary to their usual practice, to abate somewhat of 
 their pretensions, and to rest satisfied with the right 
 of nomination to such benefices as happened to fall 
 vacant during six months in the year, leaving the dis- 
 posal of the remainder to the princes and other legal 
 patrons. 48 
 
 But the court of Eome easily found expedients for 
 eluding an agreement which put such restraints on its 
 power. The practice of reserving certain benefices in 
 every country to the pope's immediate nomination, 
 which had been long known, and often complained of, 
 was extended far beyond its ancient bounds. All the 
 benefices possessed by cardinals or any of the numer- 
 ous officers in the Eoman court, those held by persons 
 who happened to die at Rome, or within forty miles of 
 that city on their journey to or from it, such as became 
 vacant by translation, with many others, were included 
 in the number of reserved benefices. Julius II. and 
 
 * F. Paul, Hist of Eccles. Benef., 204. Gold., Constit Imper., i 408.
 
 BOOK n.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 405 
 
 Leo X., stretching the matter to the utmost, often col- 
 lated to benefices where the right of reservation had not 
 been declared, on pretence of having mentally reserved 
 this privilege to themselves. The right of reservation, 
 however, even with this extension, had certain limits, as 
 it could be exercised only where the benefice was actually 
 vacant ; and therefore, in order to render the exertion of 
 papal power unbounded, expectative graces, or mandates 
 nominating a person to succeed to a benefice upon the 
 first vacancy that should happen, were brought into use. 
 By means of these, Germany was filled with persons who 
 were servilely dependent on the court of Eome, from 
 which they had received such reversionary grants ; 
 princes were defrauded, in a great degree, of their pre- 
 rogatives ; the rights of lay-patrons were preoccupied, 
 and rendered almost entirely vain. 44 
 
 The manner in which these extraordinary powers 
 were exercised rendered them still more odious and 
 intolerable. The avarice and extortion of the court 
 of Eome were become excessive, almost to a proverb. 
 The practice of selling benefices was so notorious that 
 no pains were taken to conceal or to disguise it. Com- 
 panies of merchants openly purchased the benefices of 
 different districts in Germany from the pope's minis- 
 ters, and retailed them at an advanced price. 45 Pious 
 men beheld with deep regret these simoniacal transac- 
 tions, so unworthy the ministers of a Christian Church ; 
 while politicians complained of the loss sustained by 
 the exportation of so much wealth in that irreligious 
 traffic. 
 
 The sums, indeed, which the court of Eome drew 
 by its stated and legal impositions from all the coun- 
 tries acknowledging its authority were so considerable 
 
 44 Centum Gravam., 21. Fas- F. Paul, Hist, of EccL Benet, 167, 
 cic. Rer. expet., etc., 334. Gold., 199. 
 Const. Iniper., i. 391, 404, 405. 45 Fascic. Rer. expet., i. 35ft,
 
 406 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK n. 
 
 that it is not strange that princes, as well as their sub- 
 jects, murmured at the smallest addition made to them 
 by unnecessary or illicit means. Every ecclesiastical 
 person, upon his admission to his benefice, paid annats, 
 or one year's produce of his living, to the pope ; and, 
 as that tax was exacted with great rigour, its amount 
 was very great. To this must be added the frequent 
 demands made by the popes of free gifts from the clergy, 
 together with the extraordinary levies of tenths upon 
 ecclesiastical benefices, on pretence of expeditions 
 against the Turks, seldom intended or carried into ex- 
 ecution ; and, from the whole, the vast proportion of 
 the revenues of the Church which flowed continually 
 to Borne may be estimated. 
 
 Such were the dissolute manners, the exorbitant 
 wealth, the enormous power and privileges, of the 
 clergy before the Eeformation ; such the oppressive 
 rigour of that dominion which the popes had established 
 over the Christian world ; and such the sentiments con- 
 cerning them that prevailed in Germany at the begin- 
 ning of the sixteenth century. Nor has this sketch 
 been copied from the controversial writers of that age, 
 who, in the heat of disputation, may be suspected of 
 having exaggerated the errors or of having misrepre- 
 sented the conduct of that Church which they laboured 
 to overturn : it is formed upon more authentic evidence, 
 upon the memorials and remonstrances of the imperial 
 diets, enumerating the grievances under which the em- 
 pire groaned, in order to obtain the redress of them. 
 Dissatisfaction must have arisen to a great height among 
 the people, when these grave assemblies expressed them- 
 selves with that degree of acrimony which abounds in 
 their remonstrances ; and if they demanded the aboli- 
 tion of these enormities with so much vehemence, the 
 people, we may be assured, uttered their sentiments and 
 desires in bolder and more virulent language.
 
 BOOK ii. j EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 407 
 
 To men thus prepared for shaking off the yoke, 
 Luther addressed himself with certainty of success. 
 As they had long felt its weight, and had borne it 
 with impatience, they listened with joy to the first offer 
 of procuring them deliverance. Hence proceeded the 
 fond and eager reception that his doctrines met with, 
 and the rapidity with which they spread over all the 
 provinces of Germany. Even the impetuosity and 
 fierceness of Luther's spirit, his confidence in asserting 
 his own opinions, and the arrogance as well as con- 
 tempt wherewith he treated all them who differed from 
 him, which in ages of greater moderation and refine- 
 ment have been reckoned defects in the character of 
 that Reformer, did not appear excessive to his contem- 
 poraries, whose minds were strongly agitated by those 
 interesting controversies which he carried on, and who 
 had themselves endured the rigour of papal tyranny and 
 seen the corruptions in the Church against which he 
 exclaimed. 
 
 Nor were they offended at that gross scurrility with 
 which his polemical writings are filled, or at the low 
 buffoonery which he sometimes introduces into his 
 gravest discourses. No dispute was managed in those 
 rude times without a large portion of the former ; and 
 the latter was common, even on the most solemn occa- 
 sions and in treating the most sacred subjects. So far 
 were either of these from doing hurt to his cause that 
 invective and ridicule had some effect, as well as more 
 laudable arguments, in exposing the errors of popery 
 and in determining mankind to abandon them. 
 
 Besides all these causes of Luther's rapid progress, 
 arising from the nature of his enterprise and the junc- 
 ture at which he undertook it, he reaped advantage 
 from some foreign and adventitious circumstances, the 
 beneficial influence of which none of his forerunners in 
 the same course enjoyed,. Among these may be reckoned
 
 408 EEIGN OF THE ,BOOK n. 
 
 the invention of the art of printing, about half a century 
 before his time. By this fortunate discovery, the facility 
 of acquiring and of propagating knowledge was won- 
 derfully increased ; and Luther's books, which must 
 otherwise have made their way slowly and with uncer- 
 tainty into distant countries, spread out at once all 
 over Europe. Nor were they read only by the rich 
 and the learned, who alone had access to books before 
 that invention : they got into the hands of the people, 
 who, upon this appeal to them as judges, ventured to 
 examine and to reject many doctrines which they had 
 formerly been required to believe without being taught 
 to understand them. 
 
 The revival of learning at the same period was a cir- 
 cumstance extremely friendly to the Reformation. The 
 study of the ancient Greek and Roman authors, by en- 
 lightening the human mind with liberal and sound 
 knowledge, roused it from that profound lethargy in 
 which it had been sunk during several centuries. Man- 
 kind seem, at that period, to have recovered the powers 
 of inquiring and of thinking for themselves, faculties 
 of which they had long lost the use ; and, fond of the 
 acquisition, they exercised them with great boldness 
 upon all subjects. They were not now afraid of enter- 
 ing an uncommon path or of embracing a new opinion. 
 Novelty appears rather to have been a recommendation 
 of a doctrine ; and, instead of being startled when the 
 daring hand of Luther drew aside or tore the veil which 
 covered and established errors, the genius of the age 
 applauded and aided the attempt. Luther, though a 
 stranger to elegance in taste or composition, zealously 
 promoted the cultivation of ancient literature ; and, 
 sensible of its being necessary to the right understand- 
 ing of the Scriptures, he himself had acquired con- 
 siderable knowledge both in the Hebrew and Greek 
 tongues. Melancthon, and some other of his disci-
 
 BOOK ii.] EMPEUOR, CHARLES THE FIFTH. 409 
 
 pies, were eminent proficients in the polite arts ; and, 
 as the same ignorant monks who opposed the intro- 
 duction of learning into Germany set themselves with 
 equal fierceness against Luther's opinions, and declared 
 the good reception of the latter to be the effect of the 
 progress which the former had made, the cause of 
 learning and of the Reformation came to be considered 
 as closely connected with each other, and, in every 
 country, had the same friends and the same enemies. 
 This enabled the Reformers to carry on the contest 
 at first with great superiority. Erudition, industry, 
 accuracy of sentiment, purity of composition, even wit 
 and raillery, were almost wholly on their side, and 
 triumphed with ease over illiterate monks, whose rude 
 arguments, expressed in a perplexed and barbarous 
 style, were found insufficient for the defence of a sys- 
 tem the errors of which all the art and ingenuity of its 
 later and more learned advocates have not been able to 
 palliate. 
 
 That bold spirit of inquiry, which the revival of 
 learning excited in Europe, was so favourable to the 
 Reformation that Luther was aided in his progress, and 
 mankind were prepared to embrace his doctrines, by 
 persons who did not wish success to his undertaking. 
 The greater part of the ingenious men who applied to 
 the study of ancient literature towards the close of the 
 fifteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth, 
 though they had no intention, and perhaps no wish, 
 to overturn the established system of religion, had 
 discovered the absurdity of many tenets and practices 
 authorized by the Church, and perceived the futility of 
 those arguments by which illiterate monks endeavoured 
 to defend them. Their contempt of these advocates for 
 the received errors led them frequently to expose the 
 opinions which they supported, and to ridicule their 
 ignorance with great freedom and severity. By this,
 
 410 REIGN OF THE [BOOK IL 
 
 men were prepared for the more serious attacks made 
 upon them by Luther ; and their reverence both for the 
 doctrines and persons against whom he inveighed was 
 considerably abated. This was particularly the case 
 in Germany. When the first attempts were made to 
 revive a taste for ancient learning in that country, the 
 ecclesiastics there, who were still more ignorant than 
 their brethren on the other side of the Alps, set them- 
 selves to oppose its progress with more active zeal ; and 
 the patrons of the new studies, in return, attacked them 
 with greater violence. In the writings of Eeuchlin, 
 Hutten, and the other revivers of learning in Germany, 
 the corruptions of the Church of Rome are censured 
 with an acrimony of style little inferior to that of 
 Luther himself. 46 
 
 From the same cause proceeded the frequent stric- 
 tures of Erasmus upon the errors of the Church, as 
 well as upon the ignorance and vices of the clergy. 
 His reputation and authority were so high in Europe 
 at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and his 
 works were read with such universal admiration, that 
 the effect of these deserves to be mentioned as one 
 of the circumstances which contributed considerably 
 towards Luther's success. Erasmus, having been de- 
 stined for the Church and trained up in the knowledge 
 of ecclesiastical literature, applied himself more to 
 theological inquiries than any of the revivers of learn- 
 ing in that age. His acute judgment and extensive 
 erudition enabled him to discover many errors both in 
 the doctrine and worship of the Eomish Church. Some 
 of these he confuted with great solidity of reasoning 
 and force of eloquence. Others he treated as objects 
 of ridicule, and turned against them that irresistible 
 
 4<i Gerdesius, Hist Evang. Re- Hardt, Hist Literar. Reform., para 
 nov., vol. i. pp. 141, 157. ii. 
 Seckend., lib. i. p. 103. Von der
 
 BOOK ii.] EMPEEOE OHABLES THE FIFTH. 411 
 
 torrent of popular and satirical wit of which he had 
 the command. There was hardly any opinion or prac- 
 tice of the Romish Church which Luther endeavoured 
 to reform, but what had been previously animadverted 
 upon by Erasmus and had afforded him subject either of 
 censure or of raillery. Accordingly, when Luther first 
 began his attack upon the Church, Erasmus seemed to 
 applaud his conduct ; he courted the friendship of 
 several of his disciples and patrons, and condemned 
 the behaviour and spirit of his adversaries. 47 He con- 
 curred openly with him in inveighing against the 
 school divines, as the teachers of a system equally 
 unedifying and obscure. He joined him in endeavour- 
 ing to turn the attention of men to the study of the 
 Holy Scriptures as the only standard of religious truth. 48 
 Various circumstances, however, prevented Erasmus 
 from holding the same course with Luther. The natural 
 timidity of his temper, his want of that strength of 
 mind which alone can prompt a man to assume the 
 character of a reformer, 49 his excessive deference for 
 persons in high stations, his dread of losing the pen- 
 sions and other emoluments which their liberality had 
 conferred upon him, his extreme love of peace, and 
 hopes of reforming abuses gradually and by gentle 
 methods, all concurred in determining him not only 
 to repress and to moderate the zeal with which he had 
 once been animated against the errors of the Church, 50 
 
 47 Seckend., lib. i. pp. 40, 96. written every thing in the most 
 
 48 Von der Hardt, Histor. Literar. unexceptionable manner, I had no 
 Reform., pars i. Gerdes., Hist inclination to die for the sake of 
 Evang. Renov., i. 147. truth. Every man hath not the 
 
 49 Erasmus himself is candid courage requisite to make a martyr ; 
 enough to acknowledge this. " Lu- and I am afraid that, if I were put 
 ther," says he, " has given us many to the trial, I should imitate St. 
 a wholesome doctrine, and many a Peter." Epist. Erasmi, in Jortin's 
 good counsel. I wish he had not Life of Erasmus, vol. i p. 273. 
 defeated the effect of them by in- *" Jortin's Life of Erasmus, voL i 
 tolerable faiilts. But if he had p. 258.
 
 412 REIGN OF THE [BOOK n. 
 
 but to assume the character of a mediator between 
 Luther and his opponents. But though Erasmus soon 
 began to censure Luther as too daring and impetuous, 
 and was at last prevailed upon to write against him, he 
 must nevertheless be considered as his forerunner and 
 auxiliary in this war upon the Church. He first scat- 
 tered the seeds which Luther cherished and brought to 
 maturity. His raillery and oblique censures prepared 
 the way for Luther's invectives and more direct attacks. 
 In this light Erasmus appeared to the zealous defenders 
 of the Eomish Church in his own times. 51 In this light 
 he must be considered by every person conversant in the 
 history of that period. 
 
 In this long enumeration of the circumstances which 
 combined in favouring the progress of Luther's opinions 
 or in weakening the resistance of his adversaries, I have 
 avoided entering into any discussion of the theological 
 doctrines of popery, and have not attempted to show 
 how repugnant they are to the spirit of Christianity, 
 and how destitute of any foundation in reason, in the 
 word of God, or in the practice of the primitive 
 Church ; leaving those topics entirely to ecclesiastical 
 historians, to whose province they peculiarly belong. 
 But when we add the effect of these religious considera- 
 tions to the influence of political causes, it is obvious 
 that the united operation of both on the human mind 
 must have been sudden and irresistible. Though, to 
 Luther's contemporaries, who were too near, perhaps, 
 to the scene, or too deeply interested in it, to trace 
 causes with accuracy or to examine them with coolness, 
 the rapidity with which his opinions spread appeared 
 to be so unaccountable that some of them imputed it 
 to a certain uncommon and malignant position of the 
 stars, which scattered the spirit of giddiness and inno- 
 
 11 Von der Hardt, Hist. Literar. Reform., pars i p. 2.
 
 BOOK ii.] EMPEROR CHAELES THE FIFTH. 413 
 
 vation over the world, 52 it is evident that the success of 
 the Eeformation was the natural effect of many power- 
 ful causes prepared by peculiar providence and happily 
 conspiring to that end. This attempt to investigate 
 these causes and to throw light on an event so singular 
 and important will not, perhaps, be deemed an unneces- 
 sary digression. I return from it to the course of the 
 history. 
 
 The diet of Worms conducted its deliberations with 
 that slow formality peculiar to such assemblies. Much 
 time was spent in establishing some regulations with 
 regard to the internal police of the empire. The 
 jurisdiction of the imperial chamber was confirmed, 
 and the forms of its proceeding rendered more, fixed 
 and regular. A council of regency was appointed to 
 assist Ferdinand in the government of the empire 
 during any occasional absence of the emperor; which, 
 from the extent of the emperor's dominions, as well as 
 the multiplicity of his affairs, was an event that might 
 be frequently expected. 53 The state of religion was 
 then taken into consideration. There were not want- 
 ing some plausible reasons which might have induced 
 Charles to have declared himself the protector of 
 Luther's cause, or at least to have connived at its pro- 
 gress. If he had possessed no other dominions but 
 those which belonged to him in Germany, and no 
 other crown besides the imperial, he might have been 
 disposed, perhaps, to favour a man who asserted so 
 boldly the privileges and immunities for which the 
 empire had struggled so long with the popes. But the 
 vast and dangerous schemes which Francis I. was form- 
 ing against Charles made it necessary for him to regu- 
 late his conduct by views more extensive than those 
 
 62 Jovii Historia, Lut, 1553, foL, viii. c. 11, p. 195. Pfeffd, 
 p. 134. Chronol., p. 598. 
 
 * 3 Pont. Heuter. Rer. Austr., lib.
 
 REIGN OF THE [BOOK 11. 
 
 which would have suited a German prince ; and, it 
 being of the utmost importance to secure the pope's 
 friendship, this determined him to treat Luther with 
 great severity, as the most effectual method of soothing 
 Leo into a concurrence with his measures. His eager- 
 ness to accomplish this rendered him not unwilling to 
 gratify the papal legates in Germany, who insisted that, 
 without any delay or formal deliberation, the diet ought 
 to condemn a man whom the pope had already excom- 
 municated as an incorrigible heretic. Such an abrupt 
 manner of proceeding, however, being deemed unprece- 
 dented and unjust by the members of the diet, they 
 made a point of Luther's appearing in person and de- 
 claring whether he adhered or not to those opinions 
 which had drawn upon him the censures of the Church. 54 
 Not only the emperor, but all the princes through whose 
 territories he had to pass, granted him a safe-conduct ; 
 and Charles wrote to him at the same time, requiring 
 his immediate attendance on the diet, and renewing his 
 promises of protection from any injury or violence. 55 
 Luther did not hesitate one moment about yielding 
 obedience, and set out for Worms, attended by the 
 herald who had brought the emperor's letter and safe- 
 conduct. While on his journey, many of his friends, 
 whom the fate of Huss under similar circumstances, and 
 notwithstanding the same security of an imperial safe- 
 conduct, filled with solicitude, advised and entreated him 
 not to rush wantonly into the midst of danger. But 
 Luther, superior to such terrors, silenced them with this 
 reply: "I am lawfully called," said he, "to appear in 
 that city ; and thither will I go in the name of the 
 Lord, though as many devils as there are tiles on the 
 houses were there combined against me." 66 
 
 The reception which he met with at Worms WF,S 
 
 M P. Martyr. Ep., 722. M Luth., Oper., ii 412. 
 
 ** Luth., Oper., iL 411.
 
 feoox ii. J EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 415 
 
 such as he might have reckoned a full reward of all his 
 labours, if vanity and the love of applause had been the 
 principles by which he was influenced. Greater crowds 
 assembled to behold him than had appeared at the em- 
 peror's public entry ; his apartments were daily filled 
 with princes and personages of the highest rank, 57 and 
 he was treated with all the respect paid to those who 
 possess the power of directing the understanding and 
 sentiments of other men, a homage more sincere, as 
 well as more flattering, than any which pre-eminence in 
 birth or condition can command. At his appearance 
 before the diet he behaved with great decency, and with 
 equal firmness. He readily acknowledged an excess of 
 vehemence and acrimony in his controversial writings, 
 but refused to retract his opinions unless he were con- 
 vinced of their falsehood, or to consent to their being 
 tried by any other rule than the word of God. When 
 neither threats nor entreaties could prevail on him to 
 depart from this resolution, some of the ecclesiastics 
 proposed to imitate the example of the council of Con- 
 stance, and, by punishing the author of this pestilent 
 heresy, who was now in their power, to deliver the 
 Church at once from such an evil. But, the members 
 of the diet refusing to expose the German integrity to 
 fresh reproach by a second violation of public faith, and 
 Charles being no less unwilling to bring a stain upon 
 the beginning of his administration by such an igno- 
 minious action, Luther was permitted to depart in 
 safety. 58 A few days after he left the city, a severe 
 edict was published, in the emperor's name and by 
 authority of the diet, depriving him, as an obstinate and 
 excommunicated criminal, of all the privileges which he 
 enjoyed as a subject of the empire, forbidding any prince 
 to harbour or protect him, and requiring all to concur in 
 
 57 Seckend., 156. Luth., Oper., 58 F. Paul, Hist, of Counc., p. 13. 
 
 ii 414. Seckend., 160.
 
 416 REIGN OF THE [BOOK n. 
 
 seizing his person as soon as the term specified in his 
 safe-conduct was expired. 59 
 
 But this rigorous decree had no considerable effect; 
 the execution of it being prevented, partly by the multi- 
 plicity of occupations which the commotions in Spain, 
 together with the wars in Italy and the Low Countries, 
 created to the emperor, and partly by a prudent pre- 
 caution employed by the elector of Saxony, Luther's 
 faithful and discerning patron. As Luther, on his 
 return from Worms, was passing near Altenstein in 
 Thuringia, a number of horsemen in masks rushed sud- 
 denly out of a wood, where the elector had appointed 
 them to lie in wait for him, and, surrounding his com- 
 pany, carried him, after dismissing all his attendants, to 
 Wartburg, a strong castle not far distant. There the 
 elector ordered him to be supplied with everything 
 necessary or agreeable ; but the place of his retreat was 
 carefully concealed, until the fury of the present storm 
 against him began to abate, upon a change in the politi- 
 cal situation of Europe, in this solitude, where he 
 remained nine months, and wnicti he frequently called 
 his Patmos, after the name of that island to which the 
 Apostle John was banished, he exerted his usual vigoui 
 and industry in defence of his doctrines or in confutation 
 of his adversaries, publishing several treatises, which 
 revived the spirit of his followers, astonished to a great 
 degree, and disheartened, at the sudden disappearance of 
 their leader. 
 
 During his confinement his opinions continued to gain 
 ground, acquiring the ascendant in almost every city in 
 Saxony. At this time the Augustinians of Wittemberg, 
 with the approbation of the university and the connivance 
 of the elector, ventured upon the first step towards an 
 alteration in the established forms of public worship, by 
 abolishing the celebration of private masses, and by giving 
 
 M Gold., Const. Imperial., ii. 401.
 
 BOOK ii. J EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 41? 
 
 the cup as well as the bread to the laity in administering 
 the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. 
 
 Whatever consolation the courage and success of his 
 disciples, or the progress of his doctrines in his own 
 country, afforded Luther in his retreat, he there received 
 information of two events which considerably damped 
 his joy, as they seemed to lay insuperable obstacles in 
 the way of propagating his principles in the two most 
 powerful kingdoms of Europe. One was a solemn decree, 
 condemning his opinions, published by the University of 
 Paris, the most ancient, and at that time the most 
 respectable, of the learned societies in Europe. The 
 other was the answer written to his book concerning the 
 Babylonish captivity by Henry VIII. of England. That 
 monarch, having been educated under the eye of a sus- 
 picious father, who, in order to prevent his attending 
 to business, kept him occupied in the study of literature j 
 still retained a greater love of learning, and stronger 
 habits of application to it, than are common among 
 princes of so active a disposition and such violent pas- 
 sions. Being ambitious of acquiring glory of every kind, 
 as well as zealously attached to the Komish Church, 
 and highly exasperated against Luther, who had treated 
 Thomas Aquinas, his favourite author, with great con- 
 tempt, Henry did not think it enough to exert his royal 
 authority in opposing the opinions of the Reformer, 
 but resolved likewise to combat them with scholastic 
 weapons. With this view he published his treatise on 
 the seven sacraments; which, though forgotten at present, 
 as books of controversy always are when the occasion 
 that produced them is past, is not destitute of polemical 
 ingenuity and acuteness, and was represented by the 
 flattery of his courtiers to be a work of such wonderful 
 science and learning as exalted him no less above other 
 authors in merit than he was distinguished among them 
 by his rank. The pope, to whom it was presented with 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 418 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK 
 
 the greatest formality in full consistory, spoke of it in 
 such terms as if it had been dictated by immediate 
 inspiration, and, as a testimony of the gratitude of the 
 Church for his extraordinary zeal, conferred on him the 
 title of Defender of the Faith, an appellation which Henry 
 soon forfeited in the opinion of those from whom he 
 derived it, and which is still retained by his successors, 
 though the avowed enemy of those opinions by contend- 
 ing for which he merited that honourable distinction. 
 Luther, who was not overawed either by the authority 
 of the university or the dignity of the monarch, soon 
 published his animadversions on both, in a style no less 
 vehement and severe than he would have used in con- 
 futing his meanest antagonist. This indecent boldness, 
 instead of shocking his contemporaries, was considered 
 by them as a new proof of his undaunted spirit. A 
 controversy managed by disputants so illustrious drew 
 universal attention ; and such was the contagion of the 
 spirit of innovation diffused through Europe in that age, 
 and so powerful the evidence which accompanied the 
 doctrines of the Reformers on their first publication, 
 that, in spite both of the civil and ecclesiastical powers 
 combined against them, they daily gained converts both 
 in France and in England. 
 
 How desirous soever the emperor might be to put a 
 stop to Luther's progress, he was often obliged, during 
 the diet at Worms, to turn his thoughts to matters still 
 more interesting and which demanded more immediate 
 attention. A war was ready to break out between him 
 and the French king in Navarre, in the Low Countries, 
 and in Italy ; and it required either great address to 
 avert the danger, or timely and wise precautions to 
 resist it. Every circumstance, at that juncture, inclined 
 Charles to prefer the torrner measure. Spain was torn 
 with intestine commotions. In Italy, he had not hitherto 
 secured the assistance of any one ally. In the Low
 
 BOOK n.l EMPEEOE CHARLES THE FIFTH. 419 
 
 Countries, his subjects trembled at the thoughts of a 
 rupture with France, the fatal effects of which on their 
 commerce they had often experienced. From these con- 
 siderations, as well as from the solicitude of Chievres, 
 during his whole administration, to maintain peace be- 
 tween the two monarchs, proceeded the emperor's back- 
 wardness to commence hostilities. But Francis and his 
 ministers did not breathe the same pacific spirit. He 
 easily foresaw that concord could not long subsist where 
 interest, emulation, and ambition conspired to dissolve 
 it ; and he possessed several advantages which flattered 
 him with the hopes of surprising his rival, and of over- 
 powering him, before he could put himself in a posture 
 of defence. The French king's dominions, from their 
 compact situation, from their subjection to the royal 
 authority, from the genius of the people, fond of war, 
 and attached to their sovereign by every tie of duty and 
 affection, were more capable of a great or sudden effort 
 than the larger but disunited territories of the emperor, 
 in one part of which the people were in arms against his 
 ministers, and in all his prerogative was more limited 
 than that of his rival. 
 
 The only princes in whose power it was to have kept 
 down, or to have extinguished, this flame on its first 
 appearance, either neglected to exert themselves or were 
 active in kindling and spreading it. Henry YIIL, 
 though he affected to assume the name of mediator, and 
 both parties made frequent appeals to him, had laid aside 
 the impartiality which suited that character. Wolsey, 
 by his artifices, had estranged himself so entirely from 
 the French king that he secretly fomented the discord 
 which he ought to have composed, and waited only for 
 some decent pretext to join his arms to those of the 
 emperor. 60 
 
 Leo's endeavours to excite discord between the em- 
 
 80 Herbert. Fiddes's Life of Wolsey, 268. 
 
 X 2
 
 420 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK n. 
 
 peror and Francis were more avowed, and had greater 
 influence. Not only his duty as the common father of 
 Christendom, but his interest as an Italian potentate, 
 called upon the pope to act as the guardian of the public 
 tranquillity, and to avoid any measure that might over- 
 turn the system which, after much bloodshed and many 
 negotiations, was now established in Italy. Accordingly 
 Leo, who instantly discerned the propriety of this con- 
 duct, had formed a scheme, upon Charles's promotion to 
 the imperial dignity, of rendering himself the umpire 
 between the rivals, by soothing them alternately, while 
 he entered into no close confederacy with either ; and a 
 pontiff less ambitious and enterprising might have saved 
 Europe from many calamities by adhering to this plan. 
 But this high-spirited prelate, who was still in the prime 
 of life, longed passionately to distinguish his pontificate 
 by some splendid action. He was impatient to wash 
 away the infamy of having lost Parma and Placentia, 
 the acquisition of which reflected so much lustre on the 
 administration of his predecessor, Julius. He beheld 
 with the indignation natural to Italians in that age the 
 dominion which the Transalpine, or as they, in imita- 
 tion of the Roman arrogance, denominated them, the 
 barbarous nations, had attained in Italy. He flattered 
 himself that after assisting the one monarch to strip the 
 other of his possessions in that country he might find 
 means of driving out the victor in his turn, and acquire 
 the glory of restoring Italy to the liberty and happiness 
 which it had enjoyed before the invasion of Charles VIII., 
 when every state was governed by its native princes or 
 its own laws, and unacquainted with a foreign yoke. 
 Extravagant and chimerical as this project may seem, it 
 was the favourite object of almost every Italian eminent 
 for genius or enterprise during great part of the sixteenth 
 century. They vainly hoped that by superior skill in 
 the artifices and \ refinements of negotiation they should
 
 BOOK ii.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 42] 
 
 be able to baffle the efforts of nations less polished 
 indeed than themselves, but much more powerful and 
 warlike. So alluring was the prospect of this to Leo 
 that, notwithstanding the gentleness of his disposition 
 and his fondness for the pleasures of a refined and luxu- 
 rious ease, he hastened to disturb the peace of Europe, 
 and to plunge himself into a dangerous war, with an 
 impetuosity scarcely inferior to that of the turbulent and 
 martial Julius. 61 
 
 It was in Leo's power, however, to choose which of 
 the monarchs he would take for his confederate against 
 the other. Both of them courted his friendship ; he 
 wavered for some time between them, and at first con- 
 cluded an alliance with Francis. The object of this 
 treaty was the conquest of Naples, which the confede- 
 rates agreed to divide between them. The pope, it is 
 probable, flattered himself that the brisk and active 
 spirit of Francis, seconded by the same qualities in his 
 subjects, would get the start of the slow and wary 
 counsels of the emperor, and that they might overrun 
 with ease this detached portion of his dominions, ill 
 provided for defence and always the prey of every in- 
 vader. But whether the French king, by discovering 
 too openly his suspicion of Leo's sincerity, disappointed 
 these hopes ; whether the treaty was only an artifice of 
 the pope's to cover the more serious negotiations which 
 he was carrying on with Charles ; whether he was enticed 
 by the prospect of reaping great advantages from a 
 union with that prince ; or whether he was soothed by 
 the zeal which Charles had manifested for the honour of 
 the Church in condemning Luther, certain it is that 
 he soon deserted his new ally, and made overtures of 
 friendship, though with great secrecy, to the emperor. 61 
 Don John Manuel, the same man who had been the 
 
 61 Guic., lib. xiv. p. 173. 
 
 M Guic., lib. xiv. p. 175. M^m. de Bellay, Par., 1573, p. 24.
 
 422 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK n. 
 
 favourite of Philip, and whose address had disconcerted 
 all Ferdinand's schemes, having been delivered, upon 
 the death of that monarch, from the prison to which he 
 had been confined, was now the imperial ambassador 
 at Rome, and fully capable of improving this favourable 
 disposition in the pope to his master's advantage. 63 To 
 him the conduct of this negotiation was entirely com- 
 mitted; and being carefully concealed from Chievres, 
 whose aversion to a war with France would have 
 prompted him to retard or to defeat it, an alliance be- 
 tween the pope and emperor was quickly concluded. 64 
 The chief articles in this treaty, which proved the 
 foundation of Charles's grandeur in Italy, were that 
 the pope and emperor should join their forces to expel 
 the French out of the Milanese, the possession of which 
 should be granted to Francis Sforza, a son of Ludovico 
 the Moor, who had resided at Trent since the time that 
 his brother Maximilian had been dispossessed of his 
 dominions by the French king ; that Parma and Placentia 
 should be restored to the Church ; that the emperoi 
 should assist the pope in conquering Ferrara ; that the 
 annual tribute paid by the kingdom of Naples to the 
 holy see should be increased ; that the emperor should 
 take the family of Medici under his protection ; that he 
 should grant to the cardinal of that name a pension of 
 ten thousand ducats upon the archbishopric of Toledo, 
 and should settle lands in the kingdom of Naples, to the 
 same value, upon Alexander, the natural son of Lorenzo 
 de' Medici. 
 
 The transacting an affair of such moment without his 
 participation appeared to Chievres so decisive a proof 
 of his having lost the ascendant which he had hitherto 
 maintained over the mind of his pupil, that his chagrin 
 on this account, added to the melancholy with which 
 
 tt Jovii Vita Leonis, lib. iv. p. 89. de Bellay, p. 24. Du Mont, Corps 
 ** Guic., lib. xiv. 181. M&B. Diplom., torn, iv., suppl., p. 96.
 
 BOOK ii.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 423 
 
 he was overwhelmed on taking a view of the many and 
 unavoidable calamities attending a war against France, 
 is said to have shortened his days. 65 But though this, 
 perhaps, may be only the conjecture of historians, fond 
 of attributing every thing that befalls illustrious person- 
 ages to extraordinary causes, and of ascribing even their 
 diseases and death to the effect of political passions, 
 which are more apt to disturb the enjoyment than to 
 abridge the period of life, it is certain that his death, 
 it this critical juncture, extinguished all hopes of avoid- 
 ing a rupture with France. 66 This event, too, delivered 
 Charles from a minister to whose authority he had been 
 accustomed from his infancy to submit with such im- 
 plicit deference as checked and depressed his genius 
 and retained him in a state of pupilage unbecoming Ms 
 years as well as his rank. But this restraint being re- 
 moved, the native powers of his mind were permitted 
 to unfold themselves, and he began to display such 
 great talents, both in council and in action, as exceeded 
 the hopes of his contemporaries, 67 and command the 
 admiration of posterity. 
 
 While the pope and emperor were preparing, in con- 
 sequence of this secret alliance, to attack Milan, hos- 
 tilities commenced in another quarter. The children 
 of John d'Albret, king of Navarre, having often de- 
 manded the restitution of their hereditary dominions, 
 in terms of the treaty of Noyon, and Charles having 
 as often eluded their requests upon very frivolous pre- 
 texts, Francis thought himself authorized by that treaty 
 to assist the exiled family. The juncture appeared 
 extremely favourable for such an enterprise. Charles 
 was at a distance from that part of his dominions ; the 
 troops usually stationed there had been called away to 
 
 65 Belcarii Comment, de Reb. yiiL c. 11, p. 197. 
 Gallic., 483. " P. Martyr. Ep., 73ft. 
 
 K P. Heuter. Rer. Austr., lib.
 
 424 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK n. 
 
 quell tJie commotions in Spain ; the Spanish malecon- 
 tents warmly solicited him to invade Navarre, 68 in which 
 a considerable faction was ready to declare for the de- 
 scendants of their ancient monarchs. But, in order to 
 avoid as much as possible giving offence to the emperor, 
 or king of England, Francis directed forces to be levied, 
 and the war to be carried on, not in his own name, 
 but in that of Henry d'Albret. The conduct of these 
 troops was committed to Andrew de Foix, de 1'Esparre, 
 a young nobleman, whom his near alliance to the un- 
 fortunate king whose battles he was to fight, and, what 
 was still more powerful, the interest of his sister, 
 Madame de Chateaubriand, Francis's favourite mistress, 
 recommended to that important trust, for which he had 
 neither talents nor experience. But, as there was no 
 army in the field to oppose mm, he became master, in 
 a few days, of the whole kingdom of Navarre, without 
 meeting with any obstruction but from the citadel of 
 Pampeluna. The additional works of this fortress, 
 begun by Ximenes, were still unfinished ; nor would its 
 slight resistance have deserved notice, if Ignatio Loyola, 
 a Biscayan gentleman, had not been dangerously 
 wounded in its defence. During the progress of a 
 lingering cure, Loyola happened to have no other amuse- 
 ment than what he found in reading the lives of the 
 saints : the effect of this on his mind, 'naturally enthu- 
 siastic, but ambitious and daring, was to inspire him 
 with such a desire of emulating the glory of these fabu- 
 lous worthies of the Roman Church as led him into the 
 wildest and most extravagant adventures, which termi- 
 nated at last in instituting the society of Jesuits, the 
 most political and best regulated of all the monastic 
 orders, and from which mankind have derived more 
 advantages and received greater injury than from any 
 other of those religious fraternities. 
 
 6S P. Martyr, Ep., 721.
 
 BOOK IT.] EMPKKOK CHAELES THE FIFTH. 425 
 
 If, upon the reduction of Pampeluna, L'Esparre had 
 been satisfied with taking proper precautions for secur- 
 ing his conquest, the kingdom of Navarre might still 
 have remained annexed to the crown of France in reality 
 as well as in title. But, pushed on by youthful ardour, 
 and encouraged by Francis, who was too apt to be 
 dazzled with success, he ventured to pass the confines 
 of Navarre, and to lay siege to Logrogno, a small town 
 in Castile. This roused the Castilians, who had hitherto 
 beheld the rapid progress of his arms with great uncon- 
 cern, and, the dissensions in that kingdom (of which 
 a full account shall be given) being almost composed, 
 both parties exerted themselves with emulation in de- 
 fence of their country : the one, that it might efface the 
 memory of past misconduct by its present zeal ; the 
 other, that it might add to the merit of having subdued 
 the emperor's rebellious subjects that of repulsing his 
 foreign enemies. The sudden advance of their troops, 
 together with the gallant defence made by the inhabi- 
 tants of Logrogno, obliged the French general to aban- 
 don his rash enterprise. The Spanish army, which 
 increased every day, harassing him during his retreat, 
 he, instead of taking shelter under the cannon of Pam- 
 peluna, or waiting the arrival of some troops which were 
 marching to join him, attacked the Spaniards, though 
 far superior to him in number, with great impetuosity, 
 but with so little conduct that his forces were totally 
 routed, he himself, together with his principal officers, 
 was taken prisoner, and Spain recovered possession 
 of Navarre in still shorter time than the French had 
 spent in the conquest of it. 69 
 
 While Francis endeavoured to justify his invasion 
 of Navarre by carrying it on in the name of Henry 
 d'Albret, he had recourse to an artifice much of the 
 same kind in attacking another part of the emperor's 
 
 M&n. de Bellay, p. 21. P. Martyr. Ep., 726.
 
 426 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK n. 
 
 territories. Bobert de la Mark, lord of the small but 
 independent territory of Bouillon, situated on the 
 frontiers of Luxembourg and Champagne, having aban- 
 doned Charles's service on account of an encroachment 
 which the Aulic Council had made on his jurisdiction, 
 and having thrown himself upon France for protection, 
 was easily persuaded, in the heat of his resentment, to 
 send a herald to Worms and to declare war against the 
 emperor in form. Such extravagant insolence in a 
 petty prince surprised Charles, and appeared to him 
 a certain proof of his having received promises of 
 powerful support from the French king. The justness 
 of this conclusion soon became evident. Eobert entered 
 the duchy of Luxembourg with troops levied in France, 
 by the king's connivance, though seemingly in contra- 
 diction to his orders, and, after ravaging the open 
 country, laid siege to Yireton. Of this Charles com- 
 plained loudly, as a direct violation of the peace subsist- 
 ing between the two crowns, and summoned Henry YIIL, 
 in terms of the treaty concluded at London in the year 
 1518, to turn his arms against Francis as the first 
 aggressor. Francis pretended that he was not answer- 
 able for Eobert' s conduct, whose army fought under his 
 own standards and in his own quarrel, and affirmed 
 that, contrary to an express prohibition, he had seduced 
 some subjects of France into his service ; but Henry 
 paid so little regard to this evasion that the French 
 king, rather than irritate a prince whom he still hoped 
 to gain, commanded De la Mark to disband his troops. 70 
 The emperor, meanwhile, was assembling an army to 
 chastise Eobert's insolence. Twenty thousand men, 
 under the count of Nassau, invaded his little territories, 
 and in a few days became masters of every place in them 
 but Sedan. After making him feel so sensibly the 
 weight of his master's indignation, Nassau advanced 
 
 70 M&n. de Bellay, p. 22, etc, Me'm. de Fleuranges, p. 335, etc.
 
 BOOK ii.] EMPEKOR OHAELES THE FIFTH. 427 
 
 towards the frontiers of France ; and Charles, knowing 
 that he might presume so far on Henry's partiality in 
 his favour as not to be overawed by the same fears which 
 had restrained Francis, ordered his general to besiege 
 Mouson. The cowardice of the garrison having obliged 
 the governor to surrender almost without resistance, 
 Nassau invested Mdzieres, a place at that time of no 
 considerable strength, but so advantageously situated 
 that by getting possession of it the imperial army might 
 have penetrated into the heart of Champagne, in which 
 there was hardly any other town capable of obstructing 
 its progress. Happily for France, its monarch, sensible 
 of the importance of this fortress and of the danger to 
 which it was exposed, committed the defence of it to 
 the Chevalier Bayard, distinguished among his contem- 
 poraries by the appellation of The knight without fear 
 and without reproach. 11 This man, whose prowess in 
 combat, whose punctilious honour and formal gallantry, 
 bear a nearer resemblance than anything recorded in 
 history to the character ascribed to the heroes of chivalry, 
 possessed all the talents which form a great general. 
 These he had many occasions of exerting in the defence 
 of Me'zieres. Partly by his valour, partly by his con- 
 duct, he protracted the siege to a great length, and 
 in the end obliged the imperialists to raise it, with 
 disgrace and loss. 72 Francis, at the head of a numerous 
 army, soon retook Mouson, and, entering the Low Coun- 
 tries, made several conquests of small importance. In 
 the neighbourhood of Valenciennes, through an excess 
 of caution, an error with which he cannot be often 
 charged, he lost an opportunity of cutting off the whole 
 imperial army; 73 and, what was still more unfortunate, 
 he disgusted Charles, duke of Bourbon, high constable 
 
 71 (Euvres de Brantome, torn, vt w P. Martyr. Ep., 747. Me'm. 
 114. de Bellay, 35. 
 
 72 Mem. de Bellay, p. 25, etc.
 
 428 REIGN OF THE [BOOK n. 
 
 of France, by giving the command of the van to the 
 duke d'Alencon, though this post of honour belonged to 
 Bourbon, as a prerogative of his office. 
 
 During these operations in the field, a congress was 
 held at Calais, under the mediation of Henry VIII., in 
 order to bring all differences to an amicable issue ; and 
 if the intention of the mediator had corresponded in 
 any degree to his professions, it could hardly have failed 
 of producing some good effect. But Henry committed 
 the sole management of the negotiation, with unlimited 
 powers, to Wolsey ; and this choice alone was sufficient 
 to have rendered it abortive. That prelate, bent on 
 attaining the papal crown, the great object of his 
 ambition, and ready to sacrifice every thing in order 
 to gain the emperor's interest, was so little able to 
 conceal his partiality that if Francis had not been well 
 acquainted with his haughty and vindictive temper he 
 would have declined his mediation. Much time was 
 spent in inquiring who had begun hostilities, which 
 Wolsey affected to represent as the principal point ; 
 and by throwing the blame of that on Francis he hoped 
 to justify by the treaty of London any alliance into 
 which his master should enter with Charles. The con- 
 ditions on which hostilities might be terminated came 
 next to be considered; but with regard to these the 
 emperor's proposals were such as discovered either that 
 he was utterly averse to peace, or that he knew Wolsey 
 would approve of whatever terms should be offered in 
 his name. He demanded the restitution of the duchy 
 of Burgundy, a province the possession of which would 
 have given him access into the heart of France, and 
 required to be released from the homage due to the 
 crown of France for the counties of Flanders and 
 Artois, which none of his ancestors had ever refused, 
 and which he had bound himself by the treaty of 
 Noyon to renew. These terms, to which a high-spirited
 
 BOOK n.] EMPEEOE CHAELES THE FIFTH. 429 
 
 prince would scarcely have listened, after the disasters 
 of an unfortunate war, Francis rejected with great dis- 
 dain; and Charles showing no inclination to comply 
 with the more equal and moderate propositions of the 
 French monarch, that he should restore Navarre to its 
 lawful prince and withdraw his troops from the siege 
 of Tournay, the congress broke up without any other 
 effect than that which attends unsuccessful negotia- 
 tions, the exasperating of the parties whom it was 
 intended to reconcile. 74 
 
 During the continuance of the congress, Wolsey, on 
 pretence that the emperor himself would be more will- 
 ing to make reasonable concessions than his ministers, 
 made an excursion to Bruges to meet that monarch. 
 He was received by Charles, who knew his vanity, with 
 as much respect and magnificence as if he had been 
 king of England. But, instead of advancing the treaty 
 of peace by this interview, Wolsey, in his master's name, 
 concluded a league with the emperor against Francis ; 
 in which it was stipulated that Charles should invade 
 France on the side of Spain, and Henry in Picardy, 
 each with an army of forty thousand men, and that, 
 in order to strengthen their union, Charles should 
 espouse the princess Mary, Henry's only child, and the 
 apparent heir of his dominions. 75 Henry produced 
 no better reasons for this measure, equally unjust and 
 impolitic, than the article in the , treaty of London by 
 which he pretended that he was bound to take arms 
 against the French king as the first aggressor, and the 
 injury which he alleged Francis had done him in per- 
 mitting the duke of Albany, the head of a faction in 
 Scotland which opposed the interest of England, to 
 return into that kingdom. He was influenced, how- 
 ever, by other considerations. The advantages which 
 
 74 P. Martyr. Ep., 739. Her- 7 * Rymer, Feeder., adii. Herbert, 
 bert.
 
 430 REIGN OF THE (BOOK n. 
 
 accrued to his subjects from maintaining an exact 
 neutrality, or the honour that resulted to himself from 
 acting as the arbiter between the contending princes, 
 appeared to his youthful imagination so inconsiderable, 
 when compared with the glory which might be reaped 
 from leading armies or conquering provinces, that he 
 determined to remain no longer in a state of inactivity. 
 Having once taken this resolution, his inducements to 
 prefer an alliance with Charles were obvious. He had 
 no claim upon any part of that prince's dominions, 
 most of which were so situated that he could not attack 
 them without great difficulty and disadvantage ; whereas 
 several maritime provinces of France had been long in 
 the hands of the English monarchs, whose pretensions 
 even to the crown of that kingdom were not as yet 
 altogether forgotten; and the possession of Calais not 
 only gave him easy access into some of those provinces, 
 but, in case of any disaster, afforded him a secure re- 
 treat. While Charles attacked France on one frontier, 
 Henry flattered himself that he should find little resist- 
 ance on the other, and that the glory of re-annexing 
 to the crown of England the ancient inheritance of its 
 monarchs on the Continent was reserved for his reign. 
 Wolsey artfully encouraged these vain hopes, which led 
 his master into such measures as were most subservient 
 to his own secret schemes ; and the English, whose 
 hereditary animosity against the French was apt to 
 rekindle on every occasion, did not disapprove of the 
 martial spirit of their sovereign. 
 
 Meanwhile, the league between the pope and the 
 emperor produced great effects in Italy, and rendered 
 Lombardy the chief theatre of war. There was at that 
 time such contrariety between the character of the 
 French and the Italians that the latter submitted to 
 the government of the former with greater impatience 
 than they expressed under the dominion of other
 
 BOOK n.] EUPEROK CHAELES THE FIFTH. 431 
 
 foreigners. The phlegm of the Germans and gravity 
 of the Spaniards suited their jealous temper and cere- 
 monious manners better than the French gaiety, too 
 prone to gallantry and too little attentive to decorum. 
 Louis XII., however, by the equity and gentleness of 
 his administration, and by granting the Milanese more 
 extensive privileges than those they had enjoyed under 
 their native princes, had overcome in a great measure 
 their prejudices and reconciled them to the French 
 government. Francis, on recovering that duchy, did 
 not imitate the example of his predecessor. Though 
 too generous himself to oppress his people, his bound- 
 less confidence in his favourites, and his negligence in 
 examining into the conduct of those whom he intrusted 
 with power, emboldened them to venture upon any 
 acts of oppression. The government of Milan was 
 committed by him to Odet de Foix, Mare'chal de 
 Lantrec, another brother of Madame de Chateaubriand, 
 an officer of great experience and reputation, but 
 haughty, imperious, and rapacious, and incapable either 
 of listening to advice or of bearing contradiction. His 
 insolence and exactions totally alienated the affections 
 of the Milanese from France, drove many of the con- 
 siderable citizens into banishment, and forced others 
 to retire for their own safety. Among the last was 
 Jerome Morone, vice-chancellor of Milan, a man whose 
 genius for intrigue and enterprise distinguished him in 
 an age and country where violent factions, as well as 
 frequent revolutions, affording great scope for such 
 talents, produced or called them forth in great abun- 
 dance. He repaired to Francis Sforza, whose brother 
 Maximilian he had betrayed ; and suspecting the pope's 
 intention of attacking the Milanese, although his treaty 
 with the emperor was not yet made public, he proposed 
 to Leo, in the name of Sforza, a scheme for surprising 
 several places in that duchy by means of the exiles,
 
 432 EEIGN OF THE (.BOOK n. 
 
 who, from hatred to the French, and from attachment 
 to their former masters, were ready for any desperate 
 enterprise. Leo not only encouraged the attempt, but 
 advanced a considerable sum towards the execution of 
 it ; and when, through unforeseen accidents, it failed 
 of success in every part, he allowed the exiles, who had 
 assembled in a body, to retire to Eeggio, which belonged 
 at that time to the Church. The Mare'chal de Foix, 
 who commanded at Milan in the absence of his brother 
 Lautrec, who was then in France, tempted with the 
 hopes of catching at once, as in a snare, all the avowed 
 enemies of his master's government in that country, 
 ventured to march into the ecclesiastical territories and 
 to invest Eeggio. But tiie vigilance and good conduct 
 of Guicciardini, the historian, governor of that place, 
 obliged the French general to abandon the enterprise 
 with disgrace. 76 Leo, on receiving this intelligence, 
 with which he was highly pleased, as it furnished him 
 a decent pretence for a rupture with France, immediately 
 assembled the consistory of cardinals. After complain- 
 ing bitterly of the hostile intentions of the French king, 
 and magnifying the emperor's zeal for the Church, of 
 which he had given a recent proof by his proceedings 
 against Luther, he declared that he was constrained, 
 in self-defence, and as the only expedient for the security 
 of the ecclesiastical state, to join his arms to those of 
 that prince. For this purpose, he now pretended to 
 conclude a treaty with Don John Manuel, although it 
 had really been signed some months before this time ; 
 and he publicly excommunicated De Foix, as an impious 
 invader of St. Peter's patrimony. 
 
 Leo had already begun preparations for war by taking 
 into pay a considerable body of Swiss ; but the imperial 
 troops advanced so slowly from Naples and Germany 
 that it was the middle of autumn before the army took 
 
 76 Guic., lib. xiv. 183. Me"m. de Bellay, p. 38, etc.
 
 BOOK n.] EMPEEOE CHAELES THE FIFTH. 433 
 
 the field, under the command of Prosper Colonna, the 
 most eminent of the Italian generals, whose extreme 
 caution, the effect of long experience in the art of war, 
 was opposed with great propriety to the impetuosity of 
 the French.. In the meantime, De Foix despatched 
 courier after courier to inform the king of the danger 
 which was approaching. Francis, whose forces were 
 either employed in the Low Countries or assembling 
 on the frontiers of Spain, and who did not expect so 
 sudden an attack in that quarter, sent ambassadors to 
 his allies the Swiss, to procure from them the immediate 
 levy of an additional body of troops, and commanded 
 Lautrec to repair forthwith to his government. That 
 general, who was well acquainted with the great neglect 
 of economy in the administration of the king's finances, 
 and who knew how much the troops in the Milanese 
 had already suffered from the want of their pay, refused 
 to set out unless the sum of three hundred thousand 
 crowns was immediately put into his hands. But the 
 king, Louise of Savoy, his mother, Semblancy, the super- 
 intendent of finances, having promised, even with an 
 oath, that on his arrival at Milan he should find remit- 
 tances for the sum which he demanded, upon the faith 
 of this he departed. Unhappily for France, Louise, 
 a woman deceitful, vindictive, rapacious, and capable 
 of sacrificing anything to the gratification of her pas- 
 sions, but who had acquired an absolute ascendant over 
 her son by her maternal tenderness, her care of his 
 education, and her great abilities, was resolved not to 
 perform this promise. Lautrec having incurred her 
 displeasure by his haughtiness in neglecting to pay 
 court to her, and by the freedom with which he had 
 talked concerning some of her adventures in gallantry, 
 she, in order to deprive him of the honour which he 
 might have gained by a successful defence of the 
 Milanese, seized the three hundred thousand crowns 
 
 VOL. 1. * f
 
 434 REIGN OP THE [BOOK n. 
 
 destined for that service and detained them for her 
 own use. 
 
 Lautrec, notwithstanding this cruel disappointment, 
 found means to assemble a considerable army, though 
 far inferior in number to that of the confederates. He 
 adopted the plan of defence most suitable to his situa- 
 tion, avoiding a pitched battle with the greatest care, 
 while he harassed the enemy continually with his light 
 troops, beat up their quarters, intercepted their con- 
 voys, and covered or relieved every place which they 
 attempted to attack. By this prudent conduct he not 
 only retarded their progress, but would have soon 
 wearied out the pope, who had hitherto defrayed 
 almost the whole expense of the war, as the emperor, 
 whose revenues in Spain were dissipated during the 
 commotions in that country, and who was obliged to 
 support a numerous army in the Netherlands, could not 
 make any considerable remittances into Italy. But an 
 unforeseen accident disconcerted all his measures and 
 occasioned a fatal reverse in the French affairs. A 
 body of twelve thousand Swiss served in Lautrec's 
 army under the banners of the republic, with which 
 France was in alliance. In consequence of a law no 
 less political than humane, established among the can- 
 tons, their troops were never hired out by public 
 authority to both the contending parties in any war. 
 This law, however, the love of gain had sometimes 
 eluded, and private persons had been allowed to enlist 
 in what service they pleased, though not under the 
 public banners, but under those of their particular 
 officers. The cardinal of Sion, who still preserved 
 his interest among his countrymen and his enmity to 
 France, having prevailed on them to connive at a levy 
 of this kind, twelve thousand Swiss, instigated by him, 
 joined the army of the confederates. But the leaders 
 in the cantons, when they saw so many of their country-
 
 HOOK II.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 435 
 
 men marching under the hostile standards and ready to 
 turn their arms against each other, became so sensible of 
 the infamy to which they would be exposed by per- 
 mitting this, as well as the loss they might suffer, that 
 they despatched couriers commanding their people to 
 leave both armies and to return forthwith into their 
 own country. The cardinal of Sion, however, had the 
 address, by corrupting the messengers appointed to 
 carry this order, to prevent it from being delivered to 
 the Swiss in the service of the confederates ; but, being 
 intimated in due form to those in the French army, they, 
 fatigued with the length of the campaign, and murmur- 
 ing for want of pay, instantly yielded obedience, in 
 spite of Lautrec's remonstrances and entreaties. 
 
 After the desertion of a body which formed the 
 strength of his army, Lautrec durst no longer face the 
 confederates. He retired towards Milan, encamped on 
 the banks of the Adda, and placed his chief hopes of 
 safety in preventing the enemy from passing that river ; 
 an expedient for defending a country so precarious that 
 there are few instances of its being employed with 
 success against any general of experience or abilities. 
 Accordingly, Colonna, notwithstanding Lautrec's vigi- 
 lance and activity, passed the Adda with little loss, and 
 obliged him to shut himself up within the walls of 
 Milan, which the confederates were preparing to besiege, 
 when an unknown person, who never afterwards ap- 
 peared either to boast of this service or to claim a 
 reward for it, came from the city, and acquainted 
 Morone that if the army would advance that night the 
 Ghibelline or imperial faction would put them in posses- 
 sion of one of the gates. Colonna, though no friend to 
 rash enterprises, allowed the marquis de Pescara to 
 advance with the Spanish infantry, and he himself 
 followed with the rest of his troops. About the be- 
 ginning of night, Pescara, arriving at the Eoman gate 
 
 F F 2
 
 436 REIGN OF THE [BOOK n. 
 
 in the suburbs, surprised the soldiers wr.om he found 
 there. Those posted in the fortifications adjoining to it 
 immediately fled ; the marquis, seizing the works which 
 they abandoned, and pushing forward incessantly, though 
 with no less caution than vigour, became master of the 
 city with little bloodshed, and almost without resistance, 
 the victors being as much astonished as the vanquished 
 at the facility and success of the attempt. Lautrec 
 retired precipitately towards the Venetian territories 
 with the remains of his shattered army; the cities of 
 the Milanese, following the fate of the capital surren- 
 dered to the confederates; Parma and Placentia were 
 united to the ecclesiastical state ; and, of all their con- 
 quests in Lombardy, only the town of Cremona, the 
 castle of Milan, and a few inconsiderable forts, remained 
 in the hands of the French. 77 
 
 Leo received the accounts of this rapid succession of 
 prosperous events with such transports of joy as brought 
 on (if we may believe the French historians) a slight 
 fever, which, being neglected, occasioned his death on 
 the 2nd of December, while he was still of a vigorous 
 age and at the height of his glory. By this unexpected 
 accident the spirit of the confederacy was broken and 
 its operation suspended. The cardinals of Sion and 
 Medici left the army, that they might be present in the 
 conclave ; the Swiss were recalled by their superiors ; 
 some other mercenaries disbanded for want of pay ; and 
 only the Spaniards, and a few Germans in the emperor's 
 service, remained to defend the Milanese. But Lautrec, 
 destitute both of men and of money, was unable to 
 improve this favourable opportunity in the manner which 
 he would have wished. The vigilance of Morone, and 
 the good conduct of Colonna, disappointed his feeble 
 
 77 Guic., lib. xiv. 190, etc. Fran. Sfortise Comment., ap. 
 Me"m. de Bellay, 42, etc. Galeacii Scordium, voL ii 180, etc. 
 Capella de Reb. gest. pro restitut.
 
 BOOK ii.] EMPEROE CHAELES THE FIFTH. 437 
 
 attempts on the Milanese. Guicciardini, by his address 
 and valour, repulsed a bolder and more dangerous attack 
 which he made on Parma. 78 
 
 Great discord prevailed in the conclave which followed 
 upon Leo's death, and all the arts natural to men grown 
 old in intrigue, when contending for the highest prize 
 an ecclesiastic can obtain, were practised. Wolsey's 
 name, notwithstanding .all the emperor's magnificent 
 promises to favour his pretensions, of which that prelate 
 did not fail to remind him, was hardly mentioned in the 
 conclave. Julio, Cardinal de Medici, Leo's nephew, 
 who was more eminent than any other member of the 
 college for his abilities, his wealth, and his experience 
 in transacting great affairs, had already secured fifteen 
 voices, a number sufficient, according to the forms of 
 the conclave, to exclude any other candidate, though not 
 to carry his own election. As he was still in the prime 
 of life, all the aged cardinals combined against him, 
 without being united in favour of any other person. 
 While these factions were endeavouring to gain, to 
 corrupt, or to weary out each other, Medici and his 
 adherents voted one morning at the scrutiny, which, 
 according to the form, was made every day, for Cardinal 
 Adrian of Utrecht, who at that time governed Spain in 
 the emperor's name. This they did merely to protract 
 time. But, the adverse party instantly closing with 
 them, to their amazement and that of all Europe, a 
 stranger to Italy, unknown to the persons who gave 
 their suffrages in his favour, and unacquainted with the 
 manners of the people or the interest of the state the 
 government of which they conferred upon him, was 
 unanimously raised to the papal throne at a juncture so 
 delicate and critical as would have demanded all the 
 sagacity and experience of one of the most able prelates 
 in the sacred college. The cardinals themselves, unable 
 
 78 Guic., lib. xiv. 214.
 
 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK IL 
 
 to give a reason for this strange choice, on account of 
 which, as they marched in procession from the conclave, 
 they were loaded with insults and curses by the Eoman 
 people, ascribed it to an immediate impulse of the Holy 
 Ghost. It may be imputed with greater certainty to 
 the influence of Don John Manuel, the imperial ambas- 
 sador, who by his address and intrigues facilitated the 
 election of a person devoted to his master's service from 
 gratitude, from interest, and from inclination. 79 
 
 Besides the influence which Charles acquired by 
 Adrian's promotion, it threw great lustre on his ad 
 ministration. To bestow on his preceptor such a noble 
 recompense, and to place on the papal throne one whom 
 he had raised from obscurity, were acts of uncommon 
 magnificence and power. Francis observed, with the 
 sensibility of a rival, the pre-eminence which the em- 
 peror was gaining, and resolved to exert himself with 
 fresh vigour, in order to wrest from him his late con- 
 quests in Italy. The Swiss, that they might make some 
 reparation to the French king for having withdrawn 
 their troops from his army so unseasonably as to occasion 
 the loss of the Milanese, permitted him to levy ten 
 thousand men in the republic. Together with this rein- 
 forcement, Lautrec received from the king a small sum 
 of money, which enabled him once more to take the 
 field, and, after seizing by surprise or force several places 
 in the Milanese, to advance within a few miles of the 
 capital. The confederate army was in no condition to 
 obstruct his progress; for though the inhabitants of 
 Milan, by the artifices of Morone, and by the popular 
 declamations of a monk whom he employed, were in- 
 flamed with such enthusiastic zeal against the French 
 government that they consented to raise extraordinary 
 contributions, Colonna must soon have abandoned the 
 
 79 Herm. Moringi Vita Hadriani, Hadr., p. 52. Conclav. Hadr., 
 ap. Gasp. Burman. in Analect. de ibid., p. 144, etc.
 
 BOOK ii.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 439 
 
 advantageous camp which he had chosen at Biocca, and 
 have dismissed his troops for want of pay, if the Swiss 
 in the French service had not once more extricated him 
 out of his difficulties. 
 
 The insolence and caprice of those mercenaries were 
 often no less fatal to their friends than their valour and 
 discipline were formidable to their enemies. Having 
 now served some months without pay, of which they 
 complained loudly, a sum destined for their use was 
 sent from France under a convoy of horse ; but Morone, 
 whose vigilant eye nothing escaped, posted a body of 
 troops in their way, so that the party which escorted 
 the money durst not advance. On receiving intelli- 
 gence of this, the Swiss lost all patience, and officers, 
 as well as soldiers, crowding around Lautrec, threatened 
 with one voice instantly to retire, if he did not either 
 advance the pay which was due, or promise to lead them 
 next morning to battle. In vain did Lautrec remon- 
 strate against these demands, representing to them the 
 impossibility of the former and the rashness of the 
 latter, which must be attended with certain destruction, 
 as the enemy occupied a camp naturally of great strength, 
 and which by art they had rendered almost inaccessible. 
 The Swiss, deaf to reason, and persuaded that their 
 valour was capable of surmounting every obstacle, re- 
 newed their demand with great fierceness, offering them- 
 selves to form the vanguard and to begin the attack. 
 Lautrec, unable to overcome their obstinacy, complied 
 with their request, hoping, perhaps, that some of those 
 unforeseen accidents which so often determine the fate 
 of battles might crown this rash enterprise with un- 
 deserved success, and convinced that the effects of a 
 defeat could not be more fatal than those which would 
 certainly follow upon the retreat of a body which com- 
 posed one-half of his army. Next morning the Swiss 
 were early in the field, and ; arched with the greatest
 
 440 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK 11. 
 
 intrepidity against an enemy deeply intrenched on every 
 side, surrounded with artillery, and prepared to receive 
 them. As they advanced, they sustained a furious 
 cannonade with great firmness, and without waiting for 
 their own artillery, rushed impetuously upon the in- 
 trenchments. But, after incredible efforts of valour, 
 which were seconded with great spirit by the French, 
 having lost their bravest officers and best soldiers, and 
 finding that they could make no impression on the 
 enemy's works, they sounded a retreat; leaving the 
 field of battle, however, like men repulsed but not van- 
 quished, in close array, and without receiving any 
 molestation from the enemy. 
 
 Next day, such as survived set out for their own 
 country ; and Lautrec, despairing of being able to make 
 any further resistance, retired into France, after throw- 
 ing garrisons into Cremona and a few other places ; all 
 of which, except the citadel of Cremona, Colonna soon 
 obliged to surrender. 
 
 Genoa, however, and its territories, remaining sub- 
 ject to France, still gave Francis considerable footing in 
 Italy, and made it easy for him to execute any scheme 
 for the recovery of the Milanese. But Colonna, ren- 
 dered enterprising by continual success, and excited by 
 the solicitations of the faction of the Adorni, the here- 
 ditary enemies of the Fregosi, who, under the protection 
 of France, possessed the chief authority in Genoa, deter- 
 mined to attempt the reduction of that state, and accom- 
 plished it with amazing facility. He became master of 
 Genoa by an accident as unexpected as that which had 
 given him possession of Milan; and, almost without 
 opposition or bloodshed, the power of the Adorni and the 
 authority of the Emperor were established in Genoa. 80 
 
 Such a cruel succession of misfortunes affected Francis 
 with deep concern, which was not a little augmented 
 
 80 Jovit Vita Ferdin. Davali, p. 344. Guic., lib. xiv. 233.
 
 BOOK n.] EMPEEOR CHARLES THE FIETH. 441 
 
 by the unexpected arrival of an English herald, who, in 
 the name of his sovereign, declared war in form against 
 France. This step was taken in consequence of the 
 treaty which Wolsey had concluded with the emperor 
 at Bruges, and which had hitherto been kept secret. 
 Francis, though he had reason to be surprised with 
 this denunciation, after having been at such pains to 
 soothe Henry and to gain his minister, received the 
 herald with great composure and dignity, 81 and, without 
 abandoning any of the schemes which he was forming 
 against the emperor, began vigorous preparations for 
 resisting this new enemy. His treasury, however, 
 being exhausted by the efforts which he had already 
 made, as well as by the sums he expended on his plea- 
 sures, he had recourse to extraordinary expedients for 
 supplying it. Several new offices were created and 
 exposed to sale ; the royal demesnes were alienated ; 
 unusual taxes were imposed ; and the tomb of St. 
 Martin was stripped of a rail of massive silver with 
 which Louis XI., in one of his fits of devotion, had en- 
 circled it. By means of these expedients he was 
 enabled to levy a considerable army, and to put the 
 frontier towns in a good posture of defence. 
 
 The emperor, meanwhile, was no less solicitous to 
 draw as much advantage as possible from the accession 
 of such a powerful ally ; and the prosperous situation 
 of his affairs at this time permitting him to set out for 
 Spain, where his presence was extremely necessary, he 
 visited the court of England on his way to that country. 
 He proposed by this interview not only to strengthen 
 the bonds of friendship which united him with Henry, 
 and to excite him to push the war against France with 
 vigour, but hoped to remove any disgust or resentment 
 that Wolsey might have conceived on account of the 
 mortifying disappointment which he had met with in 
 
 H1 Journal de Louise de Savoie, p. 119.
 
 442 REIGN OP THE [BOOK n. 
 
 the late conclave. His success exceeded his most san- 
 guine expectations ; and by his artful address, during 
 a residence of six weeks in England, he gained not 
 only the king and the minister, but the nation itself. 
 Henry, whose vanity was sensibly flattered by such a 
 visit, as well as by the studied respect with which the 
 emperor treated him on every occasion, entered warmly 
 into all his schemes. The cardinal, foreseeing, from 
 Adrian's age and infirmities, a sudden vacancy in the 
 papal see, dissembled or forgot his resentment ; and as 
 Charles, besides augmenting the pensions which he had 
 already settled on him, renewed his promise of favour- 
 ing his pretensions to the papacy with all his interest, 
 he endeavoured to merit the former, and to secure the 
 accomplishment of the latter, by fresh services. The 
 nation, sharing in the glory of its monarch, and pleased 
 with the confidence which the emperor placed in the 
 English, by creating the earl of Surrey his high-admiral, 
 discovered no less inclination to commence hostilities 
 than Henry himself. 
 
 In order to give Charles, before he left England, a 
 proof of this general ardour, Surrey sailed with such 
 forces as were ready, and ravaged the coasts of Nor- 
 mandy. He then made a descent on Bretagne, where 
 he plundered and burnt Morlaix, and some other places 
 of less consequence. After these slight excursions, 
 attended with greater dishonour than damage to France, 
 he repaired to Calais, and took the command of the 
 principal army, consisting of sixteen thousand men; 
 with which, having joined the Flemish troops under the 
 Count de Buren, he advanced into Picardy. The army 
 which Francis had assembled was far inferior in number 
 to these united bodies; but during the long wars be- 
 tween the two nations the French had discovered the 
 proper method of defending their country against the 
 English. They had been taught by their misfortunes
 
 BOOK ii.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 443 
 
 to avoid a pitched battle with the utmost care, and to 
 endeavour, by throwing garrisons into every place 
 capable of resistance, by watching all the enemy's 
 motions, by intercepting their convoys, attacking their 
 advanced posts, and harassing them continually with 
 their numerous cavalry, to ruin them with the length 
 of war, or to beat them by piecemeal. This plan the 
 duke of Yendome, the French general in Picardy, 
 pursued with no less prudence than success, and not 
 only prevented Surrey from taking any town of import- 
 ance, but obliged him to retire with his army, greatly 
 reduced by fatigue, by want of provisions, and by the 
 loss which it had sustained in several unsuccessful 
 skirmishes. 
 
 Thus ended the second campaign, in a war the most 
 general that had hitherto been kindled in Europe ; and 
 though Francis, by his mother's ill-timed resentment, 
 by the disgusting insolence of his general, and the 
 caprice of the mercenary troops which he employed, had 
 lost his conquests in Italy, yet all the powers combined 
 against him had not been able to make any impression 
 on his hereditary dominions ; and wherever they either- 
 intended or attempted an attack, he was well prepared 
 to receive them. 
 
 While the Christian princes were thus wasting each 
 other's strength, Solyman the Magnificent entered Hun- 
 gary with a numerous army, and, investing Belgrade, 
 which was deemed the chief barrier of that kingdom 
 against the Turkish arms, soon forced it to surrender. 
 Encouraged by this success, he turned his victorious 
 arms against the island of Rhodes, the seat, at that 
 time, of the knights of St. John of Jerusalem. This 
 small state he attacked with such a numerous army as 
 the lords of Asia have been accustomed, in every age, 
 to bring into the field. Two hundred thousand men, 
 and a fleet of four hundred sail, appeared against a
 
 444 REIGN OF THE [BOOK n. 
 
 town defended by a garrison consisting of five thousand 
 soldiers and six hundred knights, under the command 
 of Villiers de L'Isle Adam, the grand master, whose 
 wisdom and valour rendered him worthy of that station 
 at such a dangerous juncture. No sooner did he begin 
 to suspect the destination of Solyman's vast armaments, 
 than he despatched messengers to all the Christian 
 courts, imploring their aid against the common enemy. 
 But though every prince . in that age acknowledged 
 Ehodes to be the great bulwark of Christendom in the 
 East, and trusted to the gallantry of its knights as the 
 best security against the progress of the Ottoman arms, 
 though Adrian, with a zeal which became the head 
 and father of the Church, exhorted the contending 
 powers to forget their private quarrels, and, by uniting 
 their arms, to prevent the infidels from destroying a 
 society which did honour to the Christian name, yet 
 so violent and implacable was the animosity of both 
 parties that, regardless of the danger to which they 
 exposed all Europe, and unmoved by the entreaties of 
 the grand master or the admonitions of the pope, they 
 suffered Solyman to carry on his operations against 
 Ehodes without disturbance. The grand master, after 
 incredible efforts of courage, of patience, and of mili- 
 tary conduct, during a siege of six months, after 
 sustaining many assaults, and disputing every post with 
 amazing obstinacy, was obliged at last to yield to 
 numbers; and, having obtained an honourable capitu- 
 lation from the sultan, who admired and respected his 
 virtue, he surrendered the town, which was reduced to 
 a heap of rubbish and destitute of every resource. 82 
 Charles and Francis, ashamed of having occasioned such 
 a loss to Christendom by their ambitious contests, 
 endeavoured to throw the blame of it on each other, 
 
 85 Fontanus de Bello Rhodio, ap. p. 88. P. Barre, Hist. 
 Scard. Script. Rer. German., voL ii. torn. viii. 57.
 
 BOOK ii.] EMPEEOE CHABLES THE FIFTH. 445 
 
 while all Europe, with greater justice, imputed it equally 
 to both. The emperor, by way of reparation, granted 
 the knights of St. John the small island of Malta, in 
 which they fixed their residence, retaining, though with 
 less power and splendour, their ancient spirit, and im- 
 placable enmity to the infidel?
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 Imrarrections. Attempts of the Regent, Adrian, to suppress them. Con 
 federacy in Castile against him. Measures taken by the Emperor. 
 Remonstrance of the Junta. They take up Arms. Their Negotia 
 tions with the Nobles. The Junta under Padilla defeated in Battle. 
 Defence of Toledo by his Widow. The War in Valencia and in 
 Majorca. Generosity of the Emperor. Reception of Adrian at 
 Rome. His pacific Policy. A new League against France. 
 Treachery of the Duke of Bourbon. Francis attacks Milan. Death 
 of Adrian, and Election of Clement VII. Disappointment of 
 Wolsey. Progress of the War with France. Pope Clement unable 
 to bring about Peace. The French abandon the Milanese. Death 
 of Bayard. The Reformation in Germany. Luther translates the 
 Bible. The Diet at Nuremberg proposes a General Council The 
 Diet presents a List of Grievances to the Pope. Opinion at Rome 
 concerning the Policy of Adrian. Clement's Measures against Luther. 
 
 CHARLES, having had the satisfaction of seeing hos- 
 tilities begun between France and England, took leave 
 of Henry, and arrived in Spain on the 17th of June, 
 1522. He found that country just beginning to recover 
 order and strength after the miseries of a civil war, to 
 which it had been exposed during his absence ; an ac- 
 count of the rise and progress of which, as it was but 
 little connected with the other events which happened 
 in Europe, hath been reserved to (Ms place. 
 
 No sooner was it known that the cortes assembled in 
 Galicia had voted the Emperor a free gift, without 
 obtaining the redress of any one grievance, than it 
 excited universal indignation. The citizens of Toledo, 
 who considered themselves, on account of the great pri* 
 vileges which they enjoyed, as guardians of the liberties 
 of the Castilian commons, finding that no regard was
 
 BOOK in.] REIGN OP THE EMPEROK CHAELES V. 447 
 
 paid to the remonstrances of their deputies against that 
 unconstitutional grant, took arms with tumultuary 
 violence, and, seizing the gates of the city, which were 
 fortified, attacked the alcazar or castle, which they soon 
 obliged the governor to surrender. Emboldened by this 
 success, they deprived of all authority every person 
 whom they suspected of any attachment to the court, 
 established a popular form of government, composed of 
 deputies from the several parishes in the city, and levied 
 troops in their own defence. The chief leader of the 
 people in these insurrections was Don John de Padilla, 
 the eldest son of the commendator of Castile, a youLg 
 nobleman of a generous temper, of undaunted courage, 
 and possessed of the talents, as well as of the ambition, 
 which, in limes of civil discord, raise men to power and 
 eminence. 1 [1520.] 
 
 The resentment of the citizens of Segovia produced 
 effects still more fatal. Tordesillas, one of their repre- 
 sentatives in the late cortes, had voted for the donative, 
 and, being a bold and haughty man, ventured, upon his 
 return, to call together his fellow-citizens in the great 
 church, that he might give them, according to custom, 
 an account of his conduct in the assembly. But the 
 multitude, unable to bear his insolence in attempting to 
 justify what they thought inexcusable, burst open the 
 gates of the church with the utmost fury, and, seizing 
 the unhappy Tordesillas, dragged him through the 
 streets, with a thousand curses and insults, towards the 
 place of public execution. In vain did the dean and 
 canons come forth in procession with the holy sacrament 
 in order to appease their rage. In vain did the monks 
 of those monasteries by which they passed conjure them 
 on their knees to spare his life, or at least to allow him 
 time to confess, and to receive absolution of his sins. 
 Without listening to the dictates either of humanity or 
 1 Sandoval, p. 77.
 
 KEIGN OF THE [BOOK in. 
 
 religion, they cried out, " That the hangman alone could 
 absolve such a traitor to his country;" they then hurried 
 him along with greater violence; and, perceiving that 
 he had expired under their hands, they hung him up 
 with his head downwards on the common gibbet. 2 The 
 same spirit seized the inhabitants of Burgos, Zamora, 
 and several other cities; and though their represen- 
 tatives, taking warning from the fate of Tordesillas, had 
 been so wise as to save themselves by a timely night, 
 they were burnt in effigy, their houses razed to the 
 ground, and their effects consumed with fire ; and such 
 was the horror which the people had conceived against 
 them, as betrayers of the public liberty, that not one in 
 those licentious multitudes would touch anything, how- 
 ever valuable, which had belonged to them. 8 
 
 Adrian, at that time regent of Spain, had scarcely 
 fixed the seat of his government at Yalladolid when he 
 was alarmed with an account of these insurrections. He 
 immediately assembled the privy council to deliberate 
 concerning the proper method of suppressing them. The 
 councillors differed in opinion, some insisting that it was 
 necessary to check this audacious spirit in its infancy by 
 a severe execution of justice, others advising to treat 
 with lenity a people who had some reason to be incensed, 
 and not to drive them beyond all the bounds of duty by 
 an ill-timed rigour. The sentiments of the former, being 
 warmly supported by the archbishop of Granada, pre 
 sident of the council, a person of great authority, but 
 choleric and impetuous, were approved by Adrian, whose 
 zeal to support his master's authority hurried him into a 
 measure to which, from his natural caution and timidity, 
 he would otherwise have been averse. He commanded 
 Eonquillo, one of the king's judges, to repair instantly 
 to Segovia, which had set the first example of mutiny, 
 and to proceed against the delinquents according to law ; 
 
 * P. Martyr. Ep., 671. * Sandoval, 103. P. Martyr. Ep., 674.
 
 BOOK m.j EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 449 
 
 and, lest the people should be so outrageous as to resist 
 his authority, a considerable body of troops was appointed 
 to attend him. The Segovians, foreseeing what they 
 might expect from a judge so well known for his austere 
 and unforgiving temper, took arms with one consent, 
 and, having mustered twelve thousand men, shut their 
 gates against him. Eonquillo, enraged at this insult, 
 denounced them rebels and outlaws, and, his troops 
 seizing all the avenues to the town, hoped that it would 
 soon be obliged to surrender for want of provisions. 
 The inhabitants, however, defended themselves with 
 vigour, and, having received a considerable reinforce- 
 ment from Toledo, under the command of Padilla, 
 attacked Eonquillo, and forced him to retire with the 
 loss of his baggage and military chest. 4 [1522.] 
 
 Upon this, Adrian ordered Antonio de Fonseca, whom 
 the emperor had appointed commander-in-chief of the 
 forces in Castile, to assemble an army and to besiege 
 Segovia in form. But the inhabitants of Medina del 
 Campo, where Cardinal Ximenes had established a vast 
 magazine of military stores, would not suffer him to 
 draw from it a train of battering cannon, or to destroy 
 their countrymen with those arms which had been pre- 
 pared against the enemies of the kingdom. Fonseca, 
 who could not execute his orders without artillery, 
 determined to seize the magazine by force; and, the 
 citizens standing on their defence, he assaulted the town 
 with great briskness ; but his troops were so warmly 
 received that, despairing of carrying the place, he set 
 fire to some of the houses, in hopes that the citizens 
 would abandon the walls in order to save their families 
 and effects. Instead of that, the expedient to which he 
 had recourse served only to increase their fury, and he 
 was repulsed with great disgrace; while the flames, 
 spreading from street to street, reduced to ashes almost 
 
 4 Sandoval, 112. P. Martyr. Ep., 679. Miniana, Contin., p. 16. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 450 REIGN OF THE [BOOK ra. 
 
 the whole town, one of the most considerable at that 
 time in Spain, and the great mart for the manufactures 
 of Segovia and several other cities. As the warehouses 
 were then filled with goods for the approaching fair, the 
 loss was immense, and was felt universally. This, added 
 to the impression which such a cruel action made on a 
 people long unaccustomed to the horrors of civil war, 
 enraged the Castilians almost to madness. Fonseca 
 became the object of general hatred, and was branded 
 with the name of incendiary, and enemy to his country. 
 Even the citizens of Yalladolid, whom the presence of 
 the cardinal had hitherto restrained, declared that they 
 could no longer remain inactive spectators of the suffer- 
 ings of their countrymen. Taking arms with no less 
 fury than the other cities, they burnt Fonseca' s house 
 to the ground, elected new magistrates, raised soldiers, 
 appointed officers to command them, and guarded their 
 walls with as much diligence as if an enemy had been 
 ready to attack them. 
 
 The cardinal, though virtuous and disinterested, and 
 capable of governing the kingdom with honour in times 
 of tranquillity, possessed neither the courage nor the 
 sagacity necessary at such a dangerous juncture. Find- 
 ing himself unable to check these outrages committed 
 under his own eye, he attempted to appease the people, 
 by protesting that Fonseca had exceeded his orders and 
 had by his rash conduct offended him as much as he had 
 injured them. This condescension, the effect of irreso- 
 lution and timidity, rendered the malcontents bolder 
 and more insolent ; and the cardinal having soon after 
 recalled Fonseca, and dismissed his troops, which he 
 could no longer afford to pay, as the treasury, drained by 
 the rapaciousness of the Flemish ministers, had received 
 no supply from the great cities, which were all in arms, 
 the p ^ople were left at full liberty to act without control, 
 and scarcely any shadow of power remained in his hands.
 
 BOOK in.] EMPEEOE CHARLES THE FIFTH. 451 
 
 Nor were the proceedings of the commons the effect 
 merely of popular and tumultuary rage : they aimed at 
 obtaining redress of their political grievances, and an 
 establishment of public liberty on a secure basis, objects 
 worthy of all the zeal which they discovered in con- 
 tending for them. The feudal government in Spain 
 was at that time in a state more favourable to liberty 
 than in any other of the great European kingdoms. 
 This was owing chiefly to the number of great cities in 
 that country, a circumstance I have already taken notice 
 of, and which contributes more than any other to miti- 
 gate the rigour of the feudal institutions and to intro- 
 duce a more liberal and equal form of government. The 
 inhabitants of every city formed a great corporation, 
 with valuable immunities and privileges; they were 
 delivered from a state of subjection and vassalage ; they 
 were admitted to a considerable share in the legislature ; 
 they had acquired the arts of industry, without which 
 cities cannot subsist ; they had accumulated wealth by 
 engaging in commerce ; and, being free and independent 
 themselves, were ever ready to act as the guardians of 
 the public freedom and independence. The genius of 
 the internal government established among the inhabi- 
 tants of cities, which, even in countries where despotic 
 power prevails most, is democratical and republican, 
 rendered the idea of liberty familiar and dear to them. 
 Their representatives in the cortes were accustomed, 
 with equal spirit, to check the encroachments of the 
 king and the oppression of the nobles. They endea- 
 voured to extend the privileges of their own order; they 
 laboured to shake off the remaining encumbrances with 
 which the spirit of feudal policy, favourable only to the 
 njbles, had burdened them; and, conscious of being 
 one of the most considerable orders in the state, were 
 ambitious of becoming the most powerful. 
 
 The present juncture appeared favourable for pushing 
 
 a o 2
 
 452 REIGN OP THE [BOOK in, 
 
 any new claim. Their sovereign was absent from his 
 dominions ; by the ill-conduct of his ministers he had 
 lost the esteem and affection of his subjects ; the people, 
 exasperated bj many injuries, had taken arms, though 
 without conceit, almost by general consent ; they were 
 animated with rage capable of carrying them to the most 
 violent extremes ; the royal treasury was exhausted, the 
 kingdom destitute of troops, and the government com- 
 mitted to a stranger, of great virtue, indeed, but of abili- 
 ties unequal to such a trust. The first care of Padilla 
 and the other popular leaders, who observed and deter- 
 mined to improve these circumstances, was to establish 
 some form of union or association among the malcon- 
 tents, that they might act with greater regularity and 
 pursue one common end ; and as the different cities had 
 been prompted to take arms by the same motives, and 
 were accustomed to consider themselves as a distinct body 
 from the rest of the subjects, they did not find this 
 difficult. A general convention was appointed to be 
 held at Avila. Deputies appeared there in the name of 
 almost all the cities entitled to have representatives in 
 the cortes. They all bound themselves, by solemn oath, 
 to live and die in the service of the king and in defence 
 of the privileges of their order, and, assuming the name 
 of the " holy junta," or association, proceeded to 
 deliberate concerning the state of the nation and the 
 proper method of redressing its grievances. The first 
 that naturally presented itself was the nomination of a 
 foreigner to be regent: this they declared with one 
 voice to be a violation of the fundamental laws of the 
 kingdom, and resolved to send a deputation of their 
 members to Adrian, requiring him in their name to 
 lay aside all the ensigns of his office, and to abstain 
 for the future from the exercise of a jurisdiction which 
 they had pronounced illegal. 5 
 
 * P. Martyr. Ep., 691.
 
 BOOK in.] EMPEBOB CHABLES THE FIFTH. 453 
 
 While they were preparing to execute this bold reso- 
 lution, Padilla accomplished an enterprise of the great- 
 est advantage to the cause. After relieving Segovia, 
 he marched suddenly to Tordesillas, the place where 
 the unhappy Queen Joanna had resided since the death 
 of her husband, and, being favoured by the inhabitants, 
 was admitted into the town, and became master of her 
 person, for the security of which Adrian had neglected 
 to take proper precautions. 6 Padilla waited immedi- 
 ately upon the queen, and, accosting her with that pro- 
 found respect which she exacted from the few persons 
 whom she deigned to admit into her presence, ac- 
 quainted her at large with the miserable condition of 
 her Castilian subjects under the government of her son, 
 who, being destitute of experience himself, permitted 
 his foreign ministers to treat them with such rigour as 
 had obliged them to take arms in defence of the liber- 
 ties of their country. The queen, as if she had been 
 awakened out of a lethargy, expressed great astonish- 
 ment at what he said, and told him that, as she had 
 never heard, until that moment, of the death of her 
 father, or known the sufferings of her people, no blame 
 could be imputed to her, but that now she would take 
 care to provide a sufficient remedy. " And in the 
 meantime," added she, "let it be your concern to do 
 what is necessary for the public welfare." Padilla, too 
 eager in forming a conclusion agreeable to his wishes, 
 mistook this lucid interval of reason for a perfect re- 
 turn of that faculty, and, acquainting the junta with 
 what had happened, advised them to remove to Tor- 
 desillas, and to hold their meetings in that place. 
 This was instantly done; but though Joanna received 
 very graciously an address of the junta beseeching her to 
 take, upon herself the government of the kingdom, and, 
 
 6 Vita dell' Imper. CarL V. dell' Miniana, Contin., p. 17. 
 Alt Ulloa, Ven., 1509, p. 67.
 
 454 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK in. 
 
 in token of her compliance, admitted all the deputies to 
 kiss her hand, though she was present at a tournament 
 held on that occasion, and seemed highly satisfied with 
 both these ceremonies, which were conducted with great 
 magnificence in order to please her, she soon relapsed 
 into her former melancholy and sullenness, and could 
 never be brought, by any arguments or entreaties, to 
 sign any one paper necessary for the despatch of business. 7 
 
 The junta, concealing as much as possible this last 
 circumstance, carried on all their deliberations in the 
 name of Joanna; and as the Castilians, who idolized 
 the memory of Isabella, retained a wonderful attach- 
 ment to her daughter, no sooner was it known that she 
 had consented to assume the reins of government than 
 the people expressed the most universal and immoderate 
 joy, and, believing her recovery to be complete, ascribed 
 it to a miraculous interposition of Heaven in order to 
 rescue their country from the oppression of foreigners. 
 The junta, conscious of the reputation and power which 
 they had acquired by seeming to act under the royal 
 authority, were no longer satisfied with requiring Adrian 
 to resign the office of regent : they detached Padilla to 
 Yalladolid with a considerable body of troops, ordering 
 him to seize such members of the council as were still in 
 that city, to conduct them to Tordesillas, and to bring 
 away the seals of the kingdom, the public archives, and 
 treasury books. Padilla, who was received by the 
 citizens as the deliverer of his country, executed his 
 commission with great exactness; permitting Adrian, 
 however, still to reside in Valladolid, though only as a 
 private person and without any shadow of power. 8 
 
 The emperor, to whom frequent accounts of these 
 transactions were transmitted while he was still in 
 Flanders, was sensible of his own imprudence and that 
 
 7 Sandoval, 164. P. Martyr, 8 Sandoval, 174. P. Martyr 
 Ep., 685, 686. Ep., 791.
 
 BOOK in.] EMPEROR CHARLES TfLti 1FTH. 455 
 
 of his ministers in having despised too long the mur- 
 murs and remonstrances of the Castiliuns. lie beheld 
 with deep concern a kingdom the most valuable of 
 any he possessed, and in which lay the strength and 
 sinews of his power, just ready to disown his authority 
 and on the point of being plunged in all the miseries 
 of civil war. But, though his presence might have 
 averted this calamity, he could not, at that time, visit 
 Spain without endangering the imperial crown and 
 allowing the French king full leisure to execute his am- 
 bitious schemes. The only point now to be deliberated 
 upon was, whether he should attempt to gain the mal- 
 contents by indulgence and concessions, or prepare 
 directly to suppress them by force ; and he resolved to 
 make trial of the former, while at the same time, if 
 that should fail of success, he prepared for the latter. 
 For this purpose he issued circular letters to all the 
 cities of Castile, exhorting them in most gentle terms, 
 and with assurances of full pardon, to lay down their 
 arms; he promised such cities as had continued faith- 
 ful not to exact from them the subsidy granted in the 
 late cortes, and offered the same favour to such as re- 
 turned to their duty ; he engaged that no office should 
 be conferred for the future upon any but native Cas- 
 tilians. On the other hand, he wrote to the nobles, 
 exciting them to appear with vigour in defence of their 
 own rights, and those of the crown, against the exor- 
 bitant claims of the commons; he appointed the high 
 admiral, Don Fadrique Enriques, and the high con- 
 stable of Castile, Don Inigo de Yalasco, two noblemen 
 of great abilities as well as influence, regents of the 
 kingdom in conjunction with Adrian; and he gave 
 them full power and instructions, if the obstinacy of 
 the malcontents should render it necessary, to vindi- 
 cate the royal authority by force of arms. 9 
 
 4 P. Heuter. Rer. Austr., lib. viii c. 6, p. 188.
 
 456 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK m. 
 
 These concessions, which at the time of his leaving 
 Spain would have fully satisfied the people, came now 
 too late to produce any effect. The junta, relying on 
 the unanimity with which the nation submitted to their 
 authority, elated with the success which hitherto had 
 accompanied all their undertakings, and seeing no 
 military force collected to defeat or obstruct their 
 designs, aimed at a more thorough reformation of po- 
 litical abuses. They had been employed for some time 
 in preparing a remonstrance, containing a large enu- 
 meration, not only of the grievances of which they 
 craved redress, but of such new regulations as they 
 thought necessary for the security of their liberties. 
 This remonstrance, which is divided into many articles, 
 relating to all the different members of which the con- 
 stitution was composed, as well as the various depart- 
 ments in the administration of government, furnishes us 
 with more authentic evidence concerning the intentions of 
 the junta than can be drawn from the testimony of the 
 later Spanish historians, who lived in times when it 
 became fashionable, and even necessary, to represent the 
 conduct of the malcontents in the worst light and as 
 flowing from the worst motives. After a long preamble 
 concerning the various calamities under which the 
 nation groaned, and the errors and corruption in govern- 
 ment to which these were to be imputed, they take 
 notice of the exemplary patience wherewith the people 
 had endured them, until self-preservation, and the duty 
 which they owed to their country, had obliged them to 
 assemble, in order to provide in a legal manner for their 
 own safety and that of the constitution. For this 
 purpose they demanded that the king would be pleased 
 to return to his Spanish dominions and reside there, as 
 all their former monarchs had done ; that he would not 
 marry but with consent of the cortes ; that if he should 
 be obliged at any time to leave the kingdom, it shall not
 
 BOOK in.] EMPEKOR CHAliLES THE FIFTH. 457 
 
 be lawful to appoint any foreigner to be regent; that 
 the present nomination of Cardinal Adrian to that office 
 shall instantly be declared void ; that he would not, at 
 his return, bring along with him any Flemings or other 
 strangers ; that no foreign troops shall, on any pretence 
 whatever, be introduced into the kingdom; that none 
 but natives shall be capable of holding any office or 
 benefice either in church or state; that no foreigner 
 shall be naturalized; that free quarters shall not be 
 granted to soldiers, nor to the members of the king's 
 household, for any longer time than six days, and that 
 only when the court is in a progress ; that all the taxes 
 shall be reduced to the same state they were in at the 
 death of Queen Isabella; that all alienations of the 
 royal demesnes or revenues since the queen's death 
 shall be resumed; that all new offices created since 
 that period shall be abolished ; that the subsidy granted 
 by the late cortes in Galicia shall not be exacted ; that 
 in all future cortes each city shall send one representa- 
 tive of the clergy, one of the gentry, and one of the 
 commons, each to be elected by his own order ; that the 
 crown shall not influence or direct any city with regard 
 to the choice of its representatives; that no member 
 of the cortes shall receive an office or pension from the 
 king, either for himself or for any of his family, under 
 pain of death and confiscation of his goods ; that each 
 city or community shall pay a competent salary to its 
 representative for his maintenance during his attend- 
 ance on the cortes ; that the cortes shall assemble once 
 in three years at least, whether summoned by the king 
 or not, and shall then inquire into the observation of 
 the articles now agreed upon, and deliberate concern- 
 ing public affairs; that the rewards which have been 
 given or promised to any of the members of the cortes 
 held in Galicia shall be revoked; that it shall be 
 declared a capital crime to send gold, silver, or jewels
 
 458 REIGN OF THE [BOOK m. 
 
 out of the kingdom ; that judges shall have fixed sala- 
 ries assigned them, and shall not receive any share of 
 the fines and forfeitures of persons condemned by 
 them ; that no grant of the goods of persons accused 
 shall be valid if given before sentence was pronounced 
 against them ; that all privileges which the nobles have 
 at any time obtained, to the prejudice of the commons, 
 shall be revoked; that the government of cities or 
 towns shall not be put into the hands of noblemen; 
 that the possessions of the nobility shall be subject to 
 all public taxes, in the same manner as those of the 
 commons; that an inquiry be made into the conduct 
 of such as have been intrusted with the management 
 of the royal patrimony since the accession of Ferdi- 
 nand, and if the king do not within thirty days appoint 
 persons properly qualified for that service, it shall be 
 lawful for the cortes to nominate them ; that indulgences 
 shall not be preached or dispersed in the kingdom until 
 the cause of publishing them be examined and approved 
 of by the cortes ; that all the money arising from the sale 
 of indulgences shall be faithfully employed in carrying 
 on war against the infidels ; that such prelates as do not 
 reside in their dioceses six months in the year shall 
 forfeit their revenues during the time they are absent ; 
 that the ecclesiastical judges and their officers shall not 
 exact greater fees than those which are paid in the 
 secular courts; that the present archbishop of Toledo, 
 being a foreigner, be compelled to resign that dignity, 
 which shall be conferred upon a Castilian ; that the king 
 shall ratify and hold, as good service done to him and to 
 the kingdom, all the proceedings of the junta, and 
 pardon any irregularities which the cities may have 
 committed from an excess of zeal in a good cause ; 
 that he shall promise and swear in the most solemn 
 manner to observe all these articles, and on no occa- 
 sion attempt either to elude or to repeal them ; and that
 
 BOOK in.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 459 
 
 he shall never solicit the pope or any other prelate to 
 grant him a dispensation or absolution from this oath 
 and promise. 10 
 
 Such were the chief articles presented by the junta 
 to their sovereign. As the feudal institutions in the 
 several kingdoms of Europe were originally the same, 
 the genius of those governments which arose from 
 them bore a strong resemblance to each other, and 
 the regulations which the Castilians attempted to 
 establish on this occasion differ little from those which 
 other nations have laboured to procure in their strug- 
 gles with their monarchs for liberty. The grievances 
 complained of and the remedies proposed by the English 
 commons in their contests with the princes of the house 
 of Stuart particularly resemble those upon which the 
 junta now insisted. But the principles of liberty seem 
 to have been better understood at this period by the 
 Castilians than by any other people in Europe; they 
 had acquired more liberal ideas with respect to their 
 own rights and privileges ; they had formed more bold 
 and generous sentiments concerning government, and 
 discovered an extent of political knowledge to which the 
 English themselves did not attain until more than a 
 century afterwards. 
 
 It is not improbable, however, that the spirit of 
 reformation among the Castilians, hitherto unrestrained 
 by authority and emboldened by success, became too 
 impetuous, and prompted the junta to propose innova- 
 tions which, by alarming the other members of the con- 
 stitution, proved fatal to their cause. The nobles, who, 
 instead of obstructing, had favoured or connived at 
 their proceedings, while they confined their demands 
 of redress to such grievances as had been occasioned 
 by the king's want of experience and by the impru- 
 dence and rapaciousness of his foreign ministers, were 
 
 10 Sandoyal, 206. P. Martyr. Ep., 686.
 
 460 fcEIGN OF THE [BOOK m. 
 
 filled with indignation when the junta began to touch 
 the privileges of their order, and plainly saw that the 
 measures of the commons tended no less to break the 
 power of the aristocracy than to limit the prerogatives 
 of the crown. The resentment which they had con- 
 ceived on account of Adrian's promotion to the regency 
 abated considerably upon the emperor's raising the con- 
 stable and admiral to joint power with him in that office; 
 and, as their pride and dignity were less hurt by suffer- 
 ing the prince to possess an extensive prerogative than 
 by admitting the high pretensions of the people, they 
 determined to give their sovereign the assistance which 
 he had demanded of them, and began to assemble their 
 vassals for that purpose. 
 
 The junta, meanwhile, expected with impatience the 
 emperor's answer to their remonstrance, which they 
 had appointed some of their number to present. The 
 members intrusted with this commission set out imme- 
 diately for Germany ; but, having received at different 
 places certain intelligence from court that they could 
 not venture to appear there without endangering their 
 lives, they stopped short in their journey, and acquainted 
 the junta of the information which had been given 
 them. 11 This excited such violent passions as trans- 
 ported the whole party beyond all bounds of prudence 
 or of moderation. That a king of Castile should den} 
 his subjects access into his presence, or refuse to listen 
 to their humble petitions, was represented as an act of 
 tyranny so unprecedented and intolerable that nothing 
 now remained but with arms in their hands to drive 
 away that ravenous band of foreigners which encom- 
 passed the throne, who, after having devoured the 
 wealth of the kingdom, found it necessary to prevent 
 the cries of an injured people from reaching the ears 
 of their sovereign. Many insisted warmly on approv- 
 
 11 Sandoval, 143.
 
 BOOK in.] EMPEEOE CHAELES THE FIFTH. 461 
 
 ing a motion which had formerly been made, for de- 
 priving Charles, during the life of his mother, of the 
 regal titles and authority which had been too rashly 
 conferred upon him, from a false supposition of her 
 total inability for government. Some proposed to pro- 
 vide a proper person to assist her in the administration 
 of public affairs, by marrying the queen to the prince 
 of Calabria, the heir of the Aragonese kings of Naples, 
 who had been detained in prison since the time that 
 Ferdinand had dispossessed his ancestors of their crown. 
 All agreed that, as the hopes of obtaining redress and 
 security merely by presenting their requests to their 
 sovereign had kept them too long in a state of inac- 
 tion and prevented them from taking advantage of the 
 unanimity with which the nation declared in their 
 favour, it was now necessary to collect their whole force, 
 and to exert themselves with vigour, in opposing this 
 fatal combination of the king and the nobility against 
 their liberties. 12 
 
 They soon took the field with twenty thousand men. 
 Violent disputes arose concerning the command of this 
 army. Padilla, the darling of the people and soldiers, 
 was the only person whom they thought worthy of this 
 honour. But Don Pedro de Griron, the eldest son of 
 the Conde de Uruena, a young nobleman of the first 
 order, having lately joined the commons out of private 
 resentment against the emperor, the respect due to his 
 birth, together with a secret desire of disappointing 
 Padilla, of whose popularity many members of the junta 
 had become jealous, procured him the office of general; 
 though he soon gave them a fatal proof that he pos- 
 sessed neither the experience, the abilities, nor the 
 steadiness which that important station required. 
 
 The regents, meanwhile, appointed Eioseco as the 
 place of rendezvous for their troops, which, though fax 
 
 11 P. Martyr. Ep., 688.
 
 REIGN OF THE [BOOK ni. 
 
 inferior to those of the commons in number, excelled 
 them greatly in discipline and in valour. They had 
 drawn a considerable body of regular and veteran in- 
 fantry out of Navarre. Their cavalry, which formed 
 the chief strength of their army, consisted mostly of 
 gentlemen accustomed to the military life and ani- 
 mated with the martial spirit peculiar to their order in 
 that age. The infantry of the junta ivas formed en- 
 tirely of citizens and mechanics, little acquainted with 
 the use of arms. The small body of cavalry which they 
 had been able to raise was composed of persons of 
 ignoble birth, and perfect strangers to the service into 
 which they entered. The character of the generals 
 differed no less than that of their troops. The royalists 
 were commanded by the Conde de Haro, the constable's 
 eldest son, an officer of great experience and of dis- 
 tinguished abilities. 
 
 Giron marched with his army directly to Eioseco, 
 and, seizing the villages and passes around it, hoped 
 that the royalists would be obliged either to surrender 
 for want of provisions, or to fight with disadvantage 
 before all their troops were assembled. But he had not 
 the abilities, nor his troops the patience and discipline, 
 necessary for the execution of such a scheme. The 
 Conde de Haro found little difficulty in conducting a 
 considerable reinforcement through all his posts into 
 the town; and Giron, despairing of being able to re- 
 duce it, advanced suddenly to Yillapanda, a place be- 
 longing to the constable, in which the enemy had their 
 chief magazine of provisions. By this ill-judged motion 
 he left Tordesillas open to the royalists, whom the 
 Conde de Haro led thither in the night with the utmost 
 secrecy and despatch ; and attacking the town, in which 
 Giron had left no other garrison than a regiment of 
 priests raised by the bishop of Zamora, he, by break 
 of day, forced his way into it, after a desperate resist-
 
 BOOK in.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 463 
 
 ance, became master of the queen's person, took pri- 
 soners many members of the junta, and recovered the 
 great seal, with the other ensigns of government. 
 
 By this fatal blow the junta lost all the reputation 
 and authority which they had derived from seeming to 
 act by the queen's commands; such of the nobles as 
 had hitherto been wavering or undetermined in their 
 choice now joined the regents, with all their forces ; 
 and an universal consternation seized the partizans of 
 the commons. This was much increased by the sus- 
 picions they began to entertain of Giron, whom they 
 loudly accused of having betrayed Tordesillas to the 
 enemy; and, though that charge seems to have been 
 destitute of foundation, the success of the royalists 
 being owing to Giron' s ill-conduct rather than to his 
 treachery, he so entirely lost credit with his party that 
 he resigned his commissioD and retired to one of his 
 castles. 13 
 
 Such members of the junta as had escaped the 
 enemy's hands at Tordesillas fled to Yalladolid; and, 
 as it would have required long time to supply the 
 places of those who were prisoners by a new election, 
 they made choice among themselves of a small number 
 of persons, to whom they committed the supreme di- 
 rection of affairs. Their army, which grew stronger 
 every day by the arrival of troops from different parts 
 of the kingdom, marched likewise to Yalladolid; and, 
 Padilla being appointed commander-in-chief, the spirits 
 of the soldiery revived, and the whole party, forget- 
 ting the late misfortune, continued to express the same 
 ardent zeal for the liberties of their country, and the 
 same implacable animosity against their oppressors. 
 
 What they stood most in need of was money to pay 
 their troops. A great part of the current coin had 
 been carried out of the kingdom by the Flemings ; the 
 
 11 Miscellaneous Tracts, by Dr. Mich. Geddes, voL i. p. 278.
 
 464 REIGN OF THE [BOOK in. 
 
 stated taxes levied in times of peace were inconsider- 
 able ; commerce of every kind being interrupted by the 
 war, the sum which it yielded decreased daily ; and the 
 junta were afraid of disgusting the people by burdening 
 them with new impositions, to which, in that age, they 
 were little accustomed. But from this difficulty they 
 were extricated by Donna Maria Pacheco, Padilla's 
 wife, a woman of noble birth, of great abilities, of 
 boundless ambition, and animated with the most ardent 
 zeal in support of the cause of the junta. She, with a 
 boldness superior to those superstitious fears which 
 often influence her sex, proposed to seize all the rich and 
 magnificent ornaments in the cathedral of Toledo ; but, 
 lest that action, by its appearance of impiety, might 
 offend the people, she and her retinue marched to the 
 church in solemn procession, in mourning habits, with 
 tears in their eyes, beating their breasts, and, falling on 
 their knees, implored the pardon of the saints whose 
 shrines she was about to violate. By this artifice, which 
 screened her from the imputation of sacrilege, and per- 
 suaded the people that necessity and zeal for a good 
 cause had constrained her, though with reluctance, to 
 venture upon this action, she stripped the cathedral of 
 whatever was valuable, and procured a considerable sum 
 of money for the junta. 14 The regents, no less at a loss 
 how to maintain their troops, the revenues of the crown 
 having either been dissipated by the Flemings or seized 
 by the commons, were obliged to take the queen's 
 jewels, together with the plate belonging to the nobility, 
 and apply them to that purpose ; and when those failed, 
 they obtained a small sum by way of loan from the king 
 of Portugal. 15 
 
 The nobility discovered great unwillingness to pro- 
 ceed to extremities with the junta. They were ani- 
 
 14 Sandoval, 308. Diet de 1S P. Martyr. Ep., 71 R 
 
 Bayle, art. Padflla.
 
 BOOK in.] EMPEROR CHARLES THH FIFTH. 465 
 
 mated with no less hatred than the commons against 
 the Flemings; they approved much of several articles 
 in the remonstrance ; they thought the juncture favour- 
 able not only for redressing past grievances, but for 
 rendering the constitution more perfect and secure by 
 new regulations ; they were afraid that, while the two 
 orders of which the legislature was composed wasted 
 each other's strength by mutual hostilities, the crown 
 would rise to power on the ruin or weakness of both, 
 and encroach no less on the independence of the 
 nobles than on the privileges of the commons. To 
 this disposition were owing the frequent overtures of 
 peace which the regents made to the junta, and the 
 continual negotiations they carried on during the pro- 
 gress of their military operations. Nor were the terms 
 which they offered unreasonable; for, on condition 
 that the junta would pass from a few articles most sub- 
 versive of the royal authority or inconsistent with the 
 rights of the nobility, they engaged to procure the 
 emperor's consent to their other demands, which if 
 he, through the influence of evil counsellors, should 
 refuse, several of the nobles promised to join with the 
 commons in their endeavours to extort it. 16 Such di- 
 visions, however, prevailed among the members of the 
 junta as prevented their deliberating calmly or judging 
 with prudence. Some of the cities which had entered 
 into the confederacy were filled with that mean jealousy 
 and distrust of each other which rivalship in commerce 
 or in grandeur is apt to inspire ; the constable, by his 
 influence and promises, had prevailed on the inhabit- 
 ants of Burgos to abandon the junta, and other noble- 
 men had shaken the fidelity of some of the lesser cities ; 
 no person had arisen among the commons of such 
 superior abilities or elevation of mind as to acquire the 
 direction of their affairs; Padilla, their general, was a 
 
 16 P. Martyr. Ep., 695, 713. Geddes'e Tracts, I 261. 
 
 VOL. I. H H
 
 466 REIGN OP THE [BOOK m, 
 
 man of popular qualities, but distrusted for that reason 
 by those of highest rank who adhered to the junta ; the 
 conduct of Giron led the people to view with suspicion 
 every person of noble birth who joined their party ; so 
 that the strongest marks of irresolution, mutual dis- 
 trust, and mediocrity of genius appeared in all their 
 proceedings at this time. After many consultations 
 held concerning the terms proposed by the regents, 
 they suffered themselves to be so carried away by 
 resentment against the nobility that, rejecting all 
 thoughts of accommodation, they threatened to strip 
 them of the crown lands, which they or their ances- 
 tors had usurped, and to re-annex these to the royal 
 domain. Upon this preposterous scheme, which would 
 at once have annihilated all the liberties for which they 
 had been struggling, by rendering the kings of Castile 
 absolute and independent of their subjects, they were so 
 intent that they now exclaimed with less vehemence 
 against the exactions of the foreign ministers than 
 against the exorbitant power and wealth of the nobles, 
 and seemed to hope that they might make peace with 
 Charles by offering to enrich him with their spoils. 
 
 The success which Padilla had met with in several 
 small rencounters, and in reducing some inconsiderable 
 towns, helped to precipitate the members of the junta 
 into this measure, filling them with such confidence in 
 the valour of their troops that they hoped for an easy 
 victory over the royalists. Padilla, that his army might 
 not remain inactive while flushed with good fortune, laid 
 siege to Torrelobaton, a place of greater strength and 
 importance than any that he had hitherto ventured to 
 attack, and which was defended by a sufficient garrison; 
 and though the besieged made a desperate resistance, 
 and the admiral attempted to relieve them, he took the 
 town by storm, and gave it up to be plundered by his 
 soldiers. If he had marched instantly with his vie-
 
 BOOK in.] EMPEBOH CHAELES THE FIFTH. 467 
 
 torious army to Tordesillas, the head-quarters of the 
 royalists, he could hardly have failed of making ail 
 effectual impression on their troops, whom he would 
 have found in astonishment at the briskness of his opera- 
 tions and far from being of sufficient strength to give 
 him battle. But the fickleness and imprudence of the 
 junta prevented his taking this step. Incapable, like 
 all popular associations, either of carrying on war or 
 of making peace, they listened again to overtures of 
 accommodation, and even agreed to a short suspension 
 of arms. This negotiation terminated in nothing ; but, 
 while it was carrying on, many of Padilla's soldiers, 
 unacquainted with the restraints of discipline, went off 
 with the booty which they had got at Torrelobaton, and 
 others, wearied out by the unusual length of the cam- 
 paign, deserted. 17 The constable, too, had leisure to 
 assemble his forces at Burgos, and to prepare every- 
 thing for taking the field ; and as soon as the truce 
 expired he effected a junction with the Conde de Haro, 
 in spite of all Padilla's efforts to prevent it. They 
 advanced immediately towards Torrelobaton ; and 
 Padilla, finding the number of his troops so diminished 
 that he durst not risk a battle, attempted to retreat to 
 Toro, which if he could have accomplished, the invasion 
 of Navarre at that juncture by the French, and the 
 necessity which the regents must have been under of 
 detaching men to that kingdom, might have saved him 
 from danger. But Haro, sensible how fatal the conse- 
 quences would be of suffering him to escape, marched 
 with such rapidity at the head of his cavalry that he 
 came up with him near Yillalar, and, without waiting 
 for his infantry, advanced to the attack. Padilla's army, 
 fatigued and disheartened by their precipitate retreat, 
 which they could not distinguish from a flight, hap- 
 pened at that time to be passing over a ploughed field, 
 
 17 Sandovai, 336. 
 
 Hi
 
 468 REIGN OF THE [BOOK in. 
 
 on which such a violent rain had fallen that the soldiers 
 sunk almost to the knees at every step, and remained 
 exposed to the fire of some field -pieces which the 
 royalists had brought along with them. All these cir- 
 cumstances so disconcerted and intimidated raw soldiers 
 that, without facing the enemy or making any resistance, 
 they fled in the utmost confusion. Padilla exerted him- 
 self with extraordinary courage and activity in order to 
 rally them, though in vain ; fear rendering them deaf 
 both to his threats and entreaties. Upon which, finding 
 matters irretrievable, and resolving not to survive the 
 disgrace of that day and the ruin of his party, he rushed 
 into the thickest of the enemy ; but, being wounded and 
 dismounted, he was taken prisoner. His principal 
 officers shared the same fate ; the common soldiers were 
 allowed to depart unhurt, the nobles being too generous 
 to kill men who threw down their arms. 18 
 
 The resentment of his enemies did not suffer Padilla 
 to linger long in expectation of what should befall him. 
 Next day he was condemned to lose his head, though 
 without any regular trial, the notoriety of the crime 
 being supposed sufficient to supersede the formality of 
 a legal process. He was led instantly to execution, 
 together with Don John Bravo and Don Francis Mal- 
 donada, the former commander of the Segovians, and 
 the latter of the troops of Salamanca. Padilla viewed 
 the approach of death with calm but undaunted forti- 
 tude ; and when Bravo, his fellow-sufferer, expressed 
 some indignation at hearing himself proclaimed a traitor, 
 he checked him by observing, " That yesterday was the 
 time to have displayed the spirit of gentlemen ; this day 
 to die with the meekness of Christians." Being per- 
 mitted to write to his wife and to the community of 
 
 18 Sandoval, 345, etc. P. Martyr. Emperador Carlos V., por D. Juan 
 Ep., 720. Miniana, Contin., p. 26. Anton, de Vera y Ziiniga, 4to, 
 Epitome de la Vida y Hechos del Madrid, 1627, p. 19.
 
 BOOK III.] 
 
 EMTEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 
 
 469 
 
 Toledo, the place of his nativity, he addressed the 
 former with a manly and virtuous tenderness, and the 
 
 V f 
 
 latter with the exultation natural to one who considered 
 himself as a martyr for the liberties of his country.' 9 
 
 19 The strain of these letters is so 
 eloquent and high-spirited that I 
 have translated them for the enter- 
 tainment of my readers : 
 
 THE LETTEB OP DON JOHN PADILLA 
 TO HIS WIFE. 
 
 " Sefiora, 
 
 " If your grief did not afflict me 
 more than my own death, I should 
 deem myself perfectly happy. For, 
 the end of life being certain to all 
 men, the Almighty confers a mark 
 of distinguishing favour upon that 
 person for whom he appoints a 
 death such as mine, which, though 
 lamented by many, is nevertheless 
 acceptable unto him. It would re- 
 quire more time than I now have 
 to write any thing that could afford 
 you consolation. That my enemies 
 will not grant me, nor do I wish to 
 delay the reception of that crown 
 which I hope to enjoy. You may 
 bewail your own loss, but not my 
 death, which, being so honourable, 
 ought not to be lamented by any. 
 My soul, for nothing else is left to 
 me, I bequeath to you. You will 
 receive it as the thing in this world 
 which you value most. I do not 
 write to my father, Pero Lopez, 
 because I dare not ; for, though I 
 have shown myself to be his son, in 
 daring to lose my life I have not 
 been the heir of his good fortune. 
 I will not attempt to say any thing 
 more, that I may not tire the exe- 
 cutioner, who waits for me, and 
 that I may not excite a suspicion 
 that in order to prolong my life I 
 lengthen out my letter. My servant 
 Sosia, an eye-witness, and to whom I 
 
 hare communicated my most secret 
 thoughts, will inform you of what I 
 cannot now write ; and thus I rest, 
 expecting the instrument of your 
 grief and of my deliverance." 
 
 HIS LETTER TO THE CITY OP TOLEDO. 
 
 " To thee, the crown of Spain 
 and the light of the whole world, 
 free from the time of the mighty 
 Goths, to thee, who, by shedding 
 the blood of strangers, as well as 
 thy own blood, hast recovered 
 liberty for thyself and thy neigh- 
 bouring cities, thy legitimate son, 
 Juan de Pad ilia, gives information 
 how by the blood of his body thy 
 ancient victories are to be refreshed. 
 If fate hath not permitted my 
 actions to be placed among your 
 successful and celebrated exploits, 
 the fault hath been in my ill for- 
 tune, not in my good will This I 
 request of thee, as of a mother, to 
 accept, since God hath given me 
 nothing more to lose for thy sake 
 than that which I am now to relin- 
 quish. I am more solicitous about 
 thy good opinion than about my 
 own life. The shiftings of fortune, 
 which never stand still, are many. 
 But this I see, with infinite conso- 
 lation, that I, the least of thy chil- 
 dren, suffer death for thee ; and 
 that thou hast nursed at thy breasts 
 such as may take vengeance for my 
 wrongs. Many tongues will relate 
 the manner of my death, of which 
 I am still ignorant, though I know 
 it to be near. My end will testify 
 what was my desire. My soul I 
 recommend to thee as to the patro- 
 ness of Christianity. Of my body
 
 470 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK in. 
 
 After this, he submitted quietly to his fate. Most of 
 the Spanish historians, accustomed to ideas of govern 
 ment and of regal power very different from those upon 
 which he acted, have been so eager to testify their dis- 
 approbation of the cause in which he was engaged that 
 they have neglected or have been afraid to do justice to 
 his virtues, and, by blackening his memory, have endea- 
 voured to deprive him of that pity which is seldom 
 denied to illustrious sufferers. 
 
 The victory at Yillalar proved as decisive as it was 
 complete. Valladolid, the most zealous of all the asso- 
 ciated cities, opened its gates immediately to the con- 
 querors, and, being treated with great clemency by the 
 regents, Medina del Campo, Segovia, and many other 
 towns followed its example. This sudden dissolution of 
 a confederacy, formed not upon slight disgusts or upon 
 trifling motives, into which the whole body of the people 
 had entered, and which had been allowed time to acquire 
 a considerable degree of order and consistence by estab- 
 lishing a regular plan of government, is the strongest 
 proof either of the inability of its leaders or of some 
 secret discord reigning among its members. Though 
 part of that army by which they had been subdued was 
 obliged, a few days after the battle, to march towards 
 Navarre, in order to check the progress of the French in 
 that kingdom, nothing could prevail on the dejected 
 commons of Castile to take arms again, and to embrace 
 such a favourable opportunity of acquiring those rights 
 and privileges for which they had appeared so zealous. 
 The city of Toledo alone, animated by Donna Maria 
 Pacheco, Padilla's widow, who, instead of bewailing 
 her husband with a womanish sorrow, prepared to re- 
 
 I say nothing, for it is not mine. thy displeasure than apprehension 
 
 I can write nothing more, for at of my own pain." Sandoval, Hist., 
 
 this very moment I feel the knife vol. i p. 478. 
 at my throat, with greater dread of
 
 BOOK m.] EMPEEOE CHAELES THE FIFTH. 471 
 
 venge his death and to prosecute that cause in defence 
 of which he had suffered, must be excepted. Respect 
 for her sex, or admiration for her courage and abilities, 
 as well as sympathy with her misfortunes and venera- 
 tion for the memory of her husband, secured her the 
 same ascendant over the people which he had possessed. 
 The prudence and vigour with which she acted justified 
 that confidence they placed in her. She wrote to the 
 French general in Navarre, encouraging him to invade 
 Castile by the offer of powerful assistance. She endea- 
 voured, by her letters and emissaries, to revive the 
 spirit and hopes of the other cities. She raised soldiers, 
 and exacted a great sum from the clergy belonging to 
 the cathedral, in order to defray the expense of keeping 
 them on foot. 20 She employed every artifice that could 
 interest or inflame the populace. For this purpose she 
 ordered crucifixes to be used by her troops instead of 
 colours, as if they had been at war with the infidels and 
 enemies of religion ; she marched through the streets of 
 Toledo with her son, a young child, clad in deep mourn- 
 ing, seated on a mule, having a standard carried before 
 him representing the manner of his father's execution. 21 
 By all these means she kept the minds of the people in 
 such perpetual agitation as prevented their passions from 
 subsiding, and rendered them insensible of the dangers 
 to which they were exposed by standing alone in oppo- 
 sition to the royal authority. "While the army was em- 
 ployed in Navarre, the regents were unable to attempt 
 the reduction of Toledo by force ; and all their endea- 
 vours, either to diminish Donna Maria's credit with 
 the people, or to gain her by large promises and the 
 solicitations of her brother, the Marquis de Mondeiar, 
 proved ineffectual. Upon the expulsion of the French 
 out of Navarre, part of the army returned into Castile 
 and invested Toledo. Even this made no impression 
 
 10 P. Martyr. Ep., 727. J1 Sandoval, 375.
 
 472 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK IIL 
 
 on the intrepid and obstinate courage of Donna Maria. 
 She defended the town with vigour, her troops, in 
 several sallies, beat the royalists, and no progress was 
 made towards reducing the place until the clergy, whom 
 she had highly offended by invading their property, 
 ceased to support her. As soon as they received in- 
 formation of the death of William de Croy, archbishop 
 of Toledo, whose possession of that see was their chief 
 grievance, and that the emperor had named a Castilian 
 to succeed him, they openly turned against her, and per- 
 suaded the people that she had acquired such influence 
 over them by the force of enchantments ; that she was 
 assisted by a familiar demon, which attended her in the 
 form of a negro maid; and that by its suggestions she 
 regulated every part of her conduct. 22 The credulous 
 multitude, whom their impatience of a long blockade, 
 and despair of obtaining succours, either from the cities 
 formerly in confederacy with them or from the French, 
 rendered desirous of peace, took arms against her, and, 
 driving her out of the city, surrendered it to the 
 royalists. She retired to the citadel, which she de- 
 fended with amazing fortitude four months longer ; and, 
 when reduced to the last extremities, she made her 
 escape in disguise, and fled to Portugal, where she had 
 many relations. 23 
 
 Upon her flight, the citadel surrendered. Tranquil- 
 lity was re-established in Castile ; and this bold attempt 
 of the commons, like all unsuccessful insurrections, con- 
 tributed to confirm and extend the power of the crown, 
 which it was intended to moderate and abridge. The 
 cortes still continued to make a part of the Castilian con- 
 stitution, and was summoned to meet whenever the king 
 stood in need of money ; but instead of adhering to 
 their ancient and cautious form, of examining and re- 
 
 12 P. Martyr. Ep., 727. 
 
 M Sandoval, 375. P. Martyr. Ep., 754. Ferreras, viii. 563.
 
 BOOK m.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 473 
 
 dressing public grievances before they proceeded to 
 grant any supply, the more courtly custom of voting a 
 donative in the first place was introduced, and the 
 sovereign, having obtained all that he wanted, never 
 allowed them to enter into any inquiry or to attempt 
 any reformation injurious to his authority. The privi- 
 leges which the cities had enjoyed were gradually cir- 
 cumscribed or abolished ; their commerce began from 
 this period to decline ; and, becoming less wealthy and 
 less populous, they lost that power and influence which 
 they had acquired in the cortes. 
 
 While Castile was exposed to the calamities of civil 
 war, the kingdom of Valencia was torn by intestine 
 commotions still more violent. The association which 
 had been formed in the city of Valencia in the year 
 1520, and which was distinguished by the name of the 
 Germanada, continued to subsist after the emperor's 
 departure from Spain. The members of it, upon pre- 
 text of defending the coasts against the descents of the 
 corsairs of Barbary, and under sanction of that per- 
 mission which Charles had rashly granted them, refused 
 to lay down their arms. But as the grievances which 
 the Valencians aimed at redressing proceeded from the 
 arrogance and exactions of the nobility, rather than from 
 any unwarrantable exercise of the royal prerogative, 
 their resentment turned chiefly against the former. As 
 soon as they were allowed the use of arms, and became 
 conscious of their own strength, they grew impatient to 
 take vengeance on their oppressors. They drove the 
 nobles out of most of the cities, plundered their houses, 
 wasted their lands, and assaulted their castles. They 
 then proceeded to elect thirteen persons, one from each 
 company of tradesmen established at Valencia, and com- 
 mitted the administration of government to them, under 
 pretext that they would reform the laws, establish one 
 uniform mode of dispensing justice, without partiality
 
 474 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK ra. 
 
 or regard to the distinction of ranks, and thus restore 
 men to some degree of their original equality. 
 
 The nobles were obliged to take arms in self-defence. 
 Hostilities began, and were carried on with all the ran- 
 cour with which resentment at oppression inspired the 
 one party and the idea of insulted dignity animated the 
 other. As no person of honourable birth or of liberal 
 education joined the Germanada, the councils as well 
 as troops of the confederacy were conducted by low 
 mechanics, who acquired the confidence of an enraged 
 multitude chiefly by the fierceness of their zeal and the 
 extravagance of their proceedings. Among such men, 
 the laws introduced in civilized nations in order to 
 restrain or moderate the violence of war were unknown 
 or despised ; and they ran into the wildest excesses of 
 cruelty and outrage. 
 
 The emperor, occupied with suppressing the insur- 
 rection in Castile, which more immediately threatened 
 the subversion of his power and prerogative, was unable 
 to give much attention to the tumults in Valencia, and 
 left the nobility of that kingdom to fight their own 
 battles. His viceroy, the Conde de Melito, had the 
 supreme command of the forces which the nobles raised 
 among the vassals. The Germanada carried on the war 
 during the years 1520 and 1521 with a more persevering 
 courage than could have been expected from a body so 
 tumultuary, under the conduct of such leaders. They 
 defeated the nobility in several actions, which, though 
 not considerable, were extremely sharp. They repulsed 
 them in their attempts to reduce different towns. But 
 the nobles, by their superior skill in war, and at *he 
 head of troops more accustomed to service, gained the 
 advantage in most of the rencounters. At length they 
 were joined by a body of Castilian cavalry, which the 
 regents despatched towards Valencia soon after their 
 victory over Padilla at Villalar, and by their assistance
 
 BOOK in.] EMPEROR tfHABLES THE FIFTH. 475 
 
 the Valencian nobles acquired such superiority that they 
 entirely broke and ruined the Germanada. The leaders 
 of the party were put to death, almost without any for- 
 mality of legal trial, and suffered such cruel punishments 
 as the sense of recent injuries prompted their adversaries 
 to inflict. The government of Valencia was re-esta- 
 blished in its ancient form. 24 
 
 In Aragon, violent symptoms of the same spirit of 
 disaffection and sedition which reigned in the other 
 kingdoms of Spain began to appear; but by the prudent 
 conduct of the viceroy, Don John de Lanusa, they were 
 so far composed as to prevent their breaking out into any 
 open insurrection. But in the island of Majorca, an- 
 nexed to the crown of Aragon, the same causes which 
 had excited the commotions in Valencia produced effects 
 no less violent. The people, impatient of the hardships 
 which they had endured under the rigid jurisdiction of 
 the nobility, took arms in a tumultuary manner, deposed 
 their viceroy, drove him out of the island, and massacred 
 every gentleman who was so unfortunate as to fall into 
 their hands. The obstinacy with which the people of 
 Majorca persisted in their rebellion was equal to the rage 
 with which they began it. Many and vigorous efforts 
 were requisite in order to reduce them to obedience; 
 and tranquillity was re- established in every part of Spain 
 before the Majorcans could be brought to submit to their 
 sovereign. 25 
 
 While the spirit of disaffection was so general among 
 the Spaniards, and so many causes concurred in precipi- 
 tating them into such violent measures in order to obtain 
 the redress of their grievances, it may appear strange 
 
 14 Argensola, Anales de Aragon, J5 Argensola, Anales de Aragon, 
 
 cap. 75, 90, 99, 118. Sayas, c. 113. Ferreras, Hist, viii. 542. 
 
 Anales de Aragon, cap. 5, 12, etc. Sayas, Anales de Aragon, cap. 7, 
 
 P. Martyr. Ep., lib. xxxiii. et 11, 14, 76, 81. Ferreras, Hist, 
 
 rxxiv., passim. Ferreras, Hist. d'Espagne, viii 579, etc., 609. 
 d'Espagne, viii. 542, 564, etc.
 
 476 REIGN OF THE [BOOH in. 
 
 that the malcontents in the different kingdoms should 
 have carried on their operations without any mutual 
 concert, or even any intercourse with each other. By 
 uniting their councils and arms, they might have acted 
 both with greater force and with more effect. The 
 appearance of a national confederacy would have ren- 
 dered it no less respectable among the people than for- 
 midable to the crown ; and the emperor, unable to resist 
 such a combination, must have complied with any terms 
 which the members of it should have thought fit to pre- 
 scribe. Many things, however, prevented the Spaniards 
 from forming themselves into one body and pursuing 
 common measures. The people of the different king- 
 doms in Spain, though they were become the subjects of 
 the same sovereign, retained in full force their national 
 antipathy to each other. The remembrance of their 
 ancient rivalship and hostilities was still lively, and the 
 sense of reciprocal injuries so strong as to prevent them 
 from acting with confidence and concert. Each nation 
 chose rather to depend on its own efforts, and to main- 
 tain the struggle alone, than to implore the aid of neigh- 
 bours whom they distrusted and hated. At the same 
 time, the forms of government in the several kingdoms 
 3f Spain were so different, and the grievances of which 
 they complained, as well as the alterations and amend- 
 ments in policy which they attempted to introduce, so 
 various, that it was not easy to bring them to unite in 
 any common plan. To this disunion Charles was 
 indebted for the preservation of the Spanish crowns ; 
 and while each of the kingdoms followed separate mea- 
 sures, they were all obliged at last to conform to the will 
 of their sovereign. 
 
 The arrival of the emperor in Spain filled his subjects 
 who had been in arms against him with deep apprehen- 
 sions, from which he soon delivered them by an act of 
 clemency no less prudent than generous. After a rebel-
 
 HOOK in.] EMPLRUR OUAELES THE FIFTH. 477 
 
 lion so general, scarcely twenty persons, among so many 
 criminals obnoxious to the law, had been punished 
 capitally in Castile. Though strongly solicited by his 
 council, Charles refused to shed any more blood by the 
 hands of the executioner, and published a general pardon, 
 extending to all crimes committed since the commence- 
 ment of the insurrections, from which only fourscore per- 
 sons were excepted. Even these he seems to have named 
 rather with an intention to intimidate others than from any 
 inclination to seize them ; for when an officious courtier 
 offered to inform him where one of the most considerable 
 among them was concealed, he avoided it by a good- 
 natured pleasantry. " Go," says he, "I have now no 
 reason to be afraid of that man, but he has some cause 
 to keep at a distance from me ; and you would be better 
 employed in telling him that I am here, than in acquaint- 
 ing me with the place of his retreat." 26 By this appear- 
 ance of magnanimity, as well as by his care to avoid 
 everything which had disgusted the Castilians during 
 his former residence among them, by his address in 
 assuming their manners, in speaking their language, and 
 in complying with all their humours and customs, he 
 acquired an ascendant over them which hardly any of 
 their native monarchs had ever attained, and brought 
 them to support him in all his enterprises with a zeal and 
 valour to which he owed much of his success and 
 grandeur. 87 
 
 About the time that Charles landed in Spain, Adrian 
 set out for Italy to take possession of his new dignity. 
 But though the Eoman people longed extremely for his 
 arrival, they could not on his first appearance conceal 
 their surprise and disappointment. After being accus- 
 tomed to the princely magnificence of Julius and the 
 elegant splendour of Leo, they beheld with contempt 
 
 26 Sandoval, 377, etc. Vida del Antonio de Vera y Zufriga, p. 30. 
 Empeiador Carlos, por Don Juan 2 ' Ulloa, Vita di Carlo V.,p. 85,
 
 478 "REIGN OF THE [BOOK m. 
 
 an old man of an humble deportment, of austere man- 
 ners, an enemy to pomp, destitute of taste in the arts, 
 and unadorned with any of the external accomplish- 
 ments which the vulgar expect in those raised to eminent 
 stations. 28 Nor did his political views and maxims seem 
 less strange and astonishing to the pontifical ministers. 
 He acknowledged and bewailed the corruptions which 
 abounded in the Church, as well as in the court of 
 Rome, and prepared to reform both ; he discovered 
 no intention of aggrandizing his family ; he even 
 scrupled at retaining such territories as some of his 
 predecessors had acquired by violence or fraud rather 
 than by any legal title, and for that reason he invested 
 Francesco Maria de Rovere anew in the duchy of Urbino, 
 of which Leo had stripped him, and surrendered to the 
 duke of Ferrara several places wrested from him by the 
 Church. 29 To men little habituated to see princes regu- 
 late their conduct by the maxims of morality and the 
 principles of justice, these actions of the new pope 
 appeared incontestible proofs of his weakness or inex- 
 perience. Adrian, who was a perfect stranger to the 
 complex and intricate system of Italian politics, and who 
 could place no confidence in persons whose subtle refine- 
 ments in business suited so ill with the natural simplicity 
 and candour of his own character, being often embar- 
 rassed and irresolute in his deliberations, the opinion of 
 his incapacity daily increased, until both his person and 
 government became objects of ridicule among his 
 subjects. 30 
 
 Adrian, though devoted to the emperor, endeavoured 
 to assume the impartiality which became the common 
 father of Christendom, and laboured to reconcile the 
 
 38 Guic., lib. xv. 238. Jovii 30 Jovii Vita Adriani, 118. P. 
 
 Vita Adriani, 117. Belief or. Martyr. Ep., 7 7 4. Ruscelli, Letteie 
 
 Epistr. des Princ., 8. de' Princ., voL i. 87, 96, 101. 
 
 w Guic., lib. xv. 240.
 
 BOOK in.] EMPEBOR CHAELES THE FIFTH. 479 
 
 contending princes, in order that they might unite in a 
 league against Solyman, whose conquest of Rhodes 
 rendered him more formidable than ever to Europe. 31 
 But this was an undertaking far beyond his abilities. 
 To examine such a variety of pretensions, to adjust such 
 a number of interfering interests, to extinguish the 
 passions which ambition, emulation, and mutual injuries 
 had kindled, to bring so many hostile powers to pursue 
 the same scheme with unanimity and vigour, required 
 not only uprightness of intention, but great superiority 
 both of understanding and address. 
 
 The Italian states were no less desirous of peace than 
 the pope. The imperial army under Colonna was still 
 kept on foot ; but as the emperor's revenues in Spain, 
 in Naples, and in the Low Countries were either ex- 
 hausted or applied to some other purpose, it depended 
 entirely for pay and subsistence on the Italians. A 
 great part of it was quartered in the ecclesiastical state, 
 and monthly contributions were levied upon the Flo- 
 rentines, the Milanese, the Genoese, and Lucchese, by 
 the viceroy of Naples ; and, though all exclaimed against 
 such oppression, and were impatient to be delivered 
 from it, the dread of worse consequences from the rage 
 of the army or the resentment of the emperor obliged 
 them to submit. 32 
 
 So much regard, however, was paid to the pope's ex- 
 hortations, and to a bull which he issued, requiring all 
 Christian princes to consent to a truce for three years, 
 that the imperial, the French, and English ambassadors 
 at Eome were empowered by their respective courts to 
 treat of that matter ; but, while they wasted their time 
 in fruitless negotiations, their masters continued their 
 preparations for war. The Venetians, who had hitherto 
 adhered with great firmness to their alliance with 
 Francis, being now convinced that his affairs in Italy 
 
 11 BolMor. Epistr., p. 86. Guic., lib. xv. 238.
 
 480 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK in. 
 
 were in a desperate situation, entered into a league 
 against him with the emperor ; to which Adrian, at the 
 instigation of his countryman and friend, Charles de 
 Lannoy, viceroy of Naples, who persuaded him that the 
 only obstacles to peace arose from the ambition of the 
 French king, soon after acceded. The other Italian 
 states followed their example; and Francis was left 
 without a single ally to resist the efforts of so many 
 enemies, whose armies threatened and whose territories 
 encompassed his dominions on every side. 33 
 
 The dread of this powerful confederacy, it was thought, 
 would have obliged Francis to keep wholly on the de- 
 fensive, or at least have prevented his entertaining any 
 thoughts of marching into Italy. But it was the char- 
 acter of that prince, too apt to become remiss and even 
 negligent on ordinary occasions, to rouse at the approach 
 of danger, and not only to encounter it with spirit and 
 intrepidity, qualities which never forsook him, but to 
 provide against it with diligence and industry. Before 
 his enemies were ready to execute any of their schemes, 
 Francis had assembled a numerous army. His authority 
 over his own subjects was far greater than that which 
 Charles or Henry possessed over theirs. They depended 
 on their diets, their cortes, and their parliaments for 
 money, which was usually granted them in small sums, 
 very slowly, and with much reluctance. The taxes he 
 could impose were more considerable, and levied with 
 greater despatch ; so that on this as well as on other 
 occasions he brought his armies into the field while they 
 were only devising ways and means for raising theirs. 
 Sensible of this advantage, Francis hoped to disconcert 
 all the emperor's schemes by marching in person into 
 the Milanese ; and this bold measure, the more formid- 
 able because unexpected, could scarcely have failed of 
 producing that effect. But when the vanguard of his 
 
 " Guic., lib. xv. 241, 246.
 
 BOOK in.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 481 
 
 army had already reached Lyons, and he himself was 
 hastening after it with a second division of his troops, 
 the discovery of a domestic conspiracy, which threatened 
 the ruin of the kingdom, obliged him to stop short and 
 to alter his measures. 
 
 The author of this dangerous plot was Charles, duke 
 of Bourbon, lord high constable, whose noble birth, 
 vast fortune, and high office raised him to be the most 
 powerful subject in France, as his great talents, equally 
 suited to the field or the council, and his signal services 
 to the crown, rendered him the most illustrious and 
 deserving. The near resemblance between the king and 
 him in many of their qualities, both being fond of war 
 and ambitious to excel in manly exercises, as well as 
 their equality in age and their proximity of blood, 
 ought naturally to have secured to him a considerable 
 share in that monarch's favour. But unhappily Louise, 
 the king's mother, had contracted a violent aversion 
 to the house of Bourbon, for no better reason than 
 because Anne of Bretagne, the queen of Louis XII., 
 with whom she lived in perpetual enmity, had dis- 
 covered a peculiar attachment to that branch of the 
 royal family, and had taught her son, who was too sus- 
 ceptible of any impression which his mother gave him, 
 to view all the constable's actions with a mean and 
 unbecoming jealousy. His distinguished merit at the 
 battle of Marignano had not been sufficiently rewarded ; 
 he had been recalled from the government of Milan 
 upon very frivolous pretences, and had met with a cold 
 reception, which his prudent conduct in that difficult 
 station did not deserve ; the payment of his pensions had 
 been suspended without any good cause; and during 
 the campaign of 1521 the king, as has already been 
 related, had affronted him in presence of the whole 
 army, by giving the command of the van to the duke of 
 Alen<jon. The constable, at first, bore these indignities
 
 482 REIGN OF THE [BOOK in. 
 
 with greater moderation than could have been expected 
 from a high-spirited prince, conscious of what was due 
 to his rank and to his services. Such a multiplicity of 
 injuries, however, exhausted his patience ; and, in- 
 spiring him with thoughts of revenge, he retired from 
 court, and began to hold a secret correspondence with 
 some of the emperor's ministers. 
 
 About that time the duchess of Bourbon happened 
 to die without leaving any children. Louise, of a dis- 
 position no less amorous than vindictive, and still sus- 
 ceptible of the tender passions at the age of forty-six, 
 began to view the constable, a prince as amiable as he 
 was accomplished, with other eyes ; and, notwithstand- 
 ing the great disparity of their years, she formed the 
 scheme of marrying him. Bourbon, who might have 
 expected every thing to which an ambitious mind can 
 aspire from the doting fondness of a woman who governed 
 her son and the kingdom, being incapable either of 
 imitating the queen in her sudden transition from hatred 
 to love, or of dissembling so meanly as to pretend 
 affection for one who had persecuted him so long with 
 unprovoked malice, not only rejected the match, but 
 embittered his refusal by some severe raillery on Louise's 
 person and character. She finding herself not only 
 contemned but insulted, her disappointed love turned 
 into hatred, and, since she could not marry, she resolved 
 to ruin Bourbon. 
 
 For this purpose, she consulted with the chancellor, 
 Ihi Prat, a man who by a base prostitution of great 
 talents and of superior skill in his profession had risen 
 to that high office. By his advice a lawsuit was com- 
 menced against the constable for the whole estate belong- 
 ing to the house of Bourbon. Part of it was claimed 
 in the king's name, as having fallen to the crown ; 
 part in that of Louise, as the nearest heir in blood of 
 the deceased duchess. Both of these claims were equally
 
 BOOK ra.] EMPEEOE CHARLES THE FIFTH. 483 
 
 destitute of any foundation in justice ; but Louise, by her 
 solicitations and authority, and Du Prat, by employing 
 all the artifices and chicanery of law, prevailed on the 
 judges to order the estate to be sequestered. This 
 unjust decision drove the constable to despair, and to 
 measures which despair alone could have dictated. He 
 renewed his intrigues in the imperial court, and, nat- 
 tering himself that the injuries which he had suffered 
 would justify his having recourse to any means in order 
 to obtain revenge, he offered to transfer his allegiance 
 from his natural sovereign to the emperor, and to 
 assist him in the conquest of France. Charles, as well 
 as the king of England, to whom the secret was com- 
 municated, 34 expecting prodigious advantages from his 
 revolt, were rea'dy to receive him with open arms, and 
 spared neither promises nor allurements which might 
 help to confirm him in his resolution. The emperor 
 offered him in marriage his sister Eleanor, the widow 
 of the king of Portugal, with an ample portion. He 
 was included as a principal in the treaty between Charles 
 and Henry. The counties of Provence and Dauphine* 
 were to be settled on him, with the title of king. The 
 emperor engaged to enter France by the Pyrenees, and 
 Henry, supported by the Flemings, to invade Picardy ; 
 while twelve thousand Germans, levied at their com- 
 mon charge, were to penetrate into Burgundy and to 
 act in concert with Bourbon, who undertook to raise 
 six thousand men among his friends and vassals in the 
 heart of the kingdom. The execution of this deep-laid 
 and dangerous plot was suspended until the king should 
 cross the Alps with the only army capable of defending 
 his dominions ; and, as he was far advanced in his 
 march for that purpose, France was on the brink of 
 destruction. 35 
 
 M Rymer's Fcedera., xiii. 794. Heuter. Rer. Austr., lib. viii c. 18, 
 
 w Thuani Hist, lib. L c. 10. p. 207. 
 
 I I 2
 
 484 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK in. 
 
 Happily for that kingdom, a negotiation which had 
 now been carrying on for several months, though 
 conducted with the most profound secrecy, and com- 
 municated only to a few chosen confidants, could not 
 altogether escape the observation of the rest of the 
 constable's numerous retainers, rendered more inquisi- 
 tive by finding that they were distrusted. Two of 
 these gave the king some intimation of a mysterious 
 correspondence between their master and the Count de 
 Eoeux, a Flemish nobleman of great confidence with 
 the emperor. Francis, who could not bring himself to 
 suspect that the first prince of the blood would be so 
 base as to betray the kingdom to its enemies, imme- 
 diately repaired to Moulins, where the constable was 
 in bed, feigning indisposition, that he might not be 
 obliged to accompany the king into Italy, and ac- 
 quainted him of the intelligence which he had received. 
 Bourbon, with great solemnity, and the most imposing 
 affectation of ingenuity and candour, asserted his own 
 innocence; and as his health, he said, was now more 
 confirmed, he promised to join the army within a few 
 days. Francis, open and candid himself, and too apt 
 to be deceived by the appearance of those virtues in 
 others, gave such credit to what he said that he refused 
 to arrest him, although advised to take that precaution 
 by his wisest counsellors; and, as if the danger had 
 been over, he continued his march towards Lyons. 
 The constable set out soon after, seemingly with an 
 intention to follow him ; but, turning suddenly to the 
 left, he crossed the Ehone, and, after infinite fatigue 
 and peril, escaped all the parties which the king, who 
 became sensible too late of his own credulity, sent out 
 to intercept him, and reached Italy in safety. 36 
 
 Francis took every possible precaution to prevent the 
 
 88 Me'm. de Bellay, p. 64, etc. Pasquier. Eecherches de la France, 
 p. 481
 
 BOOK m.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 485 
 
 bad effects of the irreparable error which he had com- 
 mitted. He put garrisons in all the places of strength 
 in the constable's territories. He seized all the gentle- 
 men whom he could suspect of being his associates ; and 
 as he had not hitherto discovered the whole extent of 
 the conspirators' schemes, nor knew how far the infec- 
 tion had spread among his subjects, he was afraid that 
 his absence might encourage them to make some desperate 
 attempt, and for that reason relinquished his intention 
 of leading his army in person into Italy. 
 
 He did not, however, abandon his design on the 
 Milanese, but appointed Admiral Bonnivet to take the 
 supreme command in his stead, and to march into that 
 country with an army thirty thousand strong. Bonnivet 
 did not owe this preferment to his abilities as a general ; 
 for, of all the talents requisite to form a great com- 
 mander, he possessed only personal courage, the lowest 
 and the most common. But he was the most accom- 
 plished gentleman in the French court, of agreeable 
 manners and insinuating address and a sprightly con 
 versation ; and Francis, who lived in great familiarity 
 with his courtiers, was so charmed with these qualities 
 that he honoured him on all occasions with the most 
 partial and distinguished marks of his favour. He was, 
 besides, the implacable enemy of Bourbon ; and, as the 
 king hardly knew whom to trust at that juncture, he 
 thought the chief command could be lodged nowhere so 
 safely as in his hands. 
 
 Colonna, who was intrusted with the defence of the 
 Milanese, his own conquest, was in no condition to 
 resist such a formidable army. He was destitute of 
 money sufficient to pay his troops, which were reduced 
 to a small number by sickness or desertion, and had, 
 for that reason, been obliged to neglect every precau- 
 tion necessary for the security of the country. The 
 only plan which he formed was, to defend the passage
 
 486 &E1GN OF THE [BOOK itt. 
 
 of the river Tessino against the French ; and, as if he 
 had forgotten how easily he himself had disconcerted 
 a similar scheme formed by Lautrec, he promised with 
 great confidence on its being effectual. But, in spite 
 of all his caution, it succeeded no better with him than 
 with Lautrec. Bonnivet passed the river without loss, 
 at a ford which had been neglected, and the imperialists 
 retired to Milan, preparing to abandon the town as soon 
 as the French should appear before it. By an unac- 
 countable negligence, which Guicciardini imputes to 
 infatuation, 37 Bonnivet did not advance for three or four 
 days, and lost the opportunity with which his guod 
 fortune presented him. The citizens recovered from 
 their consternation ; Colonna, still active at the age of 
 fourscore, and Morone, whose enmity to France rendered 
 him indefatigable, were employed night and day in 
 repairing the fortifications, in amassing provisions, in 
 collecting troops from every quarter, and, by the time 
 the French approached, had put the city in a condition 
 to stand a siege. Bonnivet, after some fruitless attempts 
 on the town, which harassed his own troops more than 
 the enemy, was obliged, by the inclemency of the season, 
 to retire into winter quarters. 
 
 During these transactions, Pope Adrian died, an 
 event so much to the satisfaction of the Eoman people, 
 whose hatred or contempt of him augmented every 
 day, that the night after his decease they adorned the 
 door of his chief physician's house with garlands, 
 adding this inscription, To THE DELIVERER OF HIS 
 COUNTRY. 38 The Cardinal de' Medici instantly renewed 
 his pretensions to the papal dignity, and entered the 
 conclave with high expectations on his own part, and 
 a general opinion of the people, that they would be 
 successful. But, though supported by the imperial 
 faction, possessed of great personal interest, and capable 
 
 37 Guic., lib. xv. 254. 38 Jovii Vit. Adr., 127.
 
 BOOK in.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 487 
 
 of all the artifices, refinements, and corruption whicli 
 reign in those assemblies, the obstinacy and intrigues of 
 his rivals protracted the conclave to the unusual length 
 of fifty days. The address and perseverance of the 
 cardinal at last surmounted every obstacle. He was 
 raised to the head of the Church, and assumed the 
 government of it by the name of Clement VII. The 
 choice was universally approved of. High expectations 
 were conceived of a pope whose great talents and long 
 experience in business seemed to qualify him no less 
 for defending the spiritual interests of the Church, ex- 
 posed to imminent danger by the progress of Luther's 
 opinions, than for conducting its political operations 
 with the prudence requisite at such a difficult juncture, 
 and who, besides these advantages, rendered the ecclesi- 
 astical state more respectable by having in his hands 
 the government of Florence, together with the wealth of 
 the family of Medici. 39 
 
 Cardinal Wolsey, not disheartened by the disappoint- 
 ment of his ambitious views at the former election, had 
 entertained more sanguine hopes of success on this oc- 
 casion. Henry wrote to the emperor, reminding him 
 of his engagements to second the pretensions of his 
 minister. Wolsey bestirred himself with activity suit- 
 able to the importance of the prize for which he con- 
 tended, and instructed his agents at Rome to spare 
 neither promises nor bribes in order to gain his end. 
 But Charles had either amused him with vain hopes 
 which he never intended to gratify, or he judged 
 it impolitic to oppose a candidate who had such a 
 prospect of succeeding as Medici ; or perhaps the 
 cardinals durst not venture to provoke the people 
 of Eome, while their indignation against Adrian's 
 memory was still fresh, by placing another Ultra- 
 montane on the papal throne. Wolsey, after all his 
 
 39 Guic., lib. xv. 263.
 
 488 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK m. 
 
 expectations and endeavours, had the mortification to 
 see a pope elected of such an age and of so vigorous 
 a constitution that he could not derive much comfort 
 to himself from the chance of surviving him. This 
 second proof fully convinced Wolsey of the emperor's 
 insincerity, and it excited in him all the resentment 
 which a haughty mind feels on being at once disap- 
 pointed and deceived ; and though Clement endeavoured 
 to soothe his vindictive nature by granting him a com- 
 mission to be legate in England during life, with such 
 ample powers as vested in him almost the whole papal 
 jurisdiction in that kingdom, the injury he had now 
 received made such an impression as entirely dissolved 
 the tie which had united him to Charles, and from 
 that moment he meditated revenge. It was necessary, 
 however, to conceal his intention from his master, and 
 to suspend the execution of it until, by a dexterous 
 improvement of the incidents which might occur, he 
 should be able gradually to alienate the king's affections 
 from the emperor. For this reason, he was so far from 
 expressing any uneasiness on account of the repulse 
 which he had met with, that he abounded on every 
 occasion, private as well as public, in declarations of 
 his high satisfaction with Clement's promotion. 40 
 
 Henry had, during the campaign, fulfilled with great 
 sincerity whatever he was bound to perform by the 
 league against France, though more slowly than he 
 could have wished. His thoughtless profusion and 
 total neglect of economy reduced him often to great 
 straits for money. The operations of war were now 
 carried on in Europe in a manner very different from 
 that which had long prevailed. Instead of armies 
 suddenly assembled, which under distinct chieftains 
 followed their prince into the field for a short space 
 and served at their own cost, troops were now levied at 
 
 40 Fiddes's Life of Wolsey, 294, etc. Herbert.
 
 BOOH in.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 489 
 
 great charge and received regularly considerable pay. 
 Instead of impatience on both sides to bring every 
 quarrel to the issue of a battle, which commonly de- 
 cided the fate of open countries, and allowed the 
 barons, together with their vassals, to return to their 
 ordinary occupations, towns were fortified with great 
 art and defended with much obstinacy ; war, from a 
 very simple, became a very intricate science ; and 
 campaigns grew, of course, to be more tedious and less 
 decisive. The expense which these alterations in the 
 military system necessarily created appeared intoler- 
 able to nations hitherto unaccustomed to the burden 
 of heavy taxes. Hence proceeded the frugal and even 
 parsimonious spirit of the English parliaments in that 
 age, which Henry, with all his authority, was seldom 
 able to overcome. The commons having refused at 
 this time to grant him the supplies which he demanded, 
 he had recourse to the ample and almost unlimited 
 prerogative which the kings of England then possessed, 
 and, by a violent and unusual exertion of it, raised the 
 money he wanted. This, however, wasted so much 
 time that it was late in the season before his army, 
 under the duke of Suffolk, could take the field. Being 
 joined by a considerable body of Flemings, Suffolk 
 marched into Picardy, and Francis, from his extrava- 
 gant eagerness to recover the Milanese, having left that 
 frontier almost unguarded, he penetrated as far as the 
 banks of the river Oyse, within eleven leagues of Paris, 
 filling that capital with consternation. But the arrival 
 of some troops detached by the king, who was still at 
 Lyons, the active gallantry of the French officers, who 
 allowed the allies no respite night or day, the rigour of 
 a most unnatural season, together with scarcity of pro- 
 visions, compelled Suffolk to retire ; and La Tramouille, 
 who commanded in those parts, had the glory not only 
 of having checked the progress of a formidable army
 
 490 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK IIL 
 
 with a handful of men, but of driving them with igno- 
 miny out of the French territories. 41 
 
 The emperor's attempts upon Burgundy and Guienne 
 were not more fortunate, though in both these provinces 
 Francis was equally ill prepared to resist them. The 
 conduct and valour of his generals supplied his want of 
 foresight ; the Germans, who made an irruption into 
 one of these provinces, and the Spaniards, who attacked 
 the other, were repulsed with great disgrace. 
 
 Thus ended the year 1523, during which Francis's 
 good fortune and success had been such as gave all 
 Europe a high idea of his power and resources. He 
 had discovered and disconcerted a dangerous con- 
 spiracy, the author of which he had driven into exile 
 almost without an attendant ; he had rendered abortive 
 all the schemes of the powerful confederacy formed 
 against him ; he had protected his dominions when 
 attacked on three different sides ; and, though his army 
 in the Milanese had not made such progress as might 
 have been expected from its superiority to the enemy 
 in number, he had recovered, and still kept possession 
 of, one-half of that duchy. 
 
 The ensuing year opened with events more disas- 
 trous to France. Fontarabia was lost by the cowardice 
 or treachery of its governor. In Italy, the allies re- 
 solved on an early and vigorous effort, in order to dis- 
 possess Bonnivet of that part of the Milanese which 
 lies beyond the Tessino. Clement, who, under the 
 pontificates of Leo and Adrian, had discovered an 
 implacable enmity to France, began now to view the 
 power which the emperor was daily acquiring in Italy 
 with so much jealousy that he refused to accede, 
 as his predecessors had done, to the league against 
 Francis, and, forgetting private passions and animosi- 
 ties, laboured with the zeal which became his character 
 
 41 Herbert, Mrim. de Bellay, 73, etc.
 
 in.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 491 
 
 to bring about a reconciliation among the contending 
 parties. But all his endeavours were ineffectual : a 
 numerous army, to which each of the allies furnished 
 their contingent of troops, was assembled at Milan by 
 the beginning of March. Lannoy, viceroy of Naples, 
 took the command of it upon Colonna's death, though 
 the chief direction of military operations was com- 
 mitted to Bourbon and the marquis de Pescara, the 
 latter the ablest and most enterprising of the imperial 
 generals ; the former inspired by his resentment with 
 new activity and invention, and acquainted so thoroughly 
 with the characters of the French commanders, the 
 genius of their troops, and the strength as well as 
 weakness of their armies, as to be of infinite service to 
 the party which he had joined. But all these advan- 
 tages were nearly lost through the emperor's inability 
 to raise money sufficient for executing the various and 
 extensive plans which he had formed. When his troops 
 were commanded to march, they mutinied against their 
 leaders, demanding the pay which was due to them for 
 some months, and, disregarding both the menaces and 
 entreaties of their officers, threatened to pillage the 
 city of Milan if they did not instantly receive satisfac- 
 tion. Out of this difficulty the generals of the allies 
 were extricated by Morone, who, prevailing on his 
 countrymen, over whom his influence was prodigious, 
 to advance the sum that was requisite, the army took the 
 field. 42 
 
 Bonnivet was destitute of troops to oppose this army, 
 and still more of the talents which could render 
 him an equal match for its leaders. After various 
 movements and encounters, described with great accu- 
 racy by the contemporary historians, a detail of which 
 would now be equally uninteresting and uninstructive, 
 he was forced to abandon the strong camp in which 
 
 42 Guic., lib. xv 267. Capella, 190.
 
 492 KEIGN OF THE [BOOR m. 
 
 he had intrenched himself at Biagrassa. Soon after, 
 partly by his own misconduct, partly by the activity 
 of the enemy, who harassed and ruined his army by 
 continual skirmishes, while they carefully declined a 
 battle, which he often offered them, and partly by the 
 caprice of six thousand Swiss, who refused to join his 
 army, though within a day's march of it, he was re- 
 duced to the necessity of attempting a retreat into 
 France through the valley of Aost. Just as he arrived 
 on the banks of the Sessia, and began to pass that 
 river, Bourbon and Pescara appeared with the van- 
 guard of the allies, and attacked his rear with great 
 fury. At the beginning of the charge, Bonnivet, while 
 exerting himself with much valour, was wounded so 
 dangerously that he was obliged to quit the field ; and 
 the conduct of the rear was committed to the Chevalier 
 Bayard, who, though so much a stranger to the arts of 
 a court that he never rose to the chief command, was 
 always called, in times of real danger, to the post of 
 greatest difficulty and importance. He put himself at 
 the head of the men-at-arms, and, animating them by 
 his presence and example to sustain the whole shock 
 of the enemy's troops, he gained time for the rest of 
 his countrymen to make good their retreat. But in 
 this service he received a wound which he immediately 
 perceived to be mortal, and, being unable to continue 
 any longer on horseback, he ordered one of his atten- 
 dants to place him under a tree, with his face towards 
 the enemy ; then, fixing his eyes on the guard of 
 his sword, which he held up instead of a cross, he 
 addressed his prayers to God, and in this posture, 
 which became his character both as a soldier and as a 
 Christian, he calmly awaited the approach of death. 
 Bourbon, who led the foremost of the enemy's troops, 
 found him in this situation, and expressed regret and 
 pity at the sight. " Pity not me," cried the high-
 
 BOOK ra.] EMPEEOE CHARLES THE FIFTH. 493 
 
 spirited chevalier. " I die as a man of honour ought, 
 in the discharge of my duty : they indeed are objects 
 of pity who fight against their king, their country, and 
 their oath." The marquis de Pescara, passing soon 
 after, manifested his admiration of Bayard's virtues, 
 as well as his sorrow for his fate, with the generosity 
 of a gallant enemy, and, finding that he could not be 
 removed with safety from that spot, ordered a tent 
 to be pitched there, and appointed proper persons to 
 attend him. .He died, notwithstanding their care, as 
 his ancestors for several generations had done, in the 
 field of battle. Pescara ordered his body to be em- 
 balmed and sent to his relations ; and such was the 
 respect paid to military merit in that age that the duke 
 of Savoy commanded it to be received with royal honours 
 in all the cities of his dominions : in Dauphin^, Bayard's 
 native country, the people of all ranks came out in a 
 solemn procession to meet it. 43 
 
 Bonnivet led back the shattered remains of his army 
 into France ; and in one short campaign Francis was 
 stripped of all he had possessed in Italy, and left without 
 one ally in that country. 
 
 While the war kindled by the emulation of Charles 
 and Francis spread over so many countries of Europe, 
 Germany enjoyed a profound tranquillity, extremely 
 favourable to the Reformation, which continued to make 
 progress daily. During Luther's confinement in his 
 retreat at Wartburg, Carlostadius, one of his disciples, 
 animated with the same zeal, but possessed of less pru- 
 dence and moderation than his master, began to propa- 
 gate wild and dangerous opinions, chiefly among the 
 lower people. Encouraged by his exhortations, they 
 rose in several villages of Saxony, broke into the 
 churches with tumultuary violence, and threw down 
 
 3 Bellefor. Epistr., p. 73. Brant., torn. vi. p. 108, etc. Pa* 
 Mem. de Bellay, 76. -((Euv. de quier, Recherches, p. 526.
 
 494 REIGN OF THE [BOOK in. 
 
 and destroyed the images with which they were 
 adorned. Those irregular and outrageous proceedings 
 were so repugnant to all the elector's cautious maxims, 
 that if they had not received a timely check they 
 could hardly have failed of alienating from the Ee- 
 formers a prince no less jealous of his own authority 
 than afraid of giving offence to the emperor and other 
 patrons of the ancient opinions. Luther, sensible of 
 the danger, immediately quitted his retreat, without 
 waiting for Frederic's permission, and returned to Wit- 
 temberg. Happily for the Eeformation, the veneration 
 for his person and authority was still so great that his 
 appearance alone suppressed that spirit of extravagance 
 which began to seize his party. Carlostadius and his 
 fanatical followers, struck dumb by his rebukes, sub- 
 mitted at once, and declared that they heard the voice of 
 an angel, not of a man. 44 [1522.] 
 
 Before Luther left his retreat, he had begun to trans- 
 late the Bible into the German tongue, an undertaking 
 of no less difficulty than importance, of which he was 
 extremely fond, and for which he was well qualified. 
 He had a competent knowledge of the original lan- 
 guages ; a thorough acquaintance with the style and 
 sentiments of the inspired writers ; and, though his 
 compositions in Latin were rude and barbarous, he was 
 reckoned a great master of the purity of his mother- 
 tongue, and could express himself with all the elegance 
 of which it is capable. By his own assiduous applica- 
 tion, together with the assistance of Melancthon and 
 several other of his disciples, he finished part of the 
 New Testament in the year 1522 ; and the publication 
 of it proved more fatal to the Church of Borne than 
 that of all his own works. It was read with wonderful 
 avidity and attention by persons of every rank. They 
 were astonished at discovering how contrary the pre- 
 
 44 Sleid., Hist., 51. Seckend., 196.
 
 in.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 495 
 
 cepts of the Author of our religion are to the inventions 
 of those priests who pretended to be his vice-gerents ; 
 and, having now in their hand the rule of faith, they 
 thought themselves qualified, by applying it, to judge of 
 the established opinions, and to pronounce when they 
 were conformable to the standard or when they departed 
 from it. The great advantages arising from Luther's 
 translation of the Bible encouraged the advocates for 
 reformation in the other countries of Europe to imitate 
 his example, and to publish versions of the Scriptures in 
 their respective languages. 
 
 About this time, Nuremberg, Frankfort, Hamburg, 
 and several other free cities in Germany, of the first 
 rank, openly embraced the Reformed religion, and by 
 the authority of their magistrates abolished the mass 
 and the other superstitious rites of popery. 45 The 
 elector of Brandenburg, the dukes of Brunswick and 
 Lunenburg, and prince of Anhalt, became avowed 
 patrons of Luther's opinions and countenanced the 
 preaching of them among their subjects. 
 
 The court of Rome beheld this growing defection 
 with great concern ; and Adrian's first care, after his 
 arrival in Italy, had been to deliberate with the cardi- 
 nals concerning the proper means of putting a stop to 
 it. He was profoundly skilled in scholastic theology, 
 and, having been early celebrated on that account, he 
 still retained such an excessive admiration of the science 
 to which he was first indebted for his reputation and 
 success in life that he considered Luther's invectives 
 against the schoolmen, particularly Thomas Aquinas, 
 as little less than blasphemy. All the tenets of that 
 doctor appeared to him so clear and irrefragable that 
 he supposed every person who called in question or 
 contradicted them to be either blinded by ignorance 
 or to be acting in opposition to the conviction of his 
 
 45 Seckend., 241. Chytraei Contin. Krantzii, 203.
 
 496 REIGN OF THE [BOOK IIL 
 
 own mind. Of course, no pope was ever more bigoted 
 or inflexible with, regard to points of doctrine than 
 Adrian : he not only maintained them, as Leo had 
 done, because they were ancient, or because it was 
 dangerous for the Church to allow of innovations, but 
 he adhered to them with the zeal of a theologian and 
 with the tenaciousness of a disputant. At the same 
 time, his own manners being extremely simple, and 
 uninfected with any of the vices which reigned in the 
 court of Eome, he was as sensible of its corruptions as 
 the Eeformers themselves, and viewed them with no 
 less indignation. The brief which he addressed to the 
 diet of the empire assembled at Nuremberg, and the 
 instructions which he gave Cheregato, the nuncio whom 
 he sent thither, were framed agreeably to these views. 
 On the one hand, he condemned Luther's opinions with 
 more asperity and rancour of expression than Leo had 
 ever used ; he severely censured the princes of Ger- 
 many for suffering him to spread his pernicious tenets 
 by their neglecting to execute the edict of the diet at 
 Worms, and required them, if Luther did not instantly 
 retract his errors, to destroy him with fire as a gan- 
 grened and incurable member, in like manner as Dathan 
 and Abiram had been cut off by Moses, Ananias and 
 Sapphira by the apostles, and John Huss and Jerome 
 of Prague by their ancestors. 46 On the other hand, 
 he, with great candour and in the most explicit terms, 
 acknowledged the corruptions of the Eoman court to 
 be the source from which had flowed most of the evils 
 that the Church now felt or dreaded ; he promised to 
 exert all his authority towards reforming these abuses, 
 with as much despatch as the nature and inveteracy of 
 tie disorders would admit ; and he requested of them 
 to give him their advice with regard to the most eft'ec- 
 
 * Fascic, Ber. expet, et fugiend., p. 342.
 
 HOOK m.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 497 
 
 tual means of suppressing that new heresy which had 
 sprung up among them. 47 
 
 The members of the diet, after praising the pope's 
 pious and laudable intentions, excused themselves for 
 not executing the edict of Worms, by alleging that the 
 prodigious increase of Luther's followers, as well as the 
 aversion to the court of Eome among their other sub- 
 jects on account of its innumerable exactions, rendered 
 such an attempt not only dangerous, but impossible. 
 They affirmed that the grievances of Germany, which 
 did not arise from imaginary injuries, but from imposi- 
 tions no less real than intolerable, as his holiness would 
 learn from a catalogue of them which they intended to 
 lay before him, called now for some new and efficacious 
 remedy; and, in their opinion, the only remedy ade- 
 quate to the disease, or which afforded them any hopes 
 of seeing the Church restored to soundness and vigour, 
 was a general council. Such a council, therefore, they 
 advised him, after obtaining the emperor's consent, to 
 assemble, without delay, in one of the great cities of 
 Germany, that all who had right to be present might 
 deliberate with freedom, and propose their opinions with 
 such boldness as the dangerous situation of religion at 
 this juncture required. 48 
 
 The nuncio, more artful than his master, and bettor 
 acquainted with the political views and interests of the 
 Roman court, was startled at the proposition of a 
 council, and easily foresaw how dangerous such an 
 assembly might prove at a time when many openly 
 denied the papal authority, and the reverence and sub- 
 mission yielded to it visibly declined among all. For 
 that reason, he employed his utmost address in order 
 to prevail on the members of the diet to proceed them- 
 selves with greater severity against the Lutheran heresy, 
 and to relinquish their proposal concerning a general 
 
 47 Fascia Rer. expet. et fugiend., p. 345. ** Ibid., p. 346. 
 
 YOL. I. K K
 
 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK m. 
 
 council to be held in Germany. They, perceiving the 
 nuncio to be more solicitous about the interests of 
 the Eoman court than the tranquillity of the empire 
 or purity of the Church, remained inflexible, and con- 
 tinued to prepare the catalogue of their grievances to 
 be presented to the pope. 49 The nuncio, that he might 
 not be the bearer of a remonstrance so disagreeable to 
 his court, left Nuremberg abruptly, without taking leave 
 of the diet. 50 
 
 The secular princes accordingly, for the ecclesiastics, 
 although they gave no opposition, did not think it- 
 decent to join with them, drew up the list (so famous 
 in the German annals) of a hundred grievances which 
 the empire imputed to the iniquitous dominion of the 
 papal see. This list contained grievances much of the 
 same nature with that prepared under the reign of 
 Maximilian. It would be tedious to enumerate each 
 of them : they complained of the sums exacted for dis- 
 pensations, absolutions, and indulgences ; of the expense 
 arising from the lawsuits carried by appeal to Rome ; of 
 the innumerable abuses occasioned by reservations, com- 
 mendams, and annates; of the exemption from civil 
 jurisdiction which the clergy had obtained; of the arts 
 by which they brought all secular causes under the 
 cognizance of the ecclesiastical judges ; of the indecent 
 and profligate lives which not a few of the clergy led ; 
 and of various other particulars, many of which have 
 already been mentioned among the circumstances that 
 contributed to the favourable reception or to the quick 
 progress of Luther's doctrines. In the end they con- 
 cluded that, if the holy see did not speedily deliver 
 them from those intolerable burdens, they had deter- 
 mined to endure them no longer, and would employ the 
 
 46 Fascic. Ker. expet. et fugiend., p. 349. 
 " Ibid., p. 376.
 
 BOOK in.] EMPEKOE CHARLES THE FIFTH. 499 
 
 power and authority with which God had intrusted them 
 in order to procure relief. 51 
 
 Instead of such severities against Luther and his 
 followers as the nuncio had recommended, the recess or 
 edict of the diet contained only a general injunction to 
 all ranks of men to wait with patience for the determina- 
 tions of the council which was to be assembled, and in 
 the mean time not to publish any new opinions contrary 
 to the established doctrines of the Church; together 
 with an admonition to all preachers to abstain from 
 matters of controversy in their discourses to the people, 
 and to confine themselves to the plain and instructive 
 truths of religion. 52 [1523.] 
 
 The Eeformers derived great advantage from the 
 transactions of this diet, as they afforded them the 
 fullest and most authentic evidence that gross corrup- 
 tions prevailed in the court of Rome, and that the 
 empire was loaded by the clergy with insupportable 
 burdens. With regard to the former, they had now the 
 testimony of the pope himself, that their invectives and 
 accusations were not malicious or ill-founded. As to the 
 latter, the representatives of the Germanic body, in an 
 assembly where the patrons of the new opinions were far 
 from being the most numerous or powerful, had pointed 
 out as the chief grievances of the empire those very prac- 
 tices of the Romish Church against which Luther and 
 his disciples were accustomed to declaim. Accordingly, 
 in all their controversial writings after this period, they 
 often appealed to Adrian's declaratior, r.nd to the hun- 
 dred grievances, in confirmation of whatever they ad- 
 vanced concerning the dissolute manners, or insatiable 
 ambition and rapaciousness, of the papal court* 
 
 At Rome, Adrian's conduct was considered as a proof 
 of the most childish simplicity and imprudence. Men 
 
 ' Fascic. Her. expet et fugiend., p. 354. 
 * Ibid., p. 348. 
 
 KXi
 
 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK in. 
 
 trained up amidst the artifices and corruptions of tho 
 papal court, and accustomed to judge of actions not by 
 what was just, but by what was useful, were astonished 
 at a pontiff who, departing from the wise maxims of 
 his predecessors, acknowledged disorders which he 
 ought to have concealed, and, forgetting his owr 
 dignity, asked advice of those to whom he was entitled 
 to prescribe. By such an excess of impolitic sincerity, 
 they were afraid that, instead of reclaiming the enemies 
 of the Church, he would render them more presump- 
 tuous, and, instead of extinguishing heresy, would 
 weaken the foundations of the papal power, or stop 
 the chief sources from which wealth flowed into the 
 Church. 53 For this reason, the cardinals, and other 
 ecclesiastics of greatest eminence in the papal court, 
 industriously opposed all his schemes of reformation, 
 and, by throwing objections and difficulties in his way, 
 endeavoured to retard or to defeat the execution of 
 them. Adrian, amazed, on the one hand, at the obsti- 
 nacy of the Lutherans, disgusted, on the other, with 
 the manners and maxims of the Italians, and finding 
 himself unable to correct either the one or the other, 
 often lamented his own situation, and often looked back 
 with pleasure on that period of his life when he was 
 only dean of Louvain, a more humble but happier sta- 
 tion, in which little was expected from him, and there 
 was nothing to frustrate his good intentions. 54 
 
 Clement VII., his successor, excelled Adrian as much 
 in the arts of government as he was inferior to him in 
 purity of life or uprightness of intention. He was 
 animated not only with the aversion which all popes 
 naturally bear to a council, but, having gained his own 
 election by means very uncanonical, he was afraid of 
 an assembly that might subject it to a scrutiny which it 
 
 ** F. Paul, Hist of Counc., p. 28. PaUavic., Hist, 5& 
 * 4 Jovii Vit Adr., p. 118.
 
 BOOK in.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 501 
 
 could not stand. He determined, therefore, by every 
 possible means to elude the demands of the Germans, 
 both with respect to the calling of a council, and re- 
 forming abuses in the papal court, which the rashness 
 and incapacity of his predecessor had brought upon 
 him. For this purpose he made choice of Cardinal 
 Campcggio, an artful man, often intrusted by his pre- 
 decessors with negotiations of importance, as his nuncio 
 to the diet of the empire, assembled again at Nurem- 
 berg. 
 
 Campeggio, without taking any notice of what had 
 passed in the last meeting, exhorted the diet, in a long 
 discourse, to execute the edict of Worms with vigour, 
 as the only effectual means of suppressing Luther's doc- 
 trines. The diet, in return, desired to know the pope's 
 intentions concerning the council and the redress of the 
 hundred grievances. The former the nuncio endea- 
 voured to elude by general and unmeaning declarations 
 of the pope's resolution to pursue such measures as 
 would be for the greatest good of the Church. With 
 regard to the latter, as Adrian was dead before the 
 catalogue of grievances reached Eome, and, of conse- 
 quence, it had not been regularly laid before the present 
 pope, Campeggio took advantage of this circumstance 
 to decline making any definitive answer to them in 
 Clement's name ; though, at the same time, he observed 
 that their catalogue of grievances contained many par- 
 ticulars extremely indecent and undutiful, and that the 
 publishing it by their own authority was highly dis- 
 respectful to the Eoman see. In the end, he renewed his 
 demand of their proceeding with vigour against Luther 
 and his adherents. But though an ambassador from the 
 emperor, who was at that time very solicitous to gain 
 the pope, warmly seconded the nuncio, with many pro- 
 fessions of his master's zeal for the honour and dignity 
 of the papal see, the recess of the diet was conceived in
 
 502 EETGN OP CHAELES THE FIFTH. [BOOK in. 
 
 terms of almost the same import with the former, with- 
 out enjoining any additional severity against Luther and 
 his party. 55 
 
 Before he left Germany, Campeggio, in order to 
 rimuse and soothe the people, published certain arti- 
 cles for the amendment of some disorders and abuses 
 which prevailed among the inferior clergy ; but this 
 partial reformation, which fell so far short of the ex- 
 pectations of the Lutherans and of the demands of the 
 diet, gave no satisfaction, and produced little effect. 
 The nuncio, with a cautious hand, tenderly lopped a 
 few branches ; the Germans aimed a deeper blow, 
 and, by striking at the root, wished to exterminate the 
 evil. 46 
 
 " Seckend, 286. Sleid., Hist, 66. * Seckeni, 293
 
 BOOK: TV. 
 
 Views of the Italian States respecting Charles and Francis. Charlet 
 invades France without Success. Francis invades the Milanese. 
 He besieges Pavia. Neutrality of the Pope. Francis attacks Naples. 
 Movements of the Imperial Generals. Battle or Pavia. Francis 
 taken Prisoner. Schemes of the Emperor. Prudence of Louise the 
 Regent. Conduct of Henry VIII. and of the Italian Powers. 
 The Emperor's rigorous Terms to Francis. Francis carried to Spain. 
 Henry makes a Treaty with the Regent Louise. Intrigues of 
 Morone in Milan. He is betrayed by Pescara. Treatment of 
 Francis. Bourbon made General and Duke of Milan. Treaty of 
 Madrid. Liberation of Francis. Charles marries Isabella of Por- 
 tugal. Affairs in Germany. Insurrections. Conduct of Luther. 
 Prussia wrested from the Teutonic Knights. Measures of Francis 
 upon reaching his Kingdom. A League against the Emperor. 
 Preparations for War. The Colonnas Masters of Rome. The Pope 
 detached from the Holy League. Position of the Emperor. 
 Bourbon marches towards the Pope's Territories. Negotiations. 
 Assault of Rome. Bourbon slain. The City taken and plundered. 
 The Pope a Prisoner. Hypocrisy of the Emperor. Solyman 
 invades Hungary. Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, becomes King 
 of Hungary. Progress of the Reformation. 
 
 THE expulsion of the French both out of the Milanese 
 und the republic of Genoa was considered by the Italians 
 as the termination of the war between Charles and 
 Francis ; and as they began immediately to be appre- 
 hensive of the emperor, when they saw no power remain- 
 ing in Italy capable either to control or oppose him, 
 they longed ardently for the re-establishment of peace. 
 Having procured the restoration of Sforza to his paternal 
 dominions, which had been their chief motive for enter- 
 ing into confederacy with Charles, they plainly dis- 
 covered their intention to contribute no longer towards 
 increasing the emperor's superiority over his rival, which
 
 604 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK iv 
 
 was already become the object of their jealousy. The 
 pope especially, whose natural timidity increased his 
 suspicions of Charles's designs, endeavoured by his re- 
 monstrances to inspire him with moderation and incline 
 him to peace. 
 
 But the emperor, intoxicated with success, and urged 
 on by his own ambition, no less than by Bourbon's 
 desire of revenge, contemned Clement's admonitions, 
 and declared his resolution of ordering his army to pass 
 the Alps and to invade Provence, a part of his rival's 
 dominions where, as he least dreaded an attack, he was 
 least prepared to resist it. His most experienced minis- 
 ters dissuaded him from undertaking such an enterprise 
 with a feeble army and an exhausted treasury ; but he 
 relied so much on having obtained the concurrence of 
 the king of England, and on the hopes which Bourbon, 
 with the confidence and credulity natural to exiles, 
 entertained of being joined by a numerous body of his 
 partisans as soon as the imperial troops should enter 
 France, that he persisted obstinately in the measure. 
 Henry undertook to furnish a hundred thousand ducats 
 towards defraying the expense of the expedition during 
 the first month, and had it in hie choice either to con- 
 tinue the payment of that sum monthly, or to invade 
 Picardy before the end of July with an army capable of 
 acting with vigour. The emperor engaged to attack 
 Guienne at the same time with a considerable body of 
 men; and if these enterprises proved successful, they 
 agreed that Bourbon, besides the territories which he 
 had lost, should be put in possession of Provence, with 
 the title of king, and should do homage to Henry, as 
 the lawful king of France, for his new dominions. Of 
 all the parts of this extensive but extravagant project 
 the invasion of Provence was the only one which was 
 executed. For although Bourbon, with a scrupulous 
 delicacy, altogether unexpected after the part which hr
 
 BOOK iv. j EMPEROR CHAELES THE FIFTH. 505 
 
 had acted, positively refused to acknowledge Henry's 
 title to the crown of France, and thereby absolved him 
 from any obligation to promote the enterprise, Charles's 
 eagerness to carry his own plan into execution did not 
 in any degree abate. The army which he employed for 
 that purpose amounted only to eighteen thousand men, 
 the command of which was given to the marquis de 
 Pescara, with instructions to pay the greatest deference 
 to Bourbon's advice in all his operations. Pescara passed 
 the Alps without opposition, and, entering Provence, 
 laid siege to Marseilles. Bourbon had advised him rather 
 to march towards Lyons, in the neighbourhood of which 
 city his territories were situated, and where of course 
 his influence was most extensive ; but the emperor was 
 so desirous to get possession of a port which would at all 
 times secure him an easy entrance into France that bj 
 his authority he overruled the constable's opinion, and 
 directed Pescara to make the reduction of Marseilles his 
 chief object. 1 
 
 Francis, who foresaw, but was unable to prevent, this 
 attempt, took the most proper precautions to defeat it. 
 He laid waste the adjacent country, in order to render 
 it more difficult for the enemy to subsist their army ; he 
 razed the suburbs of the city, strengthened its fortifica- 
 tions, and threw into it a numerous garrison, under the 
 command of brave and experienced officers. To these, 
 nine thousand of the citizens, whom their dread of the 
 Spanish yoke inspired with contempt of danger, joined 
 themselves ; by their united courage and industry, all 
 the efforts of Pescara' s military skill and of Bourbon's 
 activity and revenge were rendered abortive. Francis, 
 meanwhile, had leisure to assemble a powerful army 
 under the walls of Avignon, and no sooner began to 
 advance towards Marseilles than the imperial troops, 
 exhausted by the fatigues of a siege which had lasted 
 
 1 Guic.. lib. xv. 273, etc. M&n. de Bellay, p. 80.
 
 506 REIGN OF THE [BOOK rv. 
 
 forty days, weakened by diseases, and almost destitute 
 of provisions, retired with precipitation towards Italy. 2 
 
 If, during these operations of the army in Provence, 
 either Charles or Henry had attacked France in the 
 manner which they had projected, that kingdom must 
 have been exposed to the most imminent danger. But 
 on this, as well as on many other occasions, the emperor 
 found that the extent of his revenues was not adequate 
 to the greatness of his schemes or the ardour of his 
 ambition, and the want of money obliged him, though 
 with much reluctance, to circumscribe his plan and to 
 leave part of it unexecuted. Henry, disgusted at 
 Bourbon's refusing to recognise his right to the crown 
 of France, alarmed at the motions of the Scots, whom 
 the solicitations of the French king had persuaded to 
 march towards the borders of England, and no longer in- 
 cited by his minister, who was become extremely cool with 
 regard to all the emperor's interests, took no measures 
 to support an enterprise of which, as of all new under- 
 takings, he had been at first excessively fond. 3 
 
 If the king of France had been satisfied with having 
 delivered his subjects from this formidable invasion, if 
 he had thought it enough to show all Europe the facility 
 with which the internal strength of his dominions en- 
 abled him to resist the invasions of a foreign enemy, 
 even when seconded by the abilities and powerful efforts 
 of a rebellious subject, the campaign, notwithstanding 
 the loss of the Milanese, would have been far from 
 ending ingloriously. But Francis, animated with courage 
 more becoming a soldier than a general, pushed on by 
 ambition, enterprising rather than considerate, and too 
 apt to be elated with success, was fond of every under- 
 taking that seemed bold and adventurous. Such an 
 undertaking the situation of his affairs at that juncture 
 
 'Guic., lib. xv. 277. Ulloa, 3 Fiddes's Life of Wolsey, Ap- 
 Vitn di Carlo V., p. 93. pend. Nos. 70, 71, 72,
 
 BOOK iv.] EMPEROR OHAELES THE FIFTH. 507 
 
 naturally presented to his view. He had under his 
 command one of the most powerful and best-appointed 
 armies France had ever brought into the field, which he 
 could not think of disbanding without having employed 
 it in any active service. The imperial troops had been 
 obliged to retire, almost ruined by hard duty, and dis- 
 heartened with ill success ; the Milanese had been left 
 altogether without defence; it was not impossible to 
 reach that country before Pescara, with his shattered 
 forces, could arrive there ; or, if fear should add speed 
 to their retreat, they were in no condition to make head 
 against his fresh and numerous troops, and Milan would 
 now, as in former instances, submit without resistance 
 to a bold invader. These considerations, which were 
 not destitute of plausibility, appeared to his sanguine 
 temper to be of the utmost weight. In vain did his 
 wisest ministers and generals represent to him the 
 danger of taking the field at a season so far advanced, 
 with an army composed chiefly of Swiss and Germans, 
 to whose caprices he would be subject in all his opera- 
 tions and on whose fidelity his safety must absolutely 
 depend. In vain did Louise of Savoy advance by hasty 
 journeys towards Provence, that she might exert all her 
 authority in dissuading her son from such a rash enter- 
 prise. Francis disregarded the remonstrances of his 
 subjects ; and, that he might save himself the pain of 
 an interview with his mother, whose counsels he had 
 determined to reject, he began his march before her 
 arrival, appointing her, however, by way of atonement 
 for that neglect, to be regent of the kingdom during 
 his absence. Bonnivet, by his persuasions, contributed 
 not a little to confirm Francis in this resolution. TJiat 
 favourite, who strongly resembled his master in all the 
 defective parts of his character, was led, by his natural 
 impetuosity, warmly to approve of such an enterprise ; 
 and being prompted besides by his impatience to visit
 
 508 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK rv. 
 
 a Milanese lady of whom he had been deeply enamoured 
 during his late expedition, he is said, by his flattering 
 descriptions of her beauty and accomplishments, to have 
 inspired Francis, who was extremely susceptible of such 
 passions, with an equal desire of seeing her. 4 
 
 The French passed the Alps at Mount Cenis ; and, 
 as their success depended on despatch, they advanced 
 with the greatest diligence. Pescara, who had been 
 obliged to take a longer and more difficult route by 
 Monaco and Final, was soon informed of their intention, 
 and, being sensible that nothing but the presence of his 
 troops could save the Milanese, marched with such 
 rapidity that he reached Alva on the same day that the 
 French army arrived at Yercelli. Francis, instructed 
 by Bonnivet's error in the former campaign, advanced 
 directly towards Milan, where the unexpected approach 
 of an enemy so powerful occasioned such consternation 
 and disorder that, although Pescara entered the city 
 with some of his best troops, he found that the defence 
 of it could not be undertaken with any probability of 
 success, and, having thrown a garrison into the citadel, 
 retired through one gate, while the French were admitted 
 at another. 8 
 
 These brisk motions of the French monarch discon- 
 certed all the schemes of defence which the imperialists 
 had formed. Never, indeed, did generals attempt to 
 oppose a formidable invasion under such circumstances 
 of disadvantage. Though Charles possessed dominions 
 more extensive than any other prince in Europe, and 
 had at this time no other army but that which was 
 employed in Lombardy, which did not amount to sixteen 
 thousand men, his prerogative in all his different states 
 was so limited, and his subjects, without whose consent 
 he could raise no taxes, discovered such unwillingness 
 
 4 (Euv. de Brant, torn, vi 253. 
 
 4 M&ru de Bellay, p. 81. Guic., lib. xv. 278.
 
 BOOK iv.] EMPEEOE GHAELES THE FIFTH. 509 
 
 to burden themselves with new or extraordinary impo- 
 sitions, that even this small body of troops was in want 
 of pay, of ammunition, of provisions, and of clothing. 
 In such a situation, it required all the wisdom of 
 Lannoy, the intrepidity of Pescara, and the implacable 
 resentment of Bourbon to preserve them from sinking 
 under despair, and to inspire them with resolution to 
 attempt, or sagacity to discover, what was essential to 
 their safety. To the efforts of their genius and the 
 activity of their zeal the emperor was more indebted 
 for the preservation of his Italian dominions than to his 
 own power. Lannoy, by mortgaging the revenues of 
 Naples, procured some money, which was immediately 
 applied towards providing the army with whatever was 
 most necessary. 6 Pescara, who was beloved and almost 
 adored by the Spanish troops, exhorted them to show 
 the world, by their engaging to serve the emperor in 
 that dangerous exigency without making any immediate 
 demand of paj^, that they were animated with senti- 
 ments of honour very different from those of mercenary 
 soldiers ; to which proposition that gallant body of men, 
 with an unexampled generosity, gave their consent. 7 
 Bourbon, having raised a considerable sum by pawning 
 his jewels, set out for Germany, where his influence was 
 great, that by his presence he might hasten the levying 
 of troops for the imperial service. 8 
 
 Francis, by a fatal error, allowed the emperor's gene- 
 rals time to derive advantage from all these operations. 
 Instead of pursuing the enemy, who retired to Lodi on 
 the Adda, an untenable post, which Pescara had resolved 
 to abandon on the approach of the French, he, in com- 
 pliance with the opinion of Bonnivet, though contrary 
 
 6 Guic., lib. xv. 280 Vida del Emperador Carlos V., 
 
 7 Jovii Vit Davali, lib. IT. p. por Vera y Zuiiiga, p. 36. 
 386. Sandoval, vol. L 621. 8 Mem. de Bellay, p. 83. 
 Ulloa, Vita di Carlo V., p. 94, etc.
 
 510 REIGN OF THE [BOOK iv. 
 
 to that of his other generals, laid siege to Pavia on 
 the Tessino, a town, indeed, of great importance, the 
 possession of which would have opened to him all the 
 fertile country lying on the banks of that river. But 
 the fortifications of the place were strong ; it was dan- 
 gerous to undertake a difficult siege at so late a season ; 
 and the imperial generals, sensible of its consequence, 
 had thrown into the town a garrison composed of six 
 thousand veterans under the command of Antonio de 
 Leyva, an officer of high rank, of great experience, of 
 a patient but enterprising courage, fertile in resources, 
 ambitious of distinguishing himself, and capable, for that 
 reason, as well as from his having been long accustomed 
 both to obey and to command, of suffering or performing 
 anything in order to procure success. 
 
 Francis prosecuted the siege with obstinacy equal to 
 the rashness with which he had undertaken it. During 
 three months, everything known to the engineers of 
 that age, or that could be effected by the valour of his 
 troops, was attempted in order to reduce the place ; while 
 Lannoy and Pescara, unable to obstruct his operations, 
 were obliged to remain in such an ignominious state of 
 inaction that a pasquinade was published at Eome, offer- 
 ing a reward to any person who could find the imperial 
 army, lost in the month of October in the mountains 
 between France and Lombardy, and which had not been 
 heard of since that time. 9 
 
 Leyva, well acquainted with the difficulties under 
 which his countrymen laboured, and the impossibility 
 of their facing in the field such a powerful army as 
 formed the siege of Pavia, placed his only hopes of 
 safety in his own vigilance and valour. The efforts of 
 both were extraordinary, and in proportion to the im- 
 portance of the place with the defence of which he waa 
 intrusted. He interrupted the approaches of the French 
 
 9 Sandoval, i. 60a
 
 BOOK iv.] EMPEEOE CHAELES THE FIFTH. 511 
 
 by frequent and furious sallies. Behind the breaches 
 made by their artillery he erected new works, which 
 appeared to be scarcely inferior in strength to the original 
 fortifications. He repulsed the besiegers in all their 
 assaults, and, by his own example, brought not only the 
 garrison, but the inhabitants, to bear the most severe 
 fatigues and to encounter the greatest dangers without 
 murmuring. The rigour of the season conspired with 
 his endeavours in retarding the progress of the French. 
 Francis attempting to become master of the town by 
 diverting the course of the Tessino, which is its chief 
 defence on one side, a sudden inundation of the river 
 destroyed in one day the labour of many weeks, and 
 swept away all the mounds which his army had raised 
 with infinite toil as well as at great expense. 10 
 
 Notwithstanding the slow progress of the besiegers, 
 and the glory which Leyva acquired by his gallant 
 defence, it was not doubted but that the town would at 
 last be obliged to surrender. The pope, who already 
 considered the French arms as superior in Italy, became 
 impatient to disengage himself from his connections 
 with the emperor, of whose designs he was extremely 
 jualous, and to enter into terms of friendship with 
 Francis. As Clement's timid and cautious temper ren- 
 dered him incapable of following the bold plan which 
 Leo had formed, of delivering Italy from the yoke of 
 both the rivals, he returned to the more obvious and 
 practicable scheme of employing the power of the one 
 to balance and to restrain that of the other. For this 
 reason, he did not dissemble his satisfaction at seeing 
 the French king recover Milan, as he hoped that the 
 dread of such a neighbour would be some check upon 
 the emperor's ambition, which no power in Italy was 
 now able to control. He laboured hard to bring about 
 a peace that would secure Francis in the possession of 
 
 10 Guic., lib. xv. 280. Ulloa, Vita di Carlo V., p. 95.
 
 512 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK i\. 
 
 his new conquests ; and as Charles, who was always 
 inflexible in the prosecution of his schemes, rejected the 
 proposition with disdain, and with bitter exclamations 
 against the pope, by whose persuasions, while Cardinal 
 de' Medici, he had been induced to invade the Milanese, 
 Clement immediately concluded a treaty of neutrality 
 with the king of France, in which the republic of 
 Florence was included. 11 
 
 Francis, having by this transaction, deprived the 
 emperor of his two most powerful allies, and at the 
 same time having secured a passage for his own troor>s 
 through their territories, formed a scheme of attacking 
 the kingdom of Naples, hoping either to overrun that 
 country, which was left altogether without defence, or 
 that at least such an unexpected invasion would oblige 
 the viceroy to recall part of the imperial army out of 
 the Milanese. For this purpose he ordered six thousand 
 men to march under the command of John Stuart, duke 
 of Albany. But Pescara, foreseeing that the effect of 
 this diversion would depend entirely upon the operations 
 of the armies in the Milanese, persuaded Lannoy to dis- 
 regard Albany's motions 12 and to bend his whole force 
 against the king himself ; so that Francis not only 
 weakened his army very unseasonably by this great de- 
 tachment, but incurred the reproach of engaging too 
 rashly in chimerical and extravagant projects. 
 
 By this time the garrison of Pavia was reduced to 
 extremity ; their ammunition and provisions began to 
 fail ; the Germans, of whom it was chiefly composed, 
 having received no pay for seven months, 13 threatened 
 to deliver the town into the enemy's hands, and could 
 hardly be restrained from mutiny by all Leyva's address 
 and authority. The imperial generals, who were no 
 strangers to his situation, saw the necessity of marching 
 
 11 Guic., lib. xv. 282, 285. ls Gold., Polit. Imperial, 875. 
 
 12 Ibid., p. 285.
 
 BOOK iv.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 513 
 
 without loss of time to his relief. This they had now in 
 their power : twelve thousand Germans, whom the zeal 
 and activity of Bourbon taught to move with unusual 
 rapidity, had entered Lombardy under his command, 
 and rendered the imperial army nearly equal to that of 
 the French, greatly diminished by the absence of the 
 body under Albany, as well as by the fatigues of the 
 siege and the rigour of the season. But the more their 
 troops increased in number, the. more .sensibly did the 
 imperialists feel the distress arising from want of money. 
 Far from having funds for paying a powerful army, 
 they had scarcely what was sufficient for defraying the 
 charges of conducting their artillery and of carrying 
 their ammunition and provisions. The abilities of the 
 generals, however, supplied every defect. By their own 
 example, as well as by magnificent promises in the name 
 of the emperor, they prevailed on the troops of all the 
 different nations which composed their army to take the 
 field without pay ; they engaged to lead them directly 
 towards the enemy, and flattered them with the certain 
 prospect of victory, which would at once enrich them 
 with such royal spoils as would be an ample reward for 
 all their services. The soldiers, sensible that by quitting 
 the army they would forfeit the great arrears due to 
 them, and eager to get possession of the promised 
 treasures, demanded a battle with all the impatience of 
 adventurers who fight only for plunder. 14 
 
 The imperial generals, without suffering the ardour 
 of their troops to cool, advanced immediately towards 
 the French camp. On the first intelligence of their 
 approach, Francis called a council of war, to deliberate 
 what course he ought to take. All his officers of greatest 
 experience were unanimous in advising him to retire, 
 and to decline a battle with an enemy who courted it 
 
 14 Eryci Peuteani Hist Cisalpina, ap. Graavii Thes. Antiquit Ital., iii. 
 1170, 1179. 
 
 VIM. I. L It
 
 514 EEIGN OF THE: [BOOK iv. 
 
 from despair. The imperialists, they observed, would 
 either be obliged in a few weeks to disband an army 
 which they were unable to pay, and which they kept 
 together only by the hope of plunder, or the soldiers, 
 enraged at the non-performance of the promises to 
 which they had trusted, would rise in some furious 
 mutiny, which would allow their generals to think of 
 nothing but their own safety ; that, meanwhile, he might 
 encamp in some strong post, and, waiting in safety the 
 arrival of fresh troops from France and Switzerland, 
 might, before the end of spring, take possession of all 
 the Milanese without danger or bloodshed. But in op- 
 position to them, Bonnivet, whose destiny it was to give 
 counsels fatal to France during the whole campaign, 
 represented the ignominy that it would reflect on their 
 sovereign if he should abandon a siege which he had 
 prosecuted so long, or turn his back before an enemy to 
 whom he was still superior in number, and insisted on 
 the necessity of fighting the imperialists rather than 
 relinquish an undertaking on the success of which the 
 king's future fame depended. Unfortunately, Francis's 
 notions of honour were delicate to an excess that bordered 
 on what was romantic. Having often said that he would 
 take Pavia or perish in the attempt, he thought himself 
 bound not to depart from that resolution, and, rather 
 than expose himself to the slightest imputation, he chose 
 to forego all the advantages which were the certain con- 
 sequences of a retreat, and determined to wait for the 
 imperialists before the walls of Pavia. 15 
 
 The imperial generals found the French so strongly 
 intrenched that, notwithstanding the powerful motives 
 which urged them on, they hesitated long before they 
 ventured to attack them ; but at last the necessities of 
 the besieged, and the murmurs of their own soldiers, 
 
 18 Guic., lib. xv. 291.
 
 BOOK iv.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 615 
 
 obliged them to put every thing to hazard. Never did 
 armies engage with greater ardour, or with a higher 
 opinion of the importance of the battle which they 
 were going to fight ; never were troops more strongly 
 animated with emulation, national antipathy, mutual 
 resentment, and all the passions which inspire obstinate 
 bravery. On the one hand, a gallant young monarch, 
 seconded by a generous nobility, and followed by sub- 
 jects to whose natural impetuosity indignation at the 
 opposition which they had encountered added new force, 
 contended for victory and honour. On the other side, 
 troops more completely disciplined, and conducted by 
 generals of greater abilities, fought from necessity, with 
 courage heightened by despair. The imperialists, how- 
 ever, were unable to resist the first efforts of the French 
 valour, and their firmest battalions began to give way. 
 But the fortune of the day was quickly changed. The 
 Swiss in the service of France, unmindful of the reputa- 
 tion of their country for fidelity and martial glory, 
 abandoned their post in a cowardly manner. Leyva, 
 with his garrison, sallied out and attacked the rear of 
 the French, during the heat of the action, with such 
 fury as threw it into confusion ; and Pescara, falling on 
 their cavalry with the imperial horse, among whom he had 
 prudently intermingled a considerable number of Spanish 
 foot, armed with the heavy muskets then in use, broke 
 this formidable body, by an unusual method of attack, 
 against which they were wholly unprovided. The rout 
 became universal ; and resistance ceased in almost every 
 part but where the king was in person, who fought 
 now not for fame or victory, but for safety. Though 
 wounded in several places, and thrown from his horse, 
 which was killed under him, Francis defended himself 
 on foot with an heroic courage. Many of his bravest 
 officers, gathering round him, and endeavouring to save 
 his life at the expense of their own, fell at his feet.
 
 516 BEIGN OF THE [BOOK iv. 
 
 ^ *Vse was Bonnivet, the author of this great 
 calamity, who alone died unlamented. The king, ex- 
 hausted with fatigue, and scarcely capable of further 
 resistance, was left almost alone, exposed to the fury of 
 some Spanish soldiers, strangers to his rank and enraged 
 at his obstinacy. At that moment came up Pomperant, 
 a French gentleman who had entered together with 
 Bourbon into the emperor's service, and, placing him- 
 self by the side of the monarch against whom he had 
 rebelled, assisted in protecting him from the violence of 
 the soldiers, at the same time beseeching him to sur- 
 render to Bourbon, who was not far distant. Imminent 
 as the danger was which now surrounded Francis, he 
 rejected with indignation the thoughts of an action 
 which would have afforded such matter of triumph to 
 his traitorous subject, and, calling for Lannoy, who 
 happened likewise to be near at hand, gave up his sword 
 to him; which he, kneeling to kiss the king's hand, 
 received with profound respect, and, taking his own 
 sword from his side, presented it to him, saying " that it 
 did not become so great a monarch to remain disarmed 
 in the presence of one of the emperor's subjects." 16 
 [February 24, 1525.] 
 
 Ten thousand men fell on this day, one of the most 
 fatal France had ever seen. Among these were many 
 noblemen of the highest distinction, who chose rather 
 to perish than to turn their backs with dishonour. Not 
 a few were taken prisoners, of whom the most illus- 
 trious was Henry d'Albret, the unfortunate king of 
 Navarre. A small body of the rear-guard made it,? 
 escape, under the command of the duke of Alen^on ; 
 the feeble garrison of Milan, on the first news of the 
 defeat, retired, without being pursued, by another road ; 
 
 16 Guic., lib. xv. 292. (Euv. de etc. P. Mart. Ep. 805, 810. 
 Brant., vi. 355. Me'm. de Bellay, Ruscelli, Lettere de' Principi, ii. p. 
 p. 90. Sandoval, Hist., i 638, 70. Ulloa, Vitadi C:irl.> V.. >. 98.
 
 BOOK iv.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH 517 
 
 and in two weeks after the battle not a Frenchman 
 remained in Italy. 
 
 Lannoy, though he treated Francis with all the out- 
 ward marks of honour due to his rank and character, 
 guarded him with the utmost attention. He was soli- 
 citous not only to prevent any possibility of his escaping, 
 but afraid that his own troops might seize his person 
 and detain it as the best security for the payment of 
 their arrears. In order to provide against both these 
 dangers, he conducted Francis, the day after the battle, 
 to the strong castle of Pizzichitone, near Cremona, com- 
 mitting him to the custody of Don Ferdinand Alarcon, 
 general of the Spanish infantry, an officer of great bravery 
 and of strict honour, but remarkable for that severe and 
 scrupulous vigilance which such a trust required. 
 
 Francis, who formed a judgment of the emperor's 
 dispositions by his own, was extremely desirous that 
 Charles should be informed of his situation, fondly 
 hoping that from his generosity or sympathy he should 
 obtain speedy relief. The imperial generals were no 
 less impatient to give their sovereign an early account 
 of the decisive victory which they had gained, and to 
 receive his instructions with regard to their future con- 
 duct. As the most certain and expeditious method of 
 conveying intelligence to Spain, at that season of the 
 year, was by land, Francis gave the Commendador 
 Pennalosa, who was charged with Lannoy's despatches, 
 a passport to travel through France. 
 
 Charles received the account of this signal and un- 
 expected success that had crowned his arms with a 
 moderation which, if it had been real, would have done 
 him more honour than the greatest victory. Without 
 uttering one word expressive of exultation or of intem- 
 perate joy, he retired immediately into his chapel, and, 
 having spent an hour in offering up his thanksgivings to 
 Heaven, returned to the presence-chamber, which by
 
 518 REIGN OF THE [BOOK r 
 
 that time was filled with grandees and foreign ambas- 
 sadors, assembled in order to congratulate him. He 
 accepted of their compliments with a modest deport- 
 ment ; he lamented the misfortune of the captive king, 
 as a striking example of the sad reverse of fortune to 
 which the most powerful monarchs are subject ; he for- 
 bade any public rejoicings, as indecent in a war carried 
 on among Christians, reserving them until he should 
 obtain a victory equally illustrious over the infidels ; and 
 seemed to take pleasure in the advantage which he had 
 gained only as it would prove the occasion of restoring 
 peace to Christendom. 17 
 
 Charles, however, had already begun to form schemes 
 in his own mind which little suited such external appear- 
 ances. Ambition, not generosity, was the ruling passion 
 in his mind ; and the victory at Pavia opened such new 
 and unbounded prospects of gratifying it as allured him 
 with irresistible force ; but, it being no easy matter to 
 execute the vast designs which he meditated, he thought 
 it necessary, while proper measures were taken for that 
 purpose, to affect the greatest moderation, hoping under 
 that veil to conceal his real intentions from the other 
 princes of Europe. 
 
 Meanwhile, France was filled with consternation. The 
 king himself had early transmitted an account of the rout 
 at Pavia, in a letter to his mother, delivered by Pennalosa, 
 which contained only these words : " Madam, all is lost, 
 except our honour." The officers who made their escape, 
 when they arrived from Italy, brought such a melancholy 
 detail of particulars as made all ranks of men sensibly 
 feel the greatness and extent of the calamity. France, 
 without its sovereign, without money in her treasury, 
 without an army, without generals to command it, and 
 encompassed on all sides by a victorious and active 
 enemy, seemed to be on the very brink of destruction. 
 
 17 Sandoval, Hiat., L 611. Ulloa, Vita di Carlo V., p. 110.
 
 BOOK iv.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 519 
 
 But on that occasion the great abilities of Louise the 
 regent saved the kingdom which the violence of her pas- 
 sions had more than once exposed to the greatest danger. 
 Instead of giving herself up to such lamentations as were 
 natural to a woman so remarkable for her maternal ten- 
 derness, she discovered all the foresight and exerted all 
 the activity of a consummate politician. She assembled 
 the nobles at Lyons, and animated them by her example, 
 no less than by her words, with such zeal in defence of 
 their country as its present situation required. She col- 
 lected the remains of the army which had served in 
 Italy, ransomed the prisoners, paid the arrears, and put 
 them in a condition to take the field. She levied new 
 troops, provided for the security of the frontiers, and 
 raised sums sufficient for defraying these extraordinary 
 expenses. Her chief care, however, was to appease the 
 resentment or to gain the friendship of the king of Eng- 
 land ; and from that quarter the first ray of comfort broke 
 in upon the French. 
 
 Though Henry, in entering into alliances with Charles 
 or Francis, seldom followed any regular or concerted plan 
 of policy, but was influenced chiefly by the caprice of 
 temporary passions, such occurrences often happened as 
 recalled his attention towards that equal balance of 
 power which it was necessary to keep between the two 
 contending potentates, the preservation of which he 
 always boasted to be his peculiar office. He had ex- 
 pected that his union with the emperor might afford him 
 an opportunity of recovering some part of those territories 
 in France which had belonged to his ancestors, and for the 
 Bake of such an acquisition he did not scruple to give his 
 assistance towards raising Charles to a considerable pre- 
 eminence above Francis. He had never dreamt, how- 
 ever, of any event so decisive and so fatal as the victory 
 at Pavia, which seemed not only to have broken, but to 
 have annihilated, the power of one of the rivals ; so that
 
 520 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK iv. 
 
 the prospect of the sudden and entire revolution which 
 this would occasion in the political system filled him with 
 the most disquieting apprehensions. He saw all Europe 
 in danger of being overrun by an ambitious prince, to 
 whose power there now remained no counterpoise ; and, 
 though he himself might at first be admitted, in quality 
 of an ally, to some share in the spoils of the captive 
 monarch, it was easy to discern that with regard to the 
 manner of making the partition, as well as his security 
 for keeping possession of what should be allotted him, 
 he must absolutely depend upon the will of a con- 
 federate, to whose forces his own bore no proportion. 
 He was sensible that if Charles were permitted to add 
 any considerable part of France to the vast dominions of 
 which he was already master, his neighbourhood would 
 be much more formidable to England than that of the 
 ancient French kings ; while at the same time the proper 
 balance on the Continent, to which England owed both 
 its safety and importance, would be entirely lost. Con- 
 cern for the situation of the unhappy monarch co-ope- 
 rated with these political considerations; his gallant 
 behaviour in the battle of Pavia had excited a high 
 degree of admiration, which never fails of augmenting 
 sympathy ; and Henry, naturally susceptible of generous 
 sentiments, was fond of appearing as the deliverer of a 
 vanquished enemy from a state of captivity. The passions 
 of the English minister seconded the inclinations of the 
 monarch. Wolsey, who had not forgotten the disap- 
 pointment of his hopes in two successive conclaves, 
 which he imputed chiefly to the emperor, thought this 
 a proper opportunity of taking revenge; and Louise 
 courting the friendship of England with such flattering 
 submissions as were no less agreeable to the king than 
 to the cardinal, Henry gave her secret assurances that he 
 would not lend his aid towards oppressing France in its 
 present helpless state, and obliged her to promise that
 
 BOOK iv.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 521 
 
 she would not consent to dismember the kingdom, even 
 in order to procure her son's liberty. 18 
 
 But, as Henry's connections with the emperor made 
 it necessary to act in such a manner as to save appear- 
 ances, he ordered public rejoicings to be made in his 
 dominions for the success of the imperial arms ; and, as 
 if he had been eager to seize the present opportunity of 
 ruining the French monarchy, he sent ambassadors to 
 Madrid to congratulate with Charles upon his victory, to 
 put him in mind that he, as his ally, engaged in one 
 common cause, was entitled to partake in the fruits of 
 it, and to require that, in compliance with the terms of 
 their confederacy, he would invade Guienne with a 
 powerful army, in order to give him possession of that 
 province. At the same time, he offered to send the 
 princess Mary into Spain or the Low Countries, that she 
 might be educated under the emperor's direction until 
 the conclusion of the marriage agreed on between them ; 
 and in return for that mark of his confidence he insisted 
 that Francis should be delivered to him, in consequence 
 of that article in the treaty of Bruges whereby each 
 of the contracting parties was bound to surrender all 
 usurpers to him whose rights they had invaded. It 
 was impossible that Henry could expect that the em- 
 peror would listen to these extravagant demands, which 
 it was neither his interest nor in his power to grant. 
 They appear evidently to have been made with no other 
 intention than to furnish him with a decent pretext for 
 entering into such engagements with France as the junc- 
 ture required. 19 
 
 It was among the Italian states, however, that the 
 victory at Pavia occasioned the greatest alarm and 
 terror. That balance of power on which they relied 
 for their security, and which it had been the constant 
 
 18 Mem. de Bellay, 94. Guic., lib. xvt 318. Herbert 
 M Herbert, p 64.
 
 522 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK IT. 
 
 object of all their negotiations and refinements to 
 maintain, was destroyed in a moment. They were ex- 
 posed, by their situation, to feel the first effects of that 
 uncontrolled authority which Charles had acquired. 
 They observed many symptoms of a boundless ambition 
 in that young prince, and were sensible that, as em- 
 peror, or king of Naples, he might not only form 
 dangerous pretensions upon each of their territories, 
 but might invade them with great advantage. They 
 deliberated, therefore, with much solicitude concerning 
 the means of raising such a force as might obstruct 
 his progress; 20 but their consultations, conducted with 
 little union and executed with less vigour, had no effect. 
 Clement, instead of pursuing the measures which 
 he had concerted with the Venetians for securing the 
 liberty of Italy, was so intimidated by Lannoy's threats, 
 or overcome by his promises, that he entered into a 
 separate treaty, binding himself to advance a consider- 
 able sum to the emperor, in return for certain emolu- 
 ments which he was to receive from him. The money 
 was instantly paid; but Charles afterwards refused to 
 ratify the treaty, and the pope remained exposed at 
 once to infamy and to ridicule : to the former, because 
 he had deserted the public cause for his private interest ; 
 to the latter, because he had been a loser by that un- 
 worthy action. 21 
 
 How dishonourable soever the artifice might be which 
 was employed in order to defraud the pope of this sum, 
 it came very seasonably into the viceroy's hands, and 
 put it in his power to extricate himself out of an immi- 
 nent danger. Soon after the defeat of the French army, 
 the German troops, which had defended Pavia with such 
 meritorious courage and perseverance, growing insolent 
 
 20 Quic., lib. xvi. 300. Ruscelli, 21 Guic., lib. xvi. 305. Mauro- 
 Lettere de' Princ., ii. 74, 76, etc. ceni Histor. Venet, ap. Istorici 
 Thuani Hist., lib. i. c. 11. delle Cose Venez., v. 131, 136,
 
 BOOK iv.] EMPEEOE CHAELES THE FIFTH. 523 
 
 upon the fame that they had acquired, and impatient of 
 relying any longer on fruitless promises, with which 
 they had been so often amused, rendered themselves 
 masters of the town, with a resolution to keep posses- 
 sion of it as a security for the payment of their arrears ; 
 and the rest of the army discovered a much stronger 
 inclination to assist than to punish the mutineers. By 
 dividing among them the money exacted from the pope, 
 Lannoy quieted the tumultuous Germans ; but, though 
 this satisfied their present demands, he had so little pros- 
 pect of being able to pay them or his other forces 
 regularly for the future,, and was under such continual 
 apprehensions of their seizing the person of the captive 
 king, that not long after he was obliged to dismiss all 
 the Germans and Italians in the imperial service. 22 
 Thus, from a circumstance that now appears very 
 singular, but arising naturally from the constitution 
 of most European governments in the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, while Charles was suspected by all his neighbours 
 of aiming at universal monarchy, and while he was 
 really forming vast projects of this kind, his revenues 
 were so limited that he could not keep on foot his vic- 
 torious army, though it did not exceed twenty-four 
 thousand men. 
 
 During these transactions, Charles, whose pretensions 
 to moderation and disinterestedness were soon forgotten, 
 deliberated with the utmost solicitude how he might 
 derive the greatest advantages from the misfortunes of 
 his adversary. Some of his councillors advised him to 
 treat Francis with the magnanimity that became a victo- 
 rious prince, and, instead of taking advantage of his 
 situation to impose rigorous conditions, to dismiss him 
 on such equal terms as would bind him for ever to his 
 interest by the ties of gratitude and affection, more 
 forcible as well as more permanent than any which 
 
 12 Guic., lib. xvi. p. 302.
 
 524 REIGN OF THE [BOOK iv. 
 
 could be formed by extorted oaths and involuntary 
 stipulations. Such an exertion of generosity is not, 
 perhaps, to be expected in the conduct of political 
 affairs, and it was far too refined for that prince to 
 tvhom it was proposed. The more obvious but less 
 splendid scheme, of endeavouring to make the utmost 
 of Francis's calamity, had a greater number in the 
 council to recommend it, and suited better with the 
 emperor's genius. But, though Charles adopted this 
 plan, he seems not to have executed it in the most 
 proper manner. Instead of making one great effort 
 to penetrate into France with all the forces of Spain 
 and the Low Countries, instead of crushing the Italian 
 states before they recovered from the consternation 
 which the success of his arms had occasioned, he had 
 recourse to the artifices of intrigue and negotiation. 
 This proceeded partly from necessity, partly from the 
 natural disposition of his mind. The situation of his 
 finances at that time rendered it extremely difficult to 
 carry on any extraordinary armament ; and he himself, 
 having never appeared at the head of his armies, the 
 command of which he had hitherto committed to his 
 generals, was averse to bold and martial councils, and 
 trusted more to the arts with which he was acquainted. 
 He laid, besides, too much stress upon the victory of 
 Pavia, as if by that event the strength of France had 
 been annihilated, its resources exhausted, and the king- 
 dom itself, no less than the person of its monarch, had 
 been subjected to his power. 
 
 Full of this opinion, he determined to set the highest 
 price upon Francis's freedom, and, having ordered the 
 Count dc Kceux to visit the captive king in his name, 
 he instructed him to propose the following articles as the 
 conditions on which he would grant him his liberty : 
 that he should restore Burgundy to the emperor, from 
 whose ancestors it had been unjustly wrested ; that hf
 
 BOOK iv.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 525 
 
 should surrender Provence and Dauphine", that they 
 might be erected into an independent kingdom for the 
 Constable Bourbon ; that he should make full satisfac- 
 tion to the king of England for all his claims, and finally 
 renounce the pretensions of France to Naples, Milan, 
 or any other territory in Italy. When Francis, who 
 had hitherto flattered himself that he should be treated 
 by the emperor with the generosity becoming one great 
 prince towards another, heard these rigorous conditions, 
 he was so transported with indignation that, drawing 
 his dagger hastily, he cried out, " 'Twere better that a 
 king should die thus." Alarcon, alarmed at his vehe- 
 mence, laid hold on his hand ; but, though he soon 
 recovered greater composure, he still declared, in the 
 most solemn manner, that he would rather remain a 
 prisoner during life than purchase liberty by such igno- 
 minious concessions. 23 
 
 This mortifying discovery of the emperor's intentions 
 greatly augmented Francis's chagrin and impatience 
 under his confinement, and must have driven him to 
 absolute despair, if he had not laid hold of the onlj 
 thing which could still administer any comfort to him. 
 He persuaded himself that the conditions which Eoeux 
 had proposed did not flow originally from Charles him- 
 self, but were dictated by the rigorous policy of his 
 Spanish council, and that therefore he might hope in 
 one personal interview with him to do more towards 
 hastening his own deliverance than could be effected 
 by long negotiations passing through the subordinate 
 hands of his ministers. Relying on this supposition, 
 which proceeded from too favourable an opinion of the 
 emperor's character, he offered to visit him in Spain, 
 and was willing to be carried thither as a spectacle to 
 that haughty nation. Lannoy employed all his address 
 to confirm him in these sentiments, and concerted with 
 
 28 M<hn. de Bellay, 94. Ferreras, Hist, ix. 43.
 
 526 REIGX OF THE [BOOK IT. 
 
 him in secret the manner of executing this resolution. 
 Francis was so eager on a scheme which seemed to open 
 some prospect of liberty, that he furnished the galleys 
 necessary for conveying him to Spain, Charles being at 
 this time unable to fit out a squadron for that purpose. 
 The viceroy, without communicating his intentions either 
 to Bourbon or Pescara, conducted his prisoner towards 
 Genoa, under pretence of transporting him by sea to 
 Naples ; though soon after they set sail he ordered the 
 pilots to steer directly for Spain ; but, the wind happen- 
 ing to carry them near the French coast, the unfortunate 
 monarch had a full prospect of his own dominions, 
 towards which he cast many a sorrowful and desiring 
 look. They landed, however, in a few days at Barce- 
 lona, and soon after Francis was lodged, by the emperor's 
 command, in the alcazar of Madrid, under the care of 
 the vigilant Alarcon, who guarded him with as much 
 circumspection as ever. 24 
 
 A few days after Francis's arrival at Madrid, and 
 when he began to be sensible of his having relied with- 
 out foundation on the emperor's generosity, Henry VIII. 
 concluded a treaty with the regent of France, which 
 afforded him some hope of liberty from another quarter. 
 Henry's extravagant demands had been received ai 
 Madrid with that neglect which they deserved and 
 which he probably expected. Charles, intoxicated with 
 prosperity, no longer courted him in that respectful and 
 submissive manner which pleased his haughty temper. 
 Wolsey, no less haughty than his master, was highly 
 irritated at the emperor's discontinuing his wonted 
 caresses and professions of friendship to himself. These 
 slight offences, added to the weighty considerations 
 formerly mentioned, induced Henry to enter into a de- 
 fensive alliance with Louise, in which all the differences 
 between him and her son were adjusted ; at the same 
 
 24 M&n. de Bellay, 95. P. Martyr. Ep. ult Guic., lib. xvi. 323.
 
 BOOK iv.] EMPEBOR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 527 
 
 time he engaged that he would employ his best offices 
 in order to procure the deliverance of his new ally from 
 a state of captivity. 25 
 
 While the open defection of such a powerful con- 
 federate affected Charles with deep concern, a secret 
 conspiracy was carrying on in Italy, which threatened 
 him with consequences still more fatal. The restless 
 and intriguing genius of Morone, chancellor of Milan, 
 gave rise to this. His revenge had been amply gratified 
 by the expulsion of the French out of Italy, and his 
 vanity no less soothed by the re-establishment of Sforza, 
 to whose interest he had attached himself, in the duchy 
 of Milan. The delays, however, and evasions of the 
 imperial court in granting Sforza the investiture of his 
 new-acquired territories had long alarmed Morone ; these 
 were repeated so often, and with such apparent artifice, 
 as became a full proof to his suspicious mind that the 
 emperor intended to strip his master of that rich country 
 which he had conquered in his name. Though Charles, 
 in order to quiet the pope and Venetians, no less jealous 
 of his designs than Morone, gave Sforza at last the 
 investiture which had been so long desired, the charter 
 was clogged with so many reservations and subjected 
 him to such grievous burdens as rendered the duke of 
 Milan a dependant on the emperor, rather than a vassal 
 of the empire, and afforded him hardly any other secu- 
 rity for his possessions than the good pleasure of an 
 ambitious superior. Such an accession of power as 
 would have accrued from the addition of the Milanese 
 to the kingdom of Naples was considered by Morone as 
 fatal to the liberties of Italy, no less than to his own 
 importance. Full of this idea, he began to revolve in 
 his mind the possibility of rescuing Italy from the yoke 
 of foreigners, the darling scheme, as has been already 
 observed, of the Italian politicians in that age, and 
 
 * Herbert. Fiddes's Life of Wolsey, 337.
 
 628 REIGN OP THE [BOOK iv. 
 
 which it was the great object of their ambition to ac- 
 complish. If to the glory of having been the chief 
 instrument of driving the French out of Milan he could 
 add that of delivering Naples from the dominion of the 
 Spaniards, he thought that nothing would be wanting to 
 complete his fame. His fertile genius soon suggested to 
 him a project for that purpose, a difficult, indeed, and 
 daring one, but for that very reason more agreeable to 
 his bold and enterprising temper. 
 
 Bourbon and Pescara were equally enraged at 
 Lannoy's carrying the French king into Spain without 
 their knowledge. The former, being afraid that the 
 two monarchs might, in his absence, conclude some 
 treaty in which his interests would be entirely sacrificed, 
 hastened to Madrid, in order to guard against that 
 danger. The latter, on whom the command of the 
 army now devolved, was obliged to remain in Italy; 
 but in every company he gave vent to his indignation 
 against the viceroy, in expressions full of rancour and 
 contempt ; he accused him, in a letter to the emperor, 
 of cowardice in the time of danger, and of insolence 
 after a victory, towards the obtaining of which he had 
 contributed nothing either by his valour or his conduct ; 
 nor did he abstain from bitter complaints against the 
 emperor himself, who had not discovered, as he im- 
 agined, a sufficient sense of his merit nor bestowed any 
 adequate reward on his services. It was on this disgust 
 of Pescara that Morone founded his whole system. He 
 knew the boundless ambition of his nature, the great 
 extent of his abilities in peace as well as war, and the 
 intrepidity of his mind, capable alike of undertaking and 
 of executing the most desperate designs. The canton- 
 ment of the Spanish troops on the frontier of the 
 Milanese gave occasion to many interviews between 
 him and Morone, in which the latter took care fre- 
 quently to turn the conversation to the transactions
 
 iv.] EMPEROR CHAELES THE FIFTH. 529 
 
 subsequent to the battle of Pavia, a subject upon which 
 the marquis always entered willingly and with passion ; 
 and Morone, observing his resentment to be uniformly 
 violent, artfully pointed out and aggravated every cir- 
 cumstance that could increase its fury. He painted in 
 the strongest colours the emperor's want of discern- 
 ment, as well as of gratitude, in preferring Lannoy to 
 him, and in allowing that presumptuous Fleming to dis- 
 pose of the captive king without consulting the man 
 to whose bravery and wisdom Charles was indebted 
 for the glory of having a formidable rival in his power. 
 Having warmed him by such discourses, he then began 
 to insinuate that now was the time to be avenged for 
 these insults, and to acquire immortal renown as the 
 deliverer of his country from the oppression of strangers ; 
 that the states of Italy, weary of the ignominious and 
 intolerable dominion of barbarians, were at last ready 
 to combine in order to vindicate their own independence ; 
 that their eyes were fixed on him as the only leader 
 whose genius and good fortune could insure the happy 
 success of that noble enterprise; that the attempt was 
 no less practicable than glorious, it being in his power 
 so to disperse the Spanish infantry, the only body of 
 the emperor's troops that remained in Italy, through 
 the villages of the Milanese, that in one night they 
 might be destroyed by the people, who, having suf- 
 fered much from their exactions and insolence, would 
 gladly undertake this service ; that he might then with- 
 out opposition take possession of the throne of Naples, 
 the station destined for him, and a reward not un- 
 worthy the restorer of liberty to Italy; that the pope, 
 of whom that kingdom held, and whose predecessors 
 had disposed of it on many former occasions, would 
 willingly grant him the right of investiture; that the 
 Venetians, the Florentines, the duke of Milan, to whom 
 ne had communicated the scheme, together with the 
 
 You i,
 
 530 REIGN OF THE [BOOK nr. 
 
 French, would be the guarantees of his right ; that the 
 Neapolitans would naturally prefer the government of 
 one of their countrymen, whom they loved and admired, 
 to that odious dominion of strangers, to which they had 
 been so long subjected ; and that the emperor, astonished 
 at a blow so unexpected, would find that he had 
 neither troops nor money to resist such a powerful 
 confederacy. 26 
 
 Pescara, amazed at the boldness and extent of the 
 scheme, listened attentively to Morone, but with the 
 countenance of a man lost in profound and anxious 
 thought. On the one hand, the infamy of betraying 
 his sovereign, under whom he bore such high command, 
 deterred him from the attempt ; on the other, the pros- 
 pect of obtaining a crown allured him to venture upon 
 it. After continuing a short space in suspense, the 
 least commendable motives, as is usual after such de- 
 liberations, prevailed, and ambition triumphed over 
 honour. In order, however, to throw a colour of 
 decency on his conduct, he insisted that some learned 
 casuists should give their opinion, "Whether it was 
 lawful for a subject to take arms against his immediate 
 sovereign, in obedience to the lord paramount of whom 
 the kingdom itself was held ? " Such a resolution of 
 the case as he expected was soon obtained from the 
 divines and civilians both of Eome and Milan : the 
 negotiation went forward ; and measures seemed to be 
 taken with great spirit for the speedy execution of the 
 design. 
 
 During this interval, Pescara, either shocked at the 
 treachery of the action that he was going to commit, 
 or despairing of its success, began to entertain thoughts 
 of abandoning the engagements which he had come 
 
 i6 Guic., lib. xvi 325. Jovii tere de' Princ., ii 91. Thuani 
 Vita Davali, p. 417. (Euv. de Hist. lib. i. c. 11. P. Heuter., 
 Brant me, iv. 171. Ruscelli, Let- Rer. Austr., lib. ix. c. 3, p. 207.
 
 POOR iv.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 531 
 
 under. The indisposition of Sforza, who happened at 
 that time to be taken ill of a distemper which was 
 thought mortal, confirmed his resolution, and determined 
 him to make known the whole conspiracy to the emperor, 
 deeming it more prudent to expect the duchy of Milan 
 from him as the reward of this discovery than to aim 
 at a kingdom to be purchased by a series of crimes. 
 This resolution, however, proved the source of actions 
 hardly less criminal and ignominious. The emperor, 
 who had already received full information concerning 
 the conspiracy from other hands, seemed to be highly 
 pleased with Pescara's fidelity, and commanded him to 
 continue his intrigues for some time with the pope and 
 Sforza, both that he might discover their intentions 
 more fully and that he might be able to convict them 
 of the crime with greater certainty. Pescara, conscious 
 of guilt, as well as sensible how suspicious his long 
 silence must have appeared at Madrid, durst not decline 
 that dishonourable office, and was obliged to act the 
 meanest and most disgraceful of all parts, that of 
 seducing with a purpose to betray. Considering the 
 abilities of the persons with whom he had to deal, the 
 part was scarcely less difficult than base ; but he acted 
 it with such address as to deceive even the penetrating 
 eye of Morone, who, relying with full confidence on his 
 sincerity, visited him at Novara in order to put the last 
 hand to their machinations. Pescara received him in 
 an apartment where Antonio de Leyva was placed 
 behind the tapestry, that he might overhear and bear 
 witness to their conversation. As Morone was about to 
 take leave, that officer suddenly appeared, and to his 
 astonishment arrested him prisoner in the emperor's 
 name. He was conducted to the castle of Pavia ; and 
 Pescara, who had so lately been his accomplice, had now 
 the assurance to interrogate him as his judge. At the 
 same time, the emperor declared Sforza to have forfeited 
 
 KMl
 
 532 EEIGN OF THE L BO K rv. 
 
 all right to the duchy of Milan by his engaging in a con- 
 spiracy against the sovereign of whom he held ; Pescara, 
 by his command, seized on every place in the Milanese, 
 except the castles of Cremona and Milan, which, the 
 unfortunate duke attempting to defend, were closely 
 blockaded by the imperial troops. 27 
 
 But though this unsuccessful conspiracy, instead of 
 stripping the emperor of what he already possessed in 
 Italy, contributed to extend his dominions in that 
 country, it showed him the necessity of coming to some 
 agreement with the French king, unless he chose to 
 draw on himself a confederacy of all Europe, which the 
 progress of his arms and his ambition, now as undis- 
 guised as it was boundless, filled with general alarm. 
 He had not hitherto treated Francis with the generosity 
 which that monarch expected, and hardly with the 
 decency due to his station. Instead of displaying the 
 sentiments becoming a great prince, Charles, by his 
 mode of treating Francis, seems to have acted with the 
 mercenary heart of a corsair, who by the rigorous usage 
 of his prisoners endeavours to draw from them a higher 
 price for their ransom. The captive king was confined 
 to an old castle, under a keeper whose formal austerity 
 of manners rendered his vigilance still more disgusting. 
 He was allowed no exercise but that of riding on a 
 mule, surrounded with armed guards on horseback. 
 Charles, on pretence of its being necessary to attend the 
 cortes assembled in Toledo, had gone to reside in that 
 city, and suffered several weeks to elapse without 
 visiting Francis, though he solicited an interview with 
 the most pressing and submissive importunity. So 
 many indignities made a deep impression on a high- 
 spirited prince ; he began to lose all relish for his usual 
 amusements ; his natural gaiety of temper forsook him ; 
 and, after languishing for some time, he was seized 
 
 27 Guic., lib. xvi. 329. Jovii Hist., 319. Chpella, lib. v. p. 200.
 
 IV.OK iv.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 533 
 
 with a dangerous fever, during the violence of which 
 he complained constantly of the unexpected and un- 
 princely rigour with which he had been treated, often 
 exclaiming that now the emperor would have the satis- 
 faction of his dying a prisoner in his hands, without 
 having once deigned to see his face. The physicians 
 at last despaired of his life, and informed the emperor 
 that they saw no hope of his recovery unless he were 
 gratified with regard to that point on which he seemed 
 to be so strongly bent. Charles, solicitous to preserve 
 a life with which all his prospects of further advantage 
 from the victory of Pavia must have terminated, imme- 
 diately consulted his ministers concerning the course to 
 be taken. In vain did the Chancellor Gattinara, the 
 most able among them, represent to him the indecency 
 of his visiting Francis if he did not intend to set him at 
 liberty immediately upon equal terms ; in vain did he 
 point out the infamy to which he would be exposed if 
 avarice or ambition should prevail on him to give the 
 captive monarch this mark of attention and sympathy, 
 for which humanity and generosity had pleaded so long 
 without effect. The emperor, less delicate or less soli- 
 citous about reputation than his minister, set out for 
 Madrid to visit his prisoner. The interview was short ; 
 Francis being too weak to bear a long conversation, 
 Charles accosted him in terms full of affection and re- 
 sp^ct. and gave him such promises of speedy deliver- 
 ance and princely treatment as would have reflected 
 the greatest honour upon him if they had flowed from 
 another source. Francis grasped at them with the 
 eagerness natural in his situation, and, cheered with 
 this gleam of hope, began to revive from that moment, 
 recovering rapidly his wonted health. 28 
 
 He had soon the mortification to find- that his con- 
 fidence in the emperor was not better founded than 
 
 28 Guic., lib. xvi. 339. Sandoval, Hist., i. 665.
 
 534 REIGN OF THE [BOOK iv. 
 
 formerly. Charles returned instantly to Toledo ; all 
 negotiations were carried on by his ministers; and 
 Francis was kept in as strict custody as ever. A new 
 indignity, and that very galling, was added to all those 
 he had already suffered. Bourbon arrived in Spain 
 about this time. Charles, who had so long refused to 
 visit the king of France, received his rebellious subject 
 with the most studied respect. He met him without 
 the gates of Toledo, embracing him with the greatest 
 affection, and, placing him on his left hand, conducted 
 him to his apartment. These marks of honour to him 
 were so many insults to the unfortunate monarch, which 
 he felt in a very sensible manner. It afforded him some 
 consolation, however, to observe that the sentiments of 
 the Spaniards differed widely from those of their sove- 
 reign. That generous people detested Bourbon's crime. 
 Notwithstanding his great talents and important services, 
 they shunned all intercourse with him to such a degree 
 that, Charles having desired the marquis de Villena 
 to permit Bourbon to reside in his palace while the 
 court remained in Toledo, he politely replied, " That 
 he could not refuse gratifying his sovereign in that 
 request," but added, with a Castilian dignity of mind, 
 that the emperor must not be surprised if, the moment 
 the constable departed, he should burn to the ground 
 a house which, having been polluted by the presence 
 of a traitor, became an unfit habitation for a man of 
 honour. 29 
 
 Charles himself, nevertheless, seemed to have it much 
 at heart to reward Bourbon's services in a signal manner. 
 But as he insisted, in the first place, on the accomplish- 
 ment of the emperor's promise of giving him in marriage 
 his sister Eleanora, queen-dowager of Portugal, the 
 honour of which alliance had been one of his chief in- 
 ducements to rebel against his lawful sovereign, as 
 
 Guic., lib. xvi. 335.
 
 BOOK iv.J EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 
 
 Francis, m order to prevent such a dangerous union, hud 
 offered before he left Italy to marry that princess, and 
 as Eleanora herself discovered an inclination rather to 
 match with a powerful monarch than with his exiled 
 subject, all these interfering circumstances created great 
 embarrassment to Charles and left him hardly any hope 
 of extricating himself with decency. But the death of 
 Pescara, who, at the age of thirty-six, left behind him 
 the reputation of being one of the greatest generals and 
 ablest politicians of that century, happened opportunely 
 at this juncture for his relief. By that event the com- 
 mand of the army in Italy became vacant, and Charles, 
 always fertile in resources, persuaded Bourbon, who was 
 in no condition to dispute his will, to accept the office 
 of general-in-chief there, together with a grant of the 
 duchy of Milan forfeited by Sforza, and in return for 
 these to relinquish all hopes of marrying the queen of 
 Portugal. 30 
 
 The chief obstacle that stood in the way of Francis's 
 liberty was the emperor's continuing to insist so per- 
 emptorily on the restitution of Burgundy as a prelimi- 
 nary to that event. Francis often declared that he 
 would never consent to dismember his kingdom, and 
 that, even if he should so far forget the duties of a 
 monarch as to come to such a resolution, the funda- 
 mental laws of the nation would prevent its taking 
 effect. On his part, he was willing to make an absolute 
 cession to the emperor of all his pretensions in Italy 
 and the Low Countries ; he promised to restore to 
 Bourbon all his lands which had been confiscated ; he 
 renewed his proposal of marrying the emperor's sister, 
 the queen- do wager of Portugal, and engaged to pay a 
 great sum by way of ransom for his own person. But 
 all mutual esteem and confidence between the two rnon- 
 archs were now entirely lost : there appeared on the one 
 
 30 Sandoval, Hist, i. 676. CEuv. de Brant., iv. 249.
 
 636 REIGN OF THE FBOOK IT. 
 
 hand a rapacious ambition, labouring to avail itself of 
 every favourable circumstance ; on the other, suspicion 
 and resentment standing perpetually on their guard ; 
 so that the prospect of bringing their negotiations to 
 an issue seemed to be far distant. The duchess of 
 Aleu^on, the French king's sister, whom Charles per- 
 mitted to visit her brother in his confinement, employed 
 all her address in order to procure his liberty on more 
 reasonable terms. Henry of England interposed his 
 good offices to the same purpose, but both with so little 
 success that Francis, in despair, took suddenly the re- 
 solution of resigning his crown, with all its rights and 
 prerogatives, to his son, the dauphin, determining rather 
 to end his days in prison than to purchase his freedom 
 by concessions unworthy of a king. The deed for this 
 purpose he signed with legal formality in Madrid, em- 
 powering his sister to carry it into France, that it might 
 be registered in all the parliaments of the kingdom ; and 
 at the same time intimating his intention to the emperor, 
 he desired him to name the place of his confinement, and 
 to assign him a proper number of attendants during the 
 remainder of his days. 31 
 
 This resolution of the French king had great effect : 
 Charles began to be sensible that by pushing rigour to 
 excess he might defeat his own measures, and, instead 
 of the vast advantages which he hoped to draw from 
 ransoming a powerful monarch, he might at last find 
 in his hands a prince without dominions or revenues. 
 About the same time, one of the king of Navarre's 
 domestics happened, by an extraordinary exertion of 
 fidelity, courage, and address, to procure his master un 
 opportunity of escaping from the prison in which he 
 had been confined ever since the battle of Pavia. This 
 convinced the emperor that the most vigilant attention 
 
 " This paper is published in M&noires histoiiques, etc., par M. 1'Abbd 
 Raynal, torn. ii. p. 151.
 
 BOOK iv.] EMPEEOB OHAKLES THE FIFTH. 537 
 
 of his officers might be eluded by the ingenuity or bold- 
 ness of Francis or his attendants, and one unlucky hour 
 might deprive him of all the advantages which he had 
 been so solicitous to obtain. By these considerations he 
 was induced to abate somewhat of his former demands. 
 On the other hand, Francis's impatience under confine- 
 ment daily increased; and, having received certain 
 intelligence of a powerful league forming against his 
 rival in Italy, he grew more compliant with regard to 
 his concessions, trusting that if he could once obtain his 
 liberty he would soon be in a condition to resume what- 
 ever he had yielded. 
 
 Such being the views and sentiments of the two 
 monarchs, the treaty which procured Francis his liberty 
 was signed at Madrid on the 14th of January, 1526. 
 The article with regard to Burgundy, which had 
 hitherto created the greatest difficulty, was compro- 
 mised, Francis engaging to restore that duchy with all 
 its dependencies in full sovereignty to the emperor, and 
 Charles consenting that this restitution should not be 
 made until the king was set at liberty. In order to 
 secure the performance of this as well as the other 
 conditions in the treaty, Francis agreed that at the 
 same instant when he himself should be released he 
 would deliver as hostages to the emperor his eldest 
 son, the dauphin, and his second son, the duke of 
 Orleans, or, in lieu of the latter, twelve of his prin- 
 cipal nobility, to be named by Charles. The other 
 articles swelled to a great number, and, though not of 
 such importance, were extremely rigorous. Among 
 these the most remarkable were, that Francis should 
 renounce all his pretensions in Italy; that he should 
 disclaim any title which he had to the sovereignty of 
 Flanders and Artois; that within six weeks after his 
 release he should restore to Bourbon and his adherents 
 all their goods, moveable and immoveable, and make
 
 538 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK iv. 
 
 them full reparation for the damages which they had 
 sustained by the confiscation of them ; that he should 
 use his interest with Henry d'Albret to relinquish his 
 pretensions to the crown of Navarre, and should not 
 for the future assist him in any attempt to recover it ; 
 that there should be established between the emperor 
 and Francis a league of perpetual friendship and con- 
 federacy, with a promise of mutual assistance in every 
 case of necessity ; that, in corroboration of this union 
 Francis should marry the emperor's sister, the queen- 
 dowager of Portugal; that Francis should cause all 
 the articles of this treaty to be ratified by the states 
 and registered in the parliaments of his kingdom ; 
 that upon the emperor's receiving this ratification the 
 hostages should be set at liberty, but in their place the 
 duke of Angouleme, the king's third son, should be 
 delivered to Charles ; that, in order to manifest as well 
 as to strengthen the amity between the two monarchs, 
 he might be educated at the imperial court ; and that 
 if Francis did not, within the time limited, fulfil the 
 stipulations in the treaty, he should promise, upon his 
 honour and oath, to return to Spain, and to surrender 
 himself again a prisoner to the emperor. 32 
 
 By this treaty, Charles flattered himself that he had 
 not only effectually humbled his rival, but that he had 
 taken such precautions as would for ever prevent his 
 re-attaining any formidable degree of power. The 
 opinion which the wisest politicians formed concern- 
 ing it was very different; they could not persuade 
 themselves that Francis, after obtaining his liberty, 
 would execute articles against which he had struggled 
 so long, and to which, notwithstanding all that he felt 
 during a long and rigorous confinement, he had con- 
 sented with the utmost reluctance. Ambition and 
 resentment, they knew, would conspire in prompting 
 
 3<i Recueil des Trait., torn. ii. 1 12. Ulloa, Vita di Carlo V., p. 102, etc.
 
 BOOK iv.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIETH. 539 
 
 him to violate the hard conditions to which he had 
 been constrained to submit; nor would arguments and 
 casuistry be wanting to represent that which was so 
 manifestly advantageous to be necessary and just. If 
 one part of Francis's conduct had been known at that 
 time, this opinion might have been founded, not in 
 conjecture, but in certainty. A few hours before he 
 signed the treaty, he assembled such of his counsellors 
 as were then at Madrid, and, having exacted from them 
 a solemn oath of secrecy, he made a long enumeration 
 in their presence of the dishonourable arts as well as 
 unprincely rigour which the emperor had employed in 
 order to ensnare or intimidate him. For that reason, 
 he took a formal protest in the hands of notaries that 
 his consent to the treaty should be considered as an 
 involuntary deed and be deemed null and void. 33 By 
 this disingenuous artifice, for which even the treatment 
 that he had met with was no apology, Francis endea- 
 voured to satisfy his honour and conscience in signing 
 the treaty, and to provide at the same time a pretext on 
 which to break it. 
 
 Great, meanwhile, were the outward demonstrations 
 of love and confidence between the two monarchs : 
 they appeared often together in public ; they fre- 
 quently had long conferences in private ; they travelled 
 in the same litter, and joined in the same amusements. 
 But, amidst these signs of peace and friendship, the 
 emperor still harboured suspicion in his mind. Though 
 the ceremonies of the marriage between Francis and 
 the queen of Portugal were performed soon after the 
 conclusion of the treaty, Charles would not permit him 
 to consummate it until the return of the ratification 
 from France. Even then Francis was not allowed to 
 be at full liberty ; his guards were still continued ; 
 though caressed as a brother-in-law, he was still watched 
 
 33 Recueil des Trait., torn, ii p. 107.
 
 540 REIGN OF THE TBOOK iv. 
 
 like a prisoner ; and it was obvious to attentive observers 
 that an union in the very beginning of which there 
 might be discerned such symptoms of jealousy and 
 distrust could not be cordial or of long continuance. 34 
 
 About a month after the signing of the treaty, the 
 regent's ratification of it was brought from France ; 
 and that wise princess, preferring on this occasion the 
 public good to domestic affection, informed her son 
 that, instead of the twelve noblemen named in the 
 treaty, she had sent the duke of Orleans along with 
 his brother the dauphin to the frontier, as the kingdom 
 could suffer nothing by the absence of a child, but 
 must be left almost incapable of defence if deprived 
 of its ablest statesmen and most experienced generals, 
 whom Charles had artfully included in his nomination. 
 At last Francis took leave of the emperor, whose sus- 
 picion of the king's sincerity increasing as the time of 
 putting it to the proof approached, he endeavoured to 
 bind him still faster by exacting new promises, which, 
 after those he had already made, the French monarch 
 was not slow to grant. He set out from Madrid, a 
 place which the remembrance of many afflicting cir- 
 cumstances rendered peculiarly odious to him, with 
 the joy natural on such an occasion, and began the 
 long-wished-for journey towards his own dominions. 
 He was escorted by a body of horse under the com- 
 mand of Alarcon, who, as the king drew near the 
 frontiers of France, guarded him with more scrupulous 
 exactness than ever. When he arrived at the river 
 Andaye, which separates the two kingdoms, Lautrec 
 appeared on the opposite bank with a guard of horse 
 equal in number to Alarcon's. An empty bark was 
 moored in the middle of the stream ; the attendants 
 drew up in order on the opposite banks ; at the same 
 
 M Guic., lib. xvi. 353.
 
 BOOK rv.] EMPEEOR CHAELES THE FIFTH. 541 
 
 instant, Lannoy, with eight gentlemen, put off from 
 the Spanish, and Lautrec with the same number from 
 the French side of the river ; the former had the king 
 in his boat, the latter the dauphin and duke of Orleans ; 
 they met in the empty vessel ; the exchange was made 
 in a moment ; Francis, after a short embrace of his 
 children, leaped into Lautrec's boat, and reached the 
 French shore. He mounted at that instant a Turkish 
 horse, waved his hand over his head, and, with a joyful 
 voice crying aloud several times, "I am yet a king!" 
 galloped full speed to St. John de Luz, and from thence 
 to Bayonne. This event, no less impatiently desired 
 by the French nation than by their monarch, happened 
 on the 18th of March, a year and twenty-two days after 
 the fatal battle of Pavia. 35 
 
 Soon after the emperor had taken leave of Francis 
 and permitted him to begin his journey towards his 
 own dominions, he set out for Seville, in order to 
 solemnize his marriage with Isabella, the daughter of 
 Emanuel, the late king of Portugal, and the sister of 
 John III., who had succeeded him in the throne of 
 that kingdom. Isabella was a princess of uncommon 
 beauty and accomplishments ; and as the cortes, both 
 in Castile and Aragon, had warmly solicited their 
 sovereign to marry, the choice of a wife so nearly allied 
 to the royal blood of both kingdoms was extremely 
 acceptable to his subjects. The Portuguese, fond of 
 this new connection with the first monarch in Christen- 
 dom, granted him an extraordinary dowry with Isabella, 
 amounting to nine hundred thousand crowns, a sum 
 which, from the situation of his affairs at that juncture, 
 was of no small consequence to the emperor. The 
 marriage was celebrated with that splendour and gaiety 
 which became a great and youthful prince, Charles 
 
 ** Sandoval, Hist, i. 735. Giiic., lib. xvi. 355.
 
 542 REIGN OP THE [BOOK iv. 
 
 lived witn Isabella in perfect harmony, and treated her 
 on all occasions with much distinction and regard. 36 
 
 During these transactions, Charles could hardly give 
 any attention to the affairs of Germany, though it was 
 torn in pieces by commotions which threatened the 
 most dangerous consequences. By the feudal institu- 
 tions, which still subsisted almost unimpaired in the 
 empire, the property of lands was vested in the princes 
 and free barons. Their vassals held of them by the 
 strictest and most limited tenures ; while the great body 
 of the people was kept in a state but little removed 
 from absolute servitude. In some places of Germany, 
 people of the lowest class were so entirely in the power 
 of their masters as to be subject to personal and domestic 
 slavery, the most rigorous form of that wretched state. 
 In other provinces, particularly in Bohemia and Lusatia, 
 the peasants were bound to remain on the lands to which 
 they belonged, and, making part of the estate, were 
 transferred, like any other property, from one hand 
 to another. Even in Suabia and the countries on the 
 banks of the Ehine, where their condition was most 
 tolerable, the peasants not only paid the full rent of 
 their farms to the landlord, but, if they chose either to 
 change the place of their abode, or to follow a new 
 profession, before they could accomplish what they 
 desired they were obliged to purchase this privilege at 
 a certain price. Besides this, all grants of lands to 
 peasants expired at their death, without descending to 
 their posterity. Upon that event the landlord had a 
 right to the best of their cattle, as well as of their 
 hirniture ; and their heirs, in order to obtain a renewal 
 of the grant, were obliged to pay large sums by way 
 of fine. These exactions, though grievous, were borne 
 with patience, because they were customary and ancient ; 
 
 36 Ulloa, Vita di Carlo V., p. 106. 565. Spalatinus, ap. SVruv., Corp. 
 -Belcaxius, Com. Rer. Gallic, p. Hist. Germ., ii 1081.
 
 HOOK iv.] EMPEROK CHARLES THE FIFTH. 643 
 
 but when the progress of elegance and luxury, as well 
 as the changes introduced into the art of war, came 
 to increase the expense of government, and made it 
 necessary for princes to levy occasional or stated taxes 
 on their subjects, such impositions, being new, appeared 
 intolerable; and in Germany these duties, being laid 
 chiefly upon beer, wine, and other necessaries of life, 
 affected the common people in the most sensible manner. 
 The addition of such a load to their former burdens 
 drove them to despair. It was to the valour inspired 
 by resentment against impositions of this kind that 
 the Swiss owed the acquisition of their liberty in the 
 fourteenth century. The same cause had excited the 
 peasants in several other provinces of Germany to rebel 
 against their superiors towards the end of the fifteenth 
 and beginning of the sixteenth centuries ; and, though 
 these insurrections were not attended with like success, 
 they could not, however, be quelled without much 
 difficulty and bloodshed. 37 
 
 By these checks the spirit of the peasants was over- 
 awed rather than subdued ; and, their grievances multi- 
 plying continually, they ran to arms, in the year 1526, 
 with the most frantic rage. Their first appearance was 
 near Ulm, in Suabia. The peasants in the adjacent 
 country flocked to their standard with the ardour and 
 impatience natural to men who, having groaned long 
 under oppression, beheld at last some prospect of deli- 
 verance; and the contagion, spreading from province 
 to province, reached almost every part of Germany. 
 Wherever they came, they plundered the monasteries, 
 wasted the lands of their superiors, razed their castles, 
 and massacred without mercy all persons of noble birth 
 who were so unhappy as to fall into their hands. 39 
 Having intimidated their oppressors, as they imagined, 
 
 37 Seckend., lib. ii. pp. 2, 6. cano, ap* Freher. Script. Rer. Germ., 
 
 K Petr. Crinitus de Bello Ruflti- Argent, 1717, vol. iii. p. 243.
 
 EEIGN OP THE [BOOB. iv. 
 
 by the violence of these proceedings, they began to 
 consider what would be the most proper and effectual 
 method of securing themselves for the future from their 
 tyrannical exactions. With this view, they drew up and 
 published a memorial containing all their demands, and 
 declared that, while arms were in their hands, they 
 would either persuade or oblige the nobles to give them 
 full satisfaction with regard to these. The chief articles 
 were, that they might have liberty to choose their own 
 pastors ; that they might be freed from the payment 
 of all tithes except those of corn ; that they might 
 no longer be considered as the slaves or bondmen 
 of their superiors ; that the liberty of hunting and 
 fishing might be common ; that the great forests might 
 not be regarded as private property, but be open for 
 the use of all ; that they might be delivered from the 
 unusual burden of taxes under which they laboured; 
 that the administration of justice might be rendered 
 less rigorous and more impartial; that the encroach- 
 ments of the nobles upon meadows and commons might 
 be restrained. 39 
 
 Many of these demands were extremely reasonable, 
 and, being urged by such formidable numbers, should 
 have met with some redress. But those unwieldy 
 bodies, assci^led in different places, had neither union, 
 nor conduct, nor vigour. Being led by persons of 
 the lowest rank, without skill in war or knowledge 
 of what was necessary for accomplishing their designs, 
 all their exploits were distinguished only by a brutal 
 and unmeaning fury. To oppose this, the princes and 
 nobles of Suabia and the Lower Ehine raised such of 
 their vassals as still continued faithful, and, attacking 
 some of the mutineers with open force and others by 
 surprise, cut to pieces or dispersed all who infested 
 those provinces j so that the peasants, after ruining the 
 
 M Slei<L ; Hist., p. 90.
 
 BOOK iv.] EMPEROK CHABLES THE FIFTH. 545 
 
 open country, and losing upwards of twenty thousand 
 of their associates in the field, were obliged to return 
 to their habitations with less hope than ever of relief 
 from their grievances. 40 
 
 These commotions happened at first in provinces 
 of Germany where Luther's opinions had made little 
 progress, and, being excited wholly by political causes, 
 had no connection with the disputed points in religion. 
 But the frenzy, reaching at last those countries in which 
 the Keformation was established, derived new strength 
 from circumstances peculiar to them, and rose to a 
 still greater pitch of extravagance. The Reforma- 
 tion, wherever it was received, increased that bold and 
 innovating spirit to which it owed its birth. Men 
 who had the courage to overturn a system supported 
 by every thing which can command respect or rever- 
 ence were not to be overawed by any authority, how 
 great or venerable soever. After having been accus- 
 tomed to consider themselves as judges of the most 
 important doctrines in religion, to examine these freely, 
 and to reject without scruple what appeared to them 
 erroneous, it was natural for them to turn the same 
 daring and inquisitive eye towards government, and to 
 think of rectifying whatever disorders or imperfec- 
 tions were discovered there. As religious abuses had 
 been reformed in several places without the permis- 
 sion of the magistrate, it was an easy transition to 
 attempt the redress of political grievances in the same 
 manner. 
 
 No sooner, then, did the spirit of revolt break out 
 in Thuringia, a province subject to the elector of 
 Saxony, the inhabitants of which were mostly converts 
 to Lutheranism, than it assumed a new and more 
 dangerous form. Thomas Muncer, one of Luther's 
 
 40 Seckend., lib. ii p. 10. Petr. multu in Germania, ap. Scard 
 Gnodtilms de Rusticanorum Tu- Script, vol. ii p. 131, etc. 
 
 VOL. I. N H
 
 546 REIGN OF THE [BOOK IV. 
 
 disciples, having established himself in that country, 
 had acquired a wonderful ascendant, over the minds of 
 the people. He propagated among them the wildest 
 and most enthusiastic notions, but such as tended 
 manifestly to inspire them with boldness, and lead 
 them to sedition. " Luther," he told them, " had done 
 more hurt than service to religion. He had, indeed, 
 rescued the Church from the yoke of popery, but his 
 doctrines encouraged, and his life set an example of 
 the utmost licentiousness of manners. In order to 
 avoid vice," says he, " men must practise perpetual 
 mortification. They must put on a grave countenance, 
 speak little, wear a plain garb, and be serious in their 
 whole deportment. Such as prepare their hearts in 
 this manner may expect that the Supreme Being will 
 direct all their steps, and by some visible sign discover 
 his will to them ; if that illumination be at any time 
 withheld, we may expostulate with the Almighty, 
 who deals with us so harshly, and remind him of his 
 promises. This expostulation and anger will be highly 
 acceptable to God, and will at last prevail on him to 
 guide us with the same unerring hand which conducted 
 the patriarchs of old. Let us beware, however, of 
 offending him by our arrogance ; but, as all men are 
 equal in his eye, let them return to that condition of 
 equality in which he formed them, and, having all 
 things in common, let them live together like brethren, 
 without any marks of subordination or pre-eminence." 41 
 Extravagant as these tenets were, they flattered so 
 many passions in the human heart as to make a deep 
 impression. To aim at nothing more than abridging 
 the power of the nobility was now considered as a 
 trifling and partial reformation, not worth the con- 
 tending for ;. it was proposed to level every distinction 
 
 41 Seckend., lib. ii. p. 13.. Sleid., Hist, p. 83.
 
 iv. j EMPEEOE CHAELES THE FIFTH. 547 
 
 among mankind, and, by abolishing property, to reduce 
 them to their natural state of equality, in which all 
 should receive their subsistence from one common stock, 
 Muucer assured them that the design was approved 
 of by Heaven, and that the Almighty had in a dream 
 ascertained him of its success. The peasants set about 
 the execution of it, not only with the rage which 
 animated those of their order in other parts of Germany, 
 but with the ardour which enthusiasm inspires. They 
 deposed the magistrates in all the cities of which 
 they were masters ; seized the lands of the nobles, and 
 obliged such of them as they got into their hands to 
 put on the dress commonly worn by peasants, and, 
 instead of their former titles, to be satisfied with the 
 appellation given to people in the lowest class of life. 
 Great numbers engaged in this wild undertaking ; but 
 Muucer, their leader and their prophet, was destitute 
 of the abilities necessary for conducting it. He had 
 all the extravagance, but not the courage, which enthu- 
 siasts usually possess. It was with difficulty he could 
 be persuaded to take the field ; and, though he soon drew 
 together eight thousand men, he suffered himself to be 
 surrounded by a body of cavalry under the command 
 of the elector of Saxony, the landgrave of Hesse, and 
 the duke of Brunswick. These princes, unwilling to 
 shed the blood of their deluded subjects, sent a young 
 nobleman to their camp, with the offer of a general 
 pardon if they would immediately lay down their arms 
 and deliver up the authors of the sedition. Muncer, 
 alarmed at this, began to harangue his followers with 
 his usual vehemence, exhorting them not to trust these 
 deceitful promises of their oppressors, nor to desert the 
 cause of God and of Christian liberty. 
 
 But, the sense of present danger making a deeper 
 impression on the peasants than his eloquence, confusion 
 and terror were visible on every face, when a rainbow, 
 
 N N 2
 
 548 REIGN OF THE [BOOK rv. 
 
 which was the emblem that the mutineers had painted 
 on their colours, happening to appear in the clouds, 
 Muncer, with admirable presence of mind, laid hold of 
 that incident, and, suddenly raising his eyes and hands 
 towards heaven, " Behold," cries he, with an elevated 
 voice, " the sign which God has given. There is the 
 pledge of your safety, and a token that the wicked shall 
 be destroyed." The fanatical multitude set up instantly 
 a great shout, as if victory had been certain, and, passing 
 in a moment from one extreme to another, massacred 
 the unfortunate nobleman who had come with the offer 
 of pardon, and demanded to be led towards the enemy. 
 The princes, enraged at this shocking violation of the 
 laws of war, advanced with no less impetuosity, and 
 began the attack. But the behaviour of the peasants in 
 the combat was not such as might have been expected 
 either from their ferocity or confidence of success ; an 
 undisciplined rabble was no equal match for well-trained 
 troops ; above five thousand were slain in the field, 
 almost without making resistance : the rest fled, and 
 among the foremost Muncer their general. He was 
 taken next day, and, being condemned to such punish- 
 ments as his crimes had deserved, he suffered them with 
 a poor and dastardly spirit. His death put an end to the 
 insurrections of the peasants, which had filled Germany 
 with such terror; 42 but the enthusiastic notions which 
 he had scattered were not extirpated, and produced, 
 not long after, effects more memorable, as well as more 
 extravagant. 
 
 During these commotions, Luther acted with exem- 
 plary prudence and moderation ; like a common parent, 
 solicitous about the welfare of both parties, without 
 sparing the faults or errors of either. On the one hand, 
 he addressed a monitory discourse to the nobles, exhort- 
 
 42 Sleid., Hist, p. 84. Seckend., lib. ii p. 12. Gnodalius, Tumult. 
 Rwtican., 155.
 
 BOOK IT.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 549 
 
 ing them to treat their dependants with greater humanity 
 and indulgence. On the other, he severely censured 
 the seditious spirit of the peasants, advising them not to 
 murmur at hardships inseparable from their condition, 
 nor to seek for redress by any but legal means. 43 
 
 Luther's famous marriage with Catherine k Boria, a 
 nun of a noble family, who, having thrown off the veil, 
 had fled from the cloister, happened this year, and was 
 far from meeting with the same approbation. Even his 
 most devoted followers thought this step indecent at a 
 time when his country was involved in so many calami- 
 ties ; while his enemies never mentioned it with any 
 softer appellation than that of incestuous or profane. 
 Luther himself was sensible of the impression which it 
 had made to his disadvantage ; but, being satisfied with 
 his own conduct, he bore the censure of his friends 
 and the reproaches of his adversaries with his usual 
 fortitude. 44 
 
 This year the Eeformation lost its first protector, 
 Frederic, elector of Saxony ; but the blow was the less 
 sensibly felt as he was succeeded by his brother John, a 
 more avowed and zealous, though less able, patron of 
 Luther and his doctrines. 
 
 Another event happened about the same time, which, 
 as it occasioned a considerable change in the state of 
 Germany, must be traced back to its source. While 
 the frenzy of the crusades possessed all Europe during 
 the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, several orders of 
 religious knighthood were founded in defence of the 
 Christian faith against heathens and infidels. Among 
 these, the Teutonic order in Germany was one of the 
 most illustrious, the knights of which distinguished 
 themselves greatly in all the enterprises carried on in 
 the Holy Land. Being driven at last from their settle- 
 
 , Hist, p. 87. * Seckend., lib. ii p. 16.
 
 550 BEIGN OP THE [BOOK iv. 
 
 ments in the East, they were obliged to return to their 
 native country. Their zeal and valour were too im- 
 petuous to remain long inactive ; they invaded, on very 
 slight pretences, the provinces of Prussia, the inhabit- 
 ants of which were still idolaters, and, having completed 
 the conquest of it about the middle of the thirteenth 
 century, held it many years as a fief depending on the 
 crown of Poland. Fierce contests arose, during this 
 period, between the grand masters of the order and the 
 kings of Poland, the former struggling for independence, 
 while the latter asserted their right of sovereignty with 
 great firmness. Albert, a prince of the house of Brand- 
 enburg, who was elected grand master in the year 1511, 
 engaging keenly in this quarrel, maintained a long war 
 with Sigismund, king of Poland; but, having become 
 an early convert to Luther's doctrines, this gradually 
 lessened his zeal for the interests of his fraternity, so 
 that he took the opportunity of the confusions in the 
 empire, and the absence of the emperor, to conclude 
 a treaty with Sigismund, greatly to his own private 
 emolument. By it, that part of Prussia which belonged 
 to the Teutonic order was erected into a secular and 
 hereditary duchy, and the investiture of it granted to 
 Albert, who, in return, bound himself to do homage for 
 it to the kings of Poland as their vassal. Immediately 
 after this he made public profession of the reformed 
 religion and married a princess of Denmark. The Teu- 
 tonic knights exclaimed so loudly against the treachery 
 of their grand master that he was put under the ban of 
 the empire ; but he still kept possession of the province 
 which he had usurped, and transmitted it to his pos- 
 terity. In process of time this rich inheritance fell to 
 the electoral branch of the family, all dependence on the 
 crown of Poland was shaken off, and the margraves of 
 Brandenburg, having assumed the title of kings of 
 Prussia, have not only risen to an equality with the first
 
 BOOK iv.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 551 
 
 princes in Germany, but take their rank among the great 
 monarchs of Europe. 45 
 
 Upon the return of the French king to his dominions, 
 the eyes of all the powers in Europe were fixed upon 
 him, that by observing his first motions they might 
 form a judgment concerning his subsequent conduct. 
 They were not held long in suspense. Francis, as soon 
 as he arrived at Bayonne, wrote to the king of England, 
 thanking him for the zeal and affection wherewith he 
 had interposed in his favour, to which he acknowledged 
 that he owed the recovery of his liberty. Next day the 
 emperor's ambassadors demanded audience, and, in their 
 master's name, required him to issue such orders as were 
 necessary for carrying the treaty of Madrid into imme- 
 diate and full execution. He coldly answered that, 
 though for his own part he determined religiously to 
 perform all that he had promised, the treaty contained 
 so many articles relative not to himself alone, but affect- 
 ing the interests of the French monarchy, that he could 
 not take any farther step without consulting the states 
 of his kingdom, and that some time would be necessary 
 in order to reconcile their minds to the hard conditions 
 which he had consented to ratify. 46 This reply was con- 
 sidered as no obscure discovery of his being resolved to 
 elude the treaty ; and the compliment paid to Henry 
 appeared a very proper step towards securing the assist- 
 ance of that monarch in the war with the emperor, to 
 which such a resolution would certainly give rise. These 
 circumstances, added to the explicit declarations which 
 Francis made in secret to the ambassadors from several 
 of the Italian powers, fully satisfied them that their 
 conjectures with regard to his conduct had been just, 
 and that, instead of intending to execute an unreason- 
 able treaty, he was eager to seize the first opportunity 
 
 43 Sleid., Hist., p. 98. Pfeffel, lique, p. 605, etc. 
 Abre"gd de 1'Histoire du Droit pub- 4 ' Mdm. d<j Bella y, p. 97.
 
 552 REIGN OF THE [BOOK rv. 
 
 of revenging those injuries which had compelled him 
 to feign an approbation of it. Even the doubts and 
 fears and scruples which used, on other occasions, to 
 hold Clement in a state of uncertainty, were dissipated 
 by Francis's seeming impatience to break through all his 
 engagements with the emperor. The situation, indeed, 
 of affairs in Italy at that time did not allow the pope to 
 hesitate long. Sforza was still besieged by the imperial- 
 ists in the castle of Milan. That feeble prince, deprived 
 now of Morone's advice, and unprovided with everything 
 necessary for defence, found means to inform Clement 
 and the Venetians that he must soon surrender if they 
 did not come to his relief. The imperial troops, as they 
 had received no pay since the battle of Pavia, lived at 
 discretion in the Milanese, levying such exorbitant con- 
 tributions in that duchy as amounted, if we may rely 
 on Guicciardini's calculation, to no less a sum than five 
 thousand ducats a day ; 47 nor was it to be doubted but 
 that the soldiers, as soon as the castle should submit, 
 would choose to leave a ruined country, which hardly 
 afforded them subsistence, that they might take pos- 
 session of more comfortable quarters in the fertile and 
 untouched territories of the pope and Venetians. The 
 assistance of the French king was the only thing which 
 could either save Sforza or enable them to protect their 
 own dominions from the insults of the imperial troops. 
 
 For these reasons, the pope, the Venetians, and duke 
 of Milan were equally impatient to come to an agree- 
 ment with Francis, who, on his part, was no less de- 
 sirous of acquiring such a considerable accession both 
 of strength and reputation as such a confederacy would 
 bring along with it. The chief objects of this alliance, 
 which was concluded at Cognac on the 22nd of May, 
 though kept secret for some time, were to oblige the 
 emperor to set at liberty the French king's sons upon 
 
 47 Guic., lib. xvii. 360.
 
 BOOK iv. 1 EMPEROR, CHARLES THE FIFTH. 553 
 
 payment of a reasonable ransom, and to re-establish 
 Sforza in the quiet possession of the Milanese. If 
 Charles should refuse either of these, the contracting 
 parties bound themselves to bring into the field an army 
 of thirty-five thousand men, with which, after driving 
 the Spaniards out of the Milanese, they would attack 
 the kingdom of Naples. The king of England was 
 declared protector of this league, which they dignified 
 with the name of holy, because the pope was at the head 
 of it ; and, in order to allure Henry more effectually, a 
 principality in the kingdom of Naples, of thirty thousand 
 ducats' yearly revenue, was to be settled on him, and 
 lands to the value of ten thousand ducats on Wolsey, his 
 favourite. 48 
 
 No sooner was this league concluded than Clement, 
 by the plenitude of his papal power, absolved Francis 
 from the oath which he had taken to observe the treaty 
 of Madrid. 49 This right, how pernicious soever in its 
 effects, and destructive of that integrity which is the 
 basis of all transactions among men, was the natural 
 consequence of the powers which the popes arrogated 
 as the infallible vicegerents of Christ upon earth. But 
 as, in virtue of this pretended prerogative, they had 
 often dispensed with obligations which were held sacred, 
 the interest of some men, and the credulity of others, 
 led them to imagine that the decisions of a sovereign 
 pontiff authorised or justified actions which would other- 
 wise have been criminal and impious. 
 
 The discovery of Francis's intention to elude the 
 treaty of Madrid filled the emperor with a variety of 
 disquieting thoughts. He had treated an unfortunate 
 prince in the most ungenerous manner; he had dis- 
 played an insatiable ambition in all his negotiations with 
 
 48 P. Heuter., Rer. Austr., lib. ix. 4g Goldast, Polit. Imperial, ]x 
 
 c. 3, p. 217. Recueil des Trait., 1002. Pallav., Hist, p. 70. 
 ii. 124.
 
 554 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK TV. 
 
 his prisoner ; lie knew what censures the former had 
 drawn upon him, and what apprehensions the latter had 
 excited in every court of Europe ; nor had he reaped 
 from the measures which he pursued any of those advan- 
 tages which politicians are apt to consider as an excuse 
 for the most criminal conduct and a compensation for 
 the severest reproaches. Francis was now out of his 
 hands, and not one of all the mighty consequences which 
 he had expected from the treaty that set him at liberty 
 was likely to take place. His rashness in relying so far 
 on his own judgment as to trust to the sincerity of the 
 French king, in opposition to the sentiments of his wisest 
 ministers, was now apparent; and he easily conjectured 
 that the same confederacy the dread of which had in- 
 duced him to set Francis at liberty would now be formed 
 against him, with that gallant and incensed monarch at 
 its head. Self-condemnation and shame on account of 
 what was past, with anxious apprehensions concerning 
 what might happen, were the necessary result of these 
 reflections on his own conduct and situation. Charles, 
 however, was naturally firm and inflexible in all his 
 measures. To have receded suddenly from any article 
 in the treaty of Madrid would have been a plain con- 
 fession of imprudence and a palpable symptom of fear : 
 he determined, therefore, that it was most suitable to his 
 dignity to insist, whatever might be the consequences, 
 on the strict execution of the treaty, and particularly 
 not to accept of anything which might be offered as an 
 equivalent for the restitution of Burgundy. 50 
 
 In consequence of this resolution, he appointed Lannoy 
 and Alarcon to repair, as his ambassadors, to the court 
 of France, and formally to summon the king either to 
 execute the treaty with the sincerity that became him, 
 or to return, according to his oath, a prisoner to Madrid. 
 Instead of giving them an immediate answer, Francis 
 
 50 Guic., lib. xvii. 366.
 
 BOOK iv.] EVV'EROR CHAELES THE FIFTH. 555 
 
 admitted the deputies of the states of Burgundy to an 
 audience in their presence. They humbly represented 
 to him that he had exceeded the powers vested in a king 
 of France when he consented to alienate their country 
 from the crown, the domains of which he was bound by 
 his coronation oath to preserve entire and unimpaired. 
 Francis, in return, thanked them for their attachment 
 to his crown, and entreated them, though very faintly, 
 to remember the obligations which he lay under to fulfil 
 his engagements with the emperor. The deputies, as- 
 suming a higher tone, declared that they would not obey 
 commands which they considered as illegal ; and if he 
 should abandon them to the enemies of France they had 
 resolved to defend themselves to the best of their power, 
 with a firm purpose rather to perish than submit to a 
 foreign dominion. Upon which Francis, turning towards 
 the imperial ambassadors, represented to them the im- 
 possibility of performing what he had undertaken, and 
 offered, in lieu of Burgundy, to pay the emperor two 
 millions of crowns. The viceroy and Alarcon, who 
 easily perceived that the scene to which they had been 
 witnesses was concerted between the king and his sub- 
 jects in order to impose upon them, signified to him 
 their master's fixed resolution not to depart in the 
 smallest point from the terms of the treaty, and with- 
 drew. 51 Before they left the kingdom, they had the 
 mortification to hear the holy league against the emperor 
 published with great solemnity. 
 
 Charles no sooner received an account of this con- 
 federacy than he exclaimed, in the most public manner 
 and in the harshest terms, against Francis, as a prince 
 void of faith and of honour. He complained no less 
 of Clement, whom he solicited in vain to abandon his 
 new allies ; he accused him of ingratitude ; he taxed 
 him with an ambition unbecoming his character ; he 
 
 " Belcar., Comment de Reb. Gal., 573. M&n. de Bellay, p. 97.
 
 556 EEIGN OF THE (BOOK iv. 
 
 threatened him not only with all the vengeance which 
 the power of an emperor can inflict ; but, by appealing 
 to a general council, called up before his eyes all the 
 terrors arising from the authority of those assemblies 
 so formidable to the papal see. It was necessary, how- 
 ever, to oppose something else than reproaches and 
 threats to the powerful combination formed against 
 him ; and the emperor, prompted by so many passions, 
 did not fail to exert himself with unusual vigour in 
 order to send supplies, not only of men, but of money, 
 which was still more needed, into Italy. 
 
 On the other hand, the efforts of the confederates 
 bore no proportion to that animosity against the 
 emperor with which they seemed to enter into the holy 
 league. Francis, it was thought, would have infused 
 spirit and vigour into the whole body. He had his lost 
 honour to repair, many injuries to revenge, and the 
 station among the princes of Europe, from which he had 
 fallen, to recover. From all these powerful incitements, 
 added to the natural impetuosity of his temper, a war 
 more fierce and bloody than any that he had hitherto 
 made upon his rival was expected. But Francis had gone 
 through such a scene of distress, and the impression it 
 had made was still so fresh in his memory, that he was 
 become diffident himself, distrustful of fortune, and de- 
 sirous of tranquillity. To procure the release of his sons, 
 and to avoid the restitution of Burgundy by paying some 
 reasonable equivalent, were his chief objects ; and for 
 the sake of these he would willingly have sacrificed 
 Sforza, and the liberties of Italy, to the emperor. He 
 flattered himself that the dread of the confederacy 
 which he had formed would of itself induce Charles to 
 listen to what was equitable, and was afraid of employing 
 any considerable force for the relief of the Milanese, 
 lest his allies, whom he had often found to be more 
 attentive to their own interest than punctual in fulfilling
 
 BCOK iv.] EMPEROE CHAELES THE FIFTH. 557 
 
 their engagements, should abandon him as soon as the 
 imperialists were driven out of that country, and de- 
 prive his negotiations with the emperor of that weight 
 which they derived from his being at the head of a 
 powerful league. In the meantime, the castle of Milan 
 was pressed more closely than ever, and Sforza was now 
 reduced to the last extremity. The pope and Vene- 
 tians, trusting to Francis's concurrence, commanded 
 their troops to take the field in order to relieve him ; 
 and an army more than sufficient for that service was 
 soon formed. The Milanese, passionately attached to 
 their unfortunate duke, and no less exasperated against 
 the imperialists, who had oppressed them so cruelly, 
 were ready to aid the confederates in all their enter- 
 prises. But the duke d'Urbino, their general, naturally 
 slow and indecisive, and restrained, besides, by his an- 
 cient enmity to the family of Medici from taking any 
 step that might aggrandize or add reputation to the 
 pope, 52 lost some opportunities of attacking the impe- 
 rialists and raising the siege, and refused to improve 
 others. These delays gave Bourbon time to bring up 
 a reinforcement of fresh troops and a supply of money. 
 He immediately took the command of the army, and 
 pushed on the siege with such vigour as quickly obliged 
 Sforza to surrender, who, retiring to Lodi, which the 
 confederates had surprised, left Bourbon in full posses- 
 sion of the rest of the duchy, the investiture of which 
 the emperor had promised to grant him. 53 
 
 The Italians began now to perceive the game which 
 Francis had played, and to be sensible that, notwith- 
 standing all their address and refinements in negotia- 
 tion, which they boasted of as talents peculiarly their 
 own, they had for once been overreached in those very 
 arts by a tramontane prince. He had hitherto thrown 
 almost the whole burden of the war upon them, taking 
 
 2 Guic., lib. xvii. 382. M Ibid, 376 etc.
 
 558 .REIGN OF THE [BOOK iv. 
 
 advantage of their efforts in order to enforce the pro- 
 posals which he often renewed at the court of Madrid 
 for obtaining the liberty of his sons. The pope and 
 Venetians expostulated and complained ; 54 but, as they 
 were not able to rouse Francis from, his inactivity, their 
 own zeal and vigour gradually abated, and Clement, 
 having already gone farther than his timidity usually 
 permitted him, began to accuse himself of rashness, 
 and to relapse into his natural state of doubt and 
 uncertainty. 
 
 All the emperor's motions, depending on himself 
 alone, were more brisk and better concerted. The 
 narrowness of his revenues, indeed, did not allow him 
 to make any sudden or great effort in the field, but he 
 abundantly suppplied that defect bj his intrigues and 
 negotiations. The family of Colonna, the most power- 
 ful of all the Koman barons, had adhered uniformly to 
 the Grhibelline or imperial faction during those fierce 
 contentions between the popes and emperors which for 
 several ages filled Italy and Germany with discord and 
 bloodshed. Though the causes which at first gave birth 
 to these destructive factions existed no longer, and the 
 rage with which they had been animated was in a great 
 measure spent, the Colonnas still retained their attach- 
 ment to the imperial interest, and, by placing them- 
 selves under the protection of the emperors, secured 
 the quiet possession of their own territories and privi- 
 leges. The Cardinal Pompeo Colonna, a man of a 
 turbulent and ambitious temper, at that time the head 
 of the family, had long been Clement's rival, to whose 
 influence in the last conclave he imputed the dis- 
 appointment of all his schemes for attaining the papal 
 dignity, of which, from his known connection with the 
 emperor, he thought himself secure. To an aspiring 
 mind, this was an injury too great to be forgiven ; and, 
 
 64 Ruscelli, Lettere de' Principi, ii. 157, etc., 159, 160-166.
 
 BOOK iv.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 559 
 
 though he had dissembled his resentment so far as to 
 vote for Clement at his election, and to accept of great 
 offices in his court, he waited with the utmost im- 
 patience for an opportunity of being revenged. Don 
 Hugo de Moncada, the imperial ambassador at Home, 
 who was no stranger to these sentiments, easily per- 
 suaded him that now was the time, while all the papal 
 troops were employed in Lombardy, to attempt some- 
 thing which would at once avenge his own wrongs and 
 be of essential service to the emperor his patron. The 
 pope, however, whose timidity rendered him quick- 
 sighted, was so attentive to their operations, and began 
 to be alarmed so early, that he might have drawn 
 together troops sufficient to have disconcerted all 
 Colonna's measures. But Moncada amused him so 
 artfully with negotiations, promises, and false intelli- 
 gence that he lulled asleep all his suspicions, and pre- 
 vented his taking any of the precautions necessary for 
 his safety; and, to the disgrace of a prince, possessed 
 of great power as well as renowned for political wis- 
 dom, Colonna, at the head of three thousand men, 
 seized one of the gates of his capital while he, 
 imagining himself to be in perfect security, was alto- 
 gether unprepared for resisting such a feeble enemy. 
 The inhabitants of Rome permitted Colonna's troops, 
 from whom they apprehended no injury, to advance 
 without opposition ; the pope's guards were dispersed 
 in a moment; and Clement himself, terrified at the 
 danger, ashamed of his own credulity, and deserted 
 by almost every person, fled with precipitation into the 
 castle of St. Angelo, which was immediately invested. 
 The palace of the Vatican, the church of St. Peter, 
 and the houses of the pope's ministers and servants 
 were plundered in the most licentious manner. The 
 rest of the city was left unmolested. Clement, desti- 
 tute of every thing necessary either for subsistence or
 
 560 REIGN OF THE [BOOK rv. 
 
 defence, was soon obliged to demand a capitulation; 
 aud Moncada, being admitted into the castle, pre- 
 scribed to him, with all the haughtiness of a conqueror, 
 conditions which it was not in his power to reject. 
 The chief of these was that Clement should not only 
 grant a full pardon to the Colonnas, but receive them 
 into favour, and immediately withdraw all the troops 
 in his pay from the army of the confederates in 
 Lombardy. 55 
 
 The Colonnas, who talked of nothing less than of 
 deposing Clement and of placing Pompeo, their kins- 
 man, in the vacant chair of St. Peter, exclaimed loudly 
 against a treaty which left them at the mercy of a 
 pontiff justly incensed against them. But Moncada, 
 attentive only to his master's interest, paid little regard 
 to their complaints, and by this fortunate measure broke 
 entirely the power of the confederates. 
 
 While the army of the confederates suffered such a con- 
 siderable diminution, the imperialists received two great 
 reinforcements ; one from Spain, under the command of 
 Lannoy and Alarcon, which amounted to six thousand 
 men; the other was raised in the empire by George 
 Fronsperg, a German nobleman, who, having served in 
 Italy with great reputation, had acquired such influence 
 and popularity that multitudes of his countrymen, fond 
 on every occasion of engaging in military enterprises, 
 and impatient at that juncture to escape from the oppres- 
 sion which they felt in religious as well as civil matters, 
 crowded to his standard ; so that, without any other gra- 
 tuity than the payment of a crown to each man, fourteen 
 thousand enlisted in his service. To these the Archduke 
 Ferdinand added two thousand horse, levied in the 
 Austrian dominions. But although the emperor had 
 raised troops, he could not remit the sums necessary for 
 
 " Jovii Vita Pomp. Colon. Guic., lib. xvii. 407. Euscelli, Lettero 
 ie' Principi, i, p. 104.
 
 BOOK iv.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 561 
 
 their support. His ordinary revenues were exhausted ; 
 the credit of princes, during the infancy of commerce, 
 was not extensive ; and the cortes of Castile, though 
 every art had been tried to gain them, and some innova- 
 tions had been made in the constitution in order to secure 
 their concurrence, peremptorily refused to grant Charles 
 any extraordinary supply ; 56 so that the more his army 
 increased in number the more were his generals embar- 
 rassed and distressed. Bourbon, in particular, was 
 involved in such difficulties that he stood in need of all 
 his address and courage in order to extricate himself. 
 Large sums were due to the Spanish troops already in 
 the Milanese, when Fronsperg arrived with sixteen 
 thousand hungry Germans, destitute of every thing. 
 Both made their demands with equal fierceness, the 
 former claiming their arrears, and the latter the pay 
 which had been promised them on their entering Lom- 
 bardy. Bourbon was altogether incapable of giving 
 satisfaction to either. In this situation he was con- 
 strained to commit acts of violence extremely shocking 
 to his own nature, which was generous and humane. He 
 seized the principal citizens of Milan, and by threats, and 
 even by torture, forced from them a considerable sum ; 
 he rifled the churches of all their plate and ornaments ; 
 the inadequate supply which these afforded he distributed 
 among the soldiers, with so many soothing expressions 
 of his sympathy and affection that, though it fell far 
 short of the sums due to them, it appeased their present 
 murmurs. 67 
 
 Among other expedients for raising money, Bourbon 
 granted his life and liberty to Morone, who, having 
 been kept in prison since his intrigue with Pescara, 
 had been condemned to die by the Spanish judges 
 empowered to try him. For this remission he paid 
 twenty thousand ducats ; and such were his singular 
 
 66 Sandoval, i 814. * 7 Ripamond. Hist. Mediol., lib. 'ix. p. 717. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 562 REIGN OF THE [BOOK iv. 
 
 talents, and the wonderful ascendant which he always 
 
 / V 
 
 acquired over the minds of those to whom he had 
 access, that in a few days, from being Bourbon's 
 prisoner, he became his prime confidant, with whom 
 he consulted in all affairs of importance. To his in- 
 sinuations must be imputed the suspicions which Bour- 
 bon began to entertain that the emperor had never 
 intended to grant him the investiture of Milan, but had 
 appointed Leyva and the other Spanish generals rather 
 to be spies on his conduct than to co-operate heartily 
 towards the execution of his schemes. To him likewise, 
 as he still retained, at the age of fourscore, all the 
 enterprising spirit of youth, may be attributed the bold 
 and unexpected measure on which Bourbon soon after 
 ventured. 58 
 
 Such, indeed, were the exigencies of the imperial 
 troops in the Milanese that it became indispensably 
 necessary to take some immediate step for their relief. 
 The arrears of the soldiers increased daily ; the em- 
 peror made no remittances to his generals ; and the 
 utmost rigour of military extortion could draw nothing 
 more from a country entirely drained and ruined. In 
 this situation there was no choice left but either to 
 disband the army or to march for subsistence into the 
 enemy's country. The territories of the Venetians lay 
 nearest at hand ; but they, with their usual foresight 
 and prudence, had taken such precautions as secured 
 them from any insult. Nothing, therefore, remained 
 but to invade the dominions of the Church, or of the 
 Florentines ; and Clement had of late acted such a 
 part as merited the severest vengeance from the em- 
 peror. No sooner did the papal troops return to Rome 
 after the insurrection of the Colonnas, than, without 
 paying any regard to the treaty with Moncada, he 
 degraded the Cardinal Colonna, excommunicated the 
 
 48 Guic., lib. xvii. 419.
 
 BOOK iv.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 563 
 
 rest of the family, seized their places of strength, and 
 wasted their lands with all the cruelty which the smart 
 of a recent injury naturally excites. After this he 
 turned his arms against Naples, and, as his operations 
 were seconded by the French fleet, he made some 
 progress towards the conquest of that kingdom ; the 
 viceroy being no less destitute than the other im- 
 perial generals of the money requisite for a vigorous 
 defence. 59 
 
 These proceedings of the pope justified, in appear- 
 ance, the measures which Bourbon's situation rendered 
 necessary ; and he set about executing them under such 
 disadvantages as furnish the strongest proof both of the 
 despair to which he was reduced, and of the greatness 
 of his abilities, which were able to surmount so many 
 obstacles. Having committed the government of Milan 
 to Leyva, whom he was not unwilling to leave behind, 
 he began his march in the depth of winter, at the 
 head of twenty-five thousand men, composed of nations 
 differing from each other in language and manners, 
 without money, without magazines, without artillery, 
 without carriages, in short, without any of those 
 things which are necessary to the smallest party, and 
 which seem essential to the existence and motions of a 
 great army. His route lay through a country cut by 
 rivers and mountains, in which the roads were almost 
 impracticable : as an addition to his difficulties, the 
 enemy's army, superior to his own in number, was at 
 hand to watch all his motions and to improve every 
 advantage. But his troops, impatient of their present 
 hardships, and allured by the hopes of immense booty, 
 without considering how ill provided they were for a 
 march, followed him with great cheerfulness. His first 
 scheme was to have made himself master of Placentia, 
 and to have gratified his soldiers by the plunder of that 
 
 ** Jovii Vita Pomp. Colon. Guic., lib. xviii. 4-24. 
 
 o o 2
 
 564 EK1GN OF THE [BOOK iv. 
 
 city ; but the vigilance of the confederate generals ren- 
 dered the design abortive. Nor had he better success 
 in his project for the reduction of Bologna, which was 
 seasonably supplied with as many troops as secured it 
 from the insults of an army which had neither artillery 
 nor ammunition. Having failed in both these attempts 
 to become master of some great city, he was under a 
 necessity of advancing. But he had now been two 
 months in the field ; his troops had suffered every 
 calamity that a long march, together with the uncom- 
 mon rigour of the season, could bring upon men desti- 
 tute of all necessary accommodations in an enemy's 
 country ; the magnificent promises to which they 
 trusted had hitherto proved altogether vain ; they saw 
 no prospect of relief ; their patience, tried to the 
 utmost, failed at last, and they broke out into open 
 mutiny. Some officers, who rashly attempted to re- 
 strain them, fell victims to their fury : Bourbon him- 
 self, not daring to appear during the first transports of 
 their rage, was obliged to fly secretly from his quarters. 60 
 But this sudden ebullition of wrath began at last to 
 subside, when Bourbon, who possessed in a wonderful 
 degree the art of governing the minds of soldiers, 
 renewed his promises with more confidence than for- 
 merly, and assured them that they would be soon 
 accomplished. He endeavoured to render their hard- 
 ships more tolerable by partaking of them himself; 
 he fared no better than the meanest sentinel ; he 
 marched along with them on foot ; he joined them in 
 singing their camp ballads, in which, with high praises 
 of his valour, they mingled many strokes of military 
 raillery on his poverty ; and wherever they came, he 
 allowed them, as a foretaste of what he had promised, 
 to plunder the adjacent villages at discretion. En- 
 couraged by all these soothing arts, they entirely for- 
 
 80 Guic., lib. xviii. 434. Jovii Vit. Colon., 163.
 
 BOOK nr.] EXIPEROR CHARLES THti FIFTH. 565 
 
 got their sufferings and complaints, and followed him 
 with the same implicit confidence as formerly. 61 
 
 Bourbon, meanwhile, carefully concealed his inten- 
 tions. Rome and Florence, not knowing on which the 
 blow would fall, were held in the most disquieting 
 state of suspense. Clement, equally solicitous for the 
 safety of both, fluctuated in more than his usual uncer- 
 tainty ; and while the rapid approach of danger called 
 .for prompt and decisive measures, he spent the time 
 in deliberations which came to no issue, or in taking 
 resolutions which next day his restless mind, more 
 sagacious in discerning than in obviating difficulties, 
 overturned, without being able to fix on what should 
 be substituted in their place. At one time he deter- 
 mined to unite himself more closely than ever with his 
 allies, and to push on the war with vigour ; at another, 
 he inclined to bring all differences to a final accom- 
 modation by a treaty with Lannoy, who, knowing his 
 passion for negotiation, solicited him incessantly with 
 proposals for that purpose. His timidity at length pre- 
 vailed, and led him to conclude an agreement with 
 Lannoy, of which the following were the chief articles : 
 That a suspension of arms should take place between 
 the pontifical and imperial troops for eight months ; 
 that Clement should advance sixty thousand crowns 
 towards satisfying the demands of the imperial army ; 
 that the Colonnas should be absolved from censure, 
 and their former dignities and possessions be restored 
 to them ; that the viceroy should come to Rome, and 
 prevent Bourbon from approaching nearer to that city 
 or to Florence. 62 On this hasty treaty, which deprived 
 him of all hopes of assistance from his allies, without 
 affording him any solid foundation of security, Clement 
 relied so firmly that, like a man extricated at once out 
 of all difficulties, he was at perfect ease, and, in the 
 
 61 (Euvres de Brant, voL iv. p. 246, etc. 62 Guic., lib. xviii. 436.
 
 566 REIGN OF THE (B OK IV - 
 
 fulness of his confidence, disbanded all his troops, 
 except as many as were sufficient to guard his own 
 person. This amazing confidence of Clement, who on 
 every other occasion was fearful and suspicious to excess, 
 appeared so unaccountable to Guicciardini, who, being 
 at that time the pontifical commissary-general and 
 resident in the confederate army, had great opportuni- 
 ties, as well as great abilities, for observing how 
 chimerical all his hopes were, that he imputes the pope's 
 conduct at this juncture wholly to infatuation, which 
 those who are doomed to ruin cannot avoid. 68 
 
 Lannoy, it would seem, intended to have executed 
 the treaty with great sincerity, and, having detached 
 Clement from the confederacy, wished to turn Bourbon's 
 army against the Venetians, who, of all the powers at 
 war with the emperor, had exerted the greatest vigour. 
 With this view, he despatched a courier to Bourbon, 
 informing him of the suspension of arms which, in the 
 name of their common master, he had concluded with 
 the pope. Bourbon had other schemes, and he had 
 prosecuted them now too far to think of retreating. To 
 have mentioned a retreat to his soldiers would have been 
 dangerous ; his command was independent of Lannoy ; 
 he was fond of mortifying a man whom he had many 
 reasons to hate : for these reasons, without paying the 
 least regard to the message, he continued to ravage the 
 ecclesiastical territories and to advance towards Florence. 
 Upon this, all Clement's terror and anxiety returning 
 with new force, he had recourse to Lannoy, and entreated 
 and conjured him to put a stop to Bourbon's progress. 
 Lannoy accordingly set out for his camp, but durst not 
 approach it ; Bourbon's soldiers, having got notice of 
 the truce, raged and threatened, demanding the accom- 
 plishment of the promises to which they had trusted ; 
 their general himself could hardly restrain them ; every 
 
 *' Guic., lib. xviii. 446.
 
 BOOK iv.] EMPEROE CHARLES THE FIFTH. 567 
 
 person in Rome perceived that nothing remained but 
 to prepare for resisting a storm which it was now 
 impossible to dispel. Clement alone, relying on some 
 ambiguous and deceitful professions which Bourbon 
 made of his inclination towards peace, sunk back into 
 his former security. 64 
 
 Bourbon, on his part, was far from being free from 
 solicitude. All his attempts on any place of importance 
 had hitherto miscarried; and Florence, towards which 
 he had been approaching for some time, was, by the 
 arrival of the duke d'Urbino's army, put in a condition 
 to set his power at defiance. As it now became neces- 
 sary to change his route, and to take instantly some 
 new resolution, he fixed without hesitation on one 
 which was no less daring in itself than it was impious, 
 according to the opinion of that age. This was to 
 assault and plunder Rome. Many reasons, however, 
 prompted him to it. He was fond of thwarting Lannoy, 
 who had undertaken for the safety of that city ; he 
 imagined that the emperor would be highly pleased to 
 see Clement, the chief author of the league against him, 
 humbled ; he flattered himself that by gratifying the 
 rapacity of his soldiers with such immense booty he 
 would attach them forever to his interest ; or (which is 
 still more probable than any of these) he hoped that by 
 means of the power and fame which he would acquire 
 from the conquest of the first city in Christendom he 
 might lay the foundation of an independent power, and 
 that, after shaking off all connection with the emperor, 
 he might take possession of Naples, or of some of the 
 Italian states, in his own name. 65 
 
 Whatever his motives were, he executed his resolu- 
 tion with a rapidity equal to the boldness with which 
 he had formed it. His soldiers, now that they had 
 
 61 Guic., lib. xviii. 437, etc. 6i Brant., iv. 271, vi. 189. 
 M&n. de Bellay, p. 100. Belcarii Comment, 594.
 
 568 REIGN OF THE [BOOK iv. 
 
 their prey full in view, complained neither of fatigue, 
 nor famine, nor want of pay. No sooner did they 
 begin to move from Tuscany towards Eome than the 
 pope, sensible at last how fallacious the hopes had been 
 on which he reposed, started from his security. But 
 no time now remained, even for a bold and decisive 
 pontiff, to have taken proper measures or to have 
 formed any effectual plan of defence. "Under Clement's 
 feeble conduct, all was consternation, disorder, and irre- 
 solution. He collected, however, such of his disbanded 
 soldiers as still remained in the city; he armed the 
 artificers of Rome, and the footmen and train-bearers 
 of the cardinals ; he repaired the breaches in the walls ; 
 he began to erect new works; he excommunicated 
 Bourbon and all his troops, branding the Germans with 
 the name of Lutherans, and the Spaniards with that 
 of Moors. 66 Trusting to these ineffectual military pre- 
 parations, or to his spiritual arms, which were still 
 more despised by rapacious soldiers, he seems to have 
 laid aside his natural timidity, and, contrary to the 
 advice of all his counsellors, determined to wait the 
 approach of an enemy whom he might easily have 
 avoided by a timely retreat. 
 
 Bourbon, who saw the necessity of despatch, now that 
 his intentions were known, advanced with such speed 
 that he gained several marches on the duke d'Urbino's 
 army, and encamped in the plains of Eome on the 
 evening of the 5th of May. From thence he showed 
 his soldiers the palaces and churches of that city, into 
 which, as the capital of the Christian commonwealth, 
 the riches of all Europe had flowed during many cen- 
 turies, without having been once violated by any hostile 
 hand, and, commanding them to refresh themselves that 
 night, as a preparation for the assault next day, pro- 
 
 66 Seckend., lib. ii 68.
 
 BOOK iv.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 569 
 
 mised them, in reward of their toils and valour, the 
 possession of all the treasures accumulated there. 
 
 Early in the morning, Bourbon, who had determined 
 to distinguish that day either by his death or the suc- 
 cess of his enterprise, appeared at the head of his 
 troops clad in complete armour, above which he wore a 
 vest of white tissue, that he might be more conspicuous 
 both to his friends and to his enemies ; and, as all de- 
 pended on one bold impression, he led them instantly 
 to scale the walls. Three distinct bodies, one of Ger- 
 mans, another of Spaniards, and the last of Italians, 
 the three different nations of whom the army was com- 
 posed, were appointed to this service ; a separate attack 
 was assigned to each; and the whole army advanced 
 to support them, as occasion should require. A thick 
 mist concealed their approach until they reached almost 
 the brink of the ditch which surrounded the suburbs; 
 having planted their ladders in a moment, each brigade 
 rushed on the assault with an impetuosity heightened 
 by national emulation. They were received at first with 
 fortitude equal to their own : the Swiss in the pope's 
 guards, and the veteran soldiers who had been assembled, 
 fought with a courage becoming men to whom the 
 defence of the noblest city in the world was intrusted. 
 Bourbon's troops, notwithstanding all their valour; 
 gained no ground, and even began to give way ; when 
 their leader, perceiving that on this critical moment the 
 fate of the day depended, leaped from his horse, pressed 
 to the front, snatched a scaling-ladder from a soldier, 
 planted it against the wall, and began to mount it, 
 encouraging his men with his voice and hand to follow 
 him. But at that very instant a musket-bullet from the 
 ramparts pierced his groin with a wound which he im- 
 mediately felt to be mortal ; but he retained so much 
 presence of mind as to desire those who were near 
 him to cover his body with a cloak, that his death might
 
 570 REIGN OF THE IBOOK iv. 
 
 not dishearten his troops ; and soon after he expired, 
 with a courage worthy of a better cause, and which 
 would have entitled him to the highest praise if he had 
 thus fallen in defence of his country, not at the head of 
 its enemies. 67 
 
 This fatal event could not be concealed from the 
 army ; the soldiers soon missed their general, whom 
 they were accustomed to see in every time of danger ; 
 but, instead of being disheartened by their loss, it 
 animated them with new valour ; the name of Bourbon 
 resounded along the line, accompanied with the cry 
 of blood and revenge. The veterans who defended the 
 walls were soon overpowered by numbers ; the untrained 
 body of city recruits fled at the sight of danger, and 
 the enemy, with irresistible violence, rushed into the 
 town. 
 
 During the combat, Clement was employed at the 
 high altar of St. Peter's church in offering up to Heaven 
 unavailing prayers for victory. No sooner was he in- 
 formed that his troops began to give way than he fled 
 with precipitation ; and, with an infatuation still more 
 amazing than any thing already mentioned, instead of 
 making his escape by the opposite gate, where there 
 was no enemy to oppose it, he shut himself up, together 
 with thirteen cardinals, the foreign ambassadors, and 
 many persons of distinction, in the castle of St. Angelo, 
 which, from his late misfortune, he might have known 
 to be an insecure retreat. In his way from the Vatican 
 to that fortress he saw his troops flying before an enemy 
 who pursued without .giving quarter ; he heard the cries 
 and lamentations of the Eoman citizens, and beheld the 
 beginning of those calamities which his own credulity 
 and ill conduct had brought upon his subjects. 68 
 
 It is impossible to describe, or even to imagine, the 
 
 67 M&n. de Bellay, 101. Guic., Brant., iv. 257, etc. 
 lib. xviil p. 445, etc. OEuvres de 6H Jov. Vit Colon., 165.
 
 BOOK rv.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 571 
 
 misery and horror of that scene which followed. "What- 
 ever a city taken by storm can dread from military 
 rage unrestrained by discipline, whatever excesses the 
 ferocity of the Germans, the avarice of the Spaniards, 
 or the licentiousness of the Italians could commit, 
 these wretched inhabitants were obliged to suffer. 
 Churches, palaces, aud the houses of private persons 
 were plundered without distinction. "No age, or cha- 
 racter, or sex, was exempt from injury. Cardinals, 
 nobles, priests, matrons, virgins, were all the prey of 
 soldiers, and at the mercy of men deaf to the voice of 
 humanity. Nor did these outrages cease, as is usual in 
 towns which are carried by assault, when the first fury 
 of the storm was over : the Imperialists kept possession 
 of Rome several months ; and during all that time the 
 insolence and brutality of the soldiers hardly abated. 
 Their booty in ready money alone amounted to a million 
 of ducats ; what they raised by ransoms and exactions 
 far exceeded that sum. Rome, though taken several 
 different times by the Northern nations, who overran 
 the empire in the fifth and sixth centuries, was never 
 treated with so much cruelty by the barbarous and 
 heathen Huns, Vandals, or Goths, as now by the bigoted 
 subjects of a Catholic monarch. 69 
 
 After Bourbon's death, the command of the imperial 
 army devolved on Philibert de Chalons, prince of 
 Orange, who with difficulty prevailed on as many of 
 his soldiers to desist from the pillage as were necessary 
 to invest the castle of St. Angelo. Clement was im- 
 mediately sensible of his error in having retired into 
 that ill-provided and untenable fort. But as the im- 
 perialists, scorning discipline, and intent only on plunder, 
 pushed the siege with little vigour, he did not despair 
 
 69 Jov. Vit. Colon., 166. Guic., ii 230. Ulloa, Vita di Carlo V., 
 lib. xviii. 440, etc. Comment, de p. 110, etc. Giannone, Hist, of 
 Capta Urbe Rom*, ap. Scardium, Nap., b. xxxi. c. 3, p. 507.
 
 572 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK iv. 
 
 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 deliver- 
 ing 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. 70 Clement, deprived of every resource, and 
 reduced to such extremity of famine as to feed on 
 asses' flesh, 71 was obliged to capitulate on such con- 
 ditions 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 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 per- 
 sonages who had been made prisoners in Europe during 
 several ages. 
 
 The account of this extraordinary and unexpected 
 event was no less surprising than agreeable to the 
 emperor. But in order to conceal his joy from his 
 subjects, who were filled with horror at the success and 
 crimes of their countrymen, and to lessen the indigna- 
 tion of the rest of Europe, he declared that Rome had 
 been assaulted without any order from him. He wrote 
 70 Guic., lib. xviiL 450. 71 Jov. Vit. Colon., 167.
 
 BOOK iv.] EMPEEOE CHAELES THE FIFTH. 573 
 
 to all the princes with whom he was in alliance, dis- 
 claiming his having had any knowledge of Bourbon's 
 intention. 72 He put himself and court into mourning ; 
 commanded the rejoicings which had been ordered for 
 the birth of his son Philip to be stopped ; and, em- 
 ploying 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. 73 
 
 The good fortune of the house of Austria was no 
 less 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 Tiim 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 
 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, overrunning 
 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 
 
 n Euscelli, Lettere de' Principi, ' 3 Sleid., 109. Sandova], i 822. 
 ii. 234. Mauroc. Hist. Veneta, lib. iii. 220.
 
 574 EEIGN OF THE 1*00* rv. 
 
 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 in- 
 stitutions, 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 power- 
 fully 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 
 necessity of choosing a prince able to afford his sub- 
 jects some 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 married to the late king, 
 overcame the prejudices which the Hungarians had 
 conceived against the archduke as a foreigner, and, 
 though a considerable party voted for the Yaywode of 
 Transylvania, 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. 74 
 
 The dissensions between the pope and emperor 
 
 74 Steph. Broderick Procancellarii Hist, d' Allemagne, torn. viii. part 
 Hungar. Clades in Campo Mohacz, i p. 198. 
 ap. Scardium, ii 218. P. Barre,
 
 BOOK iv.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 575 
 
 proved extremely favourable to the progress of Luther- 
 anism. Charles, 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, ac- 
 knowledged 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 concern- 
 ing the discouragement of innovations they paid so 
 little regard that, even during 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 Kefonned Church. 75 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 in- 
 tended as an apology for his own conduct. In this 
 manifesto, the emperor, after having enumerated many 
 instances of that pontiff's ingratitude, deceit, and am- 
 bition, 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 in- 
 justice, and requiring them, if he refused or delayed 
 to call a council, to show their concern for the peace 
 
 71 Sleid., 103.
 
 576 EEIGN OF CHAELES THE FIFTH. [BOOK iv. 
 
 of the Christian Church so shamefully neglected by its 
 chief pastor, by summoning that assembly in their own 
 name. 76 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 coun- 
 terbalance the effect of all Charles's declarations against 
 the new opinions. 
 
 76 Goldast., Polit. Imper., p. 984
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 General Indignation and Confederacy against the Emperor. The Floren- 
 tines. The French Army in Italy. The Emperor sets the Pope at 
 Liberty, and makes Pacific Overtures. A Royal Challenge. Retreat 
 of the Imperial Army from Rome. The French hesiege Naples. 
 Revolt of Andrew Doria. Freedom of Genoa. Operations in the 
 Milanese. Treaty between the Pope and the Emperor, and between 
 Charles and Francis. Henry VIII. seeks a Divorce from his Queen, 
 Catharine of Aragon. Charles visits Italy and re-establishes tiie 
 Power of the Medici. Returns to Germany. -The Diet of Spires. 
 The Protest. The Diet of Augsburg. Decree against the Protest- 
 ants. Charles makes his Brother Ferdinand King of the Romans. 
 Negotiations of the Protestants. The Campaign in Hungary. 
 Coufeience between the Emperor and the Pope. Movements of the 
 French King. Henry divorced from Queen Catharine by the Arch- 
 bishop, and excommunicated by the Pope. Papal Authority abolished 
 in England. Death of Clement VII. Pope Paul III. Insurrection 
 of the Anabaptists in Germany. They become Masters of Munster. 
 John of Leyden crowned King. Confederacy against him. Munster 
 besieged and taken. The League of Smalkalde. Expedition of the 
 Emperor to Africa, The Barbary States. -The Barbarossas. Con- 
 quest of Tunis. The Emperor besieges Goletta, defeats Barbarossa, 
 and restores the King of Tunis. 
 
 THE account of the cruel manner in which, the pope 
 had been treated filled all Europe with astonishment or 
 horror. To see a Christian emperor, who, by possess- 
 ing that dignity, ought to have been the protector and 
 advocate of the holy see, lay violent hands on him 
 who represented Christ on earth, and detain his sacred 
 person in a rigorous 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 
 VOL. i. r r
 
 578 EEIGN OP tHE [BOOK V. 
 
 before the taking of Rome, entered into a closer alli- 
 ance, 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 was 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 Low Countries, and to make Italy the seat of war, 
 as it was by vigorous operations there they might con- 
 tribute 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 carried him too far, and that by 
 an excess of remissness he had allowed Charles to attain 
 advantages which he might easily have prevented, was 
 eager to make reparation for an error of which he was 
 not often guilty, by an activity more suitable to his 
 temper. Henry thought his interposition necessary in 
 order to hinder the emperor from becoming master of 
 all Italy, and acquiring by that means such superiority 
 of power as would enable him for the future to dictate 
 without control to the other princes of Europe. Wolsey, 
 whom Francis had taken care to secure by flattery and 
 presents, the certain methods of gaining his favour, 
 neglected nothing that could incense his master against 
 the emperor. Besides all these public considerations, 
 Henry was influenced by one of a more private nature : 
 having begun about this time to form his great scheme 
 of divorcing Catharine of Aragon, towards the execution 
 of which he knew that the sanction of papal authority 
 would be necessary, he was desirous to acquire as much 
 merit as possible with Clement, by appearing to be the 
 chief instrument of his deliverance. 
 
 The negotiation, between princes thus disposed, was
 
 SOCK v.] EMPEROfi CHA&LES THE FIFTH. 579 
 
 not tedious. Wolsey himself conducted it, on the part 
 of his sovereign, with unbounded powers. Francis 
 treated with him in person at Amiens, where the cardinal 
 appeared, and was received with royal magnificence. A 
 marriage between the duke of Orleans and the princess 
 Mary was agreed to as the basis of the confederacy; 
 it was resolved that Italy should be the theatre of war ; 
 the strength of the army which should take the field, 
 as well as the contingent of troops or of money which 
 each prince should furnish, were settled ; and if the 
 emperor did not accept of the proposals which they 
 were jointly to make him, they bound themselves 
 immediately to declare war, and to begin hostilities. 
 Henry, who took every resolution with impetuosity, 
 entered so eagerly into this new alliance that, in order 
 to give Francis the strongest proof of his friendship 
 and respect, he formally renounced the ancient claim 
 of the English monarchs to the crown of France, which 
 had long been the pride and ruin of the nation ; as a 
 full compensation for which, he accepted a pension of 
 fifty thousand crowns, to be paid annually to himself 
 and his successors. 1 
 
 The pope, being unable to fulfil the conditions of 
 his capitulation, still remained a prisoner, under the 
 severe custody of Alarcon. The Florentines no sooner 
 heard of what had happened at Home than they ran 
 to arms in a tumultuous manner, expelled the car- 
 dinal di Cortona, who governed their city in the pope's 
 name, defaced the arms of the Medici, broke in pieces 
 the statues of Leo and Clement, and, declaring them- 
 selves a free state, re-established their ancient popular 
 government. The Venetians, taking advantage of the 
 calamity of their ally the pope, seized Ravenna, and 
 other places belonging to the Church, under pretext of 
 keeping them in deposit. The dukes of Urbino and 
 
 ' Herbert, 83, etc. Rym. Feed., xiv. 203. 
 
 F Pi
 
 580 REIGN OF THE LBOOK v. 
 
 Ferrara laid hold likewise on part of the spoils of the 
 unfortunate pontiff, whom they considered as irretriev- 
 ably ruined. 8 
 
 Lannoy, on the other hand, laboured to derive some 
 solid benefit from that unforeseen event which gave 
 such splendour and superiority to his master's arms. 
 For this purpose he marched to Eome, together with 
 Moncada and the marquis del Guasto, at the head of all 
 the troops which they could assemble in the kingdom 
 of Naples. The arrival of this reinforcement brought 
 new calamities on the unhappy citizens of Home ; for 
 the soldiers, envying the wealth of their companions, 
 imitated their license, and with the utmost rapacity 
 gathered the gleanings which had escaped the avarice 
 of the Spaniards and Germans. There was not now 
 any army in Italy capable of making head against the 
 imperialists ; and nothing more was requisite to reduce 
 Bologna and the other towns in the ecclesiastical state 
 than to have appeared before them. But the soldiers, 
 having been so long accustomed, under Bourbon, to an 
 entire relaxation of discipline, and having tasted the 
 sweets of living at discretion in a great city, almost 
 without the control of a superior, were become so impa- 
 tient of military subordination, and so averse to service, 
 that they refused to leave Eome unless all their arrears 
 were paid, a condition which they knew to be impos- 
 sible. At the same time they declared that they would 
 not obey any other person than the prince of Orange, 
 whom the army had chosen general. Lannoy, finding 
 that it was no longer safe for him to remain among licen- 
 tious troops who despised his dignity and hated his 
 person, returned to Naples ; soon after, the marquis del 
 Guasto and Moncada thought it prudent to quit Eome, 
 for the same reason. The prince of Orange, a general 
 only in name, and by the most precarious of all tenures, 
 
 8 Guic., lib. xviii 453.
 
 BOOK v.] EMPEKOR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 581 
 
 the good will of soldiers whom success and license had 
 rendered capricious, was obliged to pay more attention 
 to their humours than they did to his commands. Thus 
 the emperor, instead of reaping any of the advantages 
 which he might have expected from the reduction of 
 Eome, had the mortification to see the most formidable 
 body of troops that he had ever brought into the field 
 continue in a state of inactivity from which it was impos- 
 sible to rouse them. 8 
 
 This gave the king of France and the Venetians leisure 
 to form new schemes and to enter into new engagements 
 for delivering the pope and preserving the liberties of 
 Italy. The newly-restored republic of Florence very 
 imprudently joined with them, and Lautrec, of whose 
 abilities the Italians entertained a much more favourable 
 opinion than his own master, was, in order to gratify 
 them, appointed generalissimo of the league. It was 
 with the utmost reluctance he undertook the office, being 
 unwilling to expose himself a second time to the difficul- 
 ties and disgraces which the negligence of the king 
 or the malice of his favourites might bring upon him. 
 The best troops in France marched under his com- 
 mand, and the king of England, though he had not yet 
 declared war against the emperor, advanced a consider- 
 able sum towards carrying on the expedition. Lautrec's 
 first operations were prudent, vigorous, and successful. 
 By the assistance of Andrew Doria, the ablest sea-officer 
 of that age, he rendered himself master of Genoa, and 
 re-established in that republic the faction of the Fregosi, 
 together with the dominion of France. He obliged 
 Alexander to surrender after a short siege, and reduced 
 all the country on that side of the Tessino. He took 
 Pavia, which had so long resisted the arms of his sove- 
 reign, by assault, and plundered it with that cruelty 
 which the memory of the fatal disaster that had befallen 
 
 3 Guic., lib. xviii. 454.
 
 582 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK v 
 
 the French nation before its walls naturally inspired. 
 All the Milanese, which Antonio de Leyva defended 
 with a small body of troops kept together and sup- 
 ported by his own address and industry, must have 
 soon submitted to his power if he had continued to bend 
 the force of his arms against that country. But Lautrec 
 durst not complete a conquest which would have been so 
 honourable to himself and of such advantage to the 
 league. Francis knew his confederates to be more de- 
 sirous of circumscribing the imperial power in Italy 
 than of acquiring new territories for him, and was afraid 
 that if Sforza were once re-established in Milan they 
 would second but coldly the attack which he intended 
 to make on the kingdom of Naples. For this reason, he 
 instructed Lautrec not to push his operations with too 
 much vigour in Lombardy ; and happily the importuni- 
 ties of the pope and the solicitations of the Florentines, 
 the one for relief and the other for protection, were so 
 urgent as to furnish him with a decent pretext for 
 marching forward without yielding to the entreaties of 
 the Venetians and Sforza, who insisted on his laying 
 siege to Milan. 4 
 
 While Lautrec advanced slowly towards Eome, the 
 emperor had time to deliberate concerning the disposal 
 of the pope's person, who still remained a prisoner in 
 the castle of St. Angelo. Notwithstanding the specious 
 veil of religion with which he usually endeavoured to 
 cover his actions, Charles in many instances appears 
 to have been but little under the influence of religious 
 considerations, and had frequently, on this occasion, 
 expressed an inclination to transport the pope into 
 Spain, that he might indulge his ambition with the 
 spectacle of the two most illustrious personages in 
 Europe successively prisoners in his court. But the 
 
 4 Quic., lib. xviii. 461. Bellay, 107, etc. Mauroc., Hist. Venet., 
 lib. iii. 238.
 
 BOOK v.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 583 
 
 fear of giving new offence to all Christendom, and of 
 filling his own subjects with horror, obliged him to 
 forego that satisfaction. 8 The progress of the confede- 
 rates made it now necessary either to set the pope at 
 liberty or to remove him to some place of confinement 
 more secure than the castle of St. Angelo. Many 
 considerations induced him to prefer the former, par- 
 ticularly his want of the money requisite as well for 
 recruiting his army as for paying off the vast arrears 
 due to it. In order to obtain this, he had assembled 
 the cortes of Castile at Valladolid about the beginning 
 of the year, and, having laid before them the state of 
 his affairs and represented the necessity of making 
 great preparations to resist the enemies whom envy at 
 the success which had crowned his arms would unite 
 against him, he demanded a large supply in the most 
 pressing terms; but the cortes, as the nation was 
 already exhausted by extraordinary donatives, refused 
 to load it with any new burden, and, in spite of all 
 his endeavours to gain or to intimidate the members, 
 persisted in this resolution. 6 No resource, therefore, 
 remained but the extorting from Clement, by way of 
 ransom, a sum sufficient for discharging what was due 
 to his troops, without which it was vain to mention to 
 them their leaving Rome. 
 
 Nor was the pope inactive on his part, or his in- 
 trigues unsuccessful towards hastening such a treaty. 
 By flattery, and the appearance of unbounded confi- 
 dence, he disarmed the resentment of cardinal Colonna, 
 and wrought upon his vanity, which made him desirous 
 of showing the world that, as his power had at first 
 depressed the pope, it could now raise him to his former 
 dignity. By favours and promises he gained Morone, 
 who, by one of those whimsical revolutions which occur 
 so often in his life, and which so strongly display his 
 
 s Guic., lib. xviii. 457. 6 Sandoval, i. 814.
 
 584 EEIGIN' UF THE t BOOK v - 
 
 character, had now recovered his credit and authority 
 with the imperialists. The address and influence of two 
 such men easily removed all the obstacles which re- 
 tarded an accommodation, and brought the treaty for 
 Clement's liberty to a conclusion, upon conditions hard, 
 indeed, but not more severe than a prince in his situation 
 had reason to expect. He was obliged to advance, in 
 ready money, a hundred thousand crowns for the use of 
 the army, to pay the same sum at the distance of a fort- 
 night, and, at the end of three months, a hundred and 
 fifty thousand more. He engaged not to take part in 
 the war against Charles, either in Lombardy or in 
 Naples ; he granted him a bull of cruzado, and the tenth 
 of ecclesiastical revenues in Spain; and he not only 
 gave hostages, but put the emperor in possession of 
 several towns, as a security for the performance of these 
 articles. 7 Having raised the first moiety by a sale of 
 ecclesiastical dignities and benefices, and other expe- 
 dients equally uncanonical, a day was fixed for deliver- 
 ing him from imprisonment. But Clement, impatient to 
 be free, after a tedious confinement of six months, as 
 well as full of the suspicion and distrust natural to the 
 unfortunate, was so much afraid that the imperialists 
 might still throw in obstacles to put off his deliverance 
 that he disguised himself, on the night preceding the day 
 when he was to be set free, in the habit of a merchant, 
 and, Alarcon having remitted somewhat of his vigilance 
 upon the conclusion of the treaty, he made his escape 
 undiscovered. He arrived before next morning at Orvi- 
 etto, without any attendants but a single officer, and from 
 thence wrote a letter of thanks to Lautrec, as the chief 
 instrument of procuring him liberty. 8 
 
 During these transactions, the ambassadors of France 
 and England repaired to Spain, in consequence of the 
 
 7 Guic., lib. xviii. 467, etc. Jov., Vit. Colon.. 169. Mauw,., 
 
 8 Guic., lib. xviii. 467, etc. Hist. Venet, lib. iii. 252.
 
 BOOK v.] EMPEEOR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 585 
 
 treaty which Wolsey had concluded with the French 
 king. The emperor, unwilling to draw on himself the 
 united forces of the two monarchs, discovered an inclina- 
 tion to relax somewhat the rigour of the treaty of 
 Madrid, to which hitherto he had adhered inflexibly. 
 He offered to accept of the two millions of crowns which 
 Francis had proposed to pay as an equivalent for the 
 duchy of Burgundy, and to set his sons at liberty, on 
 condition that he would recall his army out of Italy, and 
 restore Genoa, together with the other conquests which 
 he had made in that country. With regard to Sforza, 
 he insisted that his fate should be determined by the 
 judges appointed to inquire into his crimes. These pro- 
 positions being made to Henry, he transmitted them to 
 his ally, the French king, whom it more nearly con- 
 cerned to examine and to answer them ; and if Francis 
 had been sincerely solicitous either to conclude peace or 
 to preserve consistency in his own conduct, he ought 
 instantly to have closed with overtures which differed 
 but little from the propositions which he himself had 
 formerly made. 9 But his views were now much 
 changed : his alliance with Henry, Lautrec's progress in 
 Italy, and the superiority of his army there above that 
 of the emperor, hardly left him room to doubt of the 
 success of his enterprise against Naples. Full of these 
 sanguine hopes, he was at no loss to find pretexts for 
 rejecting or evading what the emperor had proposed. 
 Under the appearance of sympathy with Sforza, for 
 whose interests he had not hitherto discovered much 
 solicitude, he again demanded the full and uncondi- 
 tional re-establishment of that unfortunate prince in 
 his dominions. Under colour of its being imprudent 
 to rely on the emperor's sincerity, he insisted that his 
 sons should be set at liberty before the French troops 
 left Italy or surrendered Genoa. The unreasonable- 
 
 9 Recueil des Traite's, ii. 249.
 
 586 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK v. 
 
 ness of these demands, as well as the reproachful in- 
 sinuations with which they were accompanied, irritated 
 Charles to such a degree that he could harly listen to 
 them with patience, and, repenting of his moderation, 
 which had made so little impression on his enemies, 
 declared that he would not depart in the smallest article 
 from the conditions which he had now offered. Upon 
 this, the French and English ambassadors (for Henry 
 had been drawn unaccountably to concur with Francis in 
 these strange propositions) demanded and obtained their 
 audience of leave. 10 
 
 Next day, two heralds, who had accompanied the 
 ambassadors on purpose, though they had hitherto 
 concealed their character, having assumed the ensigns 
 of their office, appeared in the emperor's court, and, 
 being admitted into his presence, they, in the name 
 of their respective masters, and with all the solemnities 
 customary on such occasions, denounced war against 
 him. Charles received both with a dignity suitable to 
 his own rank, but spoke to each in a tone adapted to 
 the sentiments which he entertained of the sovereigns. 
 He accepted the defiance of the English monarch with a 
 firmness tempered by some degree of decency and 
 respect. His reply to the French king abounded with 
 that acrimony of expression which personal rivalship, 
 exasperated by the memory of many injuries inflicted as 
 well as suffered, naturally suggests. He desired the 
 French herald to acquaint his sovereign that he would 
 henceforth consider him not only as a base violater of 
 public faith, but as a stranger to the honour and inte- 
 grity becoming a gentleman. Francis, too high-spirited 
 to bear such an imputation, had recourse to an uncommon 
 expedient in order to vindicate his character. He in- 
 stantly sent back the herald with a cartel of defiance, in 
 which he gave the emperor the lie in form, challenged 
 
 10 Rym., xiv. 200. Herbert, 85. Guic., lib. xviiL 471
 
 BOOK v.J EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 587 
 
 him to single combat, requiring him to name the time 
 and place for the encounter, and the weapons with which 
 he chose to fight. Charles, as he was not inferior to his 
 rival in spirit or bravery, readily accepted the challenge ; 
 but, after several messages concerning the arrangement of 
 all the circumstances relative to the combat, accompanied 
 with mutual reproaches, bordering on the most indecent 
 scurrility, all thoughts of this duel, more becoming the 
 heroes of romance than the two greatest monarchs of their 
 age, were entirely laid aside. 11 
 
 The example of two personages so illustrious drew 
 such general attention, and carried with it so much 
 authority, that it had considerable influence in pro- 
 ducing an important change in manners all over 
 Europe. Duels, as has already been observed, had 
 long been permitted by the laws of all the European 
 nations, and, forming a part of their jurisprudence, 
 were authorized by the magistrate, on many occasions, 
 as the most proper method of terminating questions 
 with regard to property, or of deciding those which 
 respected crimes. But single combats being considered 
 as solemn appeals to the omniscience and justice of the 
 Supreme Being, they were allowed only in public 
 causes, according to the prescription of law, and carried 
 on in a judicial form. Men accustomed to this manner 
 of decisions in courts of justice were naturally led 
 to apply it to personal and private quarrels. Duels, 
 which at first could be appointed by the civil judge 
 alone, were fought without the interposition of his 
 authority, and in cases to which the laws did not extend. 
 The transaction between Charles and Francis strongly 
 countenanced this practice. Upon every affront or 
 injury which seemed to touch his honour, a gentleman 
 thought himself entitled to draw his sword, and to 
 
 11 Recueil des Trails, 2. M&n. de Bellay, 103, etc. Sandoval, 
 Hist, i. 837.
 
 588 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK v. 
 
 call on his adversary to give him satisfaction. Such 
 an opinion becoming prevalent among men of fierce 
 courage, of high spirit, and of rude manners, when 
 offence was often given, and revenge was always prompt, 
 produced most fatal consequences. Much of the best 
 blood in Christendom was shed ; many useful lives were 
 sacrificed ; and, at some periods, war itself hath hardly 
 been more destructive than these private contests of 
 honour. So powerful, however, is the dominion of 
 fashion, that neither the terror of penal laws, nor the 
 reverence for religion, have been able entirely to abolish 
 a practice unknown among the ancients, and not justi- 
 fiable by any principle of reason ; though, at the same 
 time, it must be admitted that to this absurd custom we 
 must ascribe in some degree the extraordinary gentleness 
 and complaisance of modern manners, and that respectful 
 attention of one man to another, which at present render 
 the social intercourses of life far more agreeable and de- 
 cent than among the most civilized nations of antiquity. 
 While the two monarchs seemed so eager to terminate 
 their quarrel by a personal combat, Lautrec continued 
 his operations, which promised to be more decisive. 
 His army, which was now increased to thirty-five thou- 
 sand men, advanced by great marches towards Naples. 
 The terror of their approach, as well as the remon- 
 strances and the entreaties of the prince of Orange, 
 prevailed at last on the imperial troops, though with 
 difficulty, to quit Eome, of which they had kept pos- 
 session during ten months. But of that flourishing 
 army which had entered the city, scarcely one-half 
 remained : the rest, cut off by the plague, or wasted by 
 disease, the effects of their inactivity, intemperance, 
 and debauchery, fell victims to their own crimes. 12 
 Lautrec made the greatest efiorts to attack them in 
 their retreat towards the Neapolitan territories, which 
 
 12 Guic., lib. xviii. 478.
 
 BOOK v.] EMPEROB OHAELES THE FIFTH. 589 
 
 would have finished the war at one blow. But the 
 prudence of their leaders disappointed all his measures, 
 and conducted them with little loss to Naples. The 
 people of that kingdom, extremely impatient to shake 
 off the Spanish yoke, received the French with open 
 arms wherever they appeared to take possession ; and, 
 Gaeta and Naples excepted, hardly any place of im- 
 portance remained in the hands of the imperialists. 
 The preservation of the former was owing to the 
 strength of its fortifications, that of the latter to the 
 presence of the imperial army. Lautrec, however, sat 
 down before Naples ; but, finding it vain to think of 
 reducing a city by force while defended by a whole 
 army, he was obliged to employ the slower but less 
 dangerous method of blockade; and, having taken 
 measures which appeared to him effectual, he con- 
 fidently assured his master that famine would soon 
 compel the besieged to capitulate. These hopes were 
 strongly confirmed by the defeat of a vigorous attempt 
 made by the enemy in order to recover the command 
 of the sea. The galleys of Andrew Doria, under the 
 command of his nephew Philippine, guarded the mouth 
 of the harbour. Moncada, who had succeeded Lannoy 
 in the viceroyalty, rigged out a number of galleys 
 superior to Doria' s, manned them with a chosen body of 
 Spanish veterans, and, going on board himself, together 
 with the marquis del Guasto, attacked Philippine before 
 the arrival of the Venetian and French fleets. But the 
 Genoese admiral, by his superior skill in naval opera- 
 tions, easily triumphed over the valour and number of 
 the Spaniards. The viceroy was killed, most of his 
 fleet destroyed, and Guasto, with many officers of dis- 
 tinction, being taken prisoners, were put on board the 
 captive galleys and sent by Philippine as trophies of his 
 victory to his uncle. 13 
 
 13 Guic., lib. xix. 487. P. Heuter., lib. x. c. 2, p. 231.
 
 590 BEIGN OF THE [BOOK v. 
 
 Notwithstanding this flattering prospect of success, 
 many circumstances concurred to frustrate Lautrec's 
 expectations. Clement, though he always acknow- 
 ledged his being indebted to Francis for the recovery 
 of his liberty, and often complained of the cruel treat- 
 ment which he had met with from the emperor, was 
 not influenced at this juncture by principles of gratitude, 
 nor, which is more extraordinary, was he swayed by 
 the desire of revenge. His past misfortunes rendered 
 him more cautious than ever, and his recollection of the 
 errors, which he had committed increased the natural 
 irresolution of his mind. While he amused Francis 
 with promises, he secretly negotiated with Charles ; 
 and, being solicitous above all things to re-establish 
 his family in Florence with their ancient authority, 
 which he could not expect from Francis, who had 
 entered into strict alliance with the new republic, he 
 leaned rather to the side of his enemy than to that of 
 his benefactor, and gave Lautrec no assistance towards 
 carrying on his operations. The Venetians, viewing 
 with jealousy the progress of the French arms, were 
 intent only upon recovering such maritime towns in 
 the Neapolitan dominions as were to be possessed by 
 their republic, while they were altogether careless about 
 the reduction of Naples, on which the success of the 
 common cause depended. 14 The king of England, 
 instead of being able, as had been projected, to em- 
 barrass the emperor by attacking his territories in 
 the Low Countries, found his subjects so averse to an 
 unnecessary war, which would have ruiped the trade 
 of the nation, that, in order to silence their clamours 
 and put a stop to the insurrections ready to break out 
 among them, he was compelled to conclude a truce for 
 eight months with the governess of the Netherlands. 16 
 Francis himself, with the same unpardonable inatten- 
 
 14 Guic., lib. xix. 491. " Herbert, 90. Kymer, xiv. 258
 
 BOOK v.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 591 
 
 tion of which he had formerly been guilty and for 
 which he had suffered so severely, neglected to make 
 proper remittances to Lautrec for the support of his 
 army. 16 
 
 These unexpected events retarded the progress of the- 
 French, discouraging both the general and his troops ; 
 but the revolt of Andrew Doria proved a fatal blow to 
 all their measures. That gallant officer, the citizen of 
 a republic, and trained up from his infancy in the sea- 
 service, retained the spirit of independence natural to 
 the former, together with the plain, liberal manners 
 peculiar to the latter. A stranger to the arts of sub- 
 mission or flattery necessary in courts, but conscious, 
 at the same time, of his own merit and importance, he 
 always offered his advice with freedom, and often pre- 
 ferred his complaints and remonstrances with boldness. 
 The French ministers, unaccustomed to such liberties, 
 determined to ruin a man who treated them with 
 so little deference ; and though Francis himself had 
 a just sense of Doria's services, as well as a high esteem 
 for his character, the courtiers, by continually repre- 
 senting him as a man haughty, intractable, and more 
 solicitous to aggrandise himself than to promote the 
 interests of France, gradually undermined the founda- 
 tions of his credit, and filled the king's mind with 
 suspicion and distrust. From thence proceeded several 
 affronts and indignities put upon Doria. His appoint- 
 ments were not regularly paid; his advice, even in 
 naval affairs, was often slighted ; an attempt was made 
 to seize the prisoners taken by his nephew in the 
 sea-fight off Naples ; all which he bore with abundance 
 of ill-humour. liut an injury offered t^> his country 
 transported him beyond all bounds of patience. The 
 French began to fortify Savona, to clear its harbour, 
 and, removing thither some branches of trade carried 
 
 16 Guic., lib. xviii. 478.
 
 592 fcEIGN OF THE [BOOK T. 
 
 on at Genoa, plainly showed that they intended to 
 render that town, which had been long the object of 
 jealousy and hatred to the Genoese, ^heir rival in 
 wealth and commerce. Doria, animated with a patriotic 
 zeal for the honour and interest of his country, re- 
 monstrated against this in the highest tone, not without 
 threats if the measure were not instantly abandoned. 
 This bold action, aggravated by the malice of the 
 courtiers, and placed in the most odious light, irritated 
 Francis to such a degree, that he commanded Barbe- 
 sieux, whom he appointed admiral of the Levant, to 
 sail directly to Genoa with the French fleet, to arrest 
 Doria, and to seize his galleys. This rash order, 
 the execution of which could have been secured only 
 by the most profound secrecy, was concealed with so 
 little care, that Doria got timely intelligence of it, 
 and retired with all his galleys to a place of safety. 
 Guasto, his prisoner, who had long observed and 
 fomented his growing discontent, and had often allured 
 him by magnificent promises to enter into the em- 
 peror's service, laid hold on this favourable opportunity. 
 While Jbi.8 indignation and resentment were at their 
 height, he prevailed on him to despatch one of his 
 officers to the imperial court with his overtures and 
 demands. The negotiation was not long : Charles, 
 fully sensible of the importance of such an acquisition, 
 granted him whatever terms he required. Doria sent 
 back his commission, together with the collar -of St. 
 Michael, to Francis, and, hoisting the imperial colours, 
 sailed with all his galleys towards Naples, not to 
 block up the harbour of that unhappy city, as he had 
 formerly engaged, but to bring them protection and 
 deliverance. 
 
 His arrival opened the communication with the sea, 
 and restored plenty in Naples, which was now reduced 
 to the last extremity ; and the French, having lost their
 
 BOOK V.j EMPEEOE CHARLES THE FIFTH. 593 
 
 superiority at sea, were soon reduced to great straits 
 for want of provisions. The prince of Orange, who 
 succeeded the viceroy in the command of the imperial 
 army, showed himself by his prudent conduct worthy 
 of that honour which his good fortune and the death of 
 his generals had twice acquired him. Beloved by the 
 troops, who, remembering the prosperity which they 
 had enjoyed under his command, served him with the 
 utmost alacrity, he let slip no opportunity of harassing 
 the enemy, and by continual alarms or sallies fatigued 
 and weakened them. 17 As an addition to all these mis- 
 fortunes, the diseases common in that country during 
 the sultry months began to break out among the 
 French troops. The prisoners communicated to them 
 the pestilence which the imperial army had brought to 
 Naples from Rome, and it raged with such violence 
 that few, either officers or soldiers, escaped the infec- 
 tion. Of the whole army, not four thousand men, 
 a number hardly sufficient to defend the camp, were 
 capable of doing duty ; 18 and, being now besieged in 
 their turn, they suffered all the miseries from which 
 the imperialists were delivered. Lautrec, after struggling 
 long with so many disappointments and calamities, which 
 preyed on his mind at the same time that the pestilence 
 wasted his body, died, lamenting the negligence of his 
 sovereign and the infidelity of his allies, to which so 
 many brave men had fallen victims. 19 By his death, 
 and the indisposition of the other generals, the com- 
 mand devolved on the marquis de Saluces, an officer 
 altogether unequal to such a trust. He, with troops 
 no less dispirited than reduced, retreated in disorder 
 to Aversa ; which town being invested by the prince 
 of Orange, Saluces was under the necessity of con- 
 
 17 Jovii Hist., lib. xxxvi. p. 31, 18 Bellay, 117, etc. 
 
 etc. Sigonii Vita Doriae, p. 1139. l9 P. Heuter., Eenun Austr., lib. 
 
 Bellay, 114, etc. r. c. 2, p. 231. 
 
 VOL. /- Q Q
 
 594 EETGtf OF THE PBOOV - 
 
 senting that he himself should remain a prisoner of war, 
 that his troops should lay down their arms and colours, 
 give up their baggage, and march under a guard to 
 the frontiers of France. By this ignominious capitula- 
 tion the wretched remains of the French army were 
 saved ; and the emperor, by his own perseverance and 
 the good conduct of his generals, acquired once more 
 the superiority in Italy. 20 
 
 The loss of Genoa followed immediately upon the 
 ruin of the army in Naples. To deliver his country 
 from the dominion of foreigners was Doria's highest 
 ambition, and had been his principal inducement to quit 
 the service of France and enter into that of the emperor. 
 A most favourable opportunity for executing this 
 honourable enterprise now presented itself. The city 
 of Genoa, afflicted by the pestilence, was almost deserted 
 by its inhabitants ; the French garrison, being neither 
 regularly paid nor recruited, was reduced to an incon- 
 siderable number ; Doria's emissaries found that such of 
 the citizens as remained, being weary alike of the 
 French and imperial yoke, the rigour of which they 
 had alternately felt, were ready to welcome him as their 
 deliverer and to second all his measures. Things wear- 
 ing this promising aspect, he sailed towards the coast 
 of Genoa ; on his approach the French galleys retired ; 
 a small body of men which he landed surprised one of 
 the gates of Genoa in the night-time; Trivulci, the 
 French governor, with his feeble garrison, shut himself 
 up in the citadel, and Doria took possession of the town 
 without bloodshed or resistance. Want of provisions 
 quickly obliged Trivulci to capitulate ; the people, eager 
 to abolish such an odious monument of their servitude, 
 ran together with a tumultuous violence and levelled the 
 citadel with the ground. 
 
 It was now in Doria's power to have rendered him- 
 
 * Bellay, 117, etc. Jovii Hist, lib. xxv., xxvi
 
 BOOK v.l EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 595 
 
 self the sovereign of his country, which he had so 
 happily delivered from oppression. The fame of his 
 former actions, the success of his present attempt, the 
 attachment of his friends, the gratitude of his country- 
 men, together with the support of the emperor, all con- 
 spired to facilitate his attaining the supreme authority 
 and invited him to lay hold of it. But, with a magna- 
 nimity of which there are few examples, he sacrificed 
 all thoughts of aggrandizing himself to the virtuous 
 satisfaction of establishing liberty in his country, the 
 highest object at which ambition can aim. Having 
 assembled the whole body of the people in the court 
 before his palace, he assured them that the happiness 
 of seeing them once more in possession of freedom was 
 to him a full reward for all his services ; that, more 
 delighted with the name of citizen than of sovereign, he 
 claimed no pre-eminence or power above his equals, but 
 remitted entirely to them the right of settling what form 
 of government they would now choose to be established 
 among them. The people listened to him with tears of 
 admiration and of joy. Twelve persons were elected to 
 new-model the constitution of the republic. The influ- 
 ence of Doria's virtue and example communicated itself 
 to his countrymen : the factions which had long torn 
 and ruined the state seemed to be forgotten ; prudent 
 precautions were taken to prevent their reviving ; and 
 the same form of government which hath subsisted with 
 little variation since that time in Genoa was established 
 with universal applause. Doria lived to a great age, 
 beloved, respected, and honoured by his countrymen ; 
 and, adhering uniformly to his professions of moderation, 
 without arrogating any thing unbecoming a private 
 citizen, he preserved a great ascendant over the councils 
 of the republic, which owed its being to his generosity. 
 The authority which he possessed was more flattering, 
 
 as well as more satisfactory, than that derived from 
 
 Q Q 2
 
 59(5 BEIGN OF THE [BOOK v. 
 
 sovereignty, a dominion founded in love and in grati- 
 tude, and upheld by veneration for his virtues, not by 
 the dread of his power. His memory is still reverenced 
 by the Genoese ; and he is distinguished in their public 
 monuments, and celebrated in the works of their his- 
 torians, by the most honourable of all appellations, THE 
 
 FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY, AND THE RESTORER OF ITS 
 LIBERTY. 21 
 
 Francis, in order to recover the reputation of his 
 arms, discredited by so many losses, made new efforts 
 in the Milanese. But the count of St. Pol, a rash and 
 unexperienced officer, to whom he gave the command, 
 was no match for Antonio de Leyva, the ablest of the 
 imperial generals. He, by his superior skill in war, 
 checked, with a handful of men, the brisk but ill- 
 concerted motions of the French ; and, though so infirm 
 himself that he was carried constantly in a litter, he 
 surpassed them, when occasion required, no less in 
 activity than in prudence. By an unexpected march, 
 he surprised, defeated, and took prisoner the count of 
 St. Pol, ruining the French army in the Milanese as 
 entirely as the prince of Orange had ruined that which 
 besieged Naples. 22 
 
 Amidst these vigorous operations in the field, each 
 party discovered an impatient desire of peace, and 
 continual negotiations were carried on for that purpose. 
 The French king, discouraged and almost exhausted by 
 so many unsuccessful enterprises, was reduced now to 
 think of obtaining the release of his sons by concessions, 
 not by the terror of his arms. The pope hoped to 
 recover by a treaty whatever he had lost in the war. 
 The emperor, notwithstanding the advantages which he 
 had gained, had many reasons to make him wish for an 
 
 21 Guic., lib. xix. 498. Sigonii 22 Guic., lib. xix. 520. P. Heu- 
 Vita Dorise, p. 1146. Jovii Hist, ter., Rer. Austr., lib. x. c. 3, p. 233. 
 lib. xxvi. p. 36, etc. Mom. de Bellay, p. 121.
 
 BOOK v.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 597 
 
 accommodation. Solyman, having overrun Hungary, 
 was ready to break in upon the Austrian territories with 
 the whole force of the East. The Eeformation gaining 
 ground daily in Germany, the princes who favoured it 
 had entered into a confederacy which Charles thought 
 dangerous to the tranquillity of the empire. The 
 Spaniards murmured at a war of such unusual length, 
 the weight of which rested chiefly on them. The variety 
 mid extent of the emperor's operations far exceeded 
 what his revenues could support : his success hitherto 
 had been owing chiefly to his own good fortune and to 
 the abilities of his generals ; nor could he flatter himself 
 that they, with troops destitute of every thing necessary, 
 would always triumph over enemies still in a condition 
 to renew their attacks. All parties, however, were at 
 equal pains to conceal or to dissemble their real senti- 
 ments. The emperor, that his inability to carry on the 
 war might not be suspected, insisted on high terms in 
 the tone of a conqueror. The pope, solicitous not to 
 lose his present allies before he came to any agreement 
 with Charles, continued to make a thousand protesta- 
 tions of fidelity to the former, while he privately 
 negotiated with the latter. Francis, afraid that his 
 confederates might prevent him by treating for them- 
 selves with the emperor, had recourse to many dis- 
 honourable artifices in order to turn their attention from 
 the measures which he was taking to adjust all differ- 
 ences with his rival. 
 
 In this situation of affairs, when all the contending 
 powers wished for peace but durst not venture too 
 hastily on the steps necessary for attaining it, two ladies 
 undertook to procure this blessing so much desired by 
 all Europe. These were Margaret of Austria, duchess 
 dowager of Savoy, the emperor's aunt, and Louise, 
 Francis's mother. They agreed on an interview at 
 Cambray, and, being lodged in two adjoining houses,
 
 598 REIGN OP THE [BOOK v. 
 
 between which a communication was opened, met 
 together without ceremony or observation, and held 
 daily conferences, to which no person whatever was 
 admitted. As both were profoundly skilled in business, 
 thoroughly acquainted with the secrets of their respec- 
 tive courts, and possessed with perfect confidence in 
 each other, they soon made great progress towards a 
 final accommodation; and the ambassadors of all the 
 confederates waited in anxious suspense to know their 
 fate, the determination of which was entirely in the 
 hands of those illustrious negotiators. 23 
 
 But, whatever diligence they used to hasten forward 
 a general peace, the pope had the address and industry 
 to get the start of his allies, by concluding at Barcelona 
 a particular treaty for himself. The emperor, impatient 
 to visit Italy in his way to Germany, and desirous of 
 re-establishing tranquillity in the one country before 
 he attempted to compose the disorders which abounded 
 in the other, found it necessary to secure at least one 
 alliance among the Italian states on which he might 
 depend. That with Clement, who courted it with un- 
 wearied importunity, seemed more proper than any 
 other. Charles, being extremely solicitous to make 
 some reparation for the insults which he had offered to 
 the sacred character of the pope, and to redeem past 
 offences by new merit, granted Clement, notwithstand- 
 ing all his misfortunes, terms more favourable than he 
 could have expected after a continued series of suc- 
 cesses. Among other articles, he engaged to restore all 
 the territories belonging to the ecclesiastical state, to 
 re-establish the dominion of the Medici in Florence, 
 to give his natural daughter in marriage to Alexander, 
 the head of that family, and to put it in the pope's 
 power to decide concerning the fate of Sforza and the 
 
 P. Heater., Rer. Austr., lib. x. c. 3, p. 133. Mifco. de Bollay, p. 
 
 23 
 
 J22,
 
 BOOK v.] EMPEROE CHARLES THE FIFTH. 599 
 
 possession of the Milanese. In return for these ample 
 concessions, Clement gave the emperor the investiture 
 of Naples without the reserve of any tribute but the 
 present of a white steed in acknowledgment of his 
 sovereignty, absolved all who had been concerned in 
 assaulting and plundering Rome, and permitted Charles 
 and his brother Ferdinand to levy the fourth of the 
 ecclesiastical revenues throughout their dominions. 24 
 
 The account of this transaction quickened the nego- 
 tiations at Cambray, and brought Margaret and Louise 
 to an immediate agreement. The treaty of Madrid 
 served as the basis of that which they concluded ; the 
 latter being intended to mitigate the rigour of the 
 former. The chief articles were, that the emperor 
 should not for the present demand the restitution of 
 Burgundy, reserving, however, in full force his rights 
 and pretensions to that duchy ; that Francis should pay 
 two millions of crowns as the ransom of his sons, and, 
 before they were set at liberty, should restore such 
 towns as he still held in the Milanese ; that he should 
 resign his pretensions to the sovereignty of Flanders 
 and of Artois ; that he should renounce all his preten- 
 sions to Naples, Milan, Genoa, and every other place 
 beyond the Alps ; that he should immediately consum- 
 mate the marriage concluded between him and the 
 emperor's sister Eleanora. 25 
 
 Thus Francis, chiefly from his impatience to procure 
 liberty to his sons, sacrificed every thing which had at 
 first prompted him to take arms, or which had induced 
 him, by continuing hostilities during nine successive 
 campaigns, to protract the war to a length hardly known 
 in Europe before the establishment of standing armies 
 and the imposition of exorbitant taxes became universal. 
 The emperor, by this treaty, was rendered sole arbiter 
 
 24 Guic., lib. xix. 522. c. 3, p. 234. Sandoval, Hist del 
 
 84 P Heuter., Rer. Austr., lib. x. Emper. Car. V., ii. 28.
 
 600 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK v. 
 
 of the fate of Italy ; lie delivered his territories in the 
 Netherlands from an unpleasant badge of subjection ; 
 and, after having baffled his rival in the field, he pre- 
 scribed to him the conditions of peace. The different 
 conduct and spirit with -which the two monarchs carried 
 on the operations of war led naturally to such an issue 
 of it. Charles, inclined by temper as well as obliged 
 by his situation, concerted all his schemes with caution, 
 pursued them with perseverance, and, observing circum- 
 stances and events with attention, let none escape that 
 could be improved to advantage. Francis, more enter- 
 prising than steady, undertook great designs with 
 warmth, but often executed them with remissness, and, 
 diverted by his pleasures or deceived by his favourites, 
 he lost on several occasions the most promising oppor- 
 tunities of success. Nor had the character of the two 
 rivals themselves greater influence on the operations of 
 war than the opposite qualities of the generals whom 
 they employed. Among the imperialists, valour tem- 
 pered with prudence, fertility of invention, aided by 
 experience, discernment to penetrate the designs of 
 their enemies, a provident sagacity in conducting their 
 own measures, in a word, all the talents which form 
 great commanders and insure victory, were conspicu- 
 ous. Among the French these qualities were either 
 wanting, or the very reverse of them abounded; nor 
 could they boast of one man (unless we except Lautrec, 
 who was always unfortunate) that equalled the merit of 
 Pescara, Leyva, Guasto, the prince of Orange, and other 
 leaders, whom Charles had set in opposition to them. 
 Bourbon, Morone, Doria, who by their abilities and con- 
 duct might have been capable of balancing the supe- 
 riority which the imperialists had acquired, were induced 
 to abandon the service of France, by the carelessness of 
 the king and the malice or injustice of his counsellors; 
 and the most fatal blows given to France during the
 
 BOOK v.] EMPEROR CHAELES THE FIFTH. G01 
 
 progress of the war proceeded from the despair and 
 resentment of these three persons. 
 
 The hard conditions to which Francis was obliged 
 to submit were not the most afflicting circumstances to 
 him in the treaty of Cambray. He lost his reputation, 
 and the confidence of all Europe, by abandoning his 
 allies to his rival. Unwilling to enter into the details 
 necessary for adjusting their interests, or afraid that 
 whatever he claimed for them must have been pur- 
 chased by farther concessions on his own part, he gave 
 them up in a body, and, without the least provision in 
 their behalf, left the Venetians, the Florentines, the 
 duke of Ferrara, together with such of the Neapolitan 
 barons as had joined his army, to the mercy of the 
 emperor. They exclaimed loudly against this base and 
 perfidious action, of which Francis himself was so much 
 ashamed that, in order to avoid the pain of hearing 
 from their ambassadors the reproaches which he justly 
 merited, it was some time before he would consent to 
 allow them an audience. Charles, on the other hand, 
 was attentive to the interest of every person who had 
 adhered to him : the rights of some of his Flemish 
 subjects who had estates or pretensions in France were 
 secured ; one article was inserted, obliging Francis to 
 restore the blood and memory of the Constable Bourbon, 
 and to grant his heirs the possession of his lauds which 
 had been forfeited ; another, by which the indemnifica- 
 tion was stipulated for those French gentlemen who 
 had accompanied Bourbon in his exile. 26 This conduct, 
 laudable in itself, and placed in the most striking light 
 by a comparison with that of Francis, gained Charles 
 as much esteem as the success of his arms had acquired 
 him glory. 
 
 Francis did not treat the king of England with the 
 same neglect as his other allies. He communicated to 
 
 26 Guic.. lib. xix. p. 525. P. Heuter., Ber. Austr., lib. x. c. 4, p. 236.
 
 602 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK T. 
 
 him all the steps of his negotiation at Cambray, and 
 luckily found that monarch in a situation which left 
 him no choice but to approve implicitly of his measures, 
 and to concur with them. Henry had been soliciting 
 the pope for some time in order to obtain a divorce 
 from Catharine of Aragon, his queen. Several motives 
 combined in prompting the king to urge his suit. As 
 he was powerfully influenced at some seasons by religious 
 considerations, he entertained many scruples concerning 
 the legitimacy of his marriage with his brother's widow ; 
 his affections had long been estranged from the queen, 
 who was older than himself, and had lost all the charms 
 which she possessed in the earlier part of her life ; he 
 was passionately desirous of having male issue ; Wolsey 
 artfully fortified his scruples, and encouraged his hopes, 
 that he might widen the breach between him and the 
 emperor, Catharine's nephew ; and, what was more 
 forcible, perhaps, in its operation than all these united, 
 the king had conceived a violent love for the celebrated 
 Anne Boleyn, a young lady of great beauty, and of 
 greater accomplishments, whom, as he found it im- 
 possible to gain her on other terms, he determined to 
 raise to the throne. The papal authority had often been 
 interposed to grant divorces for reasons less specious 
 than those which Henry produced. When the matter 
 was first proposed to Clement, during his imprisonment 
 in the castle of St. Angelo, as his hopes of recovering 
 liberty depended -entirely on the king of England and 
 his ally of France, he expressed the warmest inclination 
 to gratify him. But no sooner was he set free than 
 he discovered other sentiments. Charles, who espoused 
 the protection of his aunt with zeal inflamed by resent- 
 ment, alarmed the pope, on the one hand, with threats 
 which made a deep impression on his timid mind, and 
 allured him, on the other, with those promises in favour 
 of his family which he afterwards accomplished. Upon
 
 BOOK v.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 603 
 
 the prospect of these, Clement not only forgot all his 
 obligations to Henry, but ventured to endanger the 
 interests of the Romish religion in England, and to run 
 the risk of alienating that kingdom for ever from the 
 obedience of the papal see. After amusing Henry 
 during two years with all the subtleties and chicane 
 which the court of Eome can so dexterously employ to 
 protract or defeat any cause, after displaying the whole 
 extent of his ambiguous and deceitful policy, the intri- 
 cacies of which the English historians, to whom it 
 properly belongs, have found it no easy matter to trace 
 and unravel, he at last recalled the powers of the 
 delegates whom he had appointed to judge in the point, 
 avocated the cause to Eome, leaving the king no other 
 hope of obtaining a divorce but from the personal 
 decision of the pope himself. As Clement was now in 
 strict alliance with the emperor, who had purchased his 
 friendship by the exorbitant concessions which have 
 been mentioned, Henry despaired of procuring any 
 sentence from the former but what was dictated by the 
 latter. His honour, however, and passions concurred in 
 preventing him from relinquishing his scheme of a 
 divorce, which he determined to accomplish by other 
 means, and at any rate ; and the continuance of 
 Francis's friendship being necessary to counterbalance 
 the emperor's power, he, in order to secure that, not 
 only offered no remonstrances against the total neglect 
 of their allies in the treaty of Cambray, but made 
 Francis the present of a large sum as a brotherly 
 contribution towards the payment of the ransom for 
 his sons. 27 
 
 Soon after the treaty of peace was concluded, the 
 emperor landed in Italy with a numerous train of the 
 Spanish nobility and a considerable body of troops. 
 He left the government of Spain, during his absence, 
 
 * 7 Herbert, M&n. de Bellay, 122.
 
 604 REIGN OF THE [BOOK v, 
 
 to the empress Isabella. By his long residence in that 
 country he had acquired such thorough knowledge of 
 the character of the people that he could perfectly 
 accommodate the maxims of his government to their 
 genius. He could even assume, upon some occasions, 
 such popular manners as gained wonderfully upon the 
 Spaniards. A striking instance of his disposition to 
 gratify them had occurred a few days before he em- 
 barked for Italy. He was to make his public entry into 
 the city of Barcelona ; and some doubts having arisen 
 among the inhabitants whether they should receive him 
 as emperor or as count of Barcelona, Charles instantly 
 decided in favour of the latter, declaring that he was 
 more proud of that ancient title than of his imperial 
 crown. Soothed with this flattering expression of his 
 regard, the citizens welcomed him with acclamations of 
 joy; and the states of the province swore allegiance to 
 his son Philip, as heir of the county of Barcelona. A 
 similar oath had been taken in all the kingdoms of 
 Spain, with equal satisfaction. 28 
 
 The emperor appeared in Italy with the pomp and 
 power of a conqueror. Ambassadors from all the princes 
 and states of that country attended his court, waiting 
 to receive his decision with regard to- their fate. At 
 Genoa, where he first landed, he was received with the 
 acclamations due to the protector of their liberties. 
 Having honoured Doria with many marks of dis- 
 tinction, and bestowed on the republic several new 
 privileges, he proceeded to Bologna, the place fixed upon 
 for his interview with the pope. He affected to unite 
 in his public entry into that city the state and majesty 
 that suited an emperor with the humility becoming an 
 obedient son of the Church ; and while at the head of 
 twenty thousand veteran soldiers, able to give law to 
 all Italy, he kneeled down to kiss the feet of that very 
 
 * 8 Sandoval, ii. p. f>0. Ferreras, ix. 116.
 
 BOOK vl EMPEROB CHABLES THE FIFTH. 605 
 
 pope whom he had so lately detained a prisoner. The 
 Italians, after suffering so much from the ferocity and 
 licentiousness of his armies, and after having been long 
 accustomed to form in their imagination a picture of 
 Charles which bore some resemblance to that of the 
 barbarous monarchs of the Goths or Huns, who had 
 formerly afflicted their country with like calamities, were 
 surprised to see a prince of a graceful appearance, affable 
 and courteous in his deportment, of regular manners, and 
 of exemplary attention to all the offices of religion. 29 
 They were still more astonished when he settled all the 
 concerns of the princes and states which now depended 
 on him with a degree of moderation and equity much 
 beyond what they had expected. 
 
 Charles himself, when he set out from Spain, far 
 from intending to give any such extraordinary proof 
 of his self-denial, seems to have been resolved to avail 
 himself to the utmost of the superiority which he had 
 acquired in Italy. But various circumstances concurred 
 in pointing out the necessity of pursuing a very different 
 course. The progress of the Turkish sultan, who, after 
 overrunning Hungary, had penetrated into Austria and 
 laid siege to Vienna with an army of a hundred and 
 fifty thousand men, loudly called upon him to collect 
 his whole force to oppose that torrent ; and though the 
 valour of the Germans, the prudent conduct of Ferdinand, 
 together with the treachery of the vizier, soon obliged 
 Solyman to abandon that enterprise with disgrace and 
 loss, the religious disorders still growing in Germany 
 rendered the presence of the emperor highly necessary 
 there. 30 The Florentines, instead of giving their consent 
 to the re-establishment of the Medici, which by the 
 treaty of Barcelona the emperor had bound himself to 
 procure, were preparing to defend their liberty by force 
 
 38 Sandoval, Hist, del Emp. CarL * Sleidan., 121. Guic., lib. JOE. 
 
 V., ii. 50, 53, etc. 660.
 
 (506 KEIGKN OF THH [BOOK v. 
 
 of arms ; the preparations for his journey had involved 
 him in unusual expenses ; and on this, as well as many 
 other occasions, the multiplicity of his affairs, together 
 with the narrowness of his revenues, obliged him to 
 contract the schemes which his boundless ambition was 
 apt to form, and to forego present and certain advan- 
 tages that he might guard against more remote but 
 unavoidable dangers. Charles, from all these considera- 
 tions, finding it necessary to assume an air of moderation, 
 acted his part with a good grace. He admitted Sforza 
 into his presence, and not only gave him a full pardon 
 of all past offences, but granted him the investiture of 
 the duchy, together with his niece, the king of Den- 
 mark's daughter, in marriage. He allowed the duke of 
 Ferrara to keep possession of all his dominions, adjusting 
 the points in dispute between him and the pope with an 
 impartiality not very agreeable to the latter. He came 
 to a final accommodation with the Venetians, upon the 
 reasonable condition of their restoring whatever they 
 had usurped during the late war, either in the Nea- 
 politan or papal territories. In return for so many 
 concessions, he exacted considerable sums from each of 
 the powers with whom he treated, which they paid 
 without reluctance, and which afforded him the means of 
 proceeding on his journey towards Germany with a 
 magnificence suitable to his dignity. 31 
 
 These treaties, which restored tranquillity to Italy 
 after a tedious war, the calamities of which had chiefly 
 affected that country, were published at Bologna with 
 great solemnity on the first day of the year 1530, amidst 
 the universal acclamations of the people ; applauding 
 the emperor, to whose moderation and generosity they 
 ascribed the blessings of peace which they had so long 
 desired. The Florentines alone did not partake of this 
 general joy. Animated with a zeal for liberty more 
 
 31 SandoVal, ii. 55, etc.
 
 HOOK v.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 607 
 
 laudable than prudent, they determined to oppose the 
 restoration of the Medici. The imperial army had 
 already entered their territories and formed the siege of 
 their capital. But though deserted by all their allies, 
 and left without any hope of succour, they defended 
 themselves many months with an obstinate valour worthy 
 of better success ; and even when they surrendered they 
 obtained a capitulation which gave them hopes of 
 securing some remains of their liberty. But the em- 
 peror, from his desire to gratify the pope, frustrated all 
 their expectations, and, abolishing their ancient form of 
 government, raised Alexander de' Medici to the same 
 absolute dominion over that state which his family have 
 retained to the present times. Philibert de Chalons, 
 prince of Orange, the imperial general, was killed during 
 this siege. His estate and titles descended to his sister, 
 Claude de Chalons, who was married to Rene', count of 
 Nassau; and she transmitted to her posterity of the 
 house of Nassau the title of princes of Orange, which 
 by their superior talents and valour they have rendered 
 so illustrious. 32 
 
 After the publication of the peace at Bologna, and 
 the ceremony of his coronation as king of Lombardy 
 and emperor of the Romans, which the pope performed 
 with the accustomed formalities, nothing detained 
 Charles in Italy ; M and he began to prepare for his 
 journey to Germany. His presence became every day 
 more necessary in that country, and was solicited with 
 equal importunity by the Catholics and by the favourers 
 of the new doctrines. During that long interval of 
 tranquillity which the absence of the emperor, the con- 
 tests between him and the pope, and his attention to the 
 war with France afforded them, the latter gained much 
 
 32 Guic., lib. xx., p. 341, etc. 33 H. Cornel. Agrippa de duplici 
 
 P. Heuter., Rer. Austr., lib. ii. c. 4, coronatione Car. V., ap. Scard., ii. 
 p. 236. 226.
 
 608 EEIQN OP THE [BOOK V. 
 
 ground. Most of the princes who had embraced Luther's 
 opinions had not only established in their territories that 
 form of worship which he approved, but had entirely 
 suppressed the rites of the Eomish Church. Many of 
 the free cities had imitated their conduct. Almost one- 
 half of the Germanic body had revolted from the papal 
 see; and its authority, even in those provinces which 
 had not hitherto shaken off the yoke, was considerably 
 weakened, partly by the example of revolt in the neigh- 
 bouring states, partly by the secret progress of the 
 Keformed doctrine, even in those countries where it 
 was not openly embraced. Whatever satisfaction the 
 emperor, while he was at open enmity with the see of 
 Borne, might have felt in those events which tended to 
 mortify and embarrass the pope, he could not help 
 perceiving now that the religious divisions in Germany 
 would, in the end, prove extremely hurtful to the 
 imperial authority. The weakness of former emperors 
 had suffered the great vassals oi the empire to make 
 such successful encroachments upon their power and 
 prerogative that during the whole course of the war, 
 which had often required the exertion of his utmost 
 strength, Charles hardly drew any effectual aid from 
 Germany, and found that magnificent titles or obsolete 
 pretensions were almost the only advantages which he 
 had gained by swaying the imperial sceptre. He became 
 fully sensible that if he did not recover in some degree 
 the prerogatives which his predecessors had lost, and 
 acquire the authority as well as possess the name of 
 head of the empire, his high dignity would contribute 
 more to obstruct than to promote his ambitious schemes. 
 Nothing, he saw, was more essential towards attaining 
 this than to suppress opinions which might form new 
 bonds of confederacy among the princes of the empire 
 and unite them by ties stronger and more sacred than 
 any political connection. Nothing seemed to lead more
 
 BOOK v.] EMPEEOE CHAELES THE FIFTH. 609 
 
 certainly to the accomplishment of his design than to 
 employ zeal for the established religion, of which he 
 was the natural protector, as the instrument of extending 
 his civil authority. 
 
 Accordingly, a prospect no sooner opened of coming 
 to an accommodation with the pope than, by the em- 
 peror's appointment, a diet of the empire was held at 
 Spires, in order to take into consideration the state of 
 religion. The decree of the diet assembled there in the 
 year 1526, which was almost equivalent to a toleration 
 of Luther's opinions, had given great offence to the rest 
 of Christendom. The greatest delicacy of address, how- 
 ever, was requisite in proceeding to any decision more 
 rigorous. The minds of men, kept in perpetual agitation 
 by a controversy carried on during twelve years without 
 intermission of debate or abatement of zeal, were now 
 inflamed to a high degree. They were accustomed to 
 innovations, and saw the boldest of them successful. 
 Having not only abolished old rites, but substituted 
 new forms in their place, they were influenced as much 
 by attachment to the system which they had embraced 
 as by aversion to that which they had abandoned. 
 Luther himself, of a spirit not to be worn out by the 
 length and obstinacy of the combat or to become remiss 
 upon success, continued the attack with as much vigour 
 as he had begun it. His disciples, of whom many 
 equalled him in zeal and some surpassed him in learning, 
 were no less capable than their master to conduct the 
 controversy in the properest manner. Many of the 
 laity, some even of the princes, trained up amidst these 
 incessant disputations, and in the habit of listening to 
 the arguments of the contending parties, who alternately 
 appealed to them as judges, came to be profoundly 
 skilled in all the questions which were agitated, and, 
 upon occasion, could show themselves not inexpert in 
 any of the arts with which these theological encounters 
 
 VOL. I. K K
 
 610 REIGN OP THE [BOOK. r. 
 
 were managed. It was obvious from all these circum- 
 stances that any violent decision of the diet must have 
 immediately precipitated matters into confusion and have 
 kindled in Germany the flames of a religious war. All, 
 therefore, that the archduke, and the other commis- 
 sioners appointed by the emperor, demanded of the diet, 
 was to enjoin those states of the empire which had 
 hitherto obeyed the decree issued against Luther at 
 Worms, in the year 1524, to persevere in the observa- 
 tion of it, and to prohibit the other states from attempt- 
 ing any further innovation in religion, particularly from 
 abolishing the mass, before the meeting of a general 
 council. After much dispute, a decree to that effect was 
 approved of by a majority of voices. 34 1529.] 
 
 The elector of Saxony, the marquis of Brandenburg, 
 the landgrave of Hesse, the dukes of Lunenburg, the 
 prince of Anhalt, together with the deputies of fourteen 
 imperial or free cities, 35 entered a solemn protest against 
 this decree, as unjust and impious. On that account 
 they were distinguished by the name of PROTESTANTS,* 
 an appellation which hath since become better known 
 and more honourable by its being applied indiscrimi- 
 nately to all the sects, of whatever denomination, which 
 have revolted from the Eoman see. Not satisfied with 
 this declaration of their dissent from the decree of the 
 diet, the Protestants sent ambassadors into Italy to lay 
 their grievances before the emperor; from whom they 
 met with the most discouraging reception. Charles 
 was at that time in close union with the pope, and 
 solicitous to attach him inviolably to his interests. 
 During their long residence at Bologna they held many 
 consultations concerning the most effectual means of 
 
 84 Sleid., Hist., 117. Weissemburg, Nordlingen, and St. 
 
 is The fourteen cities were Stras- Gall. 
 
 burg, Nuremberg, Ulm, Constance, 36 Sleid., Hist., 119. F. Paul, 
 
 Eeutlingen, Windsheim, Meiningen, Hist, p. 46. Seckend., ii. 127. 
 Liudau, Kenvpten, Heilbronn. Isna,
 
 BOOK v.J EMPEEOE CHAELES THE FIFTH. 611 
 
 extirpating the heresies which had sprung up in Ger- 
 many. Clement, whose cautious and timid mind the 
 proposal of a general council filled with horror even 
 beyond what popes, the constant enemies of such assem- 
 blies, usually feel, employed every argument to dissuade 
 the emperor from consenting to that measure. He 
 represented general councils as factious, ungovernable, 
 presumptous, formidable to civil authority, and too slow 
 in their operations to remedy disorders which required 
 an immediate cure. Experience, he said, had now 
 taught both the emperor and himself that forbearance 
 and lenity, instead of soothing the spirit of innovation, 
 had rendered it more enterprising and presumptuous : 
 it was necessary, therefore, to have recourse to the 
 rigorous methods which such a desperate case required ; 
 Leo's sentence of excommunication, together with the 
 decree of the diet at Worms, should be carried into 
 execution ; and it was incumbent on the emperor to 
 employ his whole power in order to overawe those on 
 whom the reverence due either to ecclesiastical or civil 
 authority had no longer any influence. Charles, whose 
 views were very different from the pope's, and who 
 became daily more sensible how obstinate and deep- 
 rooted the evil was, thought of reconciling the Protest- 
 ants by means less violent, and considered the convocation 
 of a council as no improper expedient for that purpose, 
 but promised, if gentler arts failed of success, that then 
 he would exert himself with rigour to reduce to the 
 obedience of the holy see those stubborn enemies of the 
 Catholic faith. 87 
 
 Such were the sentiments with which the emperor set 
 out for Germany, having already appointed a diet of 
 the empire to be held at Augsburg. In his journey 
 
 17 F. Paul, xlviL Seek, lib. ii. burg, par. D. Cliytraeus, 4to, Antw. 
 142. Hist de la Confess. d'Augs- 1672, p. 6.
 
 612 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK v. 
 
 towards that city lie had many opportunities of observing 
 the disposition of the Germans with regard to the 
 points in controversy, and found their minds every- 
 where so much irritated and inflamed as convinced him 
 that nothing tending to severity or rigour ought to be 
 attempted until all other measures proved ineffectual. 
 He made his public entry into Augsburg with extra- 
 ordinary pomp, and found there such a full assembly of 
 the members of the diet as was suitable both to the 
 importance of the affairs which were to come under 
 their consideration, and to the honour of an emperor 
 who, after a long absence, returned to them crowned 
 with reputation and success. His presence seems to 
 have communicated to all parties an unusual spirit of 
 moderation and desire of peace. The elector of Saxony 
 would not permit Luther to accompany him to the 
 diet, lest he should offend the emperor by bringing 
 into his presence a person excommunicated by the 
 pope, and who had been the author of all those dissen- 
 sions which it now appeared so difficult to compose. 
 At the emperor's desire, all the Protestant princes for- 
 bade the divines who accompanied them to preach in 
 public during their residence at Augsburg. For the 
 same reason, they employed Melancthon, the man of 
 the greatest learning as well as of the most pacific and 
 gentle spirit among the Reformers, to draw up a con- 
 fession of their faith, expressed in terms as little offen- 
 sive to the Koman Catholics as a regard for truth would 
 permit. Melancthon, who seldom suffered the rancour 
 of controversy to envenom his style, even in writings 
 purely polemical, executed a task so agreeable to his 
 natural disposition with great moderation and address. 
 The creed which he composed, known by the name of 
 the Confession of Augsburg, from the place where it was 
 presented, was read publicly in the diet. Some popish 
 divines were appointed to examine it ; they brought in
 
 BOOK v.] EMPEROE CHARLES THE FIFTH. 613 
 
 their animadversions ; a dispute ensued between them 
 and Melancthon, seconded by some of his brethren ; 
 but though Melancthon softened some articles, made 
 concessions with regard to others, and put the least ex- 
 ceptionable sense upon all, though the emperor him- 
 self laboured with great earnestness to reconcile the 
 contending parties, so many marks of distinction 
 were now established, and such insuperable barriers 
 placed between the two churches, that all hopes of 
 bringing about a coalition seemed utterly desperate. 38 
 
 From the divines, among whom his endeavours had 
 been so unsuccessful, Charles turned to the princes 
 their patrons. Nor did he find them, how desirous 
 soever of accommodation, or willing to oblige the 
 emperor, more disposed than the former to renounce 
 their opinions. At that time, zeal for religion took 
 possession of the minds of men to a degree which can 
 scarcely be conceived by those who live in an age when 
 the passions excited by the first manifestation of truth 
 and the first recovery of liberty have in a great measure 
 ceased to operate. This zeal was then of such strength 
 as to overcome attachment to their political interests, 
 which is commonly the predominant motive among 
 princes. The elector of Saxony, the landgrave of 
 Hesse, and other chiefs of the Protestants, though 
 solicited separately by the emperor, and allured by the 
 promise or prospect of those advantages which it was 
 known they were more solicitous to attain, refused, 
 with a fortitude highly worthy of imitation, to abandon 
 what they deemed the cause of God, for the sake of 
 any earthly acquisition. 39 
 
 Every scheme in order to gain or disunite the Pro- 
 
 38 Seckend., lib. ii 159. etc. 159. 
 
 Abr. Sculteti Annales Evangdici, 39 Sleid., 132. Scultet. Annal., 
 
 ap. Herm. Von der Hard., Hist 168. 
 Liter. Reform., Lips., 1717, foL, p.
 
 614 REIGN OF THE [BOOK v. 
 
 testant party proving abortive, nothing now remained 
 for the emperor but to take some vigorous measures 
 towards asserting the doctrines and authority of the 
 established Church. These, Campeggio, the papal 
 nuncio, had always recommended as the only proper 
 and effectual course of dealing with such obstinate 
 heretics. In compliance with his opinions and remon- 
 strances, the diet issued a decree condemning most of 
 the peculiar tenets held by the Protestants, forbidding 
 any person to protect or tolerate such as taught them, 
 enjoining a strict observance of the established rites, 
 and prohibiting any further innovation, under severe 
 penalties. All orders of men were required to assist 
 with their persons and fortunes in carrying this decree 
 into execution; and such as refused to obey it were 
 declared incapable of acting as judges, or of appearing 
 as parties in the imperial chamber, the supreme court 
 of judicature in the empire. To all which was sub- 
 joined a promise that an application should be made 
 to the pope requiring him to call a general council 
 within six months, in order to terminate all contro- 
 versies by its sovereign decisions. 40 
 
 The severity of this decree, which was considered as 
 a prelude to the most violent persecution, alarmed the 
 Protestants and convinced them that the emperor was 
 resolved on their destruction. The dread of those 
 calamities which were ready to fall on the Church op- 
 pressed the feeble spirit of Melancthon, and, as if the 
 cause had already been desperate, he gave himself up 
 to melancholy and lamentation. But Luther, who 
 during the meeting of the diet had endeavoured to con- 
 firm and animate his party by several treatises which 
 he addressed to them, was not disconcerted or dis- 
 mayed at the prospect of this new danger. He com- 
 forted Melancthon and his other desponding disciples, 
 
 40 Sleid., 139.
 
 BOOK v.] EMPEROE CHARLES THE FIFTH. 615 
 
 and exhorted the princes not to abandon those truths 
 which they had lately asserted with such laudable 
 boldness. 41 His exhortations made the deeper impres- 
 sion upon them as they were greatly alarmed at that 
 time by the account of a combination among the 
 popish princes of the empire for the maintenance of 
 the established religion, to which Charles himself had 
 acceded. 42 This convinced them that it was necessary 
 to stand on their guard, and that their own safety, as 
 well as the success of their cause, depended on union. 
 Filled with this dread of the adverse party, and with 
 these sentiments concerning the conduct proper for 
 themselves, they assembled at Smalkalde. There they 
 concluded a league of mutual defence against all 
 aggressors, 43 by which they formed the Protestant states 
 of the empire into one regular body, and, beginning 
 already to consider themselves as such, they resolved 
 to apply to the kings of France and England and to 
 implore them to patronize and assist their new con- 
 federacy. 
 
 An affair not connected with religion furnished them 
 with a pretence for courting the aid of foreign princes. 
 Charles, whose ambitious views enlarged in proportion 
 to the increase of his power and grandeur, had formed 
 a scheme of continuing the imperial crown in his 
 family, by procuring his brother Ferdinand to be 
 elected king of the Eomans. The present juncture 
 was favourable for the execution of that design. The 
 emperor's arms had been everywhere victorious; he 
 had given law to all Europe at the late peace ; no rival 
 now remained in a condition to balance or to control 
 him; and the electors, dazzled with the splendour of 
 his success, or overawed by the greatness of his power, 
 durst scarcely dispute the will of a prince whose solici- 
 
 41 Seek., ii 180. Sleid. 140. 42 Seek., iL 200 ; iii. 11. - 
 
 43 Sleid., 142.
 
 616 REIGN OF THE [BOOK v. 
 
 tations carried with them the authority of commands. 
 Nor did he want plausible reasons to enforce the 
 measure. The affairs of his other kingdoms, he said, 
 obliged him to be often absent from Germany ; the 
 growing disorders occasioned by the controversies 
 about religion, as well as the formidable neighbourhood 
 of the Turks, who continually threatened to break in 
 with their desolating armies into the heart of the em- 
 pire, required the constant presence of a prince en- 
 dowed with prudence capable of composing the former, 
 and with power as well as valour sufficient to repel the 
 latter. His brother Ferdinand possessed these qualities 
 in an eminent degree ; by residing long in Germany, he 
 had acquired a thorough knowledge of its constitution 
 and manners ; having been present almost from the first 
 rise of the religious dissensions, he knew what remedies 
 were most proper, what the Germans could bear, and how 
 to apply them ; as his own dominions lay on the Turkish 
 frontier, he was the natural defender of Germany against 
 the invasions of the infidels, being prompted by interest 
 no less than he would be bound in duty to oppose 
 them. 
 
 These arguments made little impression on the Pro- 
 testants. Experience taught them that nothing had 
 contributed more to the undisturbed progress of their 
 opinions than the interregnum after Maximilian's death, 
 the long absence of Charles, and the slackness of the 
 reins of government which these occasioned. Con- 
 scious of the advantages which their cause had derived 
 from this relaxation of government, they were un- 
 willing to render it more vigorous by giving themselves 
 a new and a fixed master. They perceived clearly the 
 extent of Charles's ambition, that he aimed at rendering 
 the imperial crown hereditary in his family, and would 
 of course establish in the empire an absolute dominion, to 
 which elective princes could not have aspired with equal
 
 BOOK v.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 617 
 
 facility. They determined, therefore, to oppose the elec- 
 tion of Ferdinand with the utmost vigour, and to rouse 
 their countrymen, by their example and exhortations, to 
 withstand this encroachment on their liberties. The 
 elector of Saxony, accordingly, not only refused to be 
 present at the electoral college which the emperor sum- 
 moned to meet at Cologne, but instructed his eldest son 
 to appear there and to protest against the election as in- 
 formal, illegal, contrary to the articles of the golden bull, 
 and subversive of the liberties of the empire. But the 
 other electors, whom Charles had been at great pains to 
 gain, without regarding either his absence or protest, 
 chose Ferdinand king of the Eomans, who, a few days 
 after, was crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle. 44 
 
 When the Protestants, who were assembled a second 
 time at Smalkalde, received an account of this transac- 
 tion, and heard at the same time that prosecutions were 
 commenced in the imperial chamber against some of their 
 number on account of their religious principles, they 
 thought it necessary not only to renew their former con- 
 federacy, but immediately to despatch their ambassadors 
 into France arid England. Francis had observed with 
 all the jealousy of a rival the reputation which the 
 emperor had acquired by his seeming disinterested- 
 ness and moderation in settling the affairs in Italy, and 
 beheld with great concern the successful step which he 
 had taken towards perpetuating and extending his 
 authority in Germany by the election of a king of the 
 Boinaiis. Nothing, however, would have been more 
 impolitic than to precipitate his kingdom into a new 
 war, when exhausted by extraordinary efforts and dis- 
 couraged by ill success, before it had got time to recruit 
 its strength or to forget past misfortunes. As no provo- 
 cation had been given by the emperor, and hardly a pre- 
 
 44 Sleid., 142. Seek., iii. 1. P. Heuter., Rer. Austr., lib. x c. 6, 
 p. 240.
 
 618 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK v. 
 
 text for a rupture had been afforded him, he could not 
 violate a treaty of peace which he himself had so lately 
 solicited, without forfeiting the esteem of all Europe and 
 being detested as a prince void of probity and honour. 
 He observed with great joy powerful factions beginning 
 to form in the empire ; he listened with the utmost eager- 
 ness to the complaints of the Protestant princes, and, 
 without seeming to countenance their religious opinions, 
 determined secretly to cherish those sparks of political 
 discord which might be afterwards kindled into a flame. 
 For this purpose he sent William de Bellay, one of the 
 ablest negotiators in France, into Germany, who, visiting 
 the courts of the malcontent princes, and heightening 
 their ill humour by various arts, concluded an alliance 
 between them and his master, 45 which, though concealed 
 at that time, and productive of no immediate effects, laid 
 the foundation of a union fatal on many occasions to 
 Charles's ambitious projects, and showed the discontented 
 princes of Germany where, for the future, they might find 
 a protector no less able than willing to undertake their 
 defence against the encroachments of the emperor. 
 
 The king of England, highly incensed against Charles, 
 in complaisance to whom the pope had long retarded 
 and now openly opposed his divorce, was no less disposed 
 than Francis to strengthen a league which might be 
 rendered so formidable to the emperor. But his favourite 
 project of the divorce led him into such a labyrinth of 
 schemes and negotiations, and he was at the same time 
 so intent on abolishing the papal jurisdiction in England, 
 that he had no leisure for foreign affairs. This obliged 
 him to rest satisfied with giving general promises, to- 
 gether with a small supply in money, to the confederates 
 of Smalkalde. 46 
 
 Meanwhile, many circumstances convinced Charles 
 
 45 M&n. de Bellay, 129 a, 1 30 b. Seek., iii. 14t 
 
 46 Herbert, 152, 154.
 
 BOOK v.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH* 619 
 
 that this was not a juncture when the extirpation of 
 heresy was to be attempted by violence and rigour ; that, 
 in compliance with the pope's inclinations, he had already 
 proceeded with imprudent precipitation ; and that it was 
 more his interest to consolidate Germany into one united 
 and vigorous body than to divide and enfeeble it by a 
 civil war. The Protestants, who were considerable as 
 well by their numbers as by their zeal, had acquired 
 additional weight and importance by their joining in 
 that confederacy into which the rash steps taken at Augs- 
 burg had forced them. Having now discovered their own 
 strength, they despised the decisions of the imperial 
 chamber, and, being secure of foreign protection, were 
 ready to set the head of the empire at defiance. At the 
 same time, the peace with France was precarious, the 
 friendship of an irresolute and interested pontiff was not to 
 be relied on, and Solyman, in order to repair the discredit 
 and loss which his arms had sustained in the former cam- 
 paign, was preparing to enter Austria with more numerous 
 forces. On all these accounts, especially the last, a speedy 
 accommodation with the malcontent princes became ne- 
 cessary, not only for the accomplishment of his future 
 schemes, but for insuring his present safety. Negotia- 
 tions were accordingly carried on by his direction with 
 the elector of Saxony and his associates. After many 
 delays, occasioned by their jealousy of the emperor and 
 of each other, after innumerable difficulties arising from 
 the ineflxible nature of religious tenets, which cannot 
 admit of being altered, modified, or relinquished in the 
 same manner as points of political interest, terms of 
 pacification were agreed upon at Nuremberg and ratified 
 solemnly in the diet at Eatisbon. In this treaty it was 
 stipulated that universal peace be established in Germany 
 until the meeting of a general council, the convocation of 
 which within six months the emperor shaJ endeavour to 
 procure ; that no person shall be molested on account of
 
 fi20 REIGN OF THE TBOOK r. 
 
 religion ; that a stop shall be put to all processes begun 
 by the imperial chamber against Protestants, and the 
 sentences already passed to their detriment shall be 
 declared void. On their part, the Protestants engaged 
 to assist the emperor with all their forces in resisting the 
 invasion of the Turks. 47 Thus, by their firmness in ad- 
 hering to their principles, by the unanimity with which 
 they urged all their claims, and by their dexterity in 
 availing themselves of the emperor's situation ; the Pro- 
 testants obtained terms which amounted almost to a 
 toleration of their religion ; all the concessions were made 
 by Charles, none by them ; even the favourite point of 
 their approving his brother's election was not mentioned ; 
 and the Protestants of Germany, who had hitherto been 
 viewed only as a religious sect, came henceforth to 
 be considered as a political body of no small conse- 
 quence. 48 
 
 The intelligence which Charles received of Soly man's 
 having entered Hungary at the head of three hundred 
 thousand men brought the deliberations of the diet at 
 Ratisbon to a period, the contingent both of troops and 
 money which each prince was to furnish towards the 
 defence of the empire having been already settled. The 
 Protestants, as a testimony of their gratitude to the em- 
 peror, exerted themselves with extraordinary zeal, and 
 brought into the field forces which exceeded in number 
 the quota imposed on them ; and, the Catholics imitating 
 their example, one of the greatest and best-appointod 
 armies that had ever been levied in Germany assembled 
 near Vienna. Being joined by a body of Spanish and 
 Italian veterans under the marquis del Guasto, by some 
 heavy armed cavalry from the Low Countries, and by 
 the troops which Ferdinand had raised in Bohemia, 
 Austria, and his other territories, it amounted in all to 
 
 47 Du Mont, Corps Diplomatique, torn. iv. part ii. 87, 89. 
 * Sleid., 149, etc. Seek., iii. 19.
 
 BOOK v.J EMPEROE UHABLES THE FIFTH. 621 
 
 ninety thousand disciplined foot and thirty thousand 
 horse, besides a prodigious swarm of irregulars. Of this 
 vast array, worthy the first prince in Christendom, the 
 emperor took the command in person, and mankind 
 waited in suspense the issue of a decisive battle between 
 the two greatest monarchs in the world. But, each of 
 them dreading the other's power and good fortune, they 
 both conducted their operations with such excessive 
 caution that a campaign for which such immense pre- 
 parations had been made ended without any memorable 
 event. Solyman, finding it impossible to gain ground 
 upon an enemy always attentive and on his guard, 
 marched back to Constantinople towards the end of 
 autumn. 49 It is remarkable that, in such a martial age, 
 when every gentleman was a soldier and every prince a 
 general, this was the first time that Charles, who had 
 already carried on such extensive wars and gained so 
 many victories, appeared at the head of his troops. In 
 this first essay of his arms, to have opposed such a leader 
 as Solyman was no small honour ; to have obliged him to 
 retreat, merited very considerable praise. 
 
 About the beginning of this campaign, the elector 
 of Saxony died, and was succeeded by his son, John 
 Frederick. The Reformation rather gained than lost 
 by that event : the new elector, no less attached than 
 his predecessors to the opinions of Luther, occupied 
 the station which they had held at the head of the 
 Protestant party, and defended with the boldness and 
 zeal of youth that cause which they had fostered and 
 reared with the caution of more advanced age. 
 
 Immediately after the retreat of the Turks, Charles, 
 impatient to revisit Spain, set out on his way thither, 
 for Italy. As he was extremely desirous of an inter- 
 view with the pope, they met a second time at Bologna, 
 with the same external demonstrations of respect and 
 
 49 Jovii Hist, lib. xxx. p. 100, etc. Barre, Hist, de 1'Empire, i. 8, 647.
 
 622 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK v. 
 
 friendship, but with little of that confidence which had 
 subsisted between them during their late negotiations 
 there. Clement was much dissatisfied with the em- 
 peror's proceedings at Augsburg, his concessions with 
 regard to the speedy convocation of a council having 
 more than cancelled all the merit of the severe decree 
 against the doctrines of the Eeformers. The toleration 
 granted to the Protestants at Eatisbon, and the more 
 explicit promise concerning a council with which it was 
 accompanied, had irritated him still farther. Charles, 
 however, partly from conviction that the meeting of a 
 council would be attended with salutary effects, and 
 partly from his desire to please the Germans, having 
 solicited the pope by his ambassadors to call that assembly 
 without delay, and now urging the same thing in person, 
 Clement was greatly embarrassed what reply he should 
 make to a request which it was indecent to refuse and 
 dangerous to grant. He endeavoured at first to divert 
 Charles from the measure ; but, finding him inflexible, 
 he had recourse to artifices which he knew would delay, 
 if not entirely defeat, the calling of that assembly. 
 Under the plausible pretext of its being previously 
 necessary to settle, with all parties concerned, the place 
 of the council's meeting, the manner of its proceedings, 
 the right of the persons who should be admitted to 
 vote, and the authority of their decisions, he despatched 
 a nuncio, accompanied by an ambassador from the 
 emperor, to the elector of Saxony, as head of the 
 Protestants. With regard to each of these articles, 
 inextricable difficulties and contests arose. The Pro- 
 testants demanded a council to be held in Germany ; 
 the pope insisted that it should meet in Italy : they 
 contended that all points in dispute should be deter- 
 mined by the words of Holy Scripture alone ; he con- 
 sidered not only the decrees of the Church, but the 
 opinions of fathers and doctors, as of equal authority :
 
 BOOK v.] EMPEBOB CHARLES THE FIFTH. 623 
 
 they required a free council, in which the divines, 
 commissioned by different churches, should be allowed 
 a voice; he aimed at modelling the council in such a 
 manner as would render it entirely dependent on his 
 pleasure. Above all, the Protestants thought it un- 
 reasonable that they should bind themselves to submit 
 to the decrees of a council before they knew on what 
 principles these decrees were to be founded, by what 
 persons they were to be pronounced, and what forms 
 of proceeding they would observe. The pope maintained 
 it to be altogether unnecessary to call a council if those 
 who demanded it did not previously declare their resolu- 
 tion to acquiesce in its decrees. In order to adjust 
 such a variety of points, many expedients were pro- 
 posed, and the negotiations spun out to such a length 
 as effectually answered Clement's purpose of putting 
 off the meeting of a council, without drawing on 
 himself the whole infamy of obstructing a measure 
 which all Europe deemed so essential to the good of 
 the Church. 50 
 
 Together with this negotiation about calling a council, 
 the emperor carried on another, which he had still 
 more aj; heart, for securing the peace established in 
 Italy. As Francis had renounced his pretensions in 
 that country with great reluctance, Charles made no 
 doubt but that he would lay hold on the first pretext 
 afforded him, or embrace the first opportunity which 
 presented itself, of recovering what he had lost. It 
 became necessary, on this account, to take measures 
 for assembling an army able to oppose him. As his 
 treasury, drained by a long war, could not supply the 
 sums requisite for keeping such a body constantly on 
 foot, he attempted to throw that burden on his allies, 
 and to provide for the safety of his own dominions at 
 their expense, by proposing that the Italian states 
 
 511 F. Paul, Hist., 62. Seckend., iii. 73.
 
 624 REIGN OF THE [BOOK v. 
 
 should enter into a league of defence against all in- 
 vaders ; that on the first appearance of danger an army 
 should be raised and maintained at the common charge ; 
 and that Antonio de Leyva should be appointed the 
 generalissimo. Nor was the proposal unacceptable to 
 Clement, though for a reason very different from that 
 which induced the emperor to make it. He hoped by 
 this expedient to deliver Italy from the German and 
 Spanish veterans, which had so long filled all the powers 
 in that country with terror, and still kept them in sub- 
 jection to the imperial yoke. A league was accordingly 
 concluded ; all the Italian states, the Venetians excepted, 
 acceded to it; the sum which each of the contracting 
 partners should furnish towards maintaining the army 
 was fixed ; the emperor agreed to withdraw the troops 
 which gave so much umbrage to his allies, and which 
 he was unable any longer to support. Having dis- 
 banded part of them, and removed the rest to Sicily and 
 Spain, he embarked on board Doria's galleys and arrived 
 at Barcelona. 51 
 
 Notwithstanding all his precautions for securing the 
 peace of Germany and maintaining that system which 
 he had established in Italy, the emperor became every 
 day more and more apprehensive that both would be 
 soon disturbed by the intrigues or arms of the French 
 king. His apprehensions were well founded, as nothing 
 but the desperate situation of his affairs could have 
 brought Francis to give his consent to a treaty so dis- 
 honourable and disadvantageous as that of Cambray. 
 He, at the very time of ratifying it, had formed a 
 resolution to observe it no longer than necessity com- 
 pelled him, and took a solemn protest, though with the 
 most profound secrecy, against several articles in the 
 treaty, particularly that whereby he renounced all pre- 
 tensions to the duchy of Milan, as unjust, injurious to 
 w Guic., lib. , 551, Fen-eras, ix. 149.
 
 v.j EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 625 
 
 his heirs, and invalid. One of the crown lawyers, by 
 his command, entered a protest to the same purpose, and 
 with the like secrecy, when the ratification of the treaty 
 was registered in the parliament of Paris. 58 Francis 
 seems to have thought that by employing an artifice 
 unworthy of a king, destructive of public faith, and of 
 the mutual confidence on which all transactions between 
 nations are founded, he was released from any obligation 
 to perform the most solemn promises or to adhere to 
 the most sacred engagements. From the moment he 
 concluded the peace of Cambray, he wished and watched 
 for an opportunity of violating it with safety. He 
 endeavoured for that reason to strengthen his alliance 
 with the king of England, whose friendship he culti- 
 vated with the greatest assiduity. He put the military 
 force of his own kingdom on a better and more respect- 
 able footing than ever. He artfully fomented the 
 jealousy and discontent of the German princes. 52 
 
 But above all Francis laboured to break the strict con- 
 federacy which subsisted between Charles and Clement ; 
 and he had soon the satisfaction to observe appearances 
 of disgust and alienation arising in the mind of that 
 suspicious and interested pontiff, which gave him hopes 
 that their union would not be lasting. As the emperor's 
 decision in favour of the duke of Ferrara had greatly 
 irritated the pope, Francis aggravated the injustice of 
 that proceeding, and flattered Clement that the papal 
 see would find in him a more impartial and no less 
 powerful protector. As the importunity with which 
 Charles demanded a council was extremely offensive to 
 the pope, Francis artfully created obstacles to prevent 
 it, and attempted to divert the German princes, his 
 allies, from insisting so obstinately on that point. 53 As 
 the emperor had gained such an ascendant over Clement 
 
 " Du Mont, Corps Diplom., torn. M Mem. de Belluy, 141, etc. 
 
 iv. part ii. p. 52. Seek., iii. 48. F Paul, 63. 
 
 VOL. i. s g
 
 626 EEIGN OF THE [WOK v. 
 
 by contributing to aggrandize his family, Francis endea- 
 voured to allure him by the same irresistible bait, 
 proposing a marriage between his second son, Henry, 
 duke of Orleans, and Catharine, the daughter of the 
 pope's cousin, Laurence de' Medici. On the first over- 
 ture of this match, the emperor could not persuade 
 himself that Francis really intended to debase the royal 
 blood of France by an alliance with Catharine, whose 
 ancestors had been so lately private citizens and mer- 
 chants in Florence, and believed that he meant only to 
 natter or amuse the ambitious pontiff. He thought it 
 necessary, however, to efface the impression which such 
 a dazzling offer might have made, by promising to break 
 off the marriage which had been agreed on between his 
 own niece, the king of Denmark's daughter, and the 
 duke of Milan, and to substitute Catharine in her place. 
 But, the French ambassador producing unexpectedly 
 full powers to conclude the marriage-treaty with the 
 duke of Orleans, this expedient had no effect. Clement 
 was so highly pleased with an honour which added such 
 lustre and dignity to the house of Medici that he offered 
 to grant Catharine the investiture of considerable terri- 
 tories in Italy, by way of portion ; he seemed ready to 
 support Francis in prosecuting his ancient claims in that 
 country, and consented to a personal interview with that 
 nonarch 54 
 
 Charles was at the utmost pains to prevent a meeting 
 ,n which nothing was likely to pass but what would be 
 of detriment to him ; nor could he bear, after he had 
 twice condescended to visit the pope in his own terri- 
 tories, that Clement should bestow such a mark of dis- 
 tinction on his rival as to venture on a voyage by sea, 
 at an unfavourable season, in order to pay court to 
 Francis in the French dominions. But the pope's 
 eagerness to accomplish the match overcame all the 
 
 64 Guic., lib. xx. 551, 553. Mem. de Bellay, 138.
 
 *OOK v.] EMPEfcOfc CHAELES THE FIFTH. 627 
 
 scruples of pride, or fear, or jealousy, which would 
 have probably influenced him on any other occasion. 
 The interview, notwithstanding several artifices of the 
 emperor to prevent it, took place at Marseilles, with 
 extraordinary pomp, and demonstrations of confidence 
 on both sides ; and the marriage, which the ambition 
 and abilities of Catharine rendered in the sequel as 
 pernicious to France as it was then thought dishonour- 
 able, was consummated. But whatever schemes may 
 have been secretly concerted by the pope and Francis 
 in favour of the duke of Orleans, to whom his father 
 proposed to make over all his rights in Italy, so careful 
 were they to avoid giving any cause of offence to the 
 emperor that no treaty was concluded between them ; 55 
 and even in the marriage- articles Catherine renounced 
 all claims and pretensions in Italy, except to the duchy 
 of Urbino. 56 
 
 But at the very time when he was carrying on these 
 negotiations, and forming this connection with Francis, 
 which gave so great umbrage to the emperor, such was 
 the artifice and duplicity of Clement's character that 
 he suffered the latter to direct all his proceedings with 
 regard to the king of England, and was no less atten- 
 tive to gratify him in that particular than if the most 
 cordial union had subsisted between them. Henry's 
 suit for a divorce had now continued near six years ; 
 during all which period the pope negotiated, promised, 
 retracted, and concluded nothing. After bearing re- 
 peated delays and disappointments longer than could 
 have been expected from a prince of such a choleric 
 find impetuous temper, the patience of Henry was at 
 last so much exhausted that he applied to another 
 tribunal for that decree which he had solicited in 
 vain at Rome. Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, 
 by a sentence founded on the authority of universities, 
 
 M Guic., lib. xx. 556. w Du Mont, Corps Diplom., iv. part ii. 101. 
 
 882
 
 628 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK v. 
 
 doctors, and rabbis, who had been consulted with 
 respect to the point, annulled the king's marriage with 
 Catharine ; her daughter was declared illegitimate, and 
 Anne Boleyn acknowledged as queen of England. At 
 the same time, Henry began not only to neglect and to 
 threaten the pope, whom he had hitherto courted, but 
 to make innovations in the Church of which he had 
 formerly been such a zealous defender. Clement, who 
 had already seen so many provinces and kingdoms revolt 
 from the Holy See, became apprehensive at last that 
 England might imitate their example, and, partly from 
 his solicitude to prevent that fatal blow, partly in com- 
 pliance with the French king's solicitations, determined 
 to give Henry such satisfaction as might retain him 
 within the bosom of the Church. But the violence of 
 the cardinals, devoted to the emperor, did not allow the 
 pope leisure for executing this prudent resolution, and 
 hurried him, with a precipitation fatal to the Eoman 
 see, to issue a bull rescinding Cranmer's sentence, con- 
 firming Henry's marriage with Catharine, and declaring 
 him excommunicated if within a time specified he did 
 not abandon the wife he had taken and return to her 
 whom he had deserted. Enraged at this unexpected 
 decree, Henry kept no longer any measures with the 
 court of Eome; his subjects seconded his resentment 
 and indignation; an act of parliament was passed 
 abolishing the papal power and jurisdiction in England ; 
 by another, the king was declared supreme head of the 
 Church, and all the authority of which the popes were 
 deprived was vested in him. That vast fabric of ecclesi- 
 astical dominion which had been raised with such art, 
 and of which the foundations seemed to have been laid 
 so deep, being no longer supported by the veneration of 
 the people, was overturned in a moment. Henry him- 
 self, with the caprice peculiar to his character, continued 
 to defend the doctrines of the Eomish Church as fiercely
 
 BOOK v.] EMPEKOB CHARLB6 THE FIFTH. 629 
 
 as he attacked its jurisdiction. He alternately perse- 
 cuted the Protestants for rejecting the former, and the 
 Catholics for acknowledging the latter. But his sub- 
 jects, being once permitted to enter into new paths, did 
 not choose to stop short at the precise point prescribed 
 by him. Having been encouraged by his example to 
 break some of their fetters, they were so impatient to 
 shake off what still remained 57 that in the following 
 reign, with the applause of the greater part of the 
 nation, a total separation was made from the Church of 
 Rome in articles of doctrine, as well as in matters of 
 discipline and jurisdiction. 
 
 A short delay might have saved the see of Rome from 
 all the unhappy consequences of Clement's rashness. 
 Soon after his sentence against Henry, he fell into a 
 languishing distemper, which, gradually wasting his 
 constitution, put an end to his pontificate, the most un- 
 fortunate, both during its continuance and by its effects, 
 that the Church had known for many ages. The very 
 day on which the cardinals entered the conclave, they 
 raised to the papal throne Alexander Farnese, dean of 
 the sacred college, and the oldest member of that body, 
 who assumed the name of Paul III. The account of his 
 promotion was received with extraordinary acclamations 
 of joy by the people of Rome, highly pleased, after an 
 interval of more than a hundred years, to see the crown 
 of St. Peter placed on the head of a Roman citizen. 
 Persons more capable of judging formed a favourable 
 presage of his administration, from the experience 
 which he had acquired under four pontificates, as well 
 as the character of prudence and moderation which he 
 had uniformly maintained in a station of great eminence, 
 and during an active period, that required both talents 
 and address. 58 
 
 57 Herbert. Burnet, Hist of Re- S8 Guic., lib. xx, 656, F. 
 form. 64.
 
 630 REIGN OF THE [BOOK v. 
 
 Europe, it is probable, owed the continuance of its 
 peace to the death of Clement ; for, although no traces 
 remain in history of any league concluded between him 
 and Francis, it is scarcely to be doubted but that he 
 would have seconded the operations of the French arms 
 in Italy, that he might have gratified his ambition by 
 seeing one of his family possessed of the supreme power 
 in Florence, and another in Milan. But upon the elec- 
 tion of Paul III., who had hitherto adhered uniformly 
 to the imperial interest, Francis found it necessary to 
 suspend his operations for some time, and to put off the 
 commencement of hostilities against the emperor, on 
 which, before the death of Clement, he had been fully 
 determined. 
 
 While Francis waited for an opportunity to renew a 
 war which had hitherto proved so fatal to himself and 
 his subjects, a transaction of a very singular nature 
 was carried on in Germany. Among many beneficial 
 and salutary effects of which the Eef ormation was the 
 immediate cause, it was attended, as must be the case 
 in all actions and events wherein men are concerned, 
 with some consequences of an opposite nature. When 
 the human mind is roused by grand objects and agitated 
 by strong passions, its operations acquire such force 
 that they are apt to become irregular and extravagant. 
 Upon any great revolution in religion, such irregularities 
 abound most at that particular period when men, having 
 thrown off the authority of their ancient principles, do 
 not yet fully comprehend the nature or feel the obliga- 
 tion of those new tenets which they have embraced. 
 The mind, in that situation, pushing forward with the 
 boldness which prompted it to reject established opinions, 
 and not guided by a clear knowledge of the system 
 substituted in their place, disdains all restraint, and runs 
 into wild notions, which often lead to scandalous or im- 
 moral conduct. Thus, in the first ages of the Christian
 
 BOOK v.J EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 631 
 
 Church, many of the new converts, having renounced 
 their ancient systems of religious faith, and being but 
 imperfectly acquainted with the doctrines and precepts 
 of Christianity, broached the most extravagant opinions, 
 equally subversive of piety and virtue ; all which errors 
 disappeared or were exploded when the knowledge of 
 religion increased and came to be more generally diffused. 
 In like manner, soon after Luther's appearance, the 
 rashness or ignorance of some of his disciples led them 
 to publish tenets no less absurd than pernicious, which, 
 being proposed to men extremely illiterate but fond of 
 novelty, and at a time when their minds were occupied 
 chiefly with religious speculations, gained too easy credit 
 and authority among them. To these causes must be 
 imputed the extravagances of Muncer, in the year 1525, 
 as well as the rapid progress which his opinions made 
 among the peasants ; but, though the insurrection ex- 
 cited by that fanatic was soon suppressed, several of his 
 followers lurked in different places, and endeavoured 
 privately to propagate his opinions. 
 
 In those provinces of Upper Germany which had 
 already been so cruelly wasted by their enthusiastic 
 rage, the magistrates watched theii motions with such 
 severe attention that many of them found it necessary 
 to retire into other countries; some were punished, 
 others driven into exile, and their errors were entirely 
 rooted out. But in the Netherlands and Westphalia, 
 where the pernicious tendency of their opinions was 
 more unknown and guarded against with less care, they 
 got admittance into several towns, and spread the infec- 
 tion of their principles. The most remarkable of their 
 religious tenets related to the sacrament of baptism, 
 which, as they contended, ought to be administered only 
 to persons grown up to years of understanding, and 
 should be performed, not by sprinkling them witli 
 water, but by dipping them in it : for this reason they
 
 632 REIGN OF THE [BOOK v. 
 
 condemned the baptism of infants, and, rebaptizing all 
 whom they admitted into their society, the sect came to 
 be distinguished by the name of Anabaptists. To this 
 peculiar notion concerning baptism, which has the ap- 
 pearance of being founded on the practice of the Church 
 in the apostolic age, and contains nothing inconsistent 
 with the peace and order of human society, they added 
 other principles of a most enthusiastic as well as danger- 
 ous nature. They maintained that among Christians, 
 who had the precepts of the gospel to direct and the 
 Spirit of God to guide them, the office of magistracy was 
 not only unnecessary, but an unlawful encroachment on 
 their spiritual liberty ; that the distinctions occasioned 
 by birth or rank or wealth, being contrary to the spirit 
 of the gospel, which considers all men as equals, should 
 be entirely abolished ; that all Christians, throwing 
 their possessions into one common stock, should live 
 together in that state of equality which becomes mem- 
 bers of the same family ; that as neither the laws of 
 nature nor the precepts of the New Testament had 
 imposed any restraints upon men with regard to the 
 number of wives which they might marry, they should 
 use that liberty which God himself had granted to the 
 patriarchs. 
 
 Such opinions, propagated and maintained with en- 
 thusiastic zeal and boldness, were not long without 
 producing the violent effects natural to them. Two 
 Anabaptist prophets, John Matthias, a baker of Haer- 
 lem, and John Boccold, or Beiikels, a journeyman tailor 
 of Leyden, possessed with the rage of making pro- 
 selytes, fixed their residence at Munster, an imperial 
 city in Westphalia, of the first rank, under the sove- 
 reignty of its bishop, but governed by its own senate 
 and consuls. As neither of these fanatics wanted the 
 talents requisite in desperate enterprises, great resolu- 
 tion, the appearance of sanctity^ bold pretensions to
 
 BOOK v.] EMPEROK CHARLES THE FIFTH. 633 
 
 inspiration, and a confident and plausible manner of 
 discoursing, they soon gained many converts. Among 
 these were Kothman, who had first preached the Pro- 
 testant doctrine in Munster, and Cnipperdoling, a citizen 
 of good birth and considerable eminence. Emboldened 
 by the countenance of such disciples, they openly taught 
 their opinions; and, not satisfied with that liberty, 
 they made several attempts, though without success, to 
 become masters of the town, in order to get their tenets 
 established by public authority. At last, having secretly 
 called in their associates from the neighbouring country, 
 they suddenly took possession of the arsenal and senate- 
 house in the night-time, and, running through the streets 
 with drawn swords and horrible howlings, cried out 
 alternately, " Eepent, and be baptized," and, "Depart, 
 ye ungodly." The senators, the canons, the nobility, 
 together with the more sober citizens, whether Papists 
 or Protestants, terrified at their threats and outcries, 
 fled in confusion, and left the city under the dominion 
 of a frantic multitude consisting chiefly of strangers. 
 Nothing now remaining to overawe or control them, 
 they set about modelling the government according to 
 their own wild ideas ; and though at first they showed 
 so much reverence for the ancient constitution as to 
 select senators of their own, and to appoint Cnipperdoling 
 and another proselyte consuls, this was nothing more 
 than form ; for all their proceedings were directed by 
 Matthias, who, in the style and with the authority of 
 a prophet, uttered his commands, which it was instant 
 death to disobey. Having begun with encouraging 
 the multitude to pillage the churches and deface their 
 ornaments, he enjoined them to destroy all books 
 except the Bible, as useless or impious ; he ordered 
 the estates of such as fled to be confiscated and sold 
 to the inhabitants of the adjacent country ; he com- 
 manded every man to bring forth his gold, silver, and
 
 634 REIGN OP THE [BOOK v. 
 
 other precious effects, and to lay them at his feet ; 
 the wealth amassed by these means he deposited in a 
 public treasury, and named deacons to dispense it for 
 the common use of all. The members of his common- 
 wealth being thus brought to a perfect equality, he 
 commanded all of them to eat at tables prepared in 
 public, and even prescribed the dishes which were to 
 be served up each day. Having finished his plan of 
 reformation, his next care was to provide for the defence 
 of the city ; and he took measures for that purpose 
 with a prudence which savoured nothing of fanaticism. 
 He collected large magazines of every kind ; he repaired 
 and extended the fortifications, obliging every person 
 without distinction to work in his turn ; he formed such 
 as were capable of bearing arms into regular bodies, 
 and endeavoured to add the stability of discipline to the 
 impetuosity of enthusiasm. He sent emissaries to the 
 Anabaptists in the Low Countries, inviting them to 
 assemble at Munster, which he dignified with the name 
 of Mount Sion, that from thence they might set out to 
 reduce all the nations of the earth under their dominion. 
 He himself was unwearied in attending to everything 
 necessary for the security or increase of the sect ; 
 animating his disciples by his own example to decline 
 no labour, as well as to submit to every hardship ; and, 
 their enthusiastic passions being kept from subsiding 
 by a perpetual succession of exhortations, revelations, 
 and prophecies, they seemed ready to undertake or to 
 suffer anything in maintenance of their opinions. 
 
 While they were thus employed, the bishop of 
 Munster, having assembled a considerable army, ad- 
 vanced to besiege the town. On his approach, Matthias 
 sallied out at the head of some chosen troops, attacked 
 one quarter of his camp, forced it, and, after great 
 slaughter, returned to the city loaded with glory and 
 spoil. Intoxicated with this success, he appeared next
 
 BOOK v.] EMPEKOR OHAKLES THE FIFTH. 635 
 
 day brandishing a spear, and declared that, in imitation 
 of Gideon, he would go forth with a handful of men 
 and smite the host of the ungodly. Thirty persons, 
 whom he named, followed him without hesitation in 
 this wild enterprise, and, rushing on the enemy with a 
 frantic courage, were cut off to a man. The death of 
 their prophet occasioned at first great consternation 
 among his disciples ; but Boccold, by the same gifts 
 and pretensions which had gained Matthias credit, 
 soon revived their spirits and hopes to such a degree 
 that he succeeded the deceased prophet in the same 
 absolute direction of all their affairs. As he did not 
 possess that enterprising courage which distinguished 
 his predecessor, he satisfied himself with carrying on 
 a defensive war ; and, without attempting to annoy the 
 enemy by sallies, he waited for the succours he expected 
 from the Low Countries, the arrival of which was often 
 foretold and promised by their prophets. But, though 
 less daring in action than Matthias, he was a wilder 
 enthusiast, and of more unbounded ambition. Soon 
 after the death of his predecessor, having by obscure 
 visions and prophecies prepared the multitude for some 
 extraordinary event, he stripped himself naked, and, 
 marching through the streets, proclaimed with a loud 
 voice, " That the kingdom of Sion was at hand ; that 
 whatever was highest on earth should be brought low, 
 and whatever was lowest should be exalted." In order 
 to fulfil this, he commanded the churches, as the most 
 lofty buildings in the city, to be levelled with the 
 ground ; he degraded the senators chosen by Matthias, 
 and, depriving Cnipper doling of the consulship, the 
 highest office in the commonwealth, appointed him to 
 execute the lowest and most infamous, that of common 
 hangman, to which strange transition the other agreed, 
 not only without murmuring, but with the utmost joy ; 
 and such was the despotic rigour of Boccold's adminis-
 
 63 G REIGN OF THE [BOOK v. 
 
 tration, that he was called almost every day to perform 
 some duty or other of his wretched function. In place 
 of the deposed senators, he named twelve judges, 
 according to the number of tribes in Israel, to preside 
 in all affairs, retaining to himself the same authority 
 which Moses anciently possessed as legislator of that 
 people. 
 
 Not satisfied, however, with power or titles which 
 were not supreme, a prophet, whom he had gained and 
 tutored, having called the multitude together, declared 
 it to be the will of God that John Boccold should be 
 king of Sion, and sit on the throne of David. John, 
 kneeling down, accepted of the heavenly call, which 
 he solemnly protested had been revealed likewise to 
 himself, and was immediately acknowledged as monarch 
 by the deluded multitude. From that moment he 
 assumed all the state and pomp of royalty. He wore 
 a crown of gold, and was clad in the richest and 
 most sumptuous garments. A Bible was carried on his 
 one hand, a naked sword on the other. A great body 
 of guards accompanied him when he appeared in public. 
 He coined money stamped with his own image, and ap- 
 pointed the great officers of his household, and kingdom, 
 among whom Cnipperdoling was nominated governor of 
 the city, as a reward for his former submission. 
 
 Having now attained the height of power, Boccold 
 began to discover passions which he had hitherto re- 
 strained, or indulged only in secret. As the excesses 
 of enthusiasm have been observed in every age to lead 
 to sensual gratifications, the same constitution that is 
 susceptible of the former being remarkably prone to 
 the latter, he instructed the prophets and teachers to 
 harangue the people for several days concerning the 
 lawfulness, and even necessity, of taking more wives 
 than one, which they asserted to be one of the privileges 
 granted by God to the saints. When their ears were
 
 BOOK v.] EMPEROB CHAELES THE FIFTH. 637 
 
 once accustomed to this licentious doctrine, and their 
 passions inflamed with the prospect of such unbounded 
 indulgence, he himself set them an example of using 
 what he called their Christian liberty, by marrying 
 at once three wives, among which the widow of 
 Matthias, a woman of singular beauty, was one. As 
 he was allured by beauty, or the love of variety, he 
 gradually added to the number of his wives until they 
 amounted to fourteen, though the widow of Matthias 
 was the only one dignified with the title of queen or 
 who shared with him the splendour and ornaments of 
 royalty. After the example of their prophet, the multi- 
 tude gave themselves up to the most licentious and 
 uncontrolled gratification of their desires. No man 
 remained satisfied with a single wife. Not to use their 
 Christian liberty was deemed a crime. Persons were 
 appointed to search the houses for young women grown 
 up to maturity, whom they instantly compelled to 
 marry. Together with polygamy, freedom of divorce, 
 its inseparable attendant, was introduced, and became 
 a new source of corruption. Every excess was com- 
 mitted of which the passions of men are capable when 
 restrained neither by the authority of laws nor the 
 sense of decency ; 59 and, by a monstrous and almost 
 incredible conjunction, voluptuousness was engrafted on 
 
 et concionatorum " Nemo unft contentus fuit, neque 
 
 autoritate juxta et exemplo, tot& cuiquam extra effcetas et viris ini- 
 
 urbe ad rapitndas pulcherriinas maturas continentiesselicuit." (Id., 
 
 quasque fceminas discursum est. 307.) " Tacebo hie, lit sit suus 
 
 Nee intra paucos dies, in tantfi, honor auribus, quanta barbaria et 
 
 hominum turb&, fere ulla reperta militi usi sunt in puellis vitiandis 
 
 est supra annum decimum quartum, nondum aptis matriinonio, id quod 
 
 quse stuprum passa nou fuerit." mihi neque ex vano, neque ex vulgi 
 
 (Lanib. Hortens., p. 303.) " Vulgo sermonibus haustura est, sed ex eft 
 
 viris quinas esse uxores, pluribus vetul&, cui cura sic vitiatamm de- 
 
 senas, nonnullis septenas et octonas. mandata fuit, auditum." Joh. Cor- 
 
 Puellas supra duodecimuin setatis vinus, 316. 
 annum statim amare." (Id., 305.)
 
 638 REIGN OF THE [BOOK v. 
 
 religion, and dissolute riot accompanied the austerities 
 of fanatical devotion. 
 
 Meanwhile, the German princes were highly offended 
 at the insult offered to their dignity by Boccold's pre- 
 sumptuous usurpation of royal honours ; and the pro- 
 fligate manners of his followers, which were a reproach 
 to the Christian name, filled men of all professions 
 with horror. Luther, who had testified against this 
 fanatical spirit on its first appearance, now deeply 
 lamented its progress, and, having exposed the delusion 
 with great strength of argument as well as acrimony 
 of style, called loudly on all the states of Germany to 
 put a stop to frenzy no less pernicious to society than 
 fatal to religion. The emperor, occupied with other 
 cares and projects, had not leisure to attend to such a 
 distant object ; but the princes of the empire, assembled 
 by the king of the Eomans, voted a supply of men and 
 money to the bishop of Munster, who, being unable to 
 keep a sufficient army on foot, had converted the siege 
 of the town into a blockade. The forces raised in 
 consequence of this resolution were put under the 
 command of an officer of experience, who, approach- 
 ing the town towards the end of spring in the year 
 1535, pressed it more closely than formerly, but found 
 the fortifications so strong and so diligently guarded 
 that he durst not attempt an assault. It was now 
 about fifteen months since the Anabaptists had esta- 
 blished their dominion in Munster; they had during 
 that time undergone prodigious fatigue in working on 
 the fortifications and performing military duty. Not- 
 withstanding the prudent attention of their king to 
 provide for their subsistence, and his frugal as well as 
 regular economy in their public meals, they began to 
 feel the approach of famine. Several small bodies of 
 their brethren, who were advancing to their assistance 
 from the Low Countries, had been intercepted and cut
 
 hook v.] EMPEBOfc CHARLES THE FIFTH. 639 
 
 to pieces ; and while all Germany was ready to com- 
 bine against them, they had no prospect of succour. 
 But such was the ascendant which Boccold had acquired 
 over the multitude, and so powerful the fascination 
 of enthusiasm, that their hopes were as sanguine as 
 ever, and they hearkened with implicit credulity to 
 the visions and predictions of their prophets, who 
 assured them that the Almighty would speedily inter- 
 pose in order to deliver the city. The faith, however, 
 of some few, shaken by the violence and length of their 
 sufferings, began to fail ; but, being suspected of an 
 inclination to surrender to the enemy, they were punished 
 with immediate death, as guilty of impiety in distrust- 
 ing the power of God. One of the king's wives having 
 uttered certain words which implied some doubt con- 
 cerning his divine mission, he instantly called the 
 whole number together, and, commanding the blas- 
 phemer, as he called her, to kneel down, cut off her 
 head with his own hands ; and so far were the rest 
 from expressing any horror at this cruel deed, that they 
 joined him in dancing with a frantic joy around the 
 bleeding body of their companion. 
 
 By this time the besieged endured the utmost rigour 
 of famine; but they chose rather to suffer hardships 
 the recital of which is shocking to humanity than to 
 listen to the terms of capitulation offered them by the 
 bishop. At last a deserter, whom they had taken into 
 their service, being either less intoxicated with the 
 fumes of enthusiasm, or unable any longer to bear such 
 distress, made his escape to the enemy. He informed 
 their general of a weak part in the fortifications which 
 he had observed, and, assuring him that the besieged, 
 exhausted with hunger and fatigue, kept watch there 
 with little care, he offered to lead a party thither in 
 the night. The proposal was accepted, and a chosen 
 body of troops appointed for the service, who, scaling
 
 640 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK V. 
 
 the walls unperceived, seized one of the gates, and 
 admitted the rest of the army. The Anabaptists, though 
 surprised, defended themselves in the market-place 
 with valour heightened by despair; but, being over- 
 powered by numbers, and surrounded on every hand, 
 most of them were slain, and the remainder were taken 
 prisoners. Among the last were the king and Cuip- 
 perdoling. The king, loaded with chains, was carried 
 from city to city as a spectacle to gratify the curiosity 
 of the people, and was exposed to all their insults. 
 His spirit, however, was not broken or humbled by 
 this sad reverse, of his condition; and he adhered 
 with unshaken firmness to the distinguishing tenets of 
 his sect. After this, he was brought back to Munster, 
 the scene of his royalty and crimes, and put to death 
 with the most exquisite as well as lingering tortures, 
 all which he bore with astonishing fortitude. This 
 extraordinary man, who had been able to acquire such 
 amazing dominion over the minds of his followers and 
 to excite commotions so dangerous to society, was only 
 twenty-six years of age. 60 
 
 Together with its monarch, the kingdom of the 
 Anabaptists came to an end. Their principles having 
 taken deep root in the Low Countries, the party still 
 subsists there, under the name of Mennonites; but, by 
 a very singular revolution, this sect, so mutinous and 
 sanguinary at its first origin, hath become altogether 
 innocent and pacific. Holding it unlawful to wage 
 war, or to accept of civil offices, they devote themselves 
 entirely to the duties of private citizens, and by their 
 industry and charity endeavour to make reparation to 
 human society for the violence committed by their 
 
 60 Sleid., 190, etc. Tuiuultuum one, etc., libellus Antonii Corvini, 
 
 Anabaptistarum, liber unus, Ant. ap. Scar. 313. Annales Anabap- 
 
 Lamberto Hortensio Auctore, ap. tistici, a Job. Henrico Ottio, 4to, 
 
 Scardium, vol. ii. p. 298, etc. De Basilese, 1672. Cor. Heersbachius, 
 
 Mvserabili Monasteriensium Obsidi- Hist. Anab., edit. 1637, p. 140.
 
 v.J EMPEKOR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 641 
 
 founders. 61 A small number of this sect which is 
 settled in England retain its peculiar tenets concern- 
 ing baptism, but without any dangerous mixture of 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 The mutiny of the Anabaptists, though it drew 
 general attention, did not so entirely engross the princes 
 of Germany as not to allow leisure for other transac- 
 tions. The alliance between the French king and the 
 confederates at Smalkalde began about this time to 
 produce great effects. Ulric, duke of Wurtemberg, 
 having been expelled his dominions in the year 1519 
 on account of his violent and oppressive administra- 
 tion, the house of Austria had got possession of his 
 duchy. That prince, having now by a long exile 
 atoned for the errors in his conduct, which were the 
 effect rather of inexperience than of a tyrannical dis- 
 position, was become the object of general compassion. 
 The landgrave of Hesse, in particular, his near relation, 
 warmly espoused his interest, and used many efforts 
 to recover for him his ancient inheritance. But the 
 king of the Eomans obstinately refused to relinquish 
 a valuable acquisition which his fe_iily had made with 
 so much ease. The landgrave, unable to compel him, 
 applied to the king of France, his new ally. Francis, 
 eager to embrace any opportunity of distressing the 
 house of Austria, and desirous of wresting from it 
 a territory which gave it footing and influence in a 
 part of Germany at a distance from its other dominions, 
 encouraged the landgrave to take arms, and secretly 
 supplied him with a large sum of money. This he 
 employed to raise troops, and, marching with great 
 expedition towards Wurtemberg, attacked, defeated, 
 and dispersed a considerable body of Austrians, intrusted 
 with the defence of the country. All the duke's sub- 
 jects hastened, with emulation, to receive their native 
 
 61 Bayle, Diction., ait. Anabaptistu. 
 
 TOL. I T T
 
 642 REIGN. OF THfi [BOOK T. 
 
 prince, and reinvested him with, that authority which 
 is still enjoyed by his descendants. At the same time, 
 the exercise of the Protestant religion was established 
 in his dominions. 62 
 
 Ferdinand, how sensible soever of this unexpected 
 blow, not daring to attack a prince whom all the Pro- 
 testant powers in Germany were ready to support, 
 judged it expedient to conclude a treaty with him, 
 by which, in the most ample form, he recognized his 
 title to the duchy. The success of the landgrave's 
 operations in behalf of the duke of Wurtemberg having 
 convinced Ferdinand that a rupture with a league so 
 formidable as that of Smalkalde was to be avoided with 
 the utmost care, he entered likewise into a negotiation 
 with the elector of Saxony, the head of that union; 
 and by some concessions in favour of the Protestant 
 religion, and others of advantage to the elector himself, 
 he prevailed on him, together with his confederates, 
 to acknowledge his title as king of the Eomans. At 
 the same time, in order to prevent any such pre- 
 cipitate or irregular election in times to come, it was 
 agreed that no person should hereafter be promoted 
 to that dignity without the unanimous consent of the 
 electors ; and the emperor soon after confirmed this 
 stipulation. 63 
 
 These acts of indulgence towards the Protestants, and 
 the close union into which the king of the Eomans 
 seemed to be entering with the princes of that party, 
 gave great offence at Eome. Paul III., though he had 
 departed from a resolution of his predecessor never to 
 consent to the calling of a general council, and had 
 promised, in the first consistory held after his election, 
 that he would convoke that assembly so much desired 
 by all Christendom, was no less enraged than Clement 
 
 M Sleid. 172. Mem. de Bellay, 63 Sleid. 173. Corps Diplom., 
 
 159, etc. torn. iv. pp. 2, 119.
 
 BOOK r.j EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 643 
 
 at the innovations in Germany, and no less averse to 
 any scheme for reforming either the doctrines of the 
 Church or the abuses in the court of Rome. But, 
 having been a witness of the universal censures which 
 Clement had incurred by his obstinacy with regard to 
 these points, he hoped to avoid the same reproach by 
 the seeming alacrity with which he proposed a council ; 
 nattering himself, however, that such difficulties would 
 arise concerning the time and place of meeting, the 
 persons who had a right to be present, and the order 
 of their proceedings, as would effectually defeat the 
 intention of those who demanded that assembly, with- 
 out exposing himself to any imputation for refusing to 
 call it. With this view, he despatched nuncios to the 
 several courts, in order to make known his intention 
 that he had fixed on Mantua as the proper place in 
 which to hold the council. Such difficulties as the pope 
 had foreseen immediately presented themselves in great 
 number. The French king did not approve of the place 
 which Paul had chosen, as the papal and imperial influ- 
 ence would necessarily be too great in a town situated 
 in that part of Italy. The king of England not only 
 concurred with Francis in urging that objection, but 
 refused, besides, to acknowledge any council called in 
 the name and by the authority of the pope. The Ger- 
 man Protestants, having met together at Smalkalde, 
 insisted on their original demand of a council to be held 
 in Germany, and, pleading the emperor's promise as well 
 as the agreement at Eatisbon to that effect, declared that 
 they would not consider an assembly held at Mantua as 
 a legal or free representative of the Church. By this 
 diversity of sentiments and views, such a field for intrigue 
 and negotiation opened as made it easy for the pope to 
 assume the merit of being eager to assemble a council, 
 while at the same time he could put off its meeting at 
 pleasure. The Protestants, on the other hand, suspect- 
 
 1- T *
 
 644 BEIGN OF THE L BOOK v - 
 
 ing his designs, and sensible of the importance which 
 they derived from their union, renewed for ten years 
 the league of Smalkalde, which now became stronger 
 and more formidable by the accession of several new 
 members. 64 
 
 During these transactions in Germany, the emperor 
 undertook his famous enterprise against the piratical 
 states in Africa. That part of the African continent 
 lying along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, which 
 anciently formed the kingdoms of Mauritania and Mas- 
 sylia, together with the republic of Carthage, and which 
 is now known by the general name of Barbary, had 
 undergone many revolutions. Subdued by the Romans, 
 it became a province of their empire. When it was 
 conquered afterwards by the Vandals, they erected a 
 kingdom there. That being overturned by Belisarius, 
 the country became subject to the Greek emperors, and 
 continued to be so until it was overrun, towards the end 
 of the seventh century, by the rapid and irresistible 
 arms of the Arabians. It remained for some time a part 
 of that vast empire which the Caliphs governed with ab- 
 solute authority. Its immense distance, however, from 
 the seat of government encouraged the descendants of 
 those leaders who had subdued the country, or the chiefs 
 of the Moors, its ancient inhabitants, to throw off the 
 yoke and to assert their independence. The Caliphs, 
 who derived their authority from a spirit of enthusiasm 
 
 64 This league was concluded De- Albert, counts of Mansfield ; Wil- 
 
 cember, 1535, but not extended or liam, count of Nassau. The cities, 
 
 signed in form till September in Strasburg, Nuremberg, Constance, 
 
 the following year. The princes Ulin, Magdeburg, Bremen, Reut- 
 
 who acceded to it were, John, elector lingen, Heilbronn, Memmingen, 
 
 of Saxony ; Ernest, duke of Bruns- Lindau, Campen, Isna, Bibrac, 
 
 wick ; Philip, landgrave of Hesse ; Windsheim, Aug.sburg, Frankfort, 
 
 Ulric, duke of "\Turtemberg ; Bar- Esling, Brunswick, Goslar, Hanover, 
 
 nim and Philip, dukes of Pomera- Gottingen, Eimbeck, Hamburg, 
 
 nia ; John, George, and Joachim, Minden. 
 princes of Anhulfc ; Gebhard and
 
 BOOK v.] EMPEROR CHAELES THE FIFTH. 645 
 
 more fitted for making conquests than for preserving 
 them, were obliged to connive at acts of rebellion which 
 they could not prevent ; and Barbary was divided into 
 several kingdoms, of which Morocco, Algiers, and Tunis 
 were the most considerable. The inhabitants of these 
 kingdoms were a mixed race Arabs, Negroes from the 
 southern provinces, and Moors, either natives of Africa, 
 or who had been expelled out of Spain ; all zealous pro- 
 fessors of the Mahometan religion, and inflamed against 
 Christianity with a bigoted hatred proportional to their 
 ignorance and barbarous manners. 
 
 Among these people, no less daring, inconstant, and 
 treacherous than the ancient inhabitants of the same 
 country described by the Eoman historians, frequent 
 seditions broke out, and many changes in government 
 took place. These, as they affected only the internal 
 state of a country extremely barbarous, are but little 
 known, and deserve to be so. But about the beginning 
 of the sixteenth century a sudden revolution happened, 
 which, by rendering the states of Barbary formidable to 
 the Europeans, hath made their history worthy of more 
 attention. This revolution was brought about by per- 
 sons born in a rank of life which entitled them to act 
 no such illustrious part. Horuc and Hayradin, the sons 
 of a potter in the isle of Lesbos, prompted by a restless 
 and enterprising spirit, forsook their father's trade, ran 
 to sea, and joined a crew of pirates. They soon distin- 
 guished themselves by their valour and activity, and, 
 becoming masters of a small brigantine, carried on their 
 infamous trade with such conduct and success that they 
 assembled a fleet of twelve galleys, besides many vessels 
 of smaller force. Of this fleet Horuc, the elder brother, 
 called Barbarossa from the red colour of his beard, was 
 admiral, and Hayradin second in command, but with 
 almost equal authority. They called themselves the 
 friends of the sea, and the enemies of all who sail upon
 
 646 REIGN OF THE [BOOK v. 
 
 it ; and their names soon became terrible from the Straits 
 of the Dardanelles to those of Gibraltar. Together with 
 their fame and power, their ambitious views extended, 
 and, while acting as corsairs, they adopted the ideas and 
 acquired the talents of conquerors. They often carried 
 the prizes which they took on the coast of Spain and 
 Italy into the ports of Barbary, and, enriching the in- 
 habitants by the sale of their booty and the thoughtless 
 prodigality of their crews, were welcome guests in every 
 place at which they touched. The convenient situation 
 of these harbours, lying so near the greatest commercial 
 states at that time in Christendom, made the brothers 
 wish for an establishment in that country. An oppor- 
 tunity of accomplishing this quickly presented itself, 
 which they did not suffer to pass unimproved. Eutemi, 
 king of Algiers, having attempted several times, without 
 success, to take a fort which the Spanish governors of 
 Oran had built not far from his capital, was so ill 
 advised as to apply for aid to Barbarossa, whose valour 
 the Africans considered as irresistible. The active cor- 
 sair gladly accepted of the invitation, and, leaving his 
 brother Hayradin with the fleet, marched at the head of 
 five thousand men to Algiers, where he was received as 
 their deliverer. Such a force gave him the command of 
 the town ; and as he perceived that the Moors neither 
 suspected him of any bad intention nor were capable 
 with their light-armed troops of opposing his disciplined 
 veterans, he secretly murdered the monarch whom he 
 had come to assist, and proclaimed himself king of 
 Algiers in his stead. The authority which he had thus 
 boldly usurped he endeavoured to establish by arts 
 suited to the genius of the people whom he had to 
 govern ; by liberality without bounds to those who 
 favoured his promotion, and by cruelty no less un- 
 bounded towards all whom he had any reason to dis- 
 trust. Not satisfied with the throne which ho had
 
 BOOK v.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 647 
 
 acquired, he attacked the neighbouring king of Treme- 
 cen, and, having vanquished him in battle, added his 
 dominions to those of Algiers. At the same time, he 
 continued to infest the coasts of Spain and Italy with 
 fleets which resembled the armaments of a great monarch 
 rather than the light squadrons of a corsair. Their fre- 
 quent and cruel devastations obliged Charles, about the 
 beginning of his reign, to furnish the marquis de Co- 
 mares, governor of Oran, with troops sufficient to attack 
 him. That officer, assisted by the dethroned king of 
 Tremecen, executed the commission with such spirit 
 that, Barbarossa's troops being beaten in several en- 
 counters, he himself was shut up in Tremecen. After 
 defending it to the last extremity, he was overtaken in 
 attempting to make his escape, and slain while he fought 
 with an obstinate valour worthy of his former fame and 
 exploits. 
 
 His brother Hayradin, known likewise by the name 
 of Barbarossa, assumed the sceptre of Algiers with 
 the same ambition and abilities, but with better for- 
 tune. His reign being undisturbed by the arms of 
 the Spaniards, which had full occupation in the wars 
 among the European powers, he regulated with admir- 
 able prudence the interior police of his kingdom, carried 
 on his naval operations with great vigour, and extended 
 his conquests on the continent of Africa. But, perceiv- 
 ing that the Moors and Arabs submitted to his govern- 
 ment with reluctance, and being afraid that his continual 
 depredations would one day draw upon him the arms of 
 the Christians, he put his dominions under the protection 
 of the Grand Seignior, and received from him a body of 
 Turkish soldiers sufficient for his domestic as well as 
 foreign enemies. At last, the fame of his exploits daily 
 increasing, Solyman offered him the command of the 
 Turkish fleet, as the only person whose valour and skill 
 in naval affairs entitled him to command against Andrew
 
 648 EEIGN OF THE [BOOK v. 
 
 Doria, the greatest sea-officer of that age. Proud of 
 this distinction, Barbarossa repaired to Constantinople, 
 and, with a wonderful versatility of mind, mingling the 
 arts of a courtier with the boldness of a corsair, gained 
 the entire confidence both of the sultan and his 
 vizier. To them he communicated a scheme which 
 he had formed of making himself master of Tunis, 
 the most nourishing kingdom at that time on the coast 
 of Africa ; and, this being approved of by them, he 
 obtained whatever he demanded for carrying it into 
 execution. 
 
 His hopes of success in this undertaking were founded 
 on the intestine divisions in the kingdom of Tunis. 
 Mahmed, the last king of that country, having thirty- 
 four sons by different wives, appointed Muley-Hascen, 
 one of the youngest among them, to be his successor. 
 That weak prince, who owed this preference not to his 
 own merit, but to the ascendant which his mother had 
 acquired over a monarch doting with age, first poisoned 
 Mahmed, his father, in order to prevent him from alter- 
 ing his destination with respect to the succession, 
 and then, with the barbarous policy which prevails 
 wherever polygamy is permitted, and the right of suc- 
 cession is not precisely fixed, he put to death all his 
 brothers whom he could get into his power. Alraschid, 
 one of the eldest, was so fortunate as to escape his 
 rage, and, finding a retreat among the wandering 
 Arabs, made several attempts, by the assistance of 
 some of their chiefs, to recover the throne which of 
 right belonged to him. But these proving unsuc- 
 cessful, and the Arabs, from their natural levity, being 
 ready to deliver him up to his merciless brother, he 
 fled to Algiers, the only place of refuge remaining, 
 and implored the protection of Barbarossa, who, dis- 
 cerning at once all the advantages which might be 
 gained by supporting his title, received him with
 
 BOOK v.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 649 
 
 every possible demonstration of friendship and respect. 
 Being ready at that time to set sail for Constantinople, 
 he easily persuaded Alraschid, whose eagerness to obtain 
 a crown disposed him to believe or undertake anything, 
 to accompany him thither, promising him effectual 
 assistance from Solyman, whom he represented to be 
 the most generous as well as most powerful monarch 
 in the world. But no sooner were they arrived at 
 Constantinople than the treacherous corsair, regardless 
 of all his promises to him, opened to the sultan a 
 plan for conquering Tunis and annexing it to the 
 Turkish empire, by making use of the name of this 
 exiled prince, and co-operating with the party in the 
 kingdom which was ready to declare in his favour. 
 Solyman approved, with too much facility, of this per- 
 fidious proposal, extremely suitable to the character of 
 its author, but altogether unworthy of a great prince. 
 A powerful fleet and numerous army were soon as- 
 sembled, at the sight of which the credulous Alraschid 
 flattered himself that he should soon enter his capital 
 in triumph. 
 
 But just as this unhappy prince was going to embark, 
 he was arrested by order of the sultan, shut up in the 
 seraglio, and was never heard of more. Barbarossa 
 sailed with a fleet of two hundred and fifty vessels 
 towards Africa. After ravaging the coasts of Italy and 
 spreading terror through every part of that country, he 
 appeared before Tunis, and, landing his men, gave out 
 that he came to assert the right of Alraschid, whom he 
 pietended to have left sick aboard the admiral's galley. 
 The fort of Goletta, which commands the bay, soon 
 fell into his hands, partly by his own address, partly 
 by the treachery of its commander ; and the inhabitants 
 of Tunis, weary of Muley-Hascen's government, took 
 arms, and declared for Alraschid with such zeal and 
 unanimity as obliged the former to fly so precipitately
 
 650 KEIGN OF THE [BOOK v. 
 
 that he left all his treasures behind him. The gates 
 were immediately set open to Barbarossa, as the restorer 
 of their lawful sovereign. But when Alraschid him- 
 self did not appear, and when, instead of his name, 
 that of Solyman alone was heard among the acclama- 
 tions of the Turkish soldiers marching into the town, 
 the people of Tunis began to suspect the corsair's 
 treachery. Their suspicions being soon converted into 
 certainty, they ran to arms with the utmost fury, and 
 surrounded the citadel into which Barbarossa had led 
 his troops. But, having foreseen such a revolution, he 
 was not unprepared for it : he immediately turned 
 against them the artillery on the ramparts, and by one 
 brisk discharge dispersed the numerous but undirected 
 assailants, and forced them to acknowledge Solyman 
 as their sovereign, and to submit to himself as his 
 viceroy. 
 
 His first care was to put the kingdom, of which he 
 had thus got possession, in a proper posture of defence. 
 He strengthened the citadel which commands the town, 
 and, fortifying the Goletta in a regular manner, at vast 
 expense, made it the principal station for his fleet, and 
 his great arsenal for military as well as naval stores. 
 Being now possessed of such extensive territories, he 
 carried on his depredations against the Christian states 
 to a greater extent and with more destructive violence 
 than ever. Daily complaints of the outrages committed 
 by his cruisers were brought to the emperor by his 
 subjects, both in Spain and Italy. All Christendom 
 seemed to expect from him, as its greatest and most 
 fortunate prince, that he would put an end to this new 
 and odious species of oppression. At the same time, 
 Muley-Hascen, the exiled king of Tunis, finding none 
 of the Mahometan princes in Africa willing or able to 
 assist him in recovering his throne, applied to Charles 
 as the only person who could assert his rights in oppo-
 
 BOOK v.] EMPEROE CHAELES THE FIFTH. 651 
 
 sition to such a formidable usurper. The emperor^ 
 equally desirous of delivering his dominions from the 
 dangerous neighbourhood of Barbarossa, of appearing 
 as the protector of an unfortunate prince, and of ac- 
 quiring the glory annexed in that age to every expe- 
 dition against the Mahometans, readily concluded a 
 treaty with Muley-Hasccn, and began to prepare for 
 invading Tunis. Having made trial of his own abilities 
 for war in the late campaign in Hungary, he was now 
 become so fond of the military character that he deter- 
 mined to command on this occasion in person. The 
 united strength of his dominions was called out upon an 
 enterprise in which the emperor was about to hazard his 
 glory, and which drew the attention of all Europe. A 
 Flemish fleet carried from the ports of the Low Coun- 
 tries a body of German infantry ; 65 the galleys of Naples 
 and Sicily took on board the veteran bands of Italians 
 and Spaniards which had distinguished themselves by so 
 many victories over the French ; the emperor himself 
 embarked at Barcelona with the flower of the Spanish 
 nobility, and was joined by a considerable squadron from 
 Portugal, under the command of the Infant Don Lewis, 
 the empress's brother ; Andrew Doria conducted his own 
 galleys, the best appointed at that time in Europe, and 
 commanded by the most skilful officers ; the pope fur- 
 nished all the assistance in his power towards such a 
 pious enterprise ; and the order of Malta, the perpetual 
 enemies of the infidels, equipped a squadron, which, 
 though small, was formidable by the valour of the 
 knights who served on board it. The port of Cagliari 
 in Sardinia was the general place of rendezvous. Doria 
 was appointed high-admiral of the fleet ; the command 
 of the land-forces under the emperor was given to the 
 marquis del Guasto. 
 
 66 Haraei Annales Brabant., i. 599.
 
 652 REIGN OF THE [BOOK v. 
 
 On the 16 tli of July, the fleet, consisting of near five 
 hundred vessels, having on board above thirty thousand 
 regular troops, set sail from Cagliari, and, after a 
 prosperous navigation, landed within sight of Tunis. 
 Barbarossa, having received early intelligence of the 
 emperor's immense armament, and suspecting its desti- 
 nation, prepared with equal prudence and vigour for the 
 defence of his new conquest. He called in all his cor- 
 sairs from their different stations ; he drew from Algiers 
 what forces could be spared ; he despatched messengers 
 to all the African princes, Moors as well as Arabs, and, 
 by representing Muley-Hascen as an infamous apostate, 
 prompted by ambition and revenge not only to become 
 the vassal of a Christian prince, but to conspire with 
 him to extirpate the Mahometan faith, he inflamed those 
 ignorant and bigoted chiefs to such a degree that they 
 took arms as in a common cause. Twenty thousand 
 horse, together with a great body of foot, soon assem- 
 bled at Tunis ; and by a proper distribution of presents 
 among them from time to time, Barbarossa kept the 
 ardour which had brought them together from sub- 
 siding. But, as he was too well acquainted with the 
 enemy whom he had to oppose to think that these light 
 troops could resist the heavy-armed cavalry and veteran 
 infantry which composed the imperial army, his chief 
 confidence was in the strength of the Goletta, and in his 
 body of Turkish soldiers, who were armed and disci- 
 plined after the European fashion. Six thousand of 
 these, under the command of Sinan, a renegado Jew, the 
 bravest and most experienced of all his corsairs, he 
 threw into that fort, which the emperor immediately 
 invested. As Charles had the command of the sea, his 
 camp was so plentifully supplied not only with the 
 necessaries but with all the luxuries of life that Muley- 
 Hascen, who had not been accustomed to see war carried 
 on with such ordir and magnificence, was filled with
 
 BOOK v.J EMPEEOE OHAELES THE FIFTH. 653 
 
 admiration of the emperor's power. His troops, ani- 
 mated by his presence and considering it as meritorious 
 to shed their blood in such a pious cause, contended 
 with each other for the posts of honour and danger. 
 Three separate attacks were concerted, and the Germans, 
 Spaniards, and Italians, having one of these committed 
 to each of them, pushed them forward with the eager 
 courage which national emulation inspires. Sinan dis- 
 played resolution and skill becoming the confidence 
 which his master had put in him; the garrison per- 
 formed the hard service on which they were ordered 
 with great fortitude. But, though he interrupted the 
 besiegers by frequent sallies, though the Moors and 
 Arabs alarmed the camp with their continual incursions, 
 the breaches soon became so considerable towards the 
 land, while the fleet battered those parts of the fortifica- 
 tions which it could approach with no less fury and 
 success, that, an assault being given on all sides at once, 
 the place was taken by storm. Sinan, with the remains 
 of his garrison, retired, after an obstinate resistance, over 
 a shallow part of the bay towards the city. By the re- 
 duction of the Goletta, the emperor became master of 
 Barbarossa's fleet, consisting of eighty-seven galleys and 
 galliots, together with his arsenal and three hundred 
 cannon, mostly brass, which were planted on the ram- 
 parts ; a prodigious number in that age, and a remark- 
 able proof of the strength of the fort, as well as of the 
 greatness of the corsair's power. The emperor marched 
 into the Goletta through the breach, and, turning to 
 Muley-Hascen, who attended him, " Here," says he, " is 
 a gate open to you, by which you shall return to take 
 possession of your dominions." 
 
 Barbarossa, though he felt the full weight of the blow 
 which he had received, did not, however, lose courage 
 or abandon the defence of Tunis. But, as the walls 
 were of great extent and extremely weak, as he could
 
 REIGN OF THE [BOOK v. 
 
 not depend on the fidelity of the inhabitants, nor hope 
 that the Moors and Arabs would sustain the hardships 
 of a siege, he boldly determined to advance with his 
 army, which amounted to fifty thousand men, 66 towards 
 the imperial camp, and to decide the fate of his king- 
 dom by the issue of a battle. This resolution he com- 
 municated to his principal officers, and, representing 
 to them the fatal consequences which might follow if 
 ten thousand Christian slaves whom he had shut up in 
 the citadel should attempt to mutiny during the absence 
 of the army, he proposed, as a necessary precaution for 
 the public security, to massacre them without mercy 
 before he began his march. They all approved warmly 
 of his intention to fight; but, inured as they were in 
 their piratical depredations to scenes of bloodshed and 
 cruelty, the barbarity of his proposal concerning the 
 slaves filled them with horror; and Barbarossa, rather 
 from the dread of irritating them than swayed by 
 motives of humanity, consented to spare the lives of 
 the slaves. 
 
 By this time the emperor had begun to advance 
 towards Tunis; and, though his troops suffered incon- 
 ceivable hardships in their march, over burning sands, 
 destitute of water, and exposed to the intolerable heat 
 of the sun, they soon came up with the enemy. The 
 Moors and Arabs, emboldened by their vast superiority 
 in number, immediately rushed on to the attack with 
 loud shouts ; but their undisciplined courage could not 
 long stand the shock of regular battalions ; and though 
 Barbarossa, with admirable presence of mind, and by 
 exposing his own person to the greatest dangers, en- 
 deavoured to rally them, the rout became so general that 
 he himself was hurried along with them in their flight 
 back to the city. There he found everything in the 
 
 " Epistres det Princes, par Ruscelli, p. 119, etc.
 
 BOOK v.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 655 
 
 utmost confusion ; some of the inhabitants flying with 
 their families and effects, others ready to set open their 
 gates to the conqueror, the Turkish soldiers preparing to 
 retreat, and the citadel, which in such circumstances 
 might have afforded him some refuge, already in the 
 possession of the Christian captives. These unhappy 
 men, rendered desperate by their situation, had laid 
 hold on the opportunity which Barbarossa dreaded. 
 As soon as his army was at some distance from the 
 town, they gained two of their keepers, by whose 
 assistance, knocking off their fetters and bursting open 
 their prisons, they overpowered the Turkish garrison 
 and turned the artillery of the fort against their former 
 masters. Barbarossa, disappointed and enraged, ex- 
 claiming sometimes against the false compassion of his 
 officers, and sometimes condemning his own imprudent 
 compliance with their opinions, fled precipitately to 
 Bona. 
 
 Meanwhile, Charles, satisfied with the easy and 
 almost bloodless victory which he had gained, and 
 advancing slowly with the precaution necessary in an 
 enemy's country, did not yet know the whole extent 
 of his own good fortune. But at last a messenger 
 despatched by the slaves acquainted him with the success 
 of their noble effort for the recovery of their liberty ; 
 and at the same time deputies arrived from the town, 
 in order to present him the keys of their gates, and to 
 implore his protection from military violence. While 
 he was deliberating concerning the proper measures for 
 this purpose, the soldiers, fearing that they should be 
 deprived of the booty which they had expected, rushed 
 suddenly and without orders into the town, and began 
 to kill and plunder without distinction. It was then 
 too late to restrain their cruelty, their avarice, or licen- 
 tiousness. All the outrages of which soldiers are capable 
 in the fury of a storm, all the excesses of which men
 
 656 EEIGN OF THE [>OK v. 
 
 can be guilty when their passions are heightened by 
 the contempt and hatred which difference in manner^ 
 and religion inspires, were committed. Above thirty 
 thousand of the innocent inhabitants perished on that 
 unhappy day, and ten thousand were carried away as 
 slaves. Muley-Hascen took possession of a throne 
 surrounded with carnage, abhorred by his subjects, 
 on whom he had brought such calamities, and pitied 
 even by those whose rashness had been the occasion 
 of them. The emperor lamented the fatal accident 
 which had stained the lustre of his victory ; and amidst 
 such a scene of horror there was but one spectacle that 
 afforded him any satisfaction. Ten thousand Christian 
 slaves, among whom were several persons of distinction, 
 met him as he entered the town, and, falling on their 
 knees, thanked and blessed him as their deliverer. 
 
 At the same time that Charles accomplished his pro- 
 mise to the Moorish king of re-establishing him in his 
 dominions, he did not neglect what was necessary 
 for bridling the power of the African corsairs, for the 
 security of his own subjects, and for the interest of the 
 Spanish crown. In order to gain these ends, he con- 
 cluded a treaty with Muley-Hascen on the following 
 conditions : That he should hold the kingdom of Tunis 
 in fee of the crown of Spain, and do homage to the 
 emperor as his liege-lord ; that all the Christian slaves 
 now within his dominions, of whatever nation, should 
 be set at liberty without ransom; that no subject of 
 the emperor's should for the future be detained in ser- 
 vitude ; that no Turkish corsair should be admitted into 
 the ports of his dominions; that free trade, together 
 with the public exercise of the Christian religion, 
 should be allowed to all the emperor's subjects ; that 
 the emperor should not only retain the Goletta, but 
 that all the other sea-ports in the kingdom which were 
 fortified should be put into his hands; that Muley-
 
 BOOK v.] EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 657 
 
 Hascen should pay annually twelve thousand crowns 
 for the subsistence of the Spanish garrison in the 
 Goletta ; that he should enter into no alliance with 
 any of the emperor's enemies, and should present to 
 him every year, as an acknowledgment of his vassalage, 
 six Moorish horses, and as many hawks. 67 Having thus 
 settled the affairs of Africa, chastised the insolence of 
 the corsairs, secured a safe retreat for the ships of his 
 subjects, and a proper station to his own fleets, on that 
 coast from which he was most infested by piratical 
 depredations, Charles embarked again for Europe, the 
 tempestuous weather and sickness among his troops not 
 permitting him to pursue Barbarossa. 68 
 
 By this expedition, the merit of which seems to have 
 been estimated in that age rather by the apparent 
 generosity of the undertaking, the magnificence where- 
 with it was conducted, and the success which crowned 
 it, than by the importance of the consequences that 
 attended it, the emperor attained a greater height of 
 glory than at any other period of his reign. Twenty 
 thousand slaves whom he freed from bondage either 
 by his arms or by his treaty with Muley-Hascen, 69 each 
 of whom he clothed and furnished with the means of 
 returning to their respective countries, spread all over 
 Europe the fame of their benefactor's munificence, 
 extolling his power and abilities with the exaggeration 
 flowing from gratitude and admiration. In comparison 
 with him, the other monarchs of Europe made an incon- 
 siderable figure. They seemed to be solicitous about 
 
 ''" Du Mont, Corps Diplomat, ii de Malthe. Epistres des Princes, 
 
 128. Summonte. Hist, di Napoli, par Ruscelli, traduites par Belle 
 
 iv. 89. forest, pp. 119, 120, etc. Anton. 
 
 68 Jok Etropii Diarium Expedi- Pontii Consentiui Hist. Belli adr. 
 
 tion. Tunetanse, ap. Scard., voL ii Barbar., ap. Mattbaji Analecta. 
 p. 320, etc. -Jovii Histor., lib. Gl Summonte, Hist di Mapolf, 
 
 ixiiv. 153, etc. Sandoval, ii 164, voL iv. p. 103. 
 etc. Vertot, Hist, des Chevaliers 
 
 VOL. I. U U
 
 REIGN OF CHARLES THE FLbTH. BOOK v. 
 
 nothing but their private and particular interest ; while 
 Charles, with an elevation of sentiment which became 
 the chief prince in Christendom, appeared to be con- 
 cerned for the honour of the Christian name and attentive 
 to the public security and welfare.
 
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