THE LIBRARY 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS
 
 ip 
 Renascence Portraits 
 
 BY 
 PAUL VAN DYKE, D. D. 
 
 PROFESSOR IN HISTORY, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 
 AUTHOR OF THE AGE OF THE RENASCENCE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 1905
 
 C /3 3 
 
 V 35 
 
 COPYBIGHT, 1905, BY 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 Published, September, 1905
 
 NEC FAMAE NEQVE AVRO 
 
 SED GAVDIO STVDIORVM 
 
 SPE-QVOQVE-OTII-AMICORVM-OBLECTANDI'
 
 PREFACE 
 
 This book tries to illustrate the Renascence by describ- 
 ing three men who were affected by it and who were all 
 living at the same time in Italy, England and Germany. 
 For such an attempt to illustrate the Renascence a variety 
 of .reasons suggested the choice of Pietro Aretino, 
 Thomas Cromwell and Maximilian I. One important 
 reason is that they are all more or less unknown to the 
 ordinary reader of history in English. On Aretino there 
 is almost nothing in English except four pages of Buck- 
 hardt written many years ago. In German there is little 
 more. The older French and Italian writers, and some of 
 the newer ones, show him out of focus and without due 
 regard to the perspective of history. Cromwell is known 
 by a caricature rather than by a portrait. In the essay of 
 the Appendix : Reginald Pole and Thomas Cromwell, the 
 writer believes that he has shown the origin of the exag- 
 gerations of this current caricature in the distorted ac- 
 count of Cromwell's bitterest enemy. Of Maximilian 
 there are accounts in English; a short one has recently 
 been printed as the Stanhope Historical Essay by Seton 
 Watson of New College, Oxford. But none attempts to 
 use the best means for the interpretation of his character 
 Maximilian's own writings. Indeed, until recently it 
 was not possible to do so for they were ascribed to his 
 secretaries. Whatever light these three men may throw 
 
 vii
 
 viii PREFACE 
 
 upon the Renascence will, therefore, seem to the ordinary 
 reader more illuminating because it is new to him. 
 
 For this book is addressed to the ordinary reader and 
 the writer frankly confesses a desire to be interesting. 
 And though he is willing to plead guilty at once to a 
 charge of dismal failure he insists upon a claim to 
 credit for good intentions. Such a claim, however hum- 
 ble it may seem, is in reality a little bold. For a desire to 
 be interesting in writing history is regarded by a number 
 of historians as distinctly out of date. A school, which 
 until recently threatened to become dominant, assures us 
 that a writer on history has no more reason for trying to 
 be interesting to the average reader of books than a writer 
 on mathematics. One of them is credibly reported to 
 have thanked God he had no style to tempt him out of the 
 straight and narrow path of scientific exactness. 
 
 But the right of literature to try to keep the result 
 of historical research in touch with life is happily being 
 re-vindicated against this temporary fashion by men 
 whose ability in the use of scientific methods cannot be 
 disputed. Such words as these of Mr. Vinogradoff are 
 gladly echoed in many minds : 
 
 "What I call literary history, has by no means done its 
 work. There is too much in the action of men that de- 
 mands artistic perception and even divination on the part 
 of the historian to allow this mode of treatment to fall 
 into decay." 
 
 To his desire to be interesting the writer has, however, 
 set one limit. An Oxford Professor of history was once 
 asked why he did not make his lectures more interesting. 
 He replied, he would be glad to do so if he saw any way
 
 PREFACE ix 
 
 except by making them less true. History cannot walk 
 in the path of romance, and the writer has honestly tried 
 to follow always the way of sober truth. He has never 
 consciously exaggerated vices or heightened virtues to 
 give scope for strong adjectives. He has tried to avoid 
 the tone of the advocate, though it is easier to listen to 
 than the tone of the judge. He has never tried to make 
 up for the lack of exact knowledge about how things did 
 happen by exuberance of imagination about how they 
 might have happened, and there is no item in his descrip- 
 tion of any scene which is not suggested by contemporary 
 evidence. 
 
 Beside the fact that he did not mean to be dull, the 
 writer makes one other claim upon the indulgence of the 
 reader. He has tried to be short. Of recent years a 
 flood of historical monographs has been poured forth 
 in French, English, German and Italian. Most of 
 them describe with more or less minuteness various points 
 in the original contemporary records of historical events. 
 But as a whole they make the events they treat no clearer 
 to the average reader than they were before. This is 
 especially true of the American reader. These works are 
 often difficult to read ; they are written in foreign tongues 
 they are scattered in different libraries, many of them 
 cannot be found in America at all. The monographs 
 must be interpreted to the educated public even as they 
 interpret the records to the specialist. 
 
 In Germany, the home of the monograph, this need 
 has recently been clearly recognized. The words of Pro- 
 fessor Baumgarten are an example of the recognition: 
 " The most painstaking specialist cannot deny that collec-
 
 tions of sources are not issued for their own sakes, that 
 the highest purpose of the investigations of monographs 
 does not consist in clearing up some detail. * * * 
 When the most extensive publications, the most acute 
 investigations remain for years as good as unused, when 
 at last their enormous extent renders the review of them 
 impossible even for the historian, unless he is willing to 
 confine, his interest within the narrow limits of a few 
 decades, such a result does little to advance true historical 
 knowledge. To increase them without limit, making no 
 attempt to draw the sum of historic results out of these 
 costly materials, is an undertaking which is in direct con- 
 tradiction to the true understanding of scientific inves- 
 tigation." 
 
 Therefore the writer, having the materials for two 
 books in his notes and the ideas for a third in his head, 
 decided to condense them all within a single pair of 
 covers. 
 
 It seems as if there were now some prospect that 
 American writers on history might be emancipated from 
 the tyrannous fad of footnotes. The value of pages is 
 no longer estimated everywhere by the amount of 
 space upon them occupied in small print by miscellaneous 
 observations on more or less irrelevant topics and cita- 
 tions from obvious authorities to support commonplaces. 
 The remark made by Mr. Armstrong in the Bibliograph- 
 ical Introduction to his recent most interesting Biography 
 of Charles V. strikes a responsive chord. "I had a few 
 scruples as to abandoning the explanatory or supplement- 
 ary footnote which is often the fruit of laziness or 
 literary incompetence, for it is far easier to bury a stub-
 
 PREFACE xi 
 
 born fact or episode at the bottom of the page than to 
 make it a living portion of the text." 
 
 But in works so condensed as these short biographies 
 there are occasional remarks in the nature of asides, which 
 may make the subject clearer and could be worked into 
 the text only by misplaced ingenuity. And it seemed 
 wise to indicate the places where citations from con- 
 temporary sources are to be found. The writer was 
 confirmed in this practice by the experience of searching 
 all obvious collections for an interesting document par- 
 tially cited by Mr. Armstrong, without being able to find 
 and enjoy the rest of it. 
 
 The author of Don Quixote tells in his preface how 
 being one day in his study very uneasy about his book 
 because he had for it no quotations for the margin or 
 annotations for the end, and no bibliography to place at 
 the beginning " as all do under the letters A. B. C, be- 
 ginning with Aristotle and ending with Xenophon or 
 Zoilus or Zeuxis," a friend came in and showed the way 
 out of all his troubles. The bibliography was easily 
 settled, "Now," said the friend, "let us come to those 
 references to authors which other books have and you 
 want for yours. The remedy for this is very simple. You 
 have only to look out for some book that quotes them all, 
 from A to Z, as you say yourself, and then insert the 
 very same alphabet in your book. * * * For, at any 
 rate, if it answers no other purpose the long catalogue of 
 authors will serve to give a surprising look of authority 
 to your book. Besides, no one will trouble himself to 
 verify whether you have followed them or whether you 
 have not, being in no way concerned in it."
 
 xii PREFACE 
 
 The writer has not taken this very practical advice in 
 the preparation of his bibliography. In regard to Crom- 
 well and Aretino he has read everything which promised 
 to throw any light on the men. He has not been able to 
 do this in regard to Maximilian. The secondary litera- 
 ture on the period of Maximilian's lifetime in Germany 
 is so enormous that Ulmann, publishing, after years of 
 preparation, the first volume of a sixteen hundred page 
 life of him, confesses that he "had not been able to reach 
 an exhaustive review of all the writings related to his 
 subject." 
 
 The brief list in the Appendix gives only a small part 
 of the titles of the books that have been read in preparing 
 these essays, and consists of full titles of the works cited 
 in the footnotes. The writer's main reliance has been 
 the Calendar of State Papers, the writings and letters of 
 Aretino, the writings and letters of Maximilian. 
 
 He is indebted for control and suggestion to many 
 secondary sources, probably to some not named in the 
 bibliography. He owes very much for Maximilian to the 
 great work of Professor Ulmann, for Pietro Aretino to 
 the labors among the archives, the acute criticism, the 
 able reconstruction of Signor Luzio and Prof. Rossi. 
 But he is afraid that for the book as a whole no one 
 ought to be blamed except himself. 
 
 Parts of the material, sometimes in the form under 
 which it is here presented, sometimes in different form, 
 have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The Outlook 
 Magazine, Harper's Magazine, The Presbyterian Review 
 (two articles), The American Historical Review (two 
 articles).
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. THE RENASCENCE ...>>*. I 
 
 II. PIETRO ARETINO . . : . . , : . . . 33 
 
 III. THOMAS CROMWELL 138 
 
 IV. MAXIMILIAN 1 259 
 
 APPENDIX REGINALD POLE AND THOMAS CROM- 
 WELL: AN EXAMINATION OF THE APOLOGIA AD 
 CAROLUM QUINTUM 377 
 
 LIST OF BOOKS CITED 419
 
 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 i 
 
 THE RENASCENCE 
 
 THE historian is no more able to tell all the facts he 
 finds in his authorities than the chroniclers and makers 
 of documents were able to record everything that hap- 
 pened during their lives. He must select. And if he 
 wishes to produce anything but a collection of anecdotes 
 or a summary of miscellaneous happenings his selection 
 must consciously or unconsciously follow some principle 
 or purpose. For a history is not simply a record of facts. 
 It is an account of the impression left upon the mind of 
 the writer by his study of the records of facts. 
 
 One of the commonest impressions made upon the 
 examiner of the records of facts in the lives of past gen- 
 erations is that history is not a mere mass of events. 
 The events seem to compose currents or movements. 
 Some men of the past appear to have idly drifted 
 with these currents; some appear like those who try to 
 dam and turn back a river, while others seem to so divert 
 or guide it that the superficial observer thinks they created 
 the movement or controlled its direction. This is simply 
 putting into a metaphor the impression that there was a 
 certain similarity between the thoughts and feelings of 
 many men living at the same time which suggests a com- 
 
 i
 
 2 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 mon influence or set of influences operating on all of them. 
 A few familiar examples will show that this is an impres- 
 sion made by facts : 
 
 After the decline of the Roman Empire in the West 
 and the unsuccessful attempts of the rulers of various 
 German immigrant tribes to restore the order and pros- 
 perity it maintained, Europe, west of the Adriatic, suf- 
 fered a series of catastrophes. The Northman plundered 
 and burnt along the Atlantic coast from the delta of the 
 Rhine to the Pillars of Hercules. The Saracen swept the 
 shores of the Mediterranean with fire and sword and 
 savage hordes of Slavs and Magyars pushed into the 
 domain of ancient civilizations until the broad strip of 
 desert they left behind them almost met the bloody trail 
 of the Northman on the West. The Empire of Charle- 
 magne broke down under the weight of these disasters. 
 The suffering inhabitants found a shift for their desperate 
 condition in a plan of defense and local rule, based on 
 methods of land tenure and personal relations with which 
 their ancestors, whether Germans or Romans, had been 
 familiar. The shift devised was much the same in 
 all localities. It spread and maintained itself, a certain 
 concatenation between the parts of society thus organized 
 arose, men formed a theory to explain the origin and in- 
 ternal relations of what had grown up illogically under 
 the pressure of immediate need, and, from the ninth to the 
 fourteenth century, what is sometimes spoken of as the 
 feudal system exercised a great influence not only upon 
 the acts but on the thoughts and feelings of the inhabitants 
 of Europe of all classes. 
 
 So also the student of the sixteenth century finds it
 
 THE RENASCENCE 3 
 
 hard to avoid the impression of something spreading like 
 a contagion. For seven hundred years the Roman 
 Church organized with the Papacy at its head had been 
 the most powerful institution in Europe. There had 
 been sporadic dissent with its doctrines or its manage- 
 ment, protests like those of the Lollards, rejections of all 
 for which it stood by inhabitants of certain localities like 
 that of the Catharists it had fallen into terrible disorder, 
 as during the Great Schism but in the minds of the 
 enormous majority of western Europeans for more than 
 twenty generations reverence for it had never been 
 destroyed. Speaking broadly, Europe had during these 
 centuries acknowledged its authority as the one visible 
 common institution which actually survived the decay of 
 the Roman Empire. 
 
 Within one generation of the sixteenth century, great 
 masses of the people of Europe renounced its rule. And 
 religion, which, for seven hundred years had been on the 
 whole a unifying force in the history of Europe, became 
 an influence making for disorder. It plunged Europe 
 into a hundred years of intermittent wars whose chief 
 underlying cause was the unwillingness of large numbers 
 of men to accept the jurisdiction of the church genera- 
 tions of their fathers had obeyed. 
 
 So also during the last two generations of the nine- 
 teenth century privilege and disability before the law 
 were abolished, and the idea of increasing the number of 
 those who have a voice in the affairs of government 
 found expression in legislation with a rapidity and to an 
 extent seen at no time before in the history of the 
 modern world.
 
 4 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 These paragraphs state facts which are naturally sum- 
 marized in metaphorical expressions. But the feudal 
 system was never a definite thing like the Papacy or the 
 English Monarchy of which you can say at any point in 
 time and space, here it is. Nor can its spread be traced 
 as we follow the spread of a flood or a tide. There was 
 no bacillus of the Reformation nor was that movement a 
 contagion either of good or evil. Democracy is neither 
 a fruitful harvest nor a noxious weed flourishing more 
 and more freely in European soil during the last half of 
 the nineteenth century. And yet it would not be hard to 
 find historians whose work has suffered from this fallacy, 
 and still more readers of historians whose understanding 
 of history has been impaired by it. 
 
 For this reason one of the most acute and scholarly 
 of living French historical writers announces in a pref- 
 ace that he has avoided "abstract nouns such as 
 royalty, the church, elements, tendencies, which so 
 easily come to seem mystic forces. When I have had 
 to describe the acts or ideas of groups of men, I have 
 always designated the group either by its national or 
 party or class name, or by a collective noun, such as gov- 
 ernment, ministry, clergy so that the reader may be able 
 to discover, behind this name, the men who have acted 
 or thought." * The warning of this practical protest is 
 a necessary and valuable one, but general terms when 
 written and read with intelligence and care are useful 
 because they do record and express a natural and true 
 impression made on the mind of the student of the records 
 of the past. It is necessary for history to be as accurate, 
 
 1 Histoire Politique de 1'Europe Contemporaine. Charles Seignobos.
 
 THE RENASCENCE 5 
 
 and therefore as clear and explicit as possible, but it is 
 hard to imagine how history can ever become an exact 
 science and practically impossible to transfer to it the 
 methods of the physical sciences. An over anxiety about 
 exactitude has its dangers too. If historians confine 
 their writings to descriptions of the programmes of polit- 
 ical parties, to events which can be described by testimony 
 acceptable in a court and things of that sort, it is to be 
 feared lest the great mass of people from whom, of course, 
 the future historians must come, may say "well, in that 
 case there seems no valid reason why the race should de- 
 vote much time and energy to history. If the historians 
 refuse to discuss the features of the lives of past genera- 
 tions we want to know about, what especial reason is there 
 for any very large supply of historians ?" 
 
 Such general terms as the "Spread of Feudalism," the 
 "Growth of Democracy," the "Movement of the Ref- 
 ormation," conveniently connote facts and a natural im- 
 pression they make upon the mind of every student. The 
 defense of their use does not make it necessary to enter 
 into discussions about the relation of mental categories 
 to existence. Nor is it wise to attempt to trace causes 
 of phenomena too complex to be explained. When the 
 attempt is made to bring philosophy and history too close 
 together, in the so-called Philosophy of History, the lamb 
 of history generally lies down inside the raging lion of 
 philosophical discussion. It is enough to say that history 
 is a branch of literature and the historian should not suf- 
 fer from any embargo on language. He may try to 
 transfer to the mind of his reader the impressions made
 
 6 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 upon his own mind by the facts of the records, through 
 any terms wisely fitted for the purpose. 
 
 About thirty years ago * English writers on history, 
 literature and art began to use freely the word Renais- 
 sance, borrowed from French writers. It expressed and 
 still expresses an impression made on the minds of stu- 
 dents of the records of men from 1350 to 1560, that a 
 rapid, progressive and similar change took place in the 
 thoughts and feelings of many men of those generations 
 which wrought out noticeable effects upon their life and 
 institutions. The comparative rapidity of these changes 
 in thought and feeling, the fact that many felt them at 
 the same time, that inhabitants of one country felt them 
 at a period succeeding their first prevalence in another, 
 the new forms in literature and the plastic arts in which 
 these changes found expression, their apparent influence 
 in hastening the break up of the social institutions of past 
 generations these impressions made by facts are natu- 
 rally and simply expressed by the phrases, the movement 
 of the Awakening the New Birth, the Renascence. 2 
 
 The more one learns of the life of the generations be- 
 tween the death of Petrarch and the days of Elizabeth, 
 the more useful do the phrases, "Movement of the Renas- 
 cence," "Influence of the Renascence," seem to be, and 
 the more difficult to define. It is plain that there was a 
 Renascence, but very hard to say what the Renascence 
 was. The changes that it brought about or helped are 
 plain. 
 
 1 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Article Renaissance. 
 
 Usage is rapidly substituting the English word for the French word. The 
 borrowing was a totally unnecessary confession of poverty in a language which 
 bad an exact equivalent then in use.
 
 THE RENASCENCE 7 
 
 At the end of the thirteenth century Thomas Aquinas, 
 the Universal Doctor, was the supreme master of Euro- 
 pean learning. In the beginning of the sixteenth century 
 Erasmus was the king of letters. Both devoted their 
 great industry and singular ability to the discussion of 
 religion and the institutions and customs in which re- 
 ligious ideas were expressed. The Summa Theologise 
 and the annotated Greek Testament were both issued 
 with the highest sanction of the Church. The difference 
 between them suggests the difference between the worlds 
 in which Thomas Aquinas and Erasmus of Rotterdam 
 lived. 
 
 In the middle of the thirteenth century there was built 
 in Paris to receive the relics Louis IX, King of France, 
 brought back from the crusade, the Holy Chapel ; and the 
 architect expressed his sense of beauty in an art whose 
 mode was complicated, suggestive, mystic. Five genera- 
 tions later Brunelleschi built, on commission of a great 
 Florentine merchant, the Pazzi Chapel by an art express- 
 ing itself precisely, with an almost logical order and rela- 
 tion of parts, more akin to mathematics than to metaphys- 
 ics. In the end of the thirteenth century Cimabue painted 
 for a Florentine church a picture of the Madonna; in 
 the beginning of the sixteenth century Michael Angelo 
 painted on the rear wall of the Sistine Chapel a picture 
 of the Last Judgment. And five minutes' comparison 
 of the two pictures will make certain differences between 
 them plainer than twenty-five pages of description. 
 
 Now the difference between the work of these three 
 pairs of men is much greater than the difference between 
 the men. If Erasmus had been professor at Paris or
 
 8 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 Bologna at the end of the thirteenth century he would 
 have written books different from the Summa Theologiae. 
 But they would not, like his Praise of Folly and En- 
 chiridion, be translated into the languages of modern 
 Europe. They would remain in their original Latin, un- 
 read save by a few theologians. Had Brunelleschi been 
 called north of the Alps to work for Saint Louis in the 
 thirteenth century, he would not have built the Holy 
 Chapel, but he would have built something as much like it 
 as the fagade of the cathedrals of Siena and Orvieto. Had 
 Michael Angelo passed Cimabue on the streets of Florence 
 every week, any skilled critic might still have been able 
 to tell their pictures apart. But as it is, not even a child 
 could confuse the work of one with that of the other. 
 
 And this general and average difference in modes of 
 literary and artistic expression between the thirteenth 
 century and the sixteenth century is matched by a differ- 
 ence in human institutions during the two ages. 
 
 A series of rough maps of Europe indicating by dif- 
 ferent colours political divisions uses thirty-six colours 
 for the year 1420. The map in the same series for the 
 year 1563 has twenty-six colours, and if we take out 
 the leading states of the German Empire, which in the 
 two maps are unchanged in number, the count would be 
 thirty to twenty. One-third of the political units of a 
 great part of Europe had been absorbed into others during 
 four generations. 
 
 And the change in political conditions was greater 
 than can be thus summarized to the eye. In the 
 Iberian peninsula, within the Italian Peninsula, to 
 some extent in England, what were in effect loose ag-
 
 THE RENASCENCE 9 
 
 gregations of semi-independent dominions nominally 
 united into what must be figured on a chart as a political 
 unit, had become unified and subjected to the more efficient 
 control of a central authority. This political change, rapid- 
 ly consolidating feudal aggregations not effectively con- 
 trolled by the authorities they acknowledged into larger 
 or more centralized states, shows itself plainly in a change 
 in the character of the wars of Europe. Up to the end 
 of the fifteenth century, leaving out of account the reli- 
 gious movements of the crusades, the greater part of the 
 killing for generation after generation was done in 
 private war, or at least in factional war. Even the 
 Hundred Years War, though we think of it now as a 
 struggle between nations, was, to a large extent, a fac- 
 tional, feudal and class contest. When the English kings 
 invaded France in the fourteenth century, they were aided 
 by large numbers of Frenchmen, vassals of the English 
 king or rebellious vassals of the French king. But with 
 the French invasion of Italy at the end of the fifteenth 
 century begins a long series of battles, really between 
 dynasties but apparently between nations struggles in 
 which the leaders appealed to their supporters to defend 
 against the glory and interest of foreigners, the glory and 
 interest of those who spoke or at least read the same 
 tongue. 
 
 A great economic change had also taken place. The 
 unique importance of land as the source of wealth and 
 power had decreased. Men could gain comfort or riches 
 by making things to sell or trading the products of one 
 country for those of another. The use of money had re- 
 placed barter in all but primitive transactions and a system
 
 io RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 of credit had begun to make up for the scarcity of money. 
 
 This economic change had helped to alter the balance of 
 society. From the tenth to the thirteenth century the 
 land holder, because he was either vassal or overlord, and 
 often he was both, must be a fighter. A woman did not 
 freely inherit fiefs, and the knight, holder of enough land 
 to support a horse, became the power in the world. But 
 before the beginning of the sixteenth century the spears 
 and clubs of burghers had more than once broken the 
 charge of the chivalry the professional warriors of the 
 thirteenth century. And successful armies were made up 
 not of vassals, unapt for discipline, anxious to get home, 
 but of men paid to stay with the standard. Knighthood 
 became an ornamental title rather than the symbol of a 
 necessary activity. The burgher who lived within the 
 walls of a town and tilled no land, but who could fight 
 himself and whose money could hire other fighters, took 
 his place beside the knight as a figure in society. Some 
 attention must be paid to his feelings and interests. In 
 the valley of the Po and the slopes of the northern Apen- 
 nines, men who traded themselves and whose ancestors 
 had been traders became rulers of states anti rivalled in 
 power and magnificence the proudest feudal families of 
 the North. 
 
 The education of the world had changed. At the be- 
 ginning of the fourteenth century, though there were 
 students at the University who did not expect to enter the 
 service of the Church, the instruction was in the hands of 
 clergymen and to a great extent in the hands of members 
 of monastic orders. At the beginning of the sixteenth 
 century the most celebrated men in the world of learning
 
 THE RENASCENCE n 
 
 were neither clegymen nor members of monastic orders. 
 A new figure, the humanist, had taken his place alongside 
 the monk and was waging with him a fierce and mani- 
 festly successful battle to substitute for the "Old Learning 
 of the Schoolmen," the "New Learning." 
 
 Those who had the chance to do what they liked in the 
 world, the nobles and wealthy burghers had during the 
 fifteenth century changed their minds about education. 
 In the middle of the twelfth century the Earl of Arundel 
 spoke to the Pope of himself and his friends as illiterate 
 laymen. Men of the sword and horse took no shame for 
 not knowing what belonged only to men of book and pen. 
 That changed somewhat in the next hundred years. 
 Young nobles began to enter the Universities. But noble 
 society did not become intellectual. In the end of the 
 fourteenth century John Froissart, poet, priest, traveller, 
 courtier, wrote a book for "all noble and valiant persons." 
 He and those to whom he read what he wrote thought, 
 and, as the event showed, wisely thought, "it would in 
 times to come be more sought after than any other." He 
 could safely assume in it that the men and women of the 
 English or French courts and the castles of minor princes 
 would care for nothing but war, love and hunting. But 
 during the fifteenth century the society of courts changed. 
 The old learning taught by the monks had never appealed 
 very strongly to the nobles. The new learning of the 
 humanists captivated them. In the beginning of the 
 sixteenth century Count Baldassare Castiglione repeated 
 the attempt made by the Hainault priest a hundred and 
 fifty years before to write a book for noble persons. 
 He was equally successful. His "Courier" was read
 
 12 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 everywhere and soon translated into the chief lan- 
 guages of Europe. It pictures a society informed and 
 cultured, women of wit and education, men who have 
 joined the clerk to the knight and hold the pleasures of the 
 mind as dear as the hunt and the tournament. 
 
 All these changes in the motives of learning and the 
 forms of literature and art; in political institutions, in 
 social conditions, and personal ideals, seem to be related 
 to a change in methods of thought and habits of feeling 
 promoted by a new ideal of education and life. That 
 new ideal began to find numbers of adherents in Italy at 
 the beginning of the fifteenth century. At the close of 
 the century it spread across the Alps and during the next 
 hundred years deeply affected the social, political, 
 scholarly and artistic life of all nations. In the works of 
 the Italian man of letters, Petrarch, who died in 1374, 
 this ideal of education and life can be seen clearly ex- 
 pressed and sharply defined from the scholastic ideal of 
 education and life, all but absolutely dominant thirty years 
 before his birth. 
 
 And it would appear that if you are to give any definite 
 meaning to the vague term Renascence, if you are to 
 equate your x, you must make the Renascence equivalent 
 to the new ideal of education and life suggested by Pe- 
 trarch and the humanists and expressed in the plastic arts 
 in Italy during the fifteenth century. The movement of 
 the Renascence is the spread of that ideal, with the conse- 
 quent, or at least contemporaneous, weakening of the 
 power of the ideas of society and government and religion 
 which had prevailed during the middle ages under the 
 influence of feudalism and scholasticism. Feudalism,
 
 THE RENASCENCE 13 
 
 scholasticism and the mediaeval church were indeed de- 
 caying before the end of the fifteenth century. Economic 
 causes, intellectual criticism, their own corruption were 
 weakening their power, but the Renascence spreading 
 from Italy gave them a death blow the new ideal of 
 education and view of life separate modern Europe from 
 mediaeval Europe. 
 
 To define this ideal by positive and abstract terms is 
 difficult. Petrarch, in whose works we first find it 
 clearly though not always explicitly set forth, presented 
 it in opposition to the prevailing scholastic ideal. He 
 denied that teachers ought to have most in view the use- 
 fulness of knowledge and training their scholars to earn 
 a living in the world. He said the first object of educa- 
 tion was to lead men to love and seek truth for its own 
 sake. Culture was higher than knowledge, skilled work- 
 men could not repay the world for the lack of wise men. 
 
 He wanted a culture, broad, liberal, humane, to replace 
 the narrow technical training of the schools. Therefore, 
 he quarrelled with the methods of the scholastic learning 
 as well as with its purpose. He asserted that literature 
 was a fuller reflex and a better measure of life than logic ; 
 that poetry and rhetoric would set free the mind quicker 
 than metaphysics and theology; that the languages con- 
 taining the records of the civilizations of Greece and 
 Rome were better instruments of training than disputa- 
 tions about entities which had never existed except in the 
 minds of the disputants. 
 
 And when the reason of the scholar was thus set free 
 from prejudice and ignorance, he wanted it relieved of 
 the weight of authority. He said boys should be taught
 
 14 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 the thoughts of other men in order that they might learn 
 to think for themselves. In a treatise "Concerning his 
 own Ignorance and That of Many Others," he dared to 
 assert that Aristotle did not know everything. He de- 
 clined to admit that the works of Peter Lombard, of Ar- 
 istotle, of Thomas Aquinas and other men, however 
 great, had circumscribed the field of knowledge, said the 
 best possible word, given the final judgment, on every 
 topic worthy of serious attention. Therefore, he proposed 
 to cease studying commentators, to break through them 
 in every direction and study subjects. He reasserted the 
 right of personal judgment and made his disciples con- 
 scious that they were personalities and not members of a 
 class, whether in the University or the larger school of 
 life. 
 
 Such an ideal of education and the view of life it as- 
 sumed, was a disintegrating influence in mediaeval so- 
 ciety. If a noble family was influenced by it for any time 
 it came to pass that the son, or at least the grandson, of 
 the man who read Froissart, preferred Castiglione. And 
 this change in literary taste was an index of a change of 
 thought, feeling, desire and habit. Social customs, polit- 
 ical arrangements, civil and ecclesiastical institutions, com- 
 mon opinions, showed the influence of such changes. 
 
 To set forth this ideal of education and this view of 
 life so pregnant with revolutionary influence, demanded 
 the power of marked originality in Petrarch. And yet, of 
 course, it was not new, nor did the movement we may date 
 from him begin with him. History cannot be cut off into 
 lengths as a stick of wood is cut with an axe and the 
 pieces labeled "Dark Ages," "Middle Ages," "Age of the
 
 THE RENASCENCE 15 
 
 Renascence," "Age of the Reformation." Neither do 
 men launch "movements" as a ship is built in the yards 
 and launched from the ways. Other men before Petrarch 
 had uttered similar protests. A hundred years before he 
 was born Abelard had used the methods of the schools to 
 question the accepted conclusions of the schoolmen. And 
 before Abelard the school of Chartres was leading its pu- 
 pils to spend more time on Cicero and Virgil than on dis- 
 putes over substance and accidents. There was a Re- 
 nascence before the Renascence more or less plainly re- 
 corded in the works of some French artists and the writ- 
 ings of some French teachers. But these men were 
 less certain of their aims their influence was less wide- 
 spread and effective than that of Petrarch and his 
 disciples. 
 
 It may be that Petrarch only transmitted and 
 increased their impulse as they may have transmit- 
 ted and increased the lesser impulse of predecessors. 
 It may be that if we could see history entirely we should 
 find all processes continuous and that the source of spir- 
 itual energy was constant under all changes of form. If 
 any man chooses to think that, he is going into a domain 
 where profitable argument is impossible for lack of data. 
 But, however history might appear if seen by omniscience, 
 to men it seems that certain individuals have been inde- 
 pendent sources of power and influence. During the life 
 of some generations it does look as if hidden streams had 
 suddenly broken out to the light of day or currents begun 
 to flow with much greater rapidity. And in this sense it 
 is possible for a wise man to speak of Petrarch as the fa-
 
 16 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 ther of the Renascence and to say that it began in Italy in 
 the latter part of the fourteenth century. 
 
 The Renascence was not equivalent to the revival of the 
 influence of classic antiquity. Nowhere has the undue lik- 
 ing of writers on history for memorable, sharp and pic- 
 turesque statements made more plain its evil effects upon 
 popular conceptions than in this matter. Large num- 
 bers of educated people believe that the Renascence be- 
 gan with the fall of Constantinople, which drove a 
 crowd of Greek teachers into Italy and so revived the 
 knowledge of the classic world mother of arts, literature 
 and learning. But Petrarch, Boccaccio, Salutato, Marsigli, 
 Niccolo de' Niccoli, Leonardo Bruni, Traversari, Vit- 
 torino da Feltre and many other furtherers of the Renas- 
 cence were dead before Constantinople fell. The typical 
 humanists Bracciolini and Filelfo were old men when 
 the Turkish army moved to the fatal assault in 1453 ; and 
 six years before, the Renascence incarnate in the person of 
 Nicholas V. had mounted the throne of the Papacy. 
 
 The truth is that the influence of classic antiquity in 
 the art, the language and the literature of Rome and 
 Greece was only the means of accomplishing the Renas- 
 cence ideal. It became the symbol of its advocates against 
 the "Old Learning" and the sign of their victories, but the 
 Renascence did not mean simply better Latin and the read- 
 ing of Greek, the influence of the Pantheon and the study 
 of the Roman antiques in the gardens and cabinets of 
 Lorenzo de' Medici. When Stephen Vaughan was trav- 
 elling in the Netherlands on business for Thomas Crom- 
 well, a leading London lawyer much given to hospitality, 
 it was natural that he should advise his employer to
 
 THE RENASCENCE 17 
 
 buy a large dining table he saw in Antwerp; for 
 it was decorated with carved inscriptions in Latin, 
 Greek and Hebrew. 1 Thomas Cromwell had spent sev- 
 eral years in Italy and imbibed the spirit of the Renas- 
 cence. His attitude was prophetic of the part he was to 
 play as Vicar of the King for ecclesiastical affairs and 
 Chancellor of the University of Cambridge in replacing 
 men of the "Old Learning" by men of the "New Learn- 
 ing." There came to his house a number of young stu- 
 dents and writers who had either visited Italian Univer- 
 sities or studied under men educated in Italy, and when 
 Vaughan saw a table thus symbolically decorated he said 
 to himself "There is the very thing for the dining-room 
 of Cromwell's house." But this thought did not arise 
 because Cromwell had any special interest in linguistic 
 studies. The London lawyer knew only one of the three 
 languages and was not particularly skilful in using that. 
 Such a table seemed appropriate for Cromwell's house 
 because he and his friends felt in the words of Reginald 
 Pole, another Englishman, who, during many years' study 
 at Padua had been affected by the New Learning, though 
 he disliked it "in these three tongues, Greek, Latin, He- 
 brew, all liberal culture is contained." 
 
 When some students returned from Italy to Germany, 
 moved all younger Germany to Homeric laughter by the 
 parody of "The Letters of Obscure Men," they did not 
 do it simply to make fun of scholastic Latin. They used 
 the weapon of satire in defense of John Reuchlin, the 
 leader of the progressive scholarship of Germany, threat- 
 ened with the stake by the scholastics of Cologne 
 
 1 Letters and papers Henry VJH, Vol. IV, Part 2, 6860.
 
 i8 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 because he advised the Emperor Maximilian not to 
 permit the destruction of all Hebrew literature outside of 
 the Bible. They were interested in something far more 
 vital than good grammar and classic diction. They were 
 defending against obscurantism clad in the garb of zeal 
 for religion, the right of free inquiry, which is the breath 
 of true learning and one of the conditions of a high civil- 
 ization. 
 
 To suppose that the Renascence was nothing more than 
 the stronger revival of the influence of classic antiquity, is 
 to confuse the means of the men who shared and spread 
 its ideal with their end. Aretino, a typical product of the 
 Italian Renascence at its height, who, judged by social 
 and financial standards, was the most successful of all the 
 professional humanists of his day could not read Latin 
 at all. 
 
 The end of the men of the Italian Renascence was a 
 broader and more human culture of the mind, their favour- 
 ite means the study of classic antiquity, but neither their 
 means nor their end was the source of the impulse which 
 moved them. Boccaccio saw his forerunner in Dante, a 
 man trained in the "Old Learning," and looking at the 
 universe under its rubrics. The promise and the potency 
 of the development of art at Florence is in Giotto, who did 
 not understand perspective and could not model 
 his figures. When there arose in Italy generations of 
 handlers of brush and chisel who had a new view 
 of the beauty of this world we live in, they found a new 
 technique. Having something to say they worked out a 
 new language. They did it with the help of the marbles 
 and bronzes of Greece and Rome in the society of men
 
 THE RENASCENCE 19 
 
 who were re-studying their literatures. But the new tech- 
 nique did not give them their ideas. Generations of Ital- 
 ians had seen the ruins and broken statues of the Romans 
 before the time came when all artists were expected to 
 have learned what they taught. It was the seeing eye and 
 the hearing ear and the understanding mind among the 
 men of the fifteenth century which made these dead things 
 produce new life. A native impulse, a revival of the love 
 of truth and beauty, making men more sensitive to the 
 world around them and quicker to respond to its glories of 
 form and colour with vivid emotions of pleasure, sought 
 new and better means of expression. It seized upon classic 
 forms and moulded them to its purpose, and they became 
 the carriers of the generous contagion of the new enthu- 
 siasm for the beautiful. But that impulse would have 
 found some means of expression if all the classic remains 
 in Italy had dissolved into dust. Even as during the fif- 
 teenth century the van Eycks of Flanders and their fol- 
 lowers learned to make more beautiful pictures by devel- 
 oping the mediaeval technique. 
 
 In other words, men like Petrarch and Masaccio pre- 
 ferred a new ideal of education and form of expression 
 because they had a new and more vivid view of the world 
 and of life in it. Their ideal spread because it found men 
 of similar feelings, thoughts, desires, or at least, men in 
 whom such feelings, thoughts and desires were dormant 
 and ready to be wakened. The reason why the world 
 changed as much as it did between the death of Petrarch 
 and the reign of Elizabeth was because generations grew 
 up who were different from their forefathers. If we are
 
 20 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 to use the word Renascence intelligently, we must always 
 see behind it the men of the Renascence. 
 
 Here we must tread carefully for we are again on the 
 very border of the debatable ground of the Philosophy of 
 History. Let us by all means steer clear of it. We may 
 escape wasting time in repeating the disputes of genera- 
 tions of metaphysical speculators, in this way. Whether 
 it be true that man helps to make the history of his own 
 age or whether it is true that he is made by it, we act as 
 if it were true that he helps to make it. If we did not 
 assume this, all political discussion, scholarly argument or 
 religious activity, everything but commerce and the arts, 
 would cease. There would be no use in an intelligent man 
 doing anything but adjust himself to machinery which 
 could not be changed. If we thought all problems were 
 working themselves out by formulae where human choice 
 was not a chief factor, it would be useless to try to take 
 a hand in the solution. 
 
 We live as if we were not mere straws in the rushing 
 tides of history, as if men made society rather than as 
 if society made men. And it seems reasonable to look at 
 past generations from the point of view we take to look at 
 our own to think of dead men as influenced by inherit- 
 ance and circumstance, as limited by opportunity, but as 
 making by their actions the inheritance and circumstance 
 of coming generations. Practically we assume that per- 
 sonality is a chief factor in the life of our own day we 
 should have assumed it had we lived in the sixteenth cen- 
 tury ; why is it not wise to assume it when we try to find 
 out what the life of the sixteenth century was like?
 
 THE RENASCENCE 21 
 
 For there was no time when personality was a stronger 
 factor in history than during the age of the Renascence. 
 The mediaeval man, the average man who lived during 
 the thirteenth century, instinctively thought of himself as 
 belonging to a class. He was serf or noble, burgher or 
 ecclesiastic. It was taken for granted that a burgher would 
 act differently from a knight, that a serf should be treated 
 differently from an ecclesiastic. Every man's chances and 
 duties were limited not only by circumstances and abil- 
 ities but by obligations joining him to his fellows in every 
 direction, by some inherited right or traditional author- 
 ity of another man. The necessities of the barbarous con- 
 dition of society which had forced feudalism to become 
 a method of government, had made the social unit not 
 a man or a family but the community. And the schoolmen 
 had formed a theoretical description of the feudal system, 
 which pictured society as a single great organization, 
 ruled in ascending stages by a civil hierarchy of overlords, 
 with every detail of life guided and directed by the spirit- 
 ual hierarchy of the clergy. It is true that feudal life did 
 not correspond with this theory. Feudalism left the way 
 open for passionate assertions of a savage sense of indi- 
 viduality. Against general considerations of justice and 
 the commonwealth, men were constantly asserting their 
 rights by private, that is customary, local law, or avenging 
 their pride by private war where no man thought it 
 shameful to join robbery and arson to killing. But me- 
 diaeval society, though it left a chance for savage asser- 
 tions of individuality and fostered in the owners of castles 
 a farouche unsocial pride, lacked the mobility and freedom 
 needed to develop true individuality. If it had not been
 
 22 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 for the democratizing influence of the church, preaching 
 universal ideals of justice and mercy and occasionally 
 choosing for its head a man of humblest origin, European 
 society might have hardened into a system of caste. 
 
 To give a man a humane training instead of the knowl- 
 edge of the art of his class, to free the spirit from the 
 habit of accepting traditional authority without question, 
 was to broaden his horizon and to awaken in him the 
 critical faculty, to make him more complex and independ- 
 ent. The consciousness of the ego increased, ambition 
 was stronger and more diffused, activities became multi- 
 plied, men began to find keener pleasure in a greater va- 
 riety of objects. The personalities of men counted for 
 more. And because they had a clearer and wider view of 
 the world they became more conscious of self. Welt- 
 schmerz, the fruit of chagrin, or a self-centred habit of 
 mind, began to appear in literature. To the wonder of 
 men north of the Alps, who had not felt the influence of 
 the Renascence, able bastards gained or inherited political 
 power, displacing feebler legitimate heirs. Many-sided 
 personalities began to appear artists who were poets, 
 architects, sculptors, musicians, painters; rulers of states 
 who were financiers, scholars, writers and connoisseurs 
 of art. Feudal pride secure in its own sense of superior- 
 ity, seeking only the applause of its peers, became per- 
 sonal pride fed by a mordant craving for praise that 
 would give a sense of distinction in the eyes of all sorts 
 and conditions of men. 
 
 The rapid creation of a new class of pictures marks the 
 increased importance of the individual and the spread of 
 the sense of personality. At the close of the fifteenth
 
 THE RENASCENCE 23 
 
 century artists everywhere began to paint great numbers 
 of portraits, not put into corners of religious or historical 
 works, not monumental effigies on tombs, but distinct 
 records of personality made for their own sake. Portraits 
 which up to the middle of the fifteenth century are rare 
 outside of Italy suddenly become very numerous. We do 
 not know what many of the great men of mediaeval times 
 looked like, but we have portraits of all the leaders of 
 thought and action of the early sixteenth century. And 
 the more noted were painted again and again. 
 
 There is therefore a reason for calling this book 
 Renascence Portraits, and some grounds for believing that 
 it might help a reader to a clearer understanding of the 
 Renascence if I could succeed in showing him the char- 
 acter and life of three men who felt its influence, The 
 German Emperor, Maximilian I ; the English Chief Min- 
 ister, Thomas Cromwell; and the Venetian Litterateur, 
 Pietro Aretino. 
 
 The Renascence was firmly established in Italy before 
 it had much influence in other lands. Men trained accord- 
 ing to the new ideal of education were the leaders of po- 
 lite society; all painters, sculptors and architects were 
 following the methods of the new art, before the Renas- 
 cence crossed the Alps. It spread first to Germany. For 
 Germany was closer to Italy than any other part of 
 Europe. In Germany great ecclesiastics were still what 
 they had elsewhere ceased to be, political rulers. The 
 Empire did not interrupt the connection of the episcopal 
 sees with Rome as did the crowns of France, Spain or 
 England. All central Europe from the Eider to the Tiber 
 was nominally under one supreme ruler, the Emperor of
 
 24 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, who was 
 elected on the banks of the Rhine but crowned by the 
 Pope at Rome. The trade over the Brenner Pass linked 
 together the Baltic and the Adriatic. Germany was in 
 the fourteenth century waking to new intellectual life. 
 And the commerce of thought followed the roads of trade. 
 Students poured over the Alps into Italy. They brought 
 back with them the New Learning and within a genera- 
 tion it produced most marked results. Luther and Zwing- 
 li, under whose lead the bulk of German-speaking peo- 
 ples broke from the church of their fathers, would prob- 
 ably have perished at the stake but for the critical and 
 independent spirit roused in the educated young men of 
 the German Empire by the "New Learning." 
 
 Maximilian I died when these two great schisms, the 
 first of a series which were to carry all Teutonic Europe 
 out of the unity of Christendom, were scarcely begun. 
 But it is easy to see that his attitude toward it would 
 not have differed from that of his grandson and 
 successor who regarded it as dangerous to church and 
 state. Maximilian was sincerely religious. But he was 
 not unwilling to question customary beliefs, and the plan 
 he spoke of as his intention to become "both Pope and 
 Kaiser," whatever it may have been, shows that he had no 
 over-mastering reverence for the traditional form of the 
 church. He thought a reformation conducted by him- 
 self would be safe, for it would leave the Hapsburg dy- 
 nasty, where God had placed it, as the supreme arbiter 
 of the highest destinies of the world. But a reform which 
 originated from below which found the bulk of its ad- 
 herents in those classes whose interests God had commit-
 
 THE RENASCENCE 25 
 
 ted to him whose action gave the centre of the world's 
 stage to someone else beside himself, left him cold. As 
 soon as its leaders should begin to cross his plans they 
 would stir a latent opposition in his mind into the rapid 
 development of the conviction that they were enemies of 
 truth and law. 
 
 For it was the same dominant desire of Maximilian 
 which in his age made him cold and hostile to the first pro- 
 tests of the Lutheran Reformation, that made him eagerly 
 accept in his youth the first influences of the Renascence. 
 Maximilian saw in the Renascence a new ornament for 
 the house of Hapsburg in its art and literature loud 
 trumpets to proclaim his glory to posterity. 
 
 In this Maximilian did not differ essentially from the 
 votaries of the Renascence in Italy where it had reached 
 its full power. It is not easy to find among Italian pa- 
 trons, writers and artists of the sixteenth century any 
 large number of men who loved art for art's sake. That 
 society was then full of such men is a conclusion drawn 
 by some advocates of a nineteenth century theory from 
 a narrow study of the work of a few Renascence artists, 
 and not from all the manifestations of their characters and 
 the characters of their contemporaries. The rulers of the 
 fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Italy, all to some ex- 
 tent tyrants in the classic sense, had a full understanding 
 of how much art was worth to them. Keen men of the 
 world, they knew that, among a population lacking in 
 moral simplicity, magnificence breeds respect. Pageantry 
 helps to console a generation unworthy of liberty for the 
 loss of it ; even as new toys divert the grief of children. 
 Some of them, it is true, gratified their own tastes, but
 
 26 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 in all they spent they found their account. And arrears 
 were balanced by the asset of the tribute of fame which 
 future generations would pay at their tombs. 
 
 Maximilian was like them in this. But he was unlike 
 them in the fact that he never understood what he 
 adopted. He never assimilated the Renascence and it 
 never changed him from a mediaeval into a modern man. 
 The works he wrote and the monuments he planned are 
 a standing proof that his taste was undiscriminating. He 
 never could free his mind from the social and political 
 ideas of the middle ages. And when he modified them, it 
 was not by observing facts but by adopting the fantastic 
 conceptions of servile humanists about the relation of 
 his power to that of the Caesars. It is very doubtful 
 whether Maximilian was any more loyal in his diplomacy 
 than his rivals ; but it is certain that he was less success- 
 ful. His schemes seldom failed to allow their victim to es- 
 cape from the trap. A thing planned seemed to him done. 
 He arranged men in day dreams, he did not think what 
 living men would probably do. Hence, Machiavelli, who 
 logically arranged, and by logically arranging exagger- 
 ated, the evils of the general political practice of his day, 
 regarded Maximilian as a sort of living fossil inept at 
 statecraft, entirely unable to take the world as it was 
 around him. 
 
 Of the political ideal which relieves the sordid selfish- 
 ness of Machiavelli's ideal of royal politics, Maximilian 
 had no conception. For Machiavelli did more than dis- 
 play in logical arrangement the practical methods of 
 statesmen of the Renascence. He sketched the ideal which 
 they followed the ideal of unified nations safe and
 
 THE RENASCENCE 27 
 
 prosperous under wise and skilful rulers. That ideal was 
 in the air of Germany even more than in the air of Italy. 
 But Maximilian never felt its power. Patriotism in its 
 modern sense would have been a meaningless word to 
 him, and he could never conceive the conditions of royal 
 greatness from the modern point of view. A chance to 
 promote the unity of Germany seemed to him of little 
 importance compared to a raid into Picardy or the oppor- 
 tunity of taking a small town in Guelders. Maximilian 
 simply put on the Renascence as he might exchange an 
 armor worn by one of his house fighting the Swiss at 
 Sempach, for a new suit from Brescia or Milan. 
 
 Thomas Cromwell on the other hand understood the 
 spirit and ideals of the Renascence and assimilated them. 
 No family traditions obscured his view of the world as 
 it was. He readily accepted the idea that a man ought 
 to look at it with his own eyes and not with the eyes of 
 a dead philosopher. Any ideals he might follow never 
 made him oblivious of facts. Henry VIII was destroy- 
 ing the ancient balance of the mediaeval monarchy and 
 trying to base a great throne on a united nation. He 
 was calling to his service men who before had little ca- 
 reer open to them in statecraft : the sons of country gen- 
 tlemen and burghers. Cromwell followed the open road 
 to service and fortune. He had his ambitions, but he also 
 had his ideals. His ambitions were power won by in- 
 tellectual ability, not by arms; fortune and distinction 
 adorned by literature and art. He was not a scholar and 
 too busy with practical affairs to write anything but let- 
 ters and state papers. But he modelled his leisure hours 
 after the society described in The Courtier.
 
 28 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 And like his ambition, his political ideals were formed 
 by the Renascence. The idea of nationality as opposed to 
 loose confederacies of feudal communities of the des- 
 tinies of a nation as something whose guidance was a 
 proper object of ambition for a man whose faculties were 
 fully developed, was an idea whose hold on the human 
 mind was strengthened by the Renascence. The strength- 
 ening of that idea was not merely a result of the revived 
 study of Roman history and literature; for Imperialism 
 was the dominant note there. It came rather from the 
 broadening of the horizon of thought and feeling from 
 the beginnings of vernacular literature replacing partly the 
 universal Latin from the breakdown of feudalism and 
 the abandonment of the scholastic methods of thought by 
 which the universe had been feudalized in the imagina- 
 tion of men. Wherever the influence of the Renascence 
 touched, this idea sprang into new life. In Germany, 
 Celtes, Hutten and their friends caught fire at the image 
 of Germania Rediviva and talked like the makers of the 
 modern empire of the glories of Hermann, who had stood 
 for Teutonic liberty and checked the flight of the Roman 
 eagle. The idea of united Italy, mother of arts and let- 
 ters, driving the hordes of plundering barbarians back 
 over the Alps, shines like a star through the craft and 
 cruelty of Machiavelli's Prince. 
 
 This idea of nationality was not new to England. 
 Pride in one's nation as including all men who spoke 
 the same tongue, can be seen among Englishmen long 
 before the influence of the Renascence touched the island. 
 But that influence deepened and strengthened the En- 
 glish pride of nationality.
 
 THE RENASCENCE 29 
 
 During the sixteenth century this pride of nationality 
 broke England from obedience to Rome and under the 
 pressure of the Spanish crusade, blessed by the Pope for 
 England's conquest, expressed itself in a deep reverence 
 for Elizabeth as Britannia incarnate. It was because 
 Cromwell had felt the influence of the Renascence that he 
 saw this ideal of nationality and flung himself with all 
 his energy into the struggle to unite England and to vin- 
 dicate her independence of all foreign authority. The 
 means by which he hoped to do this was one which most 
 men who had been affected by the influence of the Renas- 
 cence, from Machiavelli to Martin Luther, approved ; the 
 power of an absolute king wisely used. 
 
 A great wave of absolutism swept over Europe in 
 the early sixteenth century. The need of breaking finally 
 the disorders of feudalism and the renewed study of the 
 Roman Empire inclined men of the "New Learning" 
 to believe that the destinies of nations were safest in the 
 hands of strong kings. And because he was a man of 
 the Renascence, Cromwell served not only his ambitions 
 but also his ideals in helping Henry VIII to destroy the 
 political independence of the nobility and clergy and to 
 control parliament as far as possible. He looked to the 
 future, not to the past. And the way to the future seemed 
 to him to be marked out by absolutism and nationality. 
 
 The influence of the Renascence when once it crossed 
 the Alps spread with great rapidity. Men began to copy 
 the Italian masters of painting and sculpture. They 
 showed their liking for the new art in the forms of their 
 houses and the decorations of their silver plate. English 
 writers took both their material and their literary forms
 
 30 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 from Italian books. And these signs of the Renascence 
 are so much more visible, the record of them is so much 
 better preserved than any others, that we are apt to forget 
 that the Renascence was not primarily an artistic and lit- 
 erary change. The Renascence began with an intellectual 
 and moral ideal. Petrarch, in whose works we find the 
 first clear record of that ideal, was deeply moved by the 
 degradation and corruption of the institutions of Italy. A 
 lover of freedom he saw the ancient seats of liberty 
 fallen or trembling to their fall. Her city republics were 
 so distracted by party hatreds, their citizens so averse to 
 the discipline of arms, that her streets and fields were the 
 hunting grounds of bands of foreign mercenaries, kept 
 to the standard by the love of plunder and blood, or the 
 ill-gotten gold of unscrupulous rulers anxious for more 
 subjects to oppress. Rome, the symbol of the power of 
 ancestors who ruled the world, was half in ruins. Her 
 palaces were empty, her churches decayed. Wolves came 
 into her squares at night ; savage men, untouched by law, 
 fought in them by day. The Papacy, which, a hundred 
 years before Petrarch's birth, wielded power over all 
 Europe, had crossed the Alps, established its seat at 
 Avignon and sunk almost into an appanage of the French 
 crown. This loss of liberty and ruin of the Church 
 stirred Petrarch to indignation. The strong passion of 
 his soul found vent in letters which made his name known 
 from Sicily to the Baltic. He poured out upon the 
 cardinals a flood of scorn, warning, entreaty, if by any 
 means he could persuade them, to enable the Pope to 
 seek power along the abandoned path of duty as the moral 
 arbiter of the world; the Vicegerent of God on earth.
 
 THE RENASCENCE 31 
 
 And the strong motive of his enthusiasm for a new ideal 
 of education was the need of a new generation of men, 
 to save church and state, to restore decadent Italy to her 
 ancient glory. 
 
 The ideal of a new learning, humane rather than tech- 
 nical, producing the men the world needed, conquered 
 Italian society in the letter but not in the spirit. When 
 it was at its height Italy was profoundly corrupt. Refine- 
 ment went hand in hand with licentiousness. Delicate 
 taste was joined to forgetfulness of principle. The lives 
 of the artists seldom matched the beauty of their pic- 
 tures. Titian, in whose work Ruskin discovered such 
 abounding moral quality, would have been entirely un- 
 able to understand the moral enthusiasm which made 
 his modern disciple found the society of St. George. The 
 Papacy was swept into the current. The highly developed 
 ego of Alexander VI carried him without remorse into 
 brutal crimes. Leo X admired pictures while the invet- 
 erate and notorious abuses of the church drove Germany 
 into schisms and heresy. And at the very height of the 
 Renascence Valois and Hapsburg fought over the spoils 
 of helpless Italy. It is true indeed that in the end men 
 trained according to the ideals of the Renascence re- 
 formed the church. The leaders of the Catholic Refor- 
 mation were for the most part advocates and products of 
 the "New Learning," and the Jesuits, the most active 
 agents of the decrees of Trent, made the humanities the 
 centre of the system of education by which they raised up 
 a generation of princes faithful to the church. But for a 
 time the men of the Renascence in Italy forgot moral 
 ideals. Individuality ran riot in a carnival of egotism.
 
 32 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 The humanist, a new type of man, as representative a 
 figure of the Renascence as the knight was a representa- 
 tive figure in feudal times, gives the plainest proof of 
 this declension of the Renascence from the ideals and 
 purposes of its first great advocates. 
 
 By the middle of the fifteenth century the failure 'of 
 the reform Petrarch had hoped from his new learning is 
 prophesied by two distinguished humanists like Poggio 
 and Filelfo, alternately flatterers and blackmailers, en- 
 vious, malicious, obscene, of unlimited vanity and greed. 
 There were, it is true, humanists, poets and artists of a 
 type far higher than this notorious pair. But from 1475 
 on, few, even among the most respectable, escape some 
 taint from the moral corruption which was like a disease 
 in the bones of the men of the Italian Renascence. And 
 the volunteer humanist, Aretino, the man who without the 
 humanities became rich and famous by his pen, is an ex- 
 ponent of the declension of the Renascence on the soil 
 where it started.
 
 II 
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 
 
 IN the middle of the eighteenth century, Count Maz- 
 zuchelli, one of the most distinguished litterateurs of his 
 day, published a life of Pietro Aretino. The preface to 
 the second edition begins thus: "The name of Pietro 
 Aretino has always been so famous in the world that it 
 never could be hid from the knowledge of even the least 
 learned." And Addison in a Spectator written at the be- 
 ginning of the century, declines to tell the career of 
 Aretino as an illustration of his point because he is "too 
 trite an instance. Everyone knows that all the Kings of 
 Europe were his tributaries." 
 
 Neither of these sentences would be written now. The 
 fame of Aretino, so vivid two centuries after his death, 
 has declined until today many people of cultivation would 
 know little more of him than his name. It is perhaps 
 just as well not to know anything about Pietro Aretino, 
 because up to the last few years it was difficult to know 
 the truth about him. Pietro's life was written by ene- 
 mies. And as his contemporary, Cranmer, said of his 
 own foes, "They dragged him out of the dunghill." The 
 scandal mongers of later generations enlarged their in- 
 vectives into the following story, and features of the dis- 
 reputable career thus created appear in every mention of 
 Pietro Aretino except those of a few Italian writers of the 
 last dozen years. 
 
 33
 
 34 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 He was the illegitimate son of a gentleman of Arezzo 
 and a notoriously bad woman. After such an upbringing 
 as might be expected from- his parentage, he fled from 
 Arezzo because of an impious poem (a variation of the 
 legend makes him steal from his mother). He made a 
 living in Perugia as a book-binder and picked up his ed- 
 ucation by reading the books he handled. There was a 
 picture in the city representing the Madonna at the foot 
 of the cross. Aretino painted a lute in her outstretched 
 arms. After this sacrilege he fled to Rome, where he 
 became a servant in the house of Chigi, the great banker. 
 He stole a silver cup from his master and fled to Venice, 
 where he led a life of extraordinary debauchery and won 
 an evil reputation as an atheist and writer of pornographic 
 literature. He was fatally hurt by falling over backward 
 from his seat in a fit of laughter at an anecdote about a 
 dishonorable adventure of one of his sisters, whose lives 
 were worse than his mother's. And this scene was painted 
 in 1854 by the German painter Feuerbach. Finally he 
 died uttering one of the most profane sayings in the an- 
 nals of blasphemy. In addition to this unsavory life his- 
 tory, entirely false, Aretino has been labeled with a larger 
 number of strong epithets than any other man in the his- 
 tory of literature, "The ignominy of his century," "The 
 Csesar Borgia of literature," "Perverter of morals and 
 letters," "The synonym for all infamies." These are a 
 few of the judgments that have been passed upon him. 
 
 To know Pietro Aretino in the four thousand letters 
 from and to him, which have survived in print, is to recog- 
 nize that he had great capacities and some amiable quali- 
 ties which won him many ardent admirers and a num-
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 35 
 
 her of warm friends. But it is also to perceive that he 
 was essentially selfish and corrupt. In spite of the strain 
 of religiosity in Pietro's character, it is hard to raise any 
 very strong objections to the epitaph falsely supposed to 
 have stood on his tomb, "Here lies Pietro Aretino, who 
 spoke evil of everyone except God. He never spoke evil 
 of God simply because he never knew him." 
 
 If, then, the epitaph is just, why trouble to retell cor- 
 rectly the story of a bad life? Simply because to put 
 Pietro Aretino aside labeled and classified by an absolute 
 moral judgment, to make him a scapegoat for the sins 
 of his times is to miss knowing a vivid and illuminating 
 personality. To judge him sympathetically, to see his 
 career as it appeared to himself and to many of his con- 
 temporaries, is to throw upon the society of the late 
 Renascence in Italy gleams of light comparable in reveal- 
 ing power to those which shine from the pages of Benve- 
 nuto Cellini. If this cobbler's son, who in an age of pedc 
 try gained fame and fortune by an untrained pen, whoi 
 Titian painted out of close friendship, whose head San\ 
 Savino cast on the bronze doors of Saint Mark, of 
 whom Ariosto wrote in Orlando Furioso, "Behold the 
 scourge of Princes, the divine Pietro Aretino" * to j 
 whom his native city gave the title Salvator Patriae, 2 am 
 the King of France sent a gold chain of eight pounds^ 
 weight, whom the Pope rose from his seat to receive 
 a kiss of welcome and who by command rode in a stately 
 procession in the post of honour at the Emperor's right 
 hand, if this man be a degenerate type, his degeneration 
 
 1 Canto XLVI, S. 14. 
 
 1 Lettere al Aretino, page 83, Vol. I, Part I.
 
 36 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 cannot be diagnosed by a fixed moral judgment for his 
 character and career are symptomatic of the disease of 
 his times. 
 
 Pietro was born in Arezzo in 1492, of a poor shoemaker, 
 and his wife. 1 He always had a very tender memory of 
 his mother. Years afterward he got his friend and fel- 
 low-townsman, Vasari, to copy the Virgin in an annuncia- 
 tion over the door of a church in Arezzo, for which she 
 had served as a model, and was delighted to trace a resem- 
 blance to the picture in the face of his little daughter. 2 
 He left his birth-place to seek his fortune and went to 
 Perugia, where probably he studied painting without suc- 
 cess. 3 When about twenty-five years old he went to 
 Rome. 4 There he found a patron in Agostino Ch'igi. This 
 descendant of an influential Siennese family inherited 
 from his father the business of a banker. His skill and 
 success gained enormous wealth. And this joined to his 
 personal qualities made him the friend of the Pope. He 
 became papal banker, and to a certain extent finance minis- 
 ter. His social position was even more imposing than his 
 standing in the business world. He was permitted by 
 Julius II to take the coat of arms of the della Rovere, which 
 made him a sort of adopted relative to that Pope. He was 
 a great friend and patron of the study of Greek literature, 
 a most liberal and skillful connoisseur of art. The best 
 creators of beautiful things in Rome, Sodoma, Peruzzi, 
 Viti, Raphael, worked for him and gathered round his ta- 
 
 1 Luzio, La famiglia di Pietro Aretino. Giorinale Stor, della Letteratura. 
 
 'Lettere V, 113-65. 
 
 8 Luzio, Pietro Aretino nei primi suoi anni, etc., page 109. Torino, 1888. 
 Bertani's answer, note page 12, is incomplete. 
 
 4 Unless this age must be set back by examination of the poem alluded to 
 in the note on page 37.
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 37 
 
 ble. The poets, scholars and wits flocked to his house, 
 where his entertainments displayed the insolence of wealth 
 amid the graces of literature and art. At a banquet he 
 gave to celebrate the signing of his will the tables were 
 laid in front of the frescoes where Raphael's hand has told 
 the story of Psyche. The courses rivaled in their strange- 
 ness and profusion the days of Heliogabalus. And at the 
 end of each service the gold and silver dishes were flung 
 out of the window into the river; though in order to 
 save his pocket book without lowering his pride the Pope's 
 host had nets stretched beneath the waters to catch them. 
 In such a household the wit and literary talent of young 
 Pietro could find the stimulus of applause. His natural 
 edacity and insolence would grow by what it fed upon. 
 
 From the house of Chigl, Pietro passed to the Court of 
 Leo X, that Pope who "enjoyed the papacy God had given 
 him," spent eight thousand ducats a year on his kitchen, a 
 hundred thousand in gaming and presents to Court fa- 
 vorites, gave Michael Angelo six thousand for painting 
 the Sistine Chapel and showed equal zest for a hunting 
 trip, a fresco of Raphael, an indecent comedy, a discus- 
 sion between Bembo and Bibbiena or the elaborate farce 
 of a wild practical joke. 1 In the cultivated company gath- 
 ered in Leo's palace, Pietro soon made a place for him- 
 self among the best not by learning, for he had none, but 
 by the vigour of his language. 2 A poet known for skill 
 
 1 Lettere Aretino, I, 26. Also the Buffone di Leone X in Arturo Graf 
 Attraverso il Cinquecento. Torino Ermanno Loescher. 
 
 2 Apparently Pietro went to Rome and gained fame there earlier than any of 
 his recent Italian biographers are aware of. At all events Le Glay Correspond- 
 ence de Maximilien I et de Marguerite d'Autriche tome II, page 409, note 2, 
 quotes the first lines of a poem written at the command of L,eo X immediately 
 after the battle of Guinegate (Aug., 1513), to celebrate that victory of Maxi- 
 milian. It is printed in "Nouvelle Edition d'un poeme sur la Journee de
 
 38 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 in reciting improvised verses to the lute mentions him 
 among the famous men of Leo's Court, Bembo, Castig- 
 lione, Sadolet and others, as "a singer sweet and free, 
 whose lithe tongue had the mastery both of praise and 
 blame." 1 But, either because the men he knew were not 
 laudable or because his spirit was acrid, blaming evidently 
 came easier to him than praising. A pastoral dialogue of 
 the time makes one speaker advise the other, "Try your 
 best to have Aretino for your friend because he is a bad 
 enemy to make. God guard every one from his tongue." 2 
 In 1521 Leo X died. It was centuries since Rome had 
 seen so young a Pope, for Leo was consecrated at the 
 age of thirty-eight, and his sudden death after a pontifi- 
 cate of eight years suggested the idea of poison. But such 
 a charge is too common to be serious and historians are 
 now disposed to see in the accusation a proof not of the 
 crimes of ecclesiastics, but of the bitter hatreds bred by 
 their strifes. We have every reason to believe that Leo X 
 died of disease. Hate followed his bier. Every enemy of 
 the Medici family and party took arms, the ready arms of 
 voice and pen. Cardinal Soderini delivered an oration in 
 which he thanked God for having delivered the church 
 from Leo's tyranny. 8 A letter from Rome reported that 
 no Pope since the church of God existed ever left a worse 
 memory after his death, so much so that all Rome is say- 
 
 Guinegate 4 dedie by M. de Portia to the Roxburgh Club and La Societe des 
 Bibliophiles fran^ais. I have not been able to examine this pamphlet. The 
 account given by L,e Glay indicates that Aretino was well known in Rome 
 three years before the tentative date assigned by Rossi and Bertani for his 
 arrival there. 
 
 1 Cited from MSS. by Vittorio Rossi, Pasquinate di Pietro Aretino, etc. 
 Palermo-Torino, 1891. 
 
 * Pasquinate, etc. Appendix, page 161. 
 
 8 Sanuto XXXII, C. 158, v. Quoted Rossi, X.
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 39 
 
 ing "He came in like a fox, he lived like a lion (Leo), he 
 died like a dog." His wasteful extravagance and family 
 ambitions had led him into all sorts of unseemly schemes 
 for raising money. The Venetian orators sent to greet 
 Leo's successor interpolate some descriptions of ancient 
 monuments in their relation to the Senate. In describing 
 the Pantheon they say, "The great ancient portal is 
 entirely of metal which contains so much gold that many 
 say it is as good as the best gold florins, a saying not to 
 be believed, for if it were so, Pope Leo would never have 
 left the doorway in place." 1 A poet left the following 
 epitaph : "That throne great and ornamented with riches 
 he left as it were, extinct and ruined. See what a man 
 has worn the crown. Murderous Tyrant is his true 
 title. St. Peter have patience, for if you take another 
 Medicina he will be to thy good flock a Catilina." 
 
 These were, of course, the utterances of Leo's enemies, 
 and the friends of his family rallied at once to the de- 
 fence. They did not pay much attention to the dead, 
 they looked to the future Pope. For the eighteen 
 months of one of the longest conclaves on record the 
 family faction did all in their power to force the elec- 
 tion of Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, Leo's cousin, with 
 the bar sinister. In the long struggle behind the closed 
 doors of the voting rooms where the Cardinals were shut 
 up, Rome took the greatest interest. Pools were sold on 
 the result and the prices of the favourites rose and fell ac- 
 cording to the rumours more or less authentic which 
 leaked out from the secret conclave. Medici started as a 
 prime favourite. But his price soon fell as it became evi- 
 
 1 Alberi, Relazioni degli Ambasciatori Veneti. Serie II, Vol. Ill, page 109.
 
 40 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 dent that the majority, however discordant, were willing 
 to unite against another Pope with the arms of the triple 
 balls. One of his backers, however, was not discouraged. 
 Pietro waged during the whole conclave, and even after 
 the struggle was lost, a bitter fight for his patron, putting 
 forth a succession of mordant satires on every Cardinal 
 except the Cardinal de' Medici. 
 
 The form which he gave them foretells the vigorous 
 originality of his talent. He never cared for the fashion- 
 able style and methods of the trained litterateurs of his 
 day. His bent took him into unbeaten paths. Six times 
 in his life he gave to a literary form, as yet but little used, 
 power and vogue. In this way he made, while fighting for 
 his patron, the beginning of fame which could be called 
 Italian. Pietro Aretino was, so far as we know, the first 
 man whose name became noted outside of Rome as a 
 writer of pasquinades. 
 
 The Italians of the fifteenth century adopted the habit 
 of their classic ancestors and were fond of writing verses 
 to fix on walls of their friends' gardens or in places where 
 the public might see them. So Shakespeare, read in Ital- 
 ian romances, makes the love-sick Orlando hang verses 
 on the trees for Rosalind to find. But the verses which 
 the early passers in the piazzas of Florence or Rome 
 found from time to time, were not often love verses. 
 The Italians, and especially the Romans, inherited from 
 their forefathers that taste for satire which had avenged 
 itself against the yoke of the Caesars by epigrams sharper 
 than swords. Their dialects lend themselves easily to 
 rhyme, and the power of talking in meter has never been 
 rare among them. One can still find among the Tuscan
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 41 
 
 hills improvisator!, who given a subject and the proper 
 number of rhymed words will compose a sonnet faster 
 than it can be written down and, the first sonnet finished, 
 will frequently succeed in making another on a 
 different subject with the same rhymes reversed. This 
 facility in rhyming and this satiric temper made the Ro- 
 mans delight in epigrams and poems playing upon the 
 weakness and the vices of the great men of the day. And 
 the most shining mark for these arrows of wit winged 
 with rhyme were the members of the papal court from 
 the Pope down to its secretaries. 
 
 This taste found at the beginning of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury a means of expression and a symbol Maestro Pas- 
 quino, a personage who for nearly four hundred years held 
 up to laughter the crimes and follies of the first society 
 of Rome. At last in 1870 when the law gave entire free- 
 dom to the press, unable to breathe the air of liberty, he 
 died, and his voice, which was wont to take especial delight 
 in the malevolent or scandalous rumours which flew 
 around the closed doors of every papal conclave, has not 
 been heard since. The long series of his poems is finished. 
 Just how they began and where he got his name is not 
 quite certain. 
 
 In the year 1501 the Cardinal of Naples had the ca- 
 price to place a fragment of an antique statue on a pedes- 
 tal at an angle of his palace, and the statue received the 
 name of Maestro Pasquino. Tradition says the name was 
 inherited from a man; according to one report a witty 
 cobbler with an evil tongue ; according to another a tailor ; 
 according to another a schoolmaster, who had lived near, 
 and whose festival was for many years celebrated by hang-
 
 42 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 ing Latin verses on his stone namesake. The festival 
 celebrated by Latin verses on the statue certainly took 
 place, for the verses were printed "with the biting ones 
 left out." And whether the schoolmaster ever drew the 
 breath of life or not, it seems certain that the tailor and 
 the barber are creatures of myth. This annual fete of 
 Master Pasquino so raised the fame of the statue that in 
 the course of a few years it became a more and more fa- 
 voured place to fix the biting verses the Romans loved. 
 So a young German poet, Ulrich von Hutten, a warm ad- 
 herent of the Emperor Maximilian, visiting Rome about 
 1514, wrote a satiric song and fixed it on the statue of 
 Pasquino. 
 
 Popular leaflets in the vulgar tongue gradually 
 displaced the Latin verses of the supposed pedagogue, 
 who thus became, in the course of a generation, the 
 terrible gossiping censor he remained until his death. It 
 is not possible to trace exactly the victory of this satiric 
 Pasquino who talked Italian, over the scholastic Pasquino 
 who talked Latin. But the earliest manuscript collection 
 of Pasquinades, as the world came to know them during 
 the four hundred years of Pasquino's life, was made in 
 the year of the death of Leo X and is filled mainly by 
 verses of Pietro Aretino the first man to win the dan- 
 gerous but envied title of Secretary of Pasquino. 
 
 The deadlock of the conclave ended to the stupefaction 
 of every one, in the election of the Cardinal of Tortosa 
 (Adrian VI), an absent man who had not even been 
 named as a possibility one whom Italians spoke of as a 
 Flemish barbarian ignorant of literature, blind to art, a 
 monk and a scholastic. Aretino gave full voice to that
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 43 
 
 disgust which continued during all Adrian's life to cover 
 with ridicule his honest efforts to live and rule like 
 a Vicar of Christ and, at death, crowned his doctor's door 
 with laurel and the motto Salvator Patriae. 
 
 When the Pope-elect slowly drew near to Rome Aretino 
 thought it wise to leave. Adrian wanted to throw Pas- 
 quino into the Tiber and was only dissuaded by being told 
 it was useless to try to drown him ; "like a frog he would 
 talk out of the water." If the Pope could have laid hands 
 on Aretino, he certainly would have tried whether the 
 Chancellor of Pasquino could talk out of a dungeon. He 
 wrote to get him from Florence, where he had taken 
 refuge with the Cardinal de' Medici. The Cardinal, of 
 course, would not surrender his supporter but deemed it 
 best for Aretino to go to the camp of his distant cousin, 
 Giovanni de' Medici, called of the Black Bands. He was 
 the first soldier that the Medici had yet produced, a for- 
 midable antagonist, a leader adored by the black mer- 
 cenaries who followed him perhaps the most famous 
 Italian mart of arms of his day. A close friendship at once 
 united the dreaded captain and the dreaded satirist. Are- 
 tino became the comrade of Giovanni. 
 
 But this intimacy was interrupted by the death of 
 Adrian VI, and Aretino went back to Rome to share 
 the fortune of the man for whom, to cite his own phrase, 
 "My virtu which fed on your praise, took arms against 
 Rome when the throne of Leo became vacant." When 
 Aretino came back to Rome he was not at first disposed 
 "to make Pasquino talk." The man whose fortunes he 
 had followed as a literary bravo had at length won. Leo 
 X, son of Lorenzo de' Medici, had been succeeded as
 
 44 
 
 Vicar of Christ after the brief pontificate of a northern 
 barbarian, by Giulio de' Medici as Clement VII. The 
 whole set of those who lived by their talents or their wits 
 rejoiced that a Pope representing the reactionary ideas of 
 the Middle Ages was replaced by a man of progress in 
 touch with the times. Adrian had taken great interest in 
 religion and none in art. They hoped that Clement would 
 not spend too much energy in trying to foster the old 
 fashioned virtues, and would give a great deal of atten- 
 tion to promoting men of virtu who could create with 
 pen, pencil or chisel things to please the mind or the 
 taste. The temper of the secretary of Pasquino was 
 soothed by golden hopes, his dreaded and applauded 
 tongue was still. 
 
 His contemporaries were ill content with that silence. 
 After colour and form in the plastic arts, the Italians of 
 the early sixteenth century seem to have found most 
 pleasure in satire, and Aretino had shown himself able to 
 give them a satire suited to their taste, suggesting no 
 ideals, hoping no reforms, so local and personal that it 
 is hard for another generation to read and understand 
 it ; no bitter passion of the soul but just a delicate morsel 
 for the intense "schadenfreude" of the day. They called 
 on him not to stop his career. What stood for the pub- 
 lic of our time demanded something from his pen. So a 
 poet wrote in a dialogue between a Traveller and Mar- 
 forio, a gossip of Pasquino : 
 
 Traveller: "Marforio, since the day when this Pope 
 was elected, your brother Pasquino is grown almost dumb 
 and Aretino no longer reproves vice. What have you 
 to say about it ?"
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 45 
 
 Marforio : "Why, don't you know that Armellino has 
 cut short Pasquino by giving him to understand that if he 
 makes a sound they'll slit his tongue for him, so the poor 
 chap doesn't dare to breathe, much less talk." 
 
 Way: "Pietro Aretino, who is in such high favor, 
 was taken with a mouthful of bait like a frog, and now he 
 sings but he doesn't want to touch the court. That would 
 be a mistake, because it is giving him means to play the 
 swell like a baron, etc." 1 
 
 But it was difficult for Aretino to keep his pen still, and 
 he used it in a kind of writing which, though it occupied 
 but a small part of his works, has fixed the attention of 
 posterity to the neglect of all the rest. Giulio Romano, 
 one of the most distinguished painters of the day, painted 
 a series of sixteen pictures and Marc Antonio Raimondi 
 engraved them. The plates have fortunately perished but 
 descriptions are enough to tell us that in English-speaking 
 countries printer and seller of such plates would now be 
 sent to the penitentiary. At the instance of the Datario, his 
 most trusted counsellor, the Pope put Raimondi in prison. 
 But Aretino appealed to the Pope to set him free and was 
 successful. Then Aretino proceeded to write for the series, 
 sixteen sonnets which matched the pictures. The Datario 
 was indignant and Aretino found it best to retire from 
 Rome to Arezzo. That the disgrace was not very serious 
 is shown by two letters from Giovanni de' Medici, ad- 
 dressed just at this time to "The Stupendous Pietro Are- 
 tino, my true friend," and to "Pietro Aretino, Miracle of 
 Nature." 2 And in a short time we find him back at Rome 
 
 1 Printed from MSS. by Luzio, Nuova Antologia, Aug., 1890, Vol. 28, third 
 series, page 693. 
 
 *I,ettere al Aretino, Vol. I, pt. 1, Letters 1 and 2.
 
 46 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 in high favor with Clement VII, who made him a Knight 
 of Rhodes. 
 
 One of the most distinguished litterateurs of the day, 
 whose presence was sought by every cultivated court of 
 Italy, 1 was Bernado Accolti, the reasons for whose great 
 esteem among his contemporaries do not appear in any of 
 his verses which have survived. He was known every- 
 where by the title of L'Unico Aretino, because he had been 
 born in Arezzo. This recognized model and authority in 
 the poetic art on one occasion turned to Pietro, in the 
 presence of the Pope and the whole court, assembled to 
 hear him recite his verses, and said : "Holy Shepherd, I 
 rejoice in your presence because I leave behind me another 
 self from my own city." 2 
 
 Pietro's thanks for the renewed favour and increased 
 reputation he received at the Court of Clement VII, ap- 
 peared in verses praising the Datario and the Pope, than 
 whom, "Christ could not find today a better Vicar." 3 
 For that praise he also found another expression in a lit- 
 erary form to which he gave new force and vigour. In 
 the first of his comedies, which showed less dependence 
 upon the form and method of Roman comedy than any of 
 the few which had previously been written in Italian, he 
 interpolated into the dialogue, somewhat after the fashion 
 of the modern "gag," complimentary references to the 
 Pope and his Court. 4 But this sort of writing did not sat- 
 
 1 Castiglione, II Cortigiano. 
 
 3 Aretino, Lettere, V, fol. 45. 
 
 Laude di Clemente VII del divino Poeta M. P. Aretino, Roma, 1524. 
 Quoted by Bertani, page 44, from an article by Luzio on a unique copy of 
 this book. 
 
 4 Luzio, Pietro Aretino nei primi suoi anni, etc., page 2, note 2. Report on a 
 MS.
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 47 
 
 isfy either himself or his admirers. On the seventh of 
 June, 1525, the Marquis of Mantua wrote to Pietro by the 
 hand of his secretary, "You promised several days ago 
 to send some beautiful and pleasing compositions made 
 for Pasquino, and we have been continually in eager ex- 
 pectation because we want always to have some new fruit 
 of your active talent and we don't know why we suffer 
 such a dearth of them unless it is to make us more hungry 
 for them. But remember that your poems cannot be easily 
 concealed and when they are known all over Rome and, 
 as it were, all over Italy, we don't take as much pleasure 
 in them, not because they are not the same after as before 
 publication, but because novelty commends everything and 
 adds value to valuable things, etc., etc." 
 
 To which the Duke added a postscript in his own hand, 
 "Please M. Pietro send me some of your compositions 
 and kiss the feet of His Holiness for me. And I am en- 
 tirely yours, entirely yours, the Marquis of Mantua." 
 
 Pasquino was talking again and the result was that 
 Aretino, riding alone one day, was dragged from his 
 horse and left for dead with dagger wounds. Certain 
 letters suggest that it was not the first time his quill had 
 been answered by steel. But this time his wounds were 
 more serious. He barely escaped with his life. 
 
 Such an accident might easily happen to anyone in that 
 day. Nor were artists and literary men exempt from 
 the danger of the knife or free from a desire to use it. 
 Bembo was stabbed in his youth. Benvenuto Cellini made 
 deadly assaults on several men who had insulted him. 
 Leone Leoni tried to murder three rivals, among them 
 the son of his friend Titian.
 
 48 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 Pietro was not always very severe against this way of 
 "vindicating honour." Many years later when his own 
 henchman, Ambrogio Eusebeii, cut Franco in the face with 
 a dagger for attacking his master with sonnets, Aretino 
 writes of it in a letter destined for publication with a pleas- 
 ure lessened only by the reflection that the wound will 
 win for the victim a charity he does not deserve. He sol- 
 emnly denied that he had instigated the deed for, though 
 Franco's "insolence deserves punishment, it was cruel to 
 punish it with steel." 1 But his regret veils ill his satis- 
 faction in the loyalty of his servant. 
 
 Circumstances, however, alter judgments. Pietro left 
 no stone unturned to get Clement to punish his assailant. 
 
 Everybody knew who had tried to kill Aretino, a cer- 
 tain Achilles della Volta, of the household of the Datario 
 Ghiberti, and years afterward Achilles, on trial for an- 
 other deadly assault, confessed the deed. It was taken 
 for granted by all Rome that the master had ordered the 
 servant to avenge the insults of Aretino, an accusation 
 which Ghiberti, years afterward, when Bishop of Verona, 
 solemnly denied in a letter to the Marquis of Mantua. 
 
 All Pietro's efforts to get his enemy punished were 
 vain. Achilles remained untouched of law in the service 
 of the Papal Datario, and Pietro, vowing vengeance, left 
 Rome for the camp of Giovanni de' Medici. 
 
 Of that famous captain he became the intimate friend 
 and he wrote afterwards that the great soldier swore 
 to make him lord and ruler of Arezzo when the war was 
 over. The friendship and the hopes of the two were cut 
 short by a bullet which fatally wounded Giovanni, Novem- 
 
 1 Aretino, Lettere, III, page 203.
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 49 
 
 her, 1526. Aretino has described the death of his friend 
 and patron in one of the best of his letters. 
 
 "When the hour drew near, which the fates, with the 
 consent of God, had fixed as the end of our Master, His 
 Highness was attacking with his usual terrible force 
 Governo around which the enemy had entrenched them- 
 selves, and while thus engaged a musket ball broke the leg 
 which was already wounded by an arquebus. As soon 
 as he felt the blow, fear and melancholy fell on the army 
 and joy and ardor died in all hearts. Everybody forgot 
 himself and in thinking of the occurrence wept, complain- 
 ing of fate for having so senselessly brought to death the 
 noblest and most excellent general in the memory of cen- 
 turies, at the very beginning of more than human achieve- 
 ments and in the midst of Italy's greatest need. The 
 captains who followed him with love and veneration, 
 blaming fortune and his temerity for their loss, spoke of 
 age ripened to bear fatigue sufficient for every undertaking 
 and apt for every difficulty. They sighed over the great- 
 ness of his thoughts and the wildness of his valour, they 
 could not control their voices in remembering the good 
 fellowship which made them his companions and not for- 
 getting his foresight and acuteness, they warmed with the 
 fire of their complaints the snow which was falling 
 heavily while they carried him to Mantua. * * * 
 Then the Duke of Urbino came to see him and said, seeing 
 the situation, 'It is not enough for you to be great and 
 glorious in arms if you do not also distinguish your name 
 by religion under whose sacraments we are born.' And 
 he, understanding that these words meant the last confes- 
 sion, answered, 'As I have done my duty in all things,
 
 SO RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 if need is, I will do it in this also.' Then when he went 
 out he set himself to talk with me, calling for Sire Antonio 
 with great affection. And when I said that we would 
 send for him, 'Do you want/ he answered, 'a man 
 like him to leave the field of war to see sick men ?' Then 
 he remembered the Count of San Secondo, saying, 'I 
 wish he were here to take my place.' Sometimes he 
 scratched his head with his finger, sometimes he laid 
 it on his lips, saying, 'What will happen?' Often re- 
 peating, 'I have nothing to repent of.' Then, by the 
 wishes of the doctors, I went to him and said, 'It would 
 be an insult to your soul if I tried to persuade you that 
 death is the cure of ills, made heavy only by our fears. 
 But because it is the highest happiness to do everything 
 with free will, let them cut off the leg broken by the artil- 
 lery and in eight days you will be able to make of Italy, 
 now a slave, a queen. And your lameness will serve in- 
 stead of the royal order you have always refused to wear 
 on your neck, because wounds and the loss of limbs are 
 the medals of the friends of Mars.' 
 
 " 'Let them do it,' he answered at once. At this mo- 
 ment the doctors came in and praising the firmness of his 
 resolution, ended their services for the night and, after 
 giving him medicine, went to put their instruments in 
 order. It was already the hour to eat when he was 
 taken by violent nausea. Then he said to me, 'The sig- 
 nals of Caesar! I must think of something else than life.' 
 And with hands joined, he made a vow to go to the 
 Apostle of Galatia. But when the time was come and the 
 skillful men came in with their instruments, they asked 
 for eight or ten assistants to hold him while the terrible
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 51 
 
 sawing Iaste3. He smiled and said, 'Twenty couldn't 
 hold me,' got ready with a perfectly calm face, took the 
 candle in his hand to light the doctors himself. I ran out 
 and closing my ears heard only two cries, and then he 
 called me. When I came to him he said, 'I am cured,' 
 and turning himself all around, made a great rejoicing 
 about it. If the Duke of Urbino had not stopped him, he 
 would have made them bring in the foot with the pieces 
 of his leg to look at, laughing at us because we could not 
 bear to look at what he had suffered. And his sufferings 
 were far greater than those of Alexander and Trajan 
 who kept a smiling face when the tiny arrowhead was 
 pulled out. He smiled when his nerves and sinews were 
 cut. 
 
 But finally the pain which had left him returned two 
 hours before day with all sorts of torments. I heard him 
 knocking hastily on the wall of the room. The sound 
 stabbed me to the heart and getting dressed, in an instant 
 I ran to him. As soon as he saw me he commenced to 
 say that the thought of cowards gave him more disgust 
 than pain, trying by thus gossiping with me to set free by 
 disregarding his misfortunes his spirit tangled in the 
 snares of death. But as day dawned, things grew so much 
 worse that he made his will, in which he divided many 
 thousands of scudi in money and stuff among those who 
 had served him and left only four julii for his burial. 
 The Duke was executor. Then he turned in most Chris- 
 tian mood to his last confession and seeing the friar come, 
 'Father,' he said, 'being a professor of arms I have 
 lived with the habits of soldiers as I should have lived 
 like the monks if I had put on the dress you wear. Were
 
 52 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 it allowed I would confess before everyone for I have 
 never done anything unworthy of myself.' At last he 
 turned to me, ordering me to have his wife send Cosimo 
 to him. At that, death which was calling him to the 
 under world doubled his sadness. Already the entire 
 household without any more thought of the respect due 
 to rank, swarmed round the bed, mingled with his chief 
 officers and shadowed by a cold melancholy, wept for the 
 living hope and the service which they were losing with 
 their master, each trying to catch his eye with a glance of 
 theirs to show their sorrow and love. Thus surrounded, 
 he took the hand of the Duke, saying, 'You are losing 
 to-day the greatest friend and the best servant you have 
 ever had.' His Excellency, masking his face and tongue 
 with the appearance of false joy, tried to make him believe 
 he would get well. And he who was not frightened by 
 death even when he was certain of it, began to talk to the 
 Duke about the result of the war, saying things which 
 would have been remarkable if he had been in full health, 
 instead of half dead. And so he remained working with 
 his mind until almost the ninth hour of the night of the 
 vigil of St. Andrew. And because his suffering was very 
 great be begged me to put him to sleep by reading to him. 
 I did it and he seemed to waste away from sleep to sleep. 
 At last, waking after fifteen minutes' dozing, he said, 'I 
 dreamed I was making my will and here I am cured. If 
 I keep on getting better like this I'll teach the Germans 
 how to make war and show them how I avenge myself.' 
 Even as he said this the lamp of his spirit which cheated 
 his eyes began to yield to the perpetual darkness. Where- 
 fore of his own accord he asked for the Extreme Unction,
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 53 
 
 Having received the sacrament, he said, 'I don't want to 
 die among all these poultices.' So we fixed a camp bed 
 and put him on it and there while his mind slept, death 
 took him." 1 
 
 "He is dead a force of nature. He is finished the 
 example of antique faith. He is gone the right arm of 
 battle." 2 
 
 Aretino seems to have felt this loss more than any- 
 thing which happened to him, and for the rest of 
 his life never tired of praising the character of his dead 
 friend and patron. 
 
 He was welcome to stay with his old admirer, the Mar- 
 quis of Mantua. But Federico found himself much em- 
 barrassed by his guest's quarrel with the Pope whom 
 Aretino ceaselessly attacked with bitter satires. And he 
 had found for them a new and striking form. The belief 
 in astrology was very common among all classes of the 
 day, educated and uneducated. For at least thirty 
 years astrologers had issued their predictions based on the 
 conjunctions of the planets; about the weather, the har- 
 vests, the war, the governments and other topics of inter- 
 est. These publications, called giudizi, were taken 
 seriously and had a large sale. Aretino conceived the 
 striking idea of parodying these giudizi, making them a 
 comment on what had happened spiced with satire and 
 witty reflections. This gave him the chance of telling at 
 once the scandals of the day and his opinions on them. 
 Just when he began to write giudizi we cannot tell. 
 Until very recently only a fragment of these admired pro- 
 ductions was known. It was written at Mantua and en- 
 
 1 Aretino, Lettere, I, 5-9. 
 'Aretino, Lettere, I, 10.
 
 54 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 titled Giudizio or prognostic of Maestro Pasquino, the 
 fifth evangelist for the year 1527. To the Marquis of 
 Mantua Pieto Aretino. The stupidity of Guarico (a 
 noted astrologer) and of that brute who is with Count 
 Rangone and the other stupid ribalds, the disgraces of the 
 prophets, have made me this year turn philosopher to the 
 shame of the stupid flock of Abumasar and Ptolemy. I 
 have composed the Giudizio for 1527 and I will not be a 
 liar like the above mentioned rascals whose smallest and 
 least important lie was the flood, etc., etc. 
 
 Section first. Of the nature of the atmosphere and the 
 entries of the sun (into the zodiacal signs). 
 
 According to the opinion of modern interpreters of the 
 planets, for instance Zulian Levi and Ceccotto of Genoa, 
 the entry of the sun will be into the first tavern he shall 
 find and he will come out drunk at the end of eight days 
 at the meridian of your horologe of Mantua. The atmos- 
 phere will be very apt to become corrupt by the breath of 
 Germans gulping Italian wine, etc., etc. 1 
 
 The body of the Giudizio, which is lost, was evidently a 
 most bitter attack on the Pope, the Cardinals and the 
 Roman court. For, in April, 1527, the Mantuan Ambas- 
 sador wrote from Rome to the Marquis that the confessor 
 of the Pope reported his Holiness much offended by a 
 little book of Pietro Aretino's dedicated to the Marquis 
 and full of evil speaking, especially against the Pope and 
 the Cardinals and other prelates of this court. The Am- 
 bassador suggests that he must drive Aretino from Man- 
 tua. The Marquis could not afford to quarrel with the 
 
 1 Quoted from MSS. by Iuzio, Pietro Aretino nei primi suoi anni, etc., 
 pages.
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 55 
 
 Pope. He answered that although he had taken pleasure 
 in some of Aretino's writings, he had never been pleased 
 to have him write against the Pope and the prelates of 
 the church. As soon as he understood the blackguardly 
 mind of Aretino he had told him to leave the court and 
 had given him money and other gifts only to avoid ap- 
 pearing mean. If this was not enough His Holiness had 
 but to give him the word quietly, or otherwise express a 
 wish that it should be done, and he would settle Aretino 
 for good and all. If he escaped from other hands he 
 could not escape his and he would manage it in such a 
 way that no one would know who did it. 1 
 
 Whether the Marquis of Mantua was lying to the Pope 
 in saying that he despised Aretino's writings and was 
 ready to have him assassinated if His Holiness wished it, 
 or whether he was lying to Aretino in his expressions of 
 esteem, is difficult to say. At all events, twenty-four 
 days after he sent the above dispatch to Rome, he sent a 
 letter to Aretino at Venice in which, among other com- 
 pliments, he wrote, "Very willingly I have done you the 
 favour to look over again your Giudizio, although I had 
 re-read it before and I find that it is the most truthful 
 Giudizio which has been uttered for many years and that 
 you are the best astrologer there is. * * * I shall 
 expect now in recognition of this favour that you will 
 keep the promise you made to send me whatever comes 
 from your fine mind as I beg you to do, because no greater 
 pleasure could be given me, and your writings are the 
 merriest things I come across." 
 
 1 Luzio, P. A. nei primi suoi anni, Documento II. Quoted here in summary 
 form.
 
 56 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 Aretino arrived in Venice a fugitive with a hundred 
 scudi in his pocket in March, 1527, and lived there for 
 twenty-nine years a life of honour, splendour and fame, 
 a political force courted by all, a celebrity of Venice, 
 visited by distinguished strangers, the flattered corre- 
 spondent of the leading artists and litterateurs and their 
 noble patrons. There was talk at one time of making 
 him a cardinal. 1 If this had been done, no literary man 
 of his day would have received larger material rewards 
 or had a more triumphant success. 
 
 Of this successful life and of his own character we 
 have a most vivid and truthful record in eight hundred 
 and sixteen letters to Aretino and thirty-one hundred and 
 seventy-five from him, all printed during his lifetime. In 
 those five thousand pages one can see the reflection of the 
 man and the times. 
 
 In Venice he found the home which suited his tastes. 
 He was never tired of praising the charms of life in "The 
 crown and beauty of the world." "Venice impress of the 
 joyful soul of wonderful and foreseeing Nature." "Ven- 
 ice alias the Terrestrial Paradise." 
 
 Venice was the richest and largest of Italian cities, and 
 the only one free from foreign control. The lines of 
 trade were indeed changing. Adventurous ships had 
 traced on the ocean the great highroads of travel, and the 
 centre of commerce was no longer at the head of the 
 Adriatic. It was moving up the Atlantic coast toward 
 the delta of the Rhine. But the decline of Venice was 
 very slow. It was as yet scarcely noticeable. The State 
 
 1 Lctterc al Aretino II, No. 248. Titian wrote from Augsburg that the 
 Emperor talked of urging his name upon the Pope for a red hat.
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 57 
 
 revenues were larger than those of the English Crown. 
 The citizens were prosperous, and out of a population of 
 190,000 in 1585 there were only 187 beggars. So easy 
 was living that, by the middle of the century, citizens could 
 no longer be found to man the galleys and they must be 
 filled with aliens. The common people were comfortable 
 to an extent unknown elsewhere in Italy. They had rugs 
 for the floor, good beds to sleep on, pictures on the walls, 
 and some silver pieces for the well-spread table. 
 
 The homes of the Venetian nobles had long been mag- 
 nificent. In the early fifteenth century a traveller wrote 
 that not even the Queen of France or the Duchess of 
 Milan had apartments as gorgeously furnished as those 
 of a Venetian lady. At that time the ships unloaded their 
 cargoes at the steps of the palaces, and the lower rooms 
 stored the merchandise that made the family wealth. 
 Bales of wool and rolls of silk rested unashamed beneath 
 the banners and arms won by noble ancestors in glorious 
 fight with the Turk. But in the sixteenth century the 
 eighteen hundred patricians, leaving trade to the citizens, 
 gave themselves to the cares of government and to spend- 
 ing the wealth laid up by their hard-working forefathers. 
 
 They spent it in princely style. It was traditional in 
 their class to be well educated, and when the rude English 
 nobles could scarcely read and write, the Venetian patri- 
 cians had maintained a course of public instruction in 
 philosophy whose chairs must all be filled by aristocrats. 
 They were rapidly building the hundred palaces which 
 rose on the banks of the canals during that sixteenth 
 century which brought into being most of the Venice we 
 know; for about half of the buildings mentioned in a
 
 58 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 modern guide-book were erected or restored in the six- 
 teenth century. Their patronage was fostering the bloom 
 of artistic power that made Venice succeed Florence and 
 Rome as the third centre of the art of the Renascence. At 
 the public celebration of the victory of Lepanto in 1575, 
 the gates of the Rialto were draped in gold, blue, and red, 
 and decorated with trophies of Turkish arms, among 
 which the city displayed as its most precious possessions 
 pictures of Raphael, Bellini, Giorgione, Michael Angelo, 
 Pordenone, and Titian. 
 
 The luxury of living grew steadily, in spite of laws 
 passed to restrict it by men who sighed for the good old 
 times when generations of Venetian seamen, working and 
 fighting hard and living simply, wrested wealth from the 
 sea and power from the infidel. Venice gained from 
 Rome the reputation of being the centre of license as 
 well as art, and became the pander of the visitors who 
 flocked to see her beauty. 
 
 In Italy of that time public sentiment was deeply de- 
 praved. One of the many Italian scholars who, in these 
 last few years, have been doing such valuable work on 
 the Renascence, says : "It is now a banal truism . . . 
 that in the Italian Renascence the concept of morality un- 
 derwent a transformation and a general lowering so great 
 that it requires a strong effort for us to form a just idea 
 of it." 1 
 
 The solid reasons on which this judgment rests may 
 be indicated by two examples : Luzio has published letters 
 of the Marquis of Mantua in which he frankly shows 
 
 1 Cian, Bembo, page 180; Virgili, page 58, speaks of "II fango ed il lezzo di 
 quei tempi d'oro."
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 59 
 
 willingness to render the most infamous service to Arett- 
 no's vices. And Molmenti quotes a contemporary who 
 says that Alfonso d'Este was called a virtuous man, be- 
 cause he let other men's wives alone and never failed to 
 provide dowries and husbands for the young girls he 
 ruined. 1 
 
 A sense of shame is the last bulwark against vice and 
 the standard of morality is always higher than the prac- 
 tice. Nowhere in the world during the early sixteenth 
 century was this very high. But Italy had a deserved 
 distinction in evil. Roger Ascham visited Venice five 
 years before Pietro's death. His judgment may have 
 been somewhat coloured by religious prejudice, but it 
 will bear a large reduction without being much weakened. 
 It is expressed in language a little too virile to be quoted 
 entire in days when indignation is less frank, but the 
 gist of it is in these two sentences : "I was once in Italy 
 myself; but I thank God my abode there was but nine 
 days. And yet I saw in that little time in one city more 
 liberty to sin than ever I heard tell of in our noble city of 
 London in nine years." 2 
 
 It is not possible to find in modern literature pictures 
 of a society moving on as low a level of moral judgment as 
 that on which the heroes of the popular Italian novelists 
 of the sixteenth century show their heroes and heroines. 
 Social custom did not exact from vice even the tribute of 
 concealment or hypocrisy. 
 
 Aretino had no quarrel with this depraved moral judg- 
 ment Indeed it did not seem to him depraved, but just 
 
 1 Molmenti, page 287. 
 
 Ascham, The Schoolmaster, about the middle of the treatise.
 
 60 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 and natural. Like most men of this day he would have 
 smiled with indulgent pity at a higher standard of con- 
 duct as the dream of an idealist ignorant of what happens. 
 Boccaccio had expressed the base of a depraved literature 
 and a depraved life in the conclusion, the same conclu- 
 sion assumed in that extraordinary series of erotomaniac 
 romances to which so many masters of French prose have 
 in our day given their pens that man cannot resist his 
 passions. Aretino writes in one of his letters, "It is in 
 the power of few or rather of none, to resist the assaults 
 of lust or of anger. Wherefore, every unfortunate occur- 
 rence produced by one or the other of these passions 
 ought to be forgiven." * 
 
 Let it be said then, once for all, that the life of Aretino, 
 so picturesque, so joyous, so adorned with the pleasures of 
 literature and art, was frankly disorderly, based on Turk- 
 ish morals, or rather on morals worse than Turkish, for 
 he lacked none of the vices of the East and his harem was 
 irregular and temporary. This viciousness was not in the 
 least concealed. We know of it chiefly from the allu- 
 sions and accounts of the collection of letters he himself 
 printed, and in two of them he has frankly and brutally 
 defended and recommended such a life. 2 
 
 This disorder was thrown in Aretino's teeth by his 
 assailants. But neither their reproaches nor its notoriety 
 diminished the tribute of respect paid to him in Venice 
 and out of it by all classes of society, including popular 
 preachers, prelates of the church and ladies of the most 
 distinguished families. It did not prevent honourable 
 
 1 Aretino, I,ettere, I, fol. 192. 
 Aretino, I.ettere, I, 105-259.
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 61 
 
 women from sending him wine, preserved peaches, and 
 beautiful embroideries, nor stop a blue stocking of unre- 
 proachable reputation like Veronica Gambara from writ- 
 ing the most flattering letters or celebrating his love in a 
 sonnet. 1 
 
 Within two years of his arrival in Venice, Pietro moved 
 into a house on the Grand Canal close to the Rialto in the 
 very centre of the life of the city. In a letter to its noble 
 owner, Domenico Bolani, he describes it, "I should 
 seem, most honoured Sir, guilty of ingratitude if I did 
 not pay with praise a part of what I owe to the divine site 
 where your house is built. I live there with the greatest 
 pleasure in life because it is placed in a position which 
 could not be improved by being moved up or down or in 
 any other direction. To undertake the theme of its 
 merits is as difficult as it is to write about the Emperor. 
 Certainly the man who built it chose the best side of the 
 Grand Canal. And because it is the patriarch of all streets, 
 and Venice the popess of all cities, I can truthfully say 
 that I enjoy the prettiest street and pleasantest view in 
 the world. I cannot go to the window during business 
 hours without seeing a thousand persons and as many 
 gondolas. On the right hand I have the piazzas of the 
 beccaria and the fish market and the Campo del Mancino, 
 
 1 Preachers Vergerio, Cerolamo d'Este, Fra Tommaso, Bernardo of Brescia, 
 Aretino Lettere. Prelates It will be enough to cite the Cardinals of Ravenna, 
 Mantua, Urbino, the Archbishop of Palermo, the Bishops of Casale, Lucera, 
 Vercelli. Lettere a Pietro Aretino. Ladies Contessa di Monte Labate, Duchessa 
 d'Urbino, Camilla and Ludovica Pallavicina, I/udovica San Sevino, etc. Ca- 
 milla Pallavicina had his illegitimate daughter for a visit and sent her home 
 with a gold chain. 
 
 Aretino, Lettere, III, 143. 
 
 Veronica Gambara. Lettere al Aretino, I, page 318 ff. 
 
 "Serena will be with Beatrice and Laura eternal in the circle of Heaven."
 
 62 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 the bridge and the House of German merchants. Oppo- 
 site both there is the Rialto crowded with business men. 
 
 ******** 
 "I do not care to see streams which water the meadows 
 when at dawn I can look at the water covered at the sea- 
 son with everything that grows. It is very amusing when 
 the farmers distribute their great loads of fruit and green 
 stuff to those who carry them where they are to go. But 
 that is nothing compared to the twenty or twenty-five sail- 
 ing boats filled with melons gathered together in a little 
 island, while the crowd runs around testing the perfection 
 of the fruit by smelling and weighing it. I don't speak 
 of the pretty wives shining with silk, gold and jewelry 
 standing proudly in the boats. * * * And who 
 would not have died laughing to see, as I and the 
 famous Giulio Camillo did, a bark filled with Germans 
 just come out of the tavern upset on a very cold day. 
 * * * And that nothing may be lacking to complete 
 my view, on one side I am charmed by the orange trees 
 touching with gold the foundations of the palace of the 
 Camerlinghi and on the other by the canal and bridge of 
 San Giovanni. The winter sun never rises without 
 first giving notice at my bedside, in my study, my 
 kitchen, my rooms and dining-hall. * * * I must 
 not forget the lights which after dark seem like scattered 
 stars, where the things we use for our dinners and ban- 
 quets are sold, or the music which at night comes to my 
 ears with its concord of harmonious sounds. It would 
 be easier to express the profound wisdom which you 
 possess for letters and politics than to come to the end of 
 the pleasures I find in my view. And if there is any
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 63 
 
 breath or spirit of genius in the rubbish I write, it is in- 
 spired not by the air nor the shadows nor the flowers nor 
 the Summer green, but by the airy felicity of this habita- 
 tion of yours, in which I hope, God willing, to count with 
 health and vigour the full tale of years which a good fel- 
 low ought to live." * 
 
 Aretino was so much pleased with his house that he 
 refused almost all the pressing invitations which came to 
 him to visit France and various courts of Italy. He sel- 
 dom left it except for a couple of weeks in the summer 
 when he went to Gambarara, a few miles off on the main- 
 land. And when he had to move, near the end of his 
 life, he simply crossed the canal to the other bank. 
 
 His house was always full of servants, parasites and 
 visitors, and the table was seldom spread for less than a 
 score of persons. The rooms were decorated with pic- 
 tures, statues and frescoes of friends like Titian, Tinto- 
 retto, Sansovino, Vasari, and he had choice glass-ware 
 of Murano, specimen Majolicas, wood carvings of Tasso, 
 medals and silver-ware of Leone Leoni, oriental hangings 
 and tapestries. 2 He was fond of magnificent dresses. 
 One of his costumes was a robe of black velvet ornamented 
 with gold cords with the lining of cloth of gold, and a long 
 gown and jerkin of velvet. Another given by the Duke 
 of Mantua was a gown of ermisine trimmed with em- 
 broidered black velvet and lined with pure white fox skins 
 and a simare of black satin. He received as presents 
 many gold chains. One from the King of France 
 weighed eight pounds. His letters abound with thanks 
 
 iAretino, Lettere, I, 169. 
 "Aretino, Lettere, passim.
 
 64 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 for such things as "white satin stockings wrought in 
 gold," "green silk caps," "a flesh coloured jerkin em- 
 broidered with silver cords and trimmed with ermine." 
 A list of his presents would be a catalogue of splendid 
 stuffs, embroideries and jewels, enough to furnish the 
 wardrobe of a small theatre. 
 
 But in spite of this apparatus of luxury there was noth- 
 ing really aristocratic about the life of Aretino. The 
 house was filled with confusion, robbed secretly by the 
 servants, plundered openly by its disorderly guests. 1 
 When a present of wine arrived friends and neighbours 
 crowded in to drink it up. He could not hide the shirts 
 or fine stockings sent him so that the women of the house 
 would not steal them. 2 When he received a dozen rosa- 
 ries he had ordered, he describes with great humour how 
 the whole "troop of his band" gathered "like hungry 
 hens picking at a piece of bread, admiring, discussing, 
 choosing until midnight." And he begs his friend if he 
 loves him and wants him to escape alive to send six more 
 of garnet so that all may be satisfied. 3 
 
 Aretino was lavishly kind to the poor and exceedingly 
 hospitable. If he heard of any one sick he sent a doctor. 
 He often paid the rent for those about to be turned out of 
 their home. He visited prisoners and his purse was 
 open to young men going out into the world to try their 
 fortunes. Those who knew him said he would take the 
 shirt off his back to give to a friend in need. He did not 
 hide the light of his good deeds under a bushel. But 
 
 i Aretino, Lettere, I. 29, II, 131-134, 
 'Aretino, Letters, I, 86. 
 'Aretino, Lettcre, HI, 68,
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 65 
 
 ceaseless braggart as he is, there is little reason to believe 
 him a liar and the above picture of his charity is painted 
 not with his own words but with those of his intimates. 1 
 His friend and publisher Francesco Marcolini tells two 
 good stories of the way his kindness and hospitality were 
 imposed upon. The first is of an "excellent scoundrel 
 who came and told you that a certain respectable young 
 girl who had formerly been a neighbour of yours was 
 dead and got from your purse the money to bury her. 
 And when a few days afterward the poor brother of the 
 said young woman came to ask your help to find her a 
 husband and a marriage portion, before he opened his 
 mouth you ran to meet him with open arms tenderly sor- 
 rowing with him over his sister's death. But the young 
 fellow, all taken aback, answered, 'Signore, if she hasn't 
 died within the half hour, she is living and well.' And 
 since you would not believe it, he was obliged to go and 
 bring his sister to your house with scarcely clothes enough 
 to cover her. She left it very well dressed and with the 
 promise of a marriage portion to find her a husband." 
 The second story is a comment on "the continual hospi- 
 tality of your house which is so open to everybody that the 
 mistake of the party of strangers in Venice made on the 
 first of May, 1532, is not to be wondered at. They took 
 your house for, what in one sense it is, a tavern; espe- 
 cially when they saw so many people come out boasting 
 of having drunk the best wine in Venice. And so they 
 went up stairs and took their places at the table, saying, 
 'Bring us a salad.' Having been served with it and 
 
 1 I < ettere al Aretino, II, part 2, page 352, and elsewhere.
 
 66 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 everything else they asked for and ready to go, they 
 called your Mazzone, who because he is young, good look- 
 ing, white faced, tall, fat, merry and of pleasant humour, 
 they took to be the host. But when he was asked by one 
 of the good fellows 'What was the bill for supper?' the 
 good Mazzone, understanding that he was being treated 
 as if he was an inn-keeper, got ready to give him a thrash- 
 ing. At last, from the sound cursing that you gave them, 
 accompanied by four or five blows, the merry gallants 
 recognized that you must be the owner of the house and 
 not the gentleman stopping at an inn for whom they had 
 taken you. And when the good fellows understood that 
 having supped like emperors it was not going to cost 
 them anything but hearty thanks and good wishes, they 
 were full of bows and compliments to you and went off 
 roaring with laughter." * 
 
 This open house of a royal good fellow in luck exactly 
 suited Aretino, for his taste in art, his love of rich clothes 
 and his easy-going kindness were mingled at once with 
 the habits of a dissolute Bohemian and the likings of a 
 cockney. He writes that it is a fixed habit with 
 him never to spend more than a week in the 
 country, otherwise it becomes a terrible bore. 2 No pleas- 
 ures of summer, he says, are "worth a single bite of bread 
 dipped in oil eaten around the December fire when one 
 sits drinking several cups of new wine, picking off bits 
 from the roast turning on the spit and not caring if he 
 does burn mouth and fingers in the theft." And there is 
 a strain of sincere pleasure in the letter he writes to a 
 
 1 Lttere al Aretino, II, part 2, page 355. 
 'Aretino, Lcttere. I, 145.
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 67 
 
 friend praising him for being careless of all the splen- 
 dours of the world and acting his own servant. "How 
 pleasant it is when you come back at night to the little 
 shelter fitted for the condition you have been wise enough 
 to choose in order to escape the grumbling of a wife, who 
 is as apt to be just as cross when one comes home too early 
 as when one comes home too late. If the hot coals 
 covered with ashes are not out, a sulphur taper lights the 
 lamp. If they have burnt out just call to your neighbour 
 and she will hand you out of the window a brand or a bit 
 of live coal on the little fire shovel. While the faggot 
 blazes up you stand humming a tune until you begin to 
 feel hungry. Then you settle with your back to the fire 
 and peg away with a fisherman's appetite at the salad 
 you dress and the sausage you roast, drinking big draughts 
 without any fear that the confounded household will make 
 wry faces behind you. Then going back to the fire you 
 watch your shadow which gets up when you do and sits 
 down with you, in short, is a most polite companion. 
 Meantime, you swap stories with the cat. * * * 
 When you get sleepy you say good-night to yourself and 
 jump into bed, made perhaps twice a month by your own 
 hands and saying the Ave Maria and the Pater Noster and 
 crossing yourself (you don't need any other prayers be- 
 cause the man who has no family has no sins), you 
 fasten your head so tight to the pillow that thunder would 
 have to do more than its best to wake you. In the morn- 
 ing you get up and enjoy the pleasures of your pleasant 
 art ; you wait until a little omelette claims your attention, 
 and shaking out the table cloth and putting it on the table, 
 always at hand and always guarded by the jug of wine
 
 68 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 ever ready to make love to you, you eat to live instead of 
 living to eat. Then you take a stroll for as long as you 
 like. * * * You buy a little fish brought in fresh at 
 the moment by the fishermen, or a little capon or chicken 
 to keep Easter and the feasts, not forgetting a goose for 
 All Saints' Day. * * * In Summer you are satisfied 
 with plums, a dozen figs, a bunch of grapes. And you 
 venture buying a melon, heavy, small and covered with 
 bloom. When you get home with it, fresh water on the 
 table, you put the wine bottle into the well bucket and at 
 almost the same moment plunge your nose and your knife 
 into the melon. Finding it sweet and delicious you have 
 the pleasure of a pope * * *." 1 
 
 In spite of this praise of a simple life, Aretino was very 
 fond of the pleasures of an elaborate table. But not in a 
 coarse way. The traveller who passes from the shores 
 of the North Sea and the Baltic to the Mediterranean and 
 the Adriatic, remarks at once the temperance of the 
 Italian as compared with the Teuton. The heavy eating 
 and drinking of England and Germany struck the Italian 
 traveller of the Renascence with disgust. While the 
 letters of Aretino suggest the epicure they do not show 
 him as either drunkard or glutton. They are filled with 
 thanks for presents of delicacies or allusions to little im- 
 promptu suppers, but there is nothing gross or selfish in 
 this talk about food and drink. On the contrary, Aretino 
 felt instinctively that subtle civilizing influence of the 
 table which Balzac has pointed out. It was to him a sym- 
 bol of the pleasures of taste and sense refined by common 
 enjoyment a pledge of friendship a centre of cultivated 
 
 1 Arctino, Lettere, II, 27.
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 69 
 
 companionship. His imagination or his wit is quick to 
 play about what he eats. Writing of the pleasures of a 
 visit to his native Arezzo, he says he "never has a large 
 appetite except when he remembers the cheeses, the ham, 
 the sausages, the olives, the mushrooms, the ragouts, the 
 salads and the jokes doubling the savour of these good 
 things of the Reverend Canons Capuiciuoli and Bond." 
 And he adds, "My benedictions would have doubled the 
 praises of the peasant woman who made the cates sent me, 
 if their delayed arrival had permitted me to taste them; 
 nevertheless, the fact that they were spoiled does not make 
 me any less obliged for them." 1 
 
 "In spite of my fever," he writes, "I could not help 
 tasting two of the peaches you sent. Certainly the peach 
 is a fruit which appeals to the heart. When I see it be- 
 side a good melon, moved by their charm, I feel the same 
 pleasure which my eyes would have in seeing a king and 
 queen together." 2 When Marc Antonio Veniero sent 
 him "two little calves, some big cheeses and good bologna 
 sausages," he is delighted, "not because they will furnish 
 his table, but because man naturally rejoices at seeing an 
 abundance of food." 3 A present of fruit makes him think 
 of the Villa of Coreggio whose garden bore them so 
 beautiful "that if the world liked to carry flowers it 
 would carry it always for a carnation." * 
 
 "Instead of one 'thank you', for a good fellow which I 
 should have given you for sending the mushrooms I am 
 still waiting for, I ought to give you ten for sending me 
 
 * Aretino, Lettere, II, 243. 
 
 * Aretino, Lettere, III, 62. 
 'Aretino, Lettere, I, 86. 
 Aretino, Lettere, I, 124.
 
 70 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 the quails and thrushes I did not expect. Because they 
 are safer eating than those dangerous things, and one 
 cooks them in a couple of turns of the spit, where they are 
 sandwiched between leaves of laurel and country sausages. 
 But you can't do that with mushrooms, for you must boil 
 them with two chunks of the inside of a loaf of bread, and 
 then fry them in oil. And then too one ought to be chary 
 of eating them except in the morning, for fear of poison, 
 which could so entrench itself during the night, thanks 
 to sleep, as to be able to put to rout their excellencies, 
 the physicians. The Chietini (pietists) understand this 
 very well for they confess and take communion before 
 they swallow a mouthful of them. It amuses me when a 
 greedy and timid man wants to stuff himself with them. 
 And I smile to see his nervous antics when at the same 
 moment fear and the savour of the mushrooms attack his 
 heart and his nose." * 
 
 He confesses a great weakness for salads. In a letter 
 humorously defending himself against a mock charge of 
 gluttony, he admits, "If one sins in devouring a whole 
 salad with an onion, I am undone because there is in that 
 dish a delicate pleasure which the kitchen hawks that 
 flocked around the table of Leo didn't have." 2 And it is 
 about the dressing of salad that he writes one of the best 
 of his lighter letters. 
 
 "As soon, my brother, as your tribute of salad greens 
 began to decline, turning my imagination to astrology and 
 divination, I tried to find out the reason why you held back 
 the regular payment of food to my appetite. But if I 
 
 1 Aretino, Lettere, I, 166. 
 *Aretino, Lcttcrc, I, 146.
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 71 
 
 had squeezed my thoughts in the press which makes oil 
 out of olives, I never could have found out that you have 
 stopped giving me this supply because of the citronella 
 which pleases your palate as much as it displeases mine. 
 Who can say whence quarrels come they come even from 
 two stalks of that herb you cannot help sending me and 
 I cannot stop throwing away. What the devil ! I think 
 I'll become one of those who don't drink wine or eat 
 melons, since you stop sending the scraps from your table 
 to a good comrade all on account of a herb, yellow as an 
 old woman, which flaunts in all gardens. 
 
 "Have you used it for some enchantment that you take 
 its part so strongly ? Hereafter I want to accustom my- 
 self to eat it and I hope to do so. For I have got used to 
 being without a penny in my pocket a far harder thing 
 than opening the mouth and swallowing, so go on sending 
 me the tax your courtesy has laid on yourself. * * * 
 
 "I notice the way you lessen the sour of one herb with 
 the sweetness of another. And it is no small art to tem- 
 per the bitter and the sharp of some leaves with the neutral 
 flavor of others making the mixture so dulcet that satiety 
 itself would taste. * * * The flowers scattered in 
 the delicate green of such appetite-sharpeners tempt my 
 nose to smell them and my hand to take them. In short, 
 if my servants knew how to dress your salads a la Genoese, 
 I would give up for them the breasts of capercailzie 
 which very often at dinner or supper Titian, the unique, 
 gives me for the glory of Cadore. * * * Certainly I 
 am astonished that the poets don't strain every nerve to 
 sing the virtues of mixed salad. And it is a great mis- 
 take of the monks and nuns not to praise it, because the
 
 72 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 monks steal time from their prayers to keep the soil of 
 their lettuce-beds free from little stones. And the nuns 
 tend it like a baby, wasting hour after hour in watering 
 and caring for it. * * * 
 
 "I believe that the inventor of such a delicacy was a 
 Florentine. He must have been, because the arranging 
 of a table, decorating it with roses, washing the glasses, 
 putting plums in the ragouts, dipping cup-up liver in 
 batter, making black pudding, and serving fruit after a 
 meal, all came from Florence. Their brains, active, al- 
 ways working, with the subtlety of their foresight have 
 grasped all the points with which the cuisine can charm 
 the sated palate. 
 
 "And to conclude I acknowledge that the good name of 
 citronella is excepted from my dislike for it. And for 
 that reason I hope that tomorrow will be the beginning 
 of my restoration to the favour of your garden. And 
 inform the dead man's rue that, although I am the head 
 of the party of mixed salads, with plenty of oil and lots 
 of vinegar sharp enough to split the rocks, I would 
 revolt from them if you should compel me just to take a 
 whiff of it." 1 
 
 Aretino's most intimate table companions were Titian 
 and Sansovino. A couple of the many allusions of the 
 letters will show this sufficiently. He writes to the Cava- 
 liere da' Porto: "Sansovino and Titian, the reputation 
 of marble and the glory of colour, since the first with the 
 chisel gives to marble both senses and spirit and the second 
 with the brush gives to colour both senses and spirit 
 
 1 Aretino, Lettere, I, 178.
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 73 
 
 tfiey, I say, enjoyed with me the two pairs of red par- 
 tridges you sent." * 
 
 He wrote to Pigra : "You told me when you sent the 
 big jar filled with Ferrarese finocchi, 'Eat them at once 
 with your friends, because I am keeping some more for 
 you/ That being so, I give notice that Titian, Sansovino, 
 and I, after having enjoyed the first lot, are waiting to 
 get into the middle of the second lot with little less anx- 
 iety than the cardinals watch around a pope's bed for the 
 hour of his creeping death." 2 
 
 Of the two, Titian was the more intimate. Aretino 
 spoke of him as his other self. They called each other 
 "compare" the old English "gossip." They were con- 
 tinually at table together in the house of one or the other. 
 
 Pietro tells Conte Manfredo di Collalto : "The day be- 
 fore yesterday we were eating some hares caught by the 
 hounds which Captain Giovanni Tiepoli had sent me, and 
 while their praises went up, cceli ccelorum, one of your 
 lackeys arrived with the thrushes, which in tasting them 
 made me chant the 'inter aves.' They were so good that 
 our Titian, seeing and smelling them on the spit, glanced 
 out at the snow, which, while they were setting the table, 
 fell in showers, and abandoned a crowd of gentlemen who 
 had arranged a dinner for him. And all unanimously 
 gave great praise to the birds with the long beak, which 
 we ate with a little smoked meat, a couple of leaves of 
 laurel and pepper. And we ate them for love of you." 3 
 
 Aretino writes that he took refuge at Titian's for 
 
 1 Aretino, Lettere, III, 93. 
 1 Aretino, Lettere, II, 244. 
 Aretino, Lettere, I, 26.
 
 74 
 
 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 luncheon whenever he was bored by too many visitors. 
 And the grammarian Priscianese has left a letter describ- 
 ing a more formal banquet at the painter's house : 
 
 "I was invited the day of the Kalends of August to 
 celebrate that sort of holiday which is called 'ferrare 
 Agosto.' I don't know why it is so called, although it 
 was much discussed here the evening I spent in a delight- 
 ful garden of Messer Tiziano Vecellio, as everybody 
 knows, the most excellent of painters and a person truly 
 fitted to ornament by his agreeable manners the best cir- 
 cles of society. There were met together with the said 
 Messer Tiziano, for like always draws like, some of the 
 most exquisite men of talent to be found to-day in this 
 city, and particularly M. Pietro Aretino, new miracle of 
 nature. Next to him was her great imitator with the art 
 of the chisel as the master of the feast is with the brush, 
 Messer Jacopo Tatti, called Sansovino. And beside them 
 were M. Jacopo Nardi and I ; for I was the fourth of such 
 an able company. Because the sun, in spite of the shade 
 of the place, made its power felt, we passed the time be- 
 fore we sat down to table in looking at the pictures of the 
 most excellent painter, of which the house was full, and 
 in talking of the truly beautiful and charming garden, 
 the pleasure and wonder of all who see it. It is situated 
 on the outer edge of Venice, upon the sea, looking out 
 toward the lovely little island of Murano and other most 
 beautiful places. That part of the sea, as soon as the sun 
 went down, was filled with a thousand gondolas, orna- 
 mented with the most beautiful women and ringing with 
 changing harmonies and tones of voice and instrument, 
 which up to midnight made music for our gay supper.
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 75 
 
 "But to come back to the garden ; it was so well arranged 
 and so beautiful, and therefore so much praised, that the 
 comparison which occurred to me with the delightful 
 gardens of Saint Agatha quickened so much my memories 
 and desires for it and you, dear friends, that I could not 
 tell most of the time during the evening whether I was 
 in Rome or in Venice. Meantime the hour of supper 
 arrived. It was as beautifully served as it was generous, 
 and furnished, besides the most delicate food and most 
 costly wines, with all those pleasures and enjoyments 
 which fitted the house, the company, and the feast. Just 
 as we got to the fruit, your letters arrived, brought by a 
 young man from my house. * * * I read them to 
 the company * * * and because in them you praised 
 the Latin language and had little good to say for the 
 Tuscan, Aretino grew particularly angry, and if he had 
 not been stopped, I believe he would have turned his hand 
 to one of the crudest invectives in the world, for he 
 excitedly demanded pen and paper. However, he did not 
 fail to give us a good share of it in words. At last the 
 supper ended hilariously." 1 
 
 The friendship of Titian and Aretino was the most nat- 
 ural thing in the world. Their tastes and view of life 
 were the same, and each was anxious to make out of his 
 talents fame and the means of luxury. Aretino had great 
 skill as a critic of art ; and the chief artists of the day were 
 glad to have his advice, feared his blame and sought his 
 praise. When he wrote to Michael Angelo, saying that 
 he was tempted to come to Rome just to see the "Last 
 
 1 Quoted Cavalcaselle and Crowe Tiziano, Vol. I, page 458, from De'priml 
 principii della Lingua Romana. Venezia, 1540.
 
 76 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 Judgment" and give a pen-picture of the stupendous ef- 
 fects which he felt sure the painter had produced, the 
 great solitary, so little given to compliments, replied : 
 
 "Magnificent Messer Pietro, my master and brother, 
 your letter gave me both pain and pleasure. I congratu- 
 lated myself because it came from you, who are unique in 
 the world in virtu, and at the same time I was very sorry 
 that, having completed the great part of my picture, I 
 could not use your imagination, which is so successful 
 that if the day of judgment had taken place and you had 
 seen it, your words could not have reproduced it better. 
 I shall not only be glad to have you answer my letter, but 
 I beg you to do so, because kings and emperors consider 
 it the greatest of favors to be named by your pen. Mean- 
 time, if I have anything which pleases you, I offer it to 
 you with my heart. 
 
 Always yours, 
 
 MlCHELAGNOLO BUONARUOTI." * 
 
 It had long been the part of every finished man of the 
 world to have some taste in art and to be ready to express 
 a judgment upon a statue or a picture, but Aretino has 
 the best possible claim to be regarded as the father of that 
 genre of literature which is known as art criticism. His 
 skill in this was so clearly recognized that his contempo- 
 rary Lodovico Dolce, writing a Dialogue on Painting, 
 makes Aretino the chief speaker. Any artist seems to 
 have been glad to work for him. Half a dozen different 
 medalists modeled his head, some of them several times. 
 Six of the leading art collections of the world, Munich, 
 
 I<ttere al Aretino. I. part 2, page 334.
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 77 
 
 Windsor, the Belvedere, Berlin, the Pitti, the Hermitage, 
 possess his portrait, 1 so frequently reproduced by the en- 
 graver that the Bibliotheque Nationale has thirty-eight 
 different prints of him. These favors seem to have cost 
 Aretino no money. He was able fully to repay them by 
 the constant advertisement he gave to his friends. He 
 never misses a chance of mentioning and praising the 
 work of artists he approves. When the factories of Mu- 
 rano turn out a new style of glass vases, decorated with 
 the arabesques of Giovanni da Udine, he sends a case of 
 them to the Marquis of Mantua, pointing out their beauty 
 and mentioning at the same time that they are called 
 Aretini. 2 When Jacopo del Giallo sends him a miniature, 
 he writes a letter which was worth a good many pieces 
 of gold to the artist : 
 
 "I am not blind in painting, and many times Raphael 
 and Fra Sebastiano and Titian have taken my advice, 
 * * * and I know that miniaturists take their designs 
 from the masters of painted glass work; they do noth- 
 ing but a charming combination of deep blue, of azure 
 green, of cochineal lake, and of powdered gold ; they spend 
 their utmost skill on a shell or a strawberry and similar 
 little novelties. But your work is full of drawing and 
 relief. * * * Everybody is pleased with the way in 
 which the little children, resting their feet on the head of 
 the eagle, hold up the letter addressed in capitals with the 
 name of the Emperor. * * * But how shall I repay 
 you for such graceful work, since you do not want money ? 
 
 *Art critics have raised the question whether some of these are correctly 
 named in the catalogues. 
 Aretino, Lettere, I, 24.
 
 78 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 I will give you back ink for your colours and effort for 
 your labour. By which your name will have as much 
 pleasure in the fame I shall give it as I have had delight 
 in the work you have made for me." 1 
 
 This was no idle boast of Aretino. He did the great- 
 est service to the artists he knew. The fame of the other 
 two members of the trio of friends, Sansovino and Titian, 
 has outlived his. The biographers of Titian can only 
 wonder why he had anything to do with such a man. 
 But it never occurred to Titian that Aretino's friendship 
 was anything but a great gain and a matter of pride. 
 Aretino got commissions for him from the Emperor, he 
 wrote sonnets for most of his portraits. When Titian's 
 imperial pension was not paid, Aretino used every effort 
 to get it, writing to his friends to use their influence, offer- 
 ing to Ottaviano de' Medici four portraits of members of 
 his family from the masters' brush if he would make the 
 treasury pay the arrears. Vasari, who knew both, says 
 that the friendship of Aretino was of the greatest ad- 
 vantage to Titian, both "as a matter of honor and of 
 material gain, because he made him known far and wide 
 where his pen reached, and especially to princes of im- 
 portance." 2 
 
 He was equally useful to Sansovino. It was no small 
 service to an architect to be told, in a letter which would 
 be read by many of the patrons of art throughout Italy, 
 that "the works of his genius had put the finishing touches 
 on the pomp of the city of Venice." That he would be 
 very foolish to leave Venice for Rome "in spite of the fact 
 
 1 Aretino, Lettere, I, 103. 
 
 *Vite de' Pittori, part III, Vol. II, page 810.
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 79 
 
 that popes and cardinals continually torment you to do 
 so." At the same time he adds they are not to be blamed 
 for this because "they never look at the church of the 
 Florentines, which you founded on the banks of the Tiber 
 to the wonder of Raphael, Antonio da San Gallo and 
 Baldassare da Siena, they never turn toward San Marcello, 
 your work, nor towards the tombs of Aragon, Santa Croce 
 nor Aginense that they do not sigh over the absence of 
 Sansovino." * And Aretino was not content with ad- 
 vancing the reputation of his artist friends. He did every- 
 thing in his power to foster the taste for art among those 
 who paid for it. He makes the characters of his come- 
 dies discuss noted pictures and buildings and the glory of 
 those who built them. His letters speak continually of 
 art, and in one he touches with master hand the strongest 
 motive of most of its patrons in the Renascence : 
 
 "The prince, who reigns solely because he is made in the 
 image of God, ought to imitate the maker of all things, 
 whose power, according to the model of his will, built 
 Paradise for the angels and the world for men, placing 
 on the fagade of the great edifice of heaven, as it were, his 
 coat of arms painted by the brush of nature a sun of 
 gold with its infinite stars and a moon of silver in a broad 
 field of bright blue. And just as every one of us who is 
 born, as soon as he opens the eyes of consciousness is as- 
 tonished looking now at the heaven and now at the earth, 
 giving thanks to Him who made one and created the other, 
 so the descendants of your Excellency, wondering at the 
 magnitude of the edifices begun and finished by you, will 
 bless the generous providence of their magnanimous pred- 
 
 1 Aretino, Lettere, I, 191.
 
 8o RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 ecessor with the blessing given to the mind of the an- 
 cients embodied in stone in their theaters and amphithe- 
 aters by one who sees the pride of the ruins of Rome 
 whose wonders show what were the habitations of the con- 
 querors of the universe." * 
 
 Aretino judged in the taste of the day and wrote in 
 its style. He told Vasari in regard to some drapery, 
 "Raphael has drawn things of the same sort. He has not 
 surpassed you so much that you need regret it." 2 He 
 wrote to Giulio Romano that if Apelles and Vitruvius 
 could see the buildings and paintings he was doing in 
 Mantua, "they would approve the judgment of the world 
 which preferred him for originality and charm to any one 
 who had ever touched compass or brush." But in regard 
 to one of his friends Aretino's enthusiasm was guided by 
 knowledge and skill. Those who knew Titian best are 
 most ready to admit that they do not understand the 
 secrets of his art better than Aretino. The comments he 
 has left touch the finest points of his friend's pictures. The 
 angel of the annunciation "filling everything with light 
 and shining in the air with fresh radiance, bending gently 
 with a reverence which makes us believe he is really in the 
 presence of Maria;" the portrait of the little girl of 
 Roberto Strozzi, so true that if "art should say it was not 
 real, nature would swear it was not imitation ;" the lamb 
 in the arms of the little St. John, "so natural that a ewe 
 would bleat at sight of it " these are not vague praises. 
 The words come not only from the lips but the eyes. And 
 it would be hard to find a better phrase than that by which 
 
 1 Aretino, Lettere, I, 161. 
 8 Aretino, Lettere, II, 184.
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 81 
 
 he places Titian in a sonnet alongside of the two most cele- 
 brated artists Italy had produced. 
 
 "Divine in beauty was Raphael, and Michael Angelo 
 was more divine than human in his stupendous design 
 but Titian has in his brush the sense of things." 1 
 
 Pietro has perhaps shown most plainly how well he 
 understood his friend in the following letter to him : 
 
 "Having, contrary to my own habit, taken my meal 
 alone, Signer Compare, or rather in company with this 
 quartan fever which does not let me taste my food, I got 
 up from table, having dined on the desperation with which 
 I sat down to it. Placing my arms on the window ledge 
 and resting my chest and almost my entire body against 
 it, I gave myself up to gazing at the wonderful spectacle 
 made by the infinite number of boats which, full of for- 
 eigners as well as natives, enlivened not only those who 
 looked on but even the Grand Canal itself ; joy of every- 
 body who furrows its waters with the keel of his boat. 
 And when two gondolas with celebrated gondoliers had 
 finished a race, I found great enjoyment in the people who 
 had stopped to see it at the bridge of the Rialto, the quay 
 of the Camerlinghi, the Fish market, the ferry of S. Sofia, 
 and the Casa da Mosto. And while these crowds went 
 their different ways with gay applause, I, in the mood of 
 a man who begins to bore himself because he does not 
 know what to do with his mind and his thoughts, turn my 
 eyes to the sky, which, since God made it, was never 
 touched with beauty by such lovely painting of light and 
 shadows. The atmosphere was one of those which they 
 
 'Aretino, Lettere, VI, 203.
 
 82 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 try to express who envy you because they cannot be you. 
 Try to see it as I describe it. In the first place, the houses, 
 which seemed not of real stone, but of some stuff of 
 dreams and then bring before your eyes the atmosphere, 
 which in some parts appeared pure and fresh, in others 
 turbid and wan. Think also of the marvelous view I had 
 of the clouds of condensed dampness, which in the center 
 of the picture (princlpale veduta) stood partly near to the 
 roofs and partly in the middle distance, since the right 
 hand was filled with a smoky vapor tending toward a dark 
 ash color. I was truly astonished at the changing tints 
 the clouds showed. The nearest blazed with the flaming 
 fires of the sun. The more distant were reddened with 
 the glow of red lead, not too well heated. Oh, with what 
 beautiful touches the brushes of nature thrust back the 
 atmosphere yonder, clearing it away from the palaces in 
 the style of Titian when he paints landscapes. In certain 
 parts there showed a greenish blue, in others a blue- 
 green mixed indeed by the caprice of nature, mistress of 
 the masters. She darkened and threw into relief with 
 shadows and high lights what she wished to darken or 
 bring out until I, who know that your brush is the very 
 soul of her ministering spirits, cried out three or four 
 times, "Oh, Titian, where are you now !" 1 
 
 Between the lines of this letter the discerning eye may 
 read how pleasant must have been the many hours the two 
 spent together at Aretino's windows on the Grand Canal 
 or in Titian's little loggia looking off across his garden 
 to Murano and the hills of Cadore. 
 
 'Aretino, Lettere, III, 48.
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 83 
 
 On the otHer hand, Titian does not fail to tell of the 
 triumphs his friend has won by the pen. He writes from 
 Rome that in the highest society of the court one hears 
 nothing but, "This is what Aretino said." He writes 
 from Ratisbon to say that the Duke of Alva talks of the 
 divine Aretino every day and the Emperor showed every 
 sign of pleasure when he was told that all Italy believes 
 that the Pope is going to make Aretino a cardinal. 
 
 For during his life at Venice, Aretino vastly increased 
 the literary reputation he brought there and made himself 
 an acknowledged power in the world. His work may be 
 summed up under six heads, poetry, tragedy, comedy, 
 letters, pornographic writings, religious writings. 
 
 His non-dramatic poetry may for the purposes of this 
 essay be dismissed in a few lines. He wrote great quanti- 
 ties of it, but except where verse was the medium for his 
 satiric verve, it is hard to understand why it was esteemed 
 highly in a day when everybody composed poetry. Most 
 of it was never printed and the loss to the world is not 
 thought to be great by any of his commentators except 
 Bertani, who seems to consider Aretino in all 
 respects one of the great lights of Italian litera- 
 ture. His tragedy of Horace was the most care- 
 fully composed of all his works, and the only 
 one which is approved by those who wrote of him 
 up to the last ten or fifteen years. A French critic con- 
 siders it superior to Corneille and an Italian historian of 
 literature ranks it with Shakespeare. Such judgments 
 came rather from the ardor of discoverers than from the 
 sobriety of critics. But the most esteemed of all general 
 historians of Italian literature, Professor Gaspary, con-
 
 84 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 siders it "absolutely the most important tragedy of the 
 sixteenth century." 1 One merit it certainly had, the 
 merit of a new method of treatment. The few tragedies 
 in the vernacular which preceded it were imitations of the 
 Greek writers. Aretino did not, like Shakespeare, cast 
 off entirely the fetters of the classic unities, but he 
 tried to write like an Italian of the sixteenth century and 
 not like a Greek of the fifth or a Latin of the first. And 
 therefore he is certainly not unworthy of honour among 
 the predecessors of the great modern, who, ceasing to im- 
 itate the ancient giants, won a place among them. 
 
 Even more original are his comedies. The three or 
 four comedies worthy of mention which were in exist- 
 ence when he wrote the first of his were, to a great extent, 
 imitations of Plautus and Terence, introducing the stock 
 characters of the Roman stage. Aretino, who could not 
 read Latin, was more inclined to draw from life as he 
 saw it. He knew life on the shady side and the comic 
 force of his scenes is coarse. But he made the characters 
 who tread his stage out of his own recollections of men 
 he had known. And to read his scenes is to know them 
 too. The street urchin of Mantua tying fireworks to the 
 school teacher's coat tail; Messer Maco, of Siena, come 
 up to Rome to fulfil the wish of his father that he should 
 become a cardinal, and the hawks into whose claws he flut- 
 ters; the hypocrite, a parasite cloaking his greed with 
 piety instead of flattery these and a score of others are 
 real people. They move against a background vile with 
 
 1 Adolf Gaspary. Storia della Letteratura Italiana tradotto del tedesco da 
 Vittorio Rossi. Torino, 1900. Vol. II, part 2, page 221. 
 'Aretino, Lettere, III, 48.
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 85 
 
 the vileness Aretino had learned at the courts and in the 
 streets of the cities where he had lived. But obscenity 
 was then considered a necessary element of comedy, and 
 the atmosphere which surrounds the characters of Are- 
 tino's comedies is less turpid than that of the Suppositi 
 by Aristo, acted in the castle of San Angelo with scenery 
 by Raphael and to the delight of Leo X. 1 
 
 The distinctively pornographic works of Aretino, aside 
 from the sonnets already alluded to, consist of the two 
 first parts of a book entitled Ragionamenti. Competent 
 judges who have read them hazard the opinion that they 
 earn for Aretino the primacy of that long succession of 
 writers through all the ages of the history of literature 
 who have sold their pens to the service of the goddess of 
 lubricity. There are times when the imagination of a 
 generation seems to be poisoned by a mephitic miasma and 
 impelled to dwell with insane persistence on the shames 
 of life. The result of such a diseased bias in our own lit- 
 erature may be seen in the dialogue of the dramatists of 
 the Restoration, and page after page written in Italy dur- 
 ing the first half of the sixteenth century reeks with the 
 same stuff. 
 
 It is true indeed that coarseness of language is not the 
 measure of corruption. Habits of speech change in the 
 course of centuries. Shakespeare puts jests in the mouths 
 of gentlemen and ladies which seem strangely out of place 
 in the modern theatre. In the Latin reading book Eras- 
 mus wrote for boys, there are jokes of the kind that circu- 
 
 1 Letter to the Duke of Ferrara from Rome, March, 1519. 
 1 Lettere d' Ariosto A. Cappelli, Milano, 1887. Documenti, page CLXXVII. 
 1 The Calandra of Bibbiena, a piece admitted by all commentators to be 
 obscene, was also given before Leo X.
 
 86 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 late in low drinking places. Queen Anne of France asked 
 an ex-ambassador to teach her a few phrases of Spanish 
 to greet the Spanish ambassador. He taught her some in- 
 decent expressions, which she conscientiously repeated un- 
 til she had learned them by heart. When he told the King 
 what he had done Louis XII, it is true, warned the Queen, 
 but roared with laughter over what he thought an excel- 
 lent piece of wit. 1 
 
 Soiled waters do not come from a pure spring and that 
 with which the heart is full runs over on the lips, but still 
 it will not do to confound manners with morals, nor forget 
 certain modern writers who have pandered to depraved 
 instincts with a perfumed diction and the subtlest refine- 
 ments of style. 
 
 We should keep in mind also the satiric intent of much 
 of the writing of Aretino's day. It was frequently assert- 
 ed that the best way to save people from vice was to show 
 it to them. Both these extenuations, of social custom and 
 the prevalent methods of satire may be plead for Aretino. 
 One of the coarsest of his letters (most of which are not 
 at all coarse) was written to a noble lady and printed in the 
 collection to do her honour. And Aretino claimed that his 
 dialogues were a warning to virtue and an exposure of 
 vice. It is not possible, however, that he could have been 
 unaware that such an exposure is never a warning. He 
 ranked his dialogues in honour among his other works and 
 in telling a dream where the gods on Parnassus presented 
 him with a basket of wreaths, alongside "one of thorns 
 for his Christian writings" and "one of laurel for h'is 
 
 1 De Maulde la Claviere, "L,a. Diplomatic au temps de Machiavel." Paris, 
 Lcroux, 1892, page 368.
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 87 
 
 verses on love and war," was one "of rue for his las- 
 civious writings." 1 All of his modern critics agree that 
 they are a shame to literature. 
 
 The assertion is made nowadays that such an absolute 
 moral judgment has no place in history that to see life 
 truly in the perspective of the ages we must forget our 
 own measures of right and wrong. But knowledge does 
 not require us to limit conscience to the domain of con- 
 duct. Conscience has rights also in the realm of reason. 
 The surrender of fixed principle is not the necessary prep- 
 aration for sympathetic observation of men living or dead. 
 History puts her students in no such perilous position be- 
 tween the risk of surrendering their moral heritage to 
 obsolete barbarisms or of enslaving their moral judgment 
 to decadent opinion. There is a righteousness against 
 which we have the right to measure the past as well as 
 the present. But every man lives not only under the eter- 
 nal heavens but also in the changing horizon. To see 
 Aretino as his admirers saw him, we must see him in his 
 horizon, and in that horizon public opinion did not force 
 license to wear the cloak of secrecy nor compel vice to find 
 a decorous appearance convenient. There are tales of 
 Boccaccio which seem as bad as possible until one opens 
 the novels of some of Aretino's contemporaries. Two 
 clergymen he knew, popular romancers, put on many of 
 their pages scenes which could now be recited only in the 
 secret sittings of the police court. One of them received 
 praise and reward for reciting some of his stories before 
 Pope Clement VII. The other in his later years was the 
 temporary incumbent of a bishopric in France. 
 
 'Aretino, Lettere, I, 135.
 
 88 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 The age bore with pleasure the empire of corrupt imag- 
 ination ; Aretino defended the rights of that rule which he 
 did more than any other to confirm; to make him the 
 scapegoat of the vileness of his people is not to do any par- 
 ticular injustice to him but it is to fail to see mirrored in 
 his life the age in which he lived. The pornographic writ- 
 ings of Aretino did not make him infamous in his own 
 day they did not even make him famous. They were 
 published before his death less often than his other prose 
 works, and contemporary imprints of them are so rare that, 
 in 1693, Bayle had some trouble in finding out whether 
 they had been printed during the life of their author. It 
 was subsequent generations who found in them his chief 
 claim to be read, and attributed to him a number of simi- 
 lar works by other writers. Among all his works they 
 have had the most continuous life in print. They have 
 been translated into four languages and recently, re-trans- 
 lated into French and English, they have been issued in 
 sumptuous editions. The type which gives vogue to such 
 dialogues in the nineteenth century is more immoral than 
 the pen which wrote them in the sixteenth century. Con- 
 science has its rights in the realm of judgment but his- 
 tory cannot be read in the spirit of the Pharisee, and zeal 
 in blackening by denunciation the dark spots in the lives 
 of the dead is apt to lighten too much by contrast the vile 
 shadows that lurk around the most brilliant centres of our 
 modern civilization. 
 
 Judged by the statistics of the press, the most popular 
 of Aretino's writings were his religious books. Eight edi- 
 tions of his Penitential Psalms appeared during his life- 
 time, eight of his Life of Christ, five of his Genesis and
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 89 
 
 Vision of Noah, five of his Life of Saint Catherine, three 
 of his Life of Saint Thomas Aquinas, two of his Life of 
 the Virgin. Their character can best be judged by a spe- 
 cimen extract. He dilutes the first verse of the fifty-first 
 psalm, "Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy 
 loving kindness; according unto the multitude of Thy 
 tender mercies blot out my transgressions," into the fol- 
 lowing, "Have mercy on me, O God, not according to 
 the small merit of my fasting, my prayers, my wearing 
 of hair shirts, my weeping, but according to Thy great 
 mercy with which Thou dost surpass in greatness the 
 vault of heaven, the breast of the mountains, the bosom 
 of the sea, the lap of the earth, the bottom of the abyss and 
 the measure of immensity, and beside which any fault 
 whatever is less than a tiny point marked in the center of 
 the largest circle. Although the poison which iniquity 
 generates in sin sometimes makes it swell up so that, mov- 
 ing Thee to anger, it turns to rise on wings until it seems 
 to desire to equal the very summit of the height of that 
 pity of Thine before which, because I am certain that 
 it conquers in Thyself the severity of Thy justice, I have 
 not despaired of my faults," etc., etc. 
 
 The Humanity of Christ is a life of Christ written to 
 suit the taste of the age. The fact that it was translated 
 into French and the quick succession of reprints show that 
 Pietro succeeded in what he tried to do. He was not able 
 to base his work, as the authors of the large number of 
 lives of Christ which have been written in our own day 
 all profess to have done, upon a careful criticism of the 
 value of the records of that life. Nor if he had been able 
 would he have thought of doing it. For to begin any his-
 
 90 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 torical criticism of the documents of the life of Christ 
 would have raised a charge of heresy so radical and pro- 
 found that no writer, orthodox or schismatic, would have 
 had the moral courage to face it. Out of the mass of all 
 those stories about Jesus Christ which anyone had ever 
 believed to be true, whether they were found in the canon 
 or apocryphal writings, he takes what suits him, arranges 
 his material in a series of interesting pictures and orna- 
 ments them with imaginary details to make them appear 
 real. He carries this so far that he does not scruple to 
 put into the mouth of Christ long harangues which, like 
 the speeches of the heroes of the classic histories, are en- 
 tirely invented. By these means he made a life of Christ 
 very popular, and about as much like the gospels as the 
 sacred pictures of the painters of his own day, such a 
 work as the editor of a magazine is said to have recently 
 demanded of a well-known writer, a "Life of Christ up to 
 date and snappy." 
 
 He sketches into the picture with rapid strokes the 
 popular stories of the apocryphal gospel of the infancy, 
 like the birds of clay made to fly by the Infant Jesus. He 
 tells in detail the story of Christ's descent into the under 
 world. He expands the incidents which seem apt to ex- 
 cite the interest of his readers. He gives a description of 
 the feast of the marriage at Cana and reports a long dis- 
 course of Christ to the young couple on the dangers of the 
 married state. He is particularly pleased with the inci- 
 dent of Mary Magdalen, describes a splendid banquet 
 served in her house and gives two pages to a full descrip- 
 tion of the toilet she makes when persuaded by her good 
 sister to go and see Christ. The Master receives her with
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 91 
 
 a speech precisely like a paragraph from the sermon of 
 one of the popular preachers of the day ; several of whom 
 Aretino admired very much. Some of the sayings of our 
 Lord recorded in the gospels, Aretino reproduced clearly 
 and with vigour. Indeed, the vivid and nervous style he 
 occasionally uses in his letters and comedies, was well fit- 
 ted to translate the gospels. Aretino had found it where 
 Luther found the words for his translation of the gospels, 
 in the mouths of the common people who "heard Christ 
 gladly." But Aretino tries to emphasize Christ's words by 
 diluting them into his other style the style of his compli- 
 mentary letters to the scholars of the time like Bembo and 
 Molza, or to the kings and captains who paid him. Here, 
 for instance, is the way he begins the Sermon on the 
 Mount, "Blessed are they whose spirit, poor in power of 
 argument, is content in Thy belief, considers what it sees, 
 what it hopes and what it possesses as the gift of God and 
 does not make confusion for itself in doubt suggested by 
 the temerity of the sciences. The Kingdom of Heaven 
 is of him who nourishes the intellect with the simplicity of 
 faith. Blessed are they in whose bosom beats the heart 
 of a lamb and not of a lion, because meekness is the manna 
 of the soul, and pride is the poison which puffs up the 
 body. The meek have power to make the earth fertile with 
 blessings. Therefore their humility surpasses the heights 
 of the mountains." l Here is the way he makes Christ be- 
 gin the model prayer, "Our father who art in heaven, 
 our country for we travel like pilgrims in these bodies until 
 the hour Thou dost appoint for us takes us from this vale 
 of tears, and, recalling us from earthly exile, replaces us 
 
 1 Edition of 1545, page 62.
 
 92 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 in the bosom of paradise ; hallowed be Thy name in every- 
 thing that comes to pass. Because whether we are called 
 by Thee through grace, or punished by Thee through jus- 
 tice, both results are to Thy glory," etc. 1 
 
 Instead of illustrations the book is provided with little 
 reproductions in words of such pictures as the artist 
 friends of the author were painting from the Life of 
 Christ ; the Nativity, with the background of "the ruin of 
 an ancient edifice with broken columns and many pieces 
 of living stone which storms and ivy taking their own way 
 had made their own ;" or the Descent from the Cross, with 
 the fall of the limbs of the dead body and the muscular 
 action of those lowering it minutely described from can- 
 vases Aretino remembered ; or the Angel descending from 
 Heaven to comfort Christ in the Garden, "his wings 
 coloured like the rainbow letting him sink to earth gently 
 as a pigeon into its nest." In all these features the book 
 appealed to the taste of the day, and although of far less 
 literary value than his comedies, his pious writings were 
 equally admired. Religious literature suited to popular 
 tastes was as yet little known in Italy, and in it the famous 
 satirist scored a great success. Nor is there anything in 
 this Life of Christ, judged by lasting standards, more for- 
 eign to the spirit of the gospels or more shocking to taste, 
 than that paragraph of one of the most celebrated lives of 
 Christ of our own day, which makes "the vision of a love- 
 sick woman give to a world a risen God." Everything in- 
 dicates that Aretino had no sense of incongruity in pub- 
 lishing during the same year the Life of Christ and the 
 Ragionamenti. He prints the dedicatory letters to his 
 
 1 Edition of 1545, page 64.
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 93 
 
 Ragionamenti, his Sonnets on Marc Antonio's engravings 
 and his Life of Christ side by side in the first volume of 
 his letters. 1 Nor did any of the thirty odd Cardinals to 
 whom he wrote or from whom he received letters, suggest 
 that the collocation was infelicitous. 
 
 In the publication of his letters Aretino showed again 
 his originality. He was the first Italian to print his own 
 letters in the vulgar tongue and a crowd of imitators 
 proved the success of the experiment. Five years after 
 their appearance he spoke of plenty of volumes of 
 "learned elegances of all the best wits of the century," be- 
 ing in print. But he comforted himself for the poor show- 
 ing his might make among these learned imitators, by the 
 reflection that, though "the types of Aldus are like pearls, 
 one would much sooner have made the first rude charac- 
 ters which began the art of printing." 2 
 
 The men of the sixteenth century seem to have been 
 ceaselessly engaged in correspondence. More than three 
 thousand of Aretino's letters have survived. And there 
 is every reason to believe him when he says that a number 
 at least as great has perished. The conscientious reader 
 is often tempted to wish that time had been a little more 
 severe. For the scattered pages in which, with quick and 
 sure strokes, he draws pictures full of life, are surrounded 
 by interminable successions of pompous and compliment- 
 ary phrases, laboriously repeating the same idea. As the 
 reader can see by the extracts already given, Aretino could 
 write straightforwardly and naturally. But, to please his 
 
 1 Aretino, Lettere, I, 258, 259, etc. 
 Aretino, Lettere, III, 19.
 
 94 
 
 public, he uses for most of his letters the sort of writing 
 he employed in his religious works. The decadence of 
 taste which was to show itself in the love of baroque art 
 was beginning to appear in a liking for the bombastic in 
 literature, and Aretino fed this nascent liking to the full in 
 foretastes of the sort of rhetoric Shakespeare parodied in 
 Love's Labour's Lost. In sentences fairly smothered in the 
 exuberance of their own rhetoric he reiterates his thanks 
 for gifts or letters, his excuses for not having written be- 
 fore, his sense of unworthiness of such favours, and rises 
 above the pitch of Japanese politeness in compliment and 
 self abasement. According to his own account he burst 
 into tears of joy on receiving many letters. He cannot 
 force himself to the impertinence of writing to one who 
 has deigned to notice him. For example, he tells the 
 Cardinal Pisani, "If the vileness of my condition could 
 approach as close to the nobility of yours as the nobility 
 of yours is superior to the vileness of mine, I would say 
 that the astonishment I have felt in finding myself obliged 
 to write to you, would be equal to that you will feel at 
 sight of the letter I address to you." 1 He tells Messer 
 Ugolino Martelli that he loves him because he has "the 
 tree of genius entirely covered with the flowers which pro- 
 duce the fruits that the sun of glory ripens." 2 
 
 It is difficult to see why there was any demand for 
 hundreds of pages of this sort of collocation of words, and 
 future generations may wonder at the vogue of writers 
 who appear to us perfect. One thing is certain, Aretino 
 wrote in this way not because of the infection of literary 
 
 1 Aretino, Lettere, II, 240. 
 Aretino, Lcttere, I, 152.
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 95 
 
 fashion, but from choice. We can tell this because his 
 style is direct, whenever he sets it free, and because of the 
 flashes of shrewd common sense which break into the long 
 drawn passages of rhetoric. If at one time he spends a 
 page of strained eloquence praising the virtues of clemency 
 and its usefulness in government, he is able to condense 
 it all into a phrase when he writes "the city of Perugia 
 is like a hard-mouthed horse which, ridden with an easy 
 hand, seems to be quite gentle." 1 
 
 He is full of contempt for the two most powerful liter- 
 ary affectations of his day, the idea of the Pedants that 
 the perfect writers of classic antiquity had left nothing for 
 succeeding ages except comment or imitation, and the 
 similar idea of the Petrarchists that all possibilities of Ital- 
 ian style and diction were contained in the poetry of Pe- 
 trarch and the prose of Boccaccio. He frankly confesses 
 more than once that he cannot read Latin, "I hardly 
 understand the language with which I was born and I 
 talk in it and write in it, and so Plato and Aristotle, 
 Demosthenes and Cicero, Homer and Virgil talked and 
 wrote in their native idioms." 2 " If the soul of Petrarch 
 and Boccaccio," he burst out in disgust, "are tormented 
 in the other world as their works are in this, they ought to 
 deny their baptism." 3 For we find two kinds of writing 
 among Aretino's letters ; one which frankly expresses what 
 he thought and felt at the moment, the other related to 
 the chief purpose for which he wrote half his letters and 
 printed them all. That purpose was to coin his fame into 
 gold. 
 
 Aretino ( Lettere, I, 49. 
 ' Aretino, Lettere, II, 242. 
 Aretino, Lettcre, I, 21.
 
 96 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 Aretino was a born spendthrift. Money burned in his 
 pockets and leaked through his fingers. And like so many 
 men with the gift of language, he claimed the right of ge- 
 nius to have every desire satisfied. In 1537 he was spend- 
 ing, according to his own account, about a hundred du- 
 cats a month, and in 1542 he reckoned his receipts at 
 eighteen hundred ducats a year. 1 A small part, if any, of 
 Aretino's income came from the sale of his books. He 
 nowhere alludes to such gain, and when he issued his first 
 volume of letters, printed in it the following letter to his 
 publisher, Marcolini : "With the same good will with 
 which I have given you the other works, I give you these 
 few letters which have been gathered by the love which 
 my young men bear to what I have written. The only 
 profit I wish is your testimony that I have given them to 
 you. * * * For a man to print at his own cost and 
 to sell the books he produces by his imagination seems to 
 me like feeding on himself. * * * God willing, I 
 wish to get my pay for the fatigues of writing from the 
 courtesy of princes and not from the poverty of those 
 why buy my books, preferring to bear poverty rather than 
 lower my genius by bringing the liberal arts down to the 
 level of the mechanic arts. And it is clear that those 
 authors who sell what they write become servants of their 
 own infamy. Let him learn to be a merchant who seeks 
 material gain and practising the trade of a book-seller, 
 lay aside the name of a poet. * * * So print my 
 letters carefully and well, because I do not want any other 
 return from them. On the same terms, from time to time, 
 
 1 The income of the contemporary Venetian nobles ranged from seven hun- 
 dred to four thousand ducats of gold. Molmenti.
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 97 
 
 you will be the heir of what comes from my brain." 1 This 
 letter was omitted in later editions, and one may suspect 
 that Aretino changed his views of "the mechanic baseness" 
 of selling his works and sometimes eked out his income 
 from the book-shop. 
 
 For that income he depended on the "cortesia" of 
 Princes returned by him in "servitu." "Cortesia" is a 
 magnanimous readiness to promote in every way the pleas- 
 ure of a man of ability. It belongs to the character of a 
 prince. Without it the monarch is lower than the mer- 
 chant who has it. "It is a noble thing," he writes, "to love 
 a woman; it is a divine thing to wish well to a man of 
 genius, because the love of genius is related to the love of 
 God." And his pages are full of praises of this divine 
 trait of liberality to genius and invective against mean- 
 ness. By "servitu," which repaid cortesia, he meant the 
 moral duty of the man of genius to repay his patrons by 
 immortality. He asserts that "the road of Cortesia leads 
 to eternal glory." 2 He writes to the Grand Duke of 
 Florence: the volumes produced under the patronage 
 of Princes are "to the aspect of their serene names like 
 torches gleaming in that perpetual splendour which ren- 
 ders testimony to the merits which fortune cannot leave 
 behind nor time bury in oblivion." 3 For he believed that 
 his writings would give eternal glory to those mentioned 
 in them and he called himself "the secretary of the 
 world." 4 The belief was not too fatuous in one who was 
 told in various forms by dozens of correspondents "your 
 
 1 Giornale Storico, Vol. 29, page 239. Pietro Aretino e U Franco. 
 
 Aretino, Iettere, I, 54. 
 
 Aretino, Lettere, Dedication to, Vol. III. 
 
 4 Aretino, Lettere, I, 206.
 
 98 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 benefits are of such a nature that they render immortal 
 those who receive them." x And the world of great men 
 treated him like its secretary, with splendid garments, 
 heavy gold chains, splendid plate and streams of ducats. 
 The man who was pensioned and complimented simulta- 
 neously by Henry VIII of England, Francis I of France, 
 and the Emperor Charles V, might not unreasonably claim 
 to hold a position of international authority in the world 
 of letters. 
 
 For all the favours he received from his patrons Aretino 
 paid to the best of his ability. It is difficult to see how 
 adulation could be raised to a pitch higher than the tone 
 of some of his letters. He writes to Antonio da Leyva, 
 "It is not to be doubted that Antonio is more God than 
 man, because, if he was more man than God, he would 
 not have risen from a private position to be a prince and 
 from a mortal to an immortal. Everybody knows how 
 much dignity Alexander gained from being born of a king 
 and how much was added to .Caesar because he was not 
 descended from an emperor. For which reason virtue 
 and not fortune crowned him in the same way in which 
 she will crown you. And very justly, because you have 
 gained of yourself all that is in you. Therefore the for- 
 tunate emperor ought to count the chief of his felicities 
 the possession of his good Leyva." 2 
 
 It was rather difficult, of course, to keep on this scale 
 in a letter to da Leyva's master, printed almost next to it. 
 Aretino was equal to the task. He tells the Emperor that 
 "if the scroll on which he writes had a soul, it ought to 
 
 1 Lettcre al Aretino, II, part 2, page 113. 
 Aretino, Lettere, I, 4.
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 99 
 
 prefer itself to all the glorious scrolls of the ancients just 
 because it is not read but merely touched by the friend 
 of Christ, Charles Augustus, before whose merits the uni- 
 verse ought at once to bow. And certainly as God has 
 enlarged the world to give room to your merits, it is neces- 
 sary for Him also to raise the sky because the space of the 
 entire air is not large enough for the flight of your fame." 1 
 And to be sure that the flattery has the needed personal 
 touch he adds in another letter, "Truly, O Augustus, 
 the miracle of miracles which makes you miraculous is 
 you yourself." 2 
 
 He has variants on this same theme ; as when he writes 
 to the Duke of Urbino that "he prays God to keep him in 
 the world two or three centuries because for the need it 
 has of your virtu any other term of life will be short." 3 
 
 He is able to touch the harp of flattery with a firm 
 hand for private patrons also. He writes to Signor Sev- 
 erino Boner, who has shown towards him the royal virtue 
 of magnificence in every sort of "cortesia," that "He is 
 worthy of being deified in the eternity of memory as a ter- 
 restrial Jove." * 
 
 He tells Signora Ginevra Malatesta, that "everybody 
 celebrates her, everybody admires her, everybody watches 
 her, and in so doing they watch, admire, and celebrate 
 the visible divinity of this entire age." 5 And he bids 
 Signora Beatrice Pia, "exulting in the thought of the 
 graces with which the grave qualities which make you 
 
 1 Aretino 
 1 Aretino 
 8 Aretino 
 
 * Aretino 
 
 Aretino 
 
 Lettere 
 Lettere 
 Lettere 
 Lettere 
 Lettere 
 
 I, 49. 
 Ill, 53. 
 
 II, 55. 
 II, 195. 
 II, 17.
 
 ioo RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 illustrious shine in splendour, feel certain that you abound 
 in such great perfection of your essential nature that you 
 could, with the mere superfluity of such a divine gift, 
 change into goodness the imperfections of the being of 
 all your sex." l 
 
 He is not appalled even by the difficulties of writing to 
 Barbarossa, the pirate ruler of Algiers, who had wasted 
 Italy with fire and sword. He tells him "the sun envies 
 you because the glory of the fame which crowns you with 
 eternal praise goes into those parts of the world where the 
 light of the flame which he offers, cannot go." "So that 
 your name is known to more nations, to more people, to 
 more races than his. And hence it comes that all tongues 
 learn it, reverence it and spread it." * 
 
 But perhaps the masterpiece of the vast collection of 
 flattery, of which the reader has only a few scattered 
 specimens, is found in Aretino's dedication of his second 
 volume of letters to Henry VIII. "O supreme arbiter 
 of peace and war, temporal and spiritual, do not be indig- 
 nant that the universe does not dedicate to you temples 
 and erect to you altars as to one of the more sublime 
 Numi, because the infinite number of your immense deeds 
 
 1 Aretino, Lettere, II, 5. 
 
 It must not be supposed that this sort of writing was invented by Aretino. 
 He only practises well a common style. His contemporary, Agrippa of Nette- 
 sheim, a native of Cologne, thus addresses Marguerite of Valois in the dedi- 
 cation of his Treatise "On the Nobility and Excellence of the Feminine Sex." 
 
 "To you, Divine Marguerite, whose like the five divinities of light have 
 never illumined among all the illustrious women there ever have been, there 
 are, or there ever will be on the earth, either for the glory of beautiful deeds, 
 or nobility of blood, or for excellence of virtues to you I say Princess incompar- 
 able and truly unique in your kind * * * I dedicate this book, as by the 
 distinction of your life and manners you have mounted to a pinnacle of merit 
 which elevates you infinitely above all the good which could ever be said of the 
 feminine sex," etc., etc. Leiden, 1726. Vol. I, page 35. 
 
 Aretino, I^ttere, II, 201.
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 101 
 
 keeps it confused, just as the sun would confound us if 
 nature, taking it from its place, should place it close to 
 our eyes." * 
 
 In this exchange of "servitu" for "cortesia," Aretino 
 was simply carrying into literature the relation of the 
 mercenary soldier to his patron. As the Swiss guards of 
 the Tuileries two centuries later felt bound to die for their 
 bread, so Aretino felt bound to exalt and defend the glory 
 of those who sustained his genius. He writes to Signer 
 Luigi Gonzaga, "I was always, Signore, and always 
 will be as faithful to my patrons as to my friends and 
 unless I am given cause of offense, would rather die than 
 attack the honour of another." 2 
 
 He had written three letters to Cromwell, the all power- 
 ful minister of England. 3 
 
 He reminded Cromwell how much his pen could do for 
 his fame. Cromwell has left in one of his memoranda 
 a note, "To remember Pietro Aretino for some reward." * 
 But death surprised him before he could carry out his pur- 
 pose. He had, however, been useful in urging Henry 
 VIII to send a large present to Aretino, and Pietro hear- 
 ing of his fall and execution writes, "I am sorry for 
 such a misfortune because I had some benefit from him 
 and well would it have been for him if the 'cortesia' 
 shown me by commission of the illustrious Henry, had 
 been mixed with his own personal liberality. As it is, I 
 
 1 Dedicatory Epistle to Vol. II. Lettere. 
 
 2 Aretino, Lettere, I, 76. 
 
 3 One is in Lettere, Vol. II, 137. One is calendared Letters and Papers 
 of Henry VIII, Vol. XIV, part 2, No. 712. The other is an Italian fragment 
 printed without signature, Vol. XIV, part 2, number 716. Any one familiar 
 with Pietro's style can recognize these fragmentary sentences as his. 
 
 * Utters and Papers of Henry VIII, Vol. XV, page 71.
 
 102 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 will never put out of my memory that I was once grateful 
 to him." 1 
 
 In thus hiring himself out as a giver of immortality, 
 Aretino was playing on the common weakness of the men 
 of his day, an insatiable desire for fame. This craving 
 for glory, which possessed the age like an infectious dis- 
 ease, was not the desire to be praised by those who knew, 
 for doing well things worth doing, but a passion largely 
 vulgar, a thirst to be known among one's fellows for 
 anything and everything, a material pride that made all 
 ears itch for even the coarsest flattery. This liking for 
 applause beset the men of the Renascence. One has only 
 to glance at a book which shows the best side of the 
 society of the first generation of the sixteenth century, 
 the Cortigiano of Castiglione, to see that he advises the 
 perfect gentleman to be always, in every act of his life, 
 playing to the gallery. 
 
 Aretino has given perhaps the most striking descrip- 
 tion of this characteristic passion of his age this thirst 
 and hunger for praise which made fame seem almost like 
 a material thing to be eaten and drunk. "I do not know 
 the pleasure misers feel in the sound of the gold they 
 count, but I know well that the blessed spirits do not hear 
 music which is more grateful than the harmony which 
 comes out of one's own praises. One feeds on it as in 
 paradise the souls feed on the vision of God." * He 
 writes to the Cardinal of Trent at the baths, "Although 
 it may be that crowds of friends, a swift succession of 
 pleasures, harmony of instruments, the sight of jewels, 
 
 1 Aretino, Lettcre, II, 161. 
 Aretino, Lettere, I, 100.
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 103 
 
 the suavity of odours, the delicate folds of drapery, the 
 pleasantness of books, the joyfulness of songs and agree- 
 able conversations, may not seem to you suited to your 
 pious dignity, you can enjoy instead of such pastimes, the 
 thought of your own merits, recreating your senses and 
 spirits with the goodness which all people perceive in you, 
 for which grace all men bow before you, praise you, and 
 watch you. Certainly there is no joy which surpasses the 
 joy of him who is not only known as good but is approved 
 as the best." * 
 
 It was the shrewd choice of a man who knew his public 
 which led Aretino to give up the small gains of book- 
 selling to levy heavy tribute on the vanity of the great men 
 of his day. And he would not sell flattery at retail. He 
 writes Signer S. G. "I have sent back the ten ducats 
 to your friend, begging him on receiving back your gift to 
 return the praises I gave you. Because it does not seem 
 to me the part of an honest man, to honor one who vi- 
 tuperates me as you would have vituperated me, if I had 
 accepted what is rather an alms given to a beggar than a 
 present to a man of genius. Certainly those who buy 
 fame must be generous minded, giving not according to 
 the rank of their souls but as the condition of him to 
 whom they give demands ; because the poor ink has a hard 
 task in trying to exalt the name which is weighed down 
 as if by lead by every sort of demerits." 2 
 
 The passion for fame had another side, and the auda- 
 cious cleverness of Aretino's scheme for coining his repu- 
 tation cannot be appreciated until we have looked at it. 
 
 1 Aretino, Lettere, II, 70. 
 Aretino, Lettere, II, 268.
 
 104 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 The love of flattery seldom fails to breed an extreme 
 touchiness. The man greedy of adulation, shrinks with 
 an agony of dislike from dispraise. If the Italian of the 
 Renascence was apt for satiric speech, he paid for his evil 
 tongue by a thin skin, sensitive to every malicious breath. 
 Even to-day among the Latin races where the Renascence 
 flourished in its vigour, there is a lasting sense of wrong 
 for verbal insult "injures," "oltraggi," which the English- 
 speaking race, used to a word and a blow, or to words 
 forgotten, finds it hard to appreciate. And Aretino 
 counted on this shrinking hatred of mordant words to 
 bring in his tribute from those who thought the price of 
 his praise too high. 
 
 When he came to Venice he had won by his pasqui- 
 nades and his comedy a great reputation, and his specialty 
 was "maldicentia." It was admitted that he had the 
 worst tongue in Italy. In his Giudizi his running com- 
 ment on events, his irregular newspaper mixing news with 
 editorials, he found a field for his power of satire. 
 It became the object of every prince in Italy to keep out 
 of the giudizi the facts of his career or the traits of his 
 character which would bring cynical laughter instead of 
 applause. From the time he went to Venice until his 
 death, Aretino asserted that he had a divine mission, to 
 punish the vices of princes and expose the hypocrisy of 
 priests. This is what he meant by calling himself "the 
 fifth evangelist." 
 
 One cannot turn over five pages of his letters 
 without finding vague allusions to the crimes which 
 haunt princely courts, and the vileness by which prelates 
 rose to power at Rome. For example, promising to write
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 105 
 
 regularly, he adds, "And in case I fail, put it down to 
 the fault of a certain beastly desire to resemble princes. 
 And not being able to do so with any other mask than that 
 of lies, it may be that I make this promise keeping it in 
 the way they keep theirs." * Asked by a preacher to 
 define "charity," he answers, "A friar's hood, because 
 the shadow of its sanctity covers the multitude of the vile 
 progeny of your hypocritical actions." 2 A certain trans- 
 action, he says, would be dishonest "even among cardi- 
 nals." "If," he writes to the Spaniard Don Luigi 
 d'Avila, "from being Italian one could change into a 
 Spaniard, as from being a Christian one can change into 
 a priest," etc. Through all his letters runs a stream of 
 such allusions to the meanness and bad faith of princes 
 or to the hypocrisy of all ranks in the church. These 
 allusions in his published letters are for the most part 
 vague. Occasionally, indeed, where the pay of one of his 
 patrons had been too long delayed, he becomes more 
 pointed. He writes to Signer Giovanni Dandalotto: 
 "The fact that the gift which, through the influence of 
 your excellency, was promised to me by the distinguished 
 brother of the Emperor, has not materialized, lessens the 
 dignity of his crown, injures your intercessions and dis- 
 honours my virtu." 3 He goes a little farther with 
 Count Massimiano Stampa : "It is so difficult to decide, 
 O Marchese, which is greater, the praise with which I 
 exalt your honours or the trick with which you deride my 
 hopes, that I keep silent about it, and in my silence I am 
 
 Aretino, Lettere, I, 48. 
 *Aretino, Lettere, II, 258. 
 Aretino, Lttere, I, 60.
 
 106 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 sorrier for myself who believe in you than for you wHo 
 trick me, because my trustfulness comes from a certain 
 stupid simplicity of nature and your cheating me comes 
 from princely malevolence, wherefore in such a matter 
 I am more worthy of excuse than you of blame. 1 And 
 sometimes he names prelates who for him incarnate the 
 hypocrisy he denounces in the church. But these pas- 
 sages, though not few among his published letters, would 
 hardly have maintained, amidst the strong competition of 
 the day, his reputation of having the most dangerous 
 tongue in the world. This reputation, absolutely neces- 
 sary for keeping at its highest figure the income he drew 
 from his profession, he maintained in his Giudizi, his 
 satiric verses and in unpublished letters ; pieces circulated 
 for the most part in manuscript. By these less public 
 writings he could cause fear without giving deadly offense. 
 If necessary, he could disavow them. 
 
 The choice which Aretino presented to kings and great 
 men was a very simple one. An eulogistic letter assured 
 them of his desire to spread their fame and make them 
 immortal. Not to accept the offer was to run the risk of 
 being pilloried for the laughter of Italy. This literary 
 mill, whose upper stone was flattery and its lower satire, 
 squeezed from the vanity of men a steady stream of gold 
 for its ingenious author. The plan was not entirely orig- 
 inal. In the fifteenth century the sale of eulogy and in- 
 vective had been common among the humanists, but 
 Aretino first assembled and arranged the rude and ele- 
 mentary devices of his predecessors. And he drew from 
 his machine a large incomt which enabled him to live in 
 
 1 Aretino, Lettere, II, 184.
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 107 
 
 far better style than Erasmus, the acknowledged king of 
 letters. 
 
 From the seventeenth century on, writers have ex- 
 panded in severe epithets on the infamy of this system. 
 One obvious thing seems to have escaped them. If the 
 system had seemed in its own day too infamous it could 
 not have been so successful. The utterances of a ribald 
 blackmailer, looked down on by all honest men as infam- 
 ous, could not have steadily flattered pride nor stirred fear. 
 Nor did Aretino try to hide his practices. On the con- 
 trary, he made so clear an explanation of his system in 
 letters he printed that we trace it entirely in them. 
 
 He claims as his proudest title the inscription stamped 
 on one of his medals, Flagellum Principum, the Scourge 
 of Princes. He is never tired of asserting his readiness 
 to shake the lash over vice, and the divine blessing on his 
 task, and he boasts of the gains of satire. 
 
 His letters abound with passages like the following: 
 "Believe me I am the same good companion I was in old 
 days, and my joyful amiability has grown with my grow- 
 ing reputation and ease of life. The weight of years 
 would seem light to me if I were not fat. The fault of 
 my increase of flesh many attribute to the happiness with 
 which God has surrounded me, and the talents he has 
 showered on me by His grace. And I confess it, because 
 mummies would be restored to life if the world continually 
 visited them with tribute. And for that I render thanks 
 to Christ, because certainly these things are His gifts and 
 not our merits." 
 
 "If I were not worthy of any honour for the origin- 
 ality with which I give life to style, I merit at least a little
 
 io8 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 glory for having forced truth into the ante-chambers and 
 the ears of the great ones of the world, to the shame of 
 adulation and falsehood. And not to defraud my rank 
 I will quote the words which fell from the sacred mouth 
 of the great Antonio da Leyva : 'Aretino is more neces- 
 sary to life than sermons, for they direct towards the right 
 way only simple people, but his writings men of birth and 
 power'." 1 
 
 He writes to his publisher Marcolini, "In case you 
 hear it said again that great men give me money every 
 day for fear and not for love, consider it a sign of my 
 greatness. Certainly if I were a prince I should choose 
 to be loved rather than to be feared. As I am Pietro, I 
 think it better for lords to fear me than to love me. The 
 judgment you report is nothing but ignorance and malig- 
 nity. The envy of many really exalts me while it tries to 
 abuse me. In very truth, I must be a terrible man since 
 kings and emperors give me presents out of fear. So 
 compose yourself in peace about it without getting 
 angry." 2 
 
 He is equally frank in showing the gains of his service 
 and his willingness, to rent either silence or speech. 
 
 He speaks of "one of those presents which princes 
 often give me, I hardly know whether to say out of fear 
 or out of liberality," 3 etc. "Oh, if princes (who do not 
 drive me to despair by giving nothing that I may not 
 vituperate them, and do not console me by giving me 
 enough in order that I may not fear them), could only 
 
 1 Aretino I<cttere, I, 254. 
 
 Aretino Lettere, III, 89. 
 
 * Aretino Lettere, II, 187.
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 109 
 
 take the middle path," J etc. He points out that "the 
 gifts of kings ought to be not only quick, but frequent 
 like drops of rain. Their majesties ought to remember 
 continually a man of talent; otherwise they give him 
 reason to talk too much; whence their fame and their 
 courts get a bad reputation." 2 He often threatens "the 
 vendettas of ink more eternal than the offenses of blood." 
 "The stinginess of promises and the tenacity of avarice 
 are a reason for acting badly, not simply for speaking 
 badly ; and if they don't look out, I will put an ornament 
 on the face of the name of somebody which shall stand 
 for a sign until the day of judgment." 4 One of his 
 medals shows on the reverse Aretino seated while figures 
 bring him gifts, and the inscription is "Princes supported 
 by the tribute of their people bring tribute to their 
 servant." 
 
 He thought he had done a great service to literature in 
 systematizing this commercial use of invective and eulogy, 
 and calls himself the "Redeemer of Genius who has re- 
 stored her to her ancient place!" "Her glory was 
 dimmed by the shadows of the avarice of men of power, 
 and before I began to lacerate their names, men of genius 
 begged the honest necessaries of life. And if some one 
 rose above the pressure of necessity, he did it as a buffoon 
 and not as a person of merit. My pen armed with its 
 terrors has brought matters to such a pass that the Sig- 
 nori, coming to themselves, have cherished great intellects 
 with enforced 'cortesia.' " 5 
 
 1 Aretino, Lettere 
 'Aretino, Lettere 
 3 Aretino, Lettere 
 Aretino, Lettere 
 6 Aretino, Lettere 
 
 II, 244. 
 II. 76. 
 II, 254. 
 II, 14. 
 I, 85.
 
 I io RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 Conscious of this great service, he was convinced that 
 the world owed him the splendid living he drew from the 
 vices and merits he praised or blamed. For he naively 
 writes in thanking the new Duke of Florence for money, 
 "The cortesia shown me is an augury of felicity for the 
 reign of his Excellency, because none give to me but true 
 princes who reign by the choice of God and by the counsel 
 of good men." * 
 
 This easy conscience about his work is the more em- 
 phasized by the pious phrases which run through his let- 
 ters. Aretino considers himself an excellent churchman 
 and a good Christian. To attack the corruptions of the 
 clergy and the Roman court was not of course in the least 
 incompatible with piety and orthodoxy. Some of the 
 saints had done it in the past ; some of the apologetes of 
 the Church against schism did it in his own day. Heresy 
 Aretino always hated. He makes many hostile allusions 
 to Luther. Writing to a young friend at the Uni- 
 versity, he reproves him for eating meat all the time; 
 because Fridays and Lent are the days of God, the rest 
 of the year belongs to man. But he adds, that he feels 
 sure this only comes from careless willingness to imitate 
 bad example, and not because of any "belief you give to 
 Luther, that diabolical spirit." 2 He congratulates the 
 Cardinal of Trent on the services of Vergerio, who has 
 "not only become a trumpet of the gospel and a key to the 
 doors of the Holy Scriptures, but thunderbolts and light- 
 ning flashes against the head of the heresy of Luther. 
 * * * He has composed three homilies on the subject 
 
 1 Aretino, L,ettere, I, 126. 
 1 Aretino, Lettere, III, 99.
 
 PIETRO ARETINO in 
 
 of the heresy of Germany, whose object is to uncover the 
 poisonous intent of those who, under the veil of religion, 
 are bringing about the ruin of states, of princes and of 
 souls, overthrowing laws, customs, loyalty and peoples." 1 
 
 He is a great admirer of strong preaching, and often 
 speaks of the pleasure or profit he had gained in listening 
 to this or that "trumpet of the gospel." 2 He wanted to 
 hear practical and simple sermons. He is very strong 
 against those "Reverend Fathers who keep shouting in the 
 pulpits about how the divine word became incarnate in 
 Mary, or in what way the dust and flesh and bones thrown 
 to the winds or scattered through the sea can come to- 
 gether and rise again to life. Certainly the temerity of 
 such themes is a reproach to Christ for having said noth- 
 ing about them. * * * We go to church free from 
 doubts which the perverse raise in questions of religion, 
 and expecting to hear the preaching of the gospel. We 
 hear strifes and disputes which have nothing to do with 
 the gospel or with our sins." 
 
 The interest Pietro took in religion, an interest shown 
 in repeated passages in his letters, cannot be better illus- 
 trated than by a letter he wrote to a parish priest of his 
 neighborhood, "The dignity of the higher offices of the 
 church, the mitre and the cardinal's hat, would become 
 you, Reverend Father, because you neglect nothing which 
 is for the praise and honour of that little church of which 
 you are the worthy custodian. Therefore, you have the 
 name of a good priest. And this is confirmed with loud 
 voice by all the people who see how you study to enlarge 
 
 1 Aretino, Lettere, II, 66. 
 Aretino, lyettere, I, 178.
 
 H2 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 the present building. Meanwhile you divide the small sal- 
 ary which comes from the parish among strangers, the 
 sick and the poor, until one might wonder how you can 
 buy bread to eat, let alone providing the other necessaries 
 of life. However, the grace of God beholding such charity 
 transubstantiates itself into what you need. You are so 
 much 'the fervent and careful father of everybody who 
 lives in the parish, which obeys you in Christ at the temple 
 which decorates you with its title, that everybody feels like 
 a son towards you ; and I for my part not only love you 
 with the zeal of a son, but reverence you with the purest 
 sincerity, because I consider you a model of that spiritual 
 care which belongs to all those who have the oversight 
 of our souls. You who control the income of the treasury 
 of the merits of the crucified Jesus, must dispense it in 
 the benefits of the altar, of masses, of the divine offices, 
 of offerings, of incense and lights, of sacerdotal orna- 
 ments, of baptisms and of communions ; and loving your 
 neighbour with pure purpose, aid with what you spread 
 before them the cravings of the spiritual hunger of those 
 whose pastor you are. Religious privileges must be 
 shared in a holy way, and the food of Christ distributed 
 according to His teachings. And woe to him who uses 
 them differently. But what shall I say, O honest and 
 excellent man, of the reputation you have gained by your 
 goodness in inviting every preacher of good fame, holy 
 life and sound doctrine to come and expound the divine 
 word in your pulpit? Which is to you a source of clear 
 commendation and to us of evident salvation. Twice, 
 thanks to you, we have heard Fra. Bernardino da Siena
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 113 
 
 twice, I say we have heard him, thanks to you, and for 
 that alone you deserve to be remembered. Because his 
 Apostolic voice, his catholic words, make the guilty good 
 and the perfect justified. Therefore, rejoice in yourself, 
 thanking the Saviour for the power you have with his 
 creatures, and while you do this, take pleasure also in the 
 gentleness of your affable profession, whose human kind- 
 ness opens the very bottom of every one's heart." 1 
 
 These various traits of Aretino, his lack of shame for 
 pornographic writing, the brutal immorality of his life, his 
 sense of high moral service to the world, his thanks to God 
 for the gifts he used in that service, his interest in religion, 
 his self complacency and his frank exposition of willing- 
 ness to praise the virtues of the princes who paid him not 
 to denounce their vices, are hard to unite into a consistent 
 character. And most writers have solved the problem in 
 portraiture by the easy device of labeling him a blatant 
 hypocrite. But to see him set forth in his own letters as 
 we can see Benvenuto Cellini in his autobiography, is to 
 perceive that Aretino, while not without a tinge of hypoc- 
 risy, took himself on the whole at his own high valuation 
 and one who does not believe that this may be true, 
 has not begun to know the men of the Renascence. 
 
 Italy of the early sixteenth century was in a strange con- 
 dition, at once fecund and decadent. She produced mira- 
 cles of art and praised extravagantly puerilities and ob- 
 scenities in literature. She sang hymns to love and 
 looked on woman as the prey of the senses. Her men 
 joined a passionate desire for fame to an atrophied sense 
 
 1 Aretino, Lettere, II, 299.
 
 U4 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 of duty. Her proud cities hated and betrayed each other, 
 while France and Spain wasted her fields, and the Turk 
 swept thousands of slaves from her coasts. The rulers 
 of the institutions she held in trust for the world spent 
 their thought and the church treasure in Italian politics, 
 their leisure in watching Raphael and Michael Angelo, 
 while Europe, north of the Alps, was breaking from the 
 unity of Christ. That brilliant blooming time of human 
 genius we call the Italian Renascence, gave to all nations 
 a new impulse in art and learning, strengthened in the 
 world the desire for truth and beauty, but the atmosphere 
 it bred in Italy at its height, was at once glorious and 
 shameful, stimulating and corrupting. If we wish to 
 know it we must look at the men it bred as they were, and 
 not at descriptions of what we suppose them to have been, 
 arranged under the rubrics of our own moral categories. 
 
 To account for the success of Aretino's masterly organi- 
 zation of the crude methods of the humanists for the sale 
 of eulogies and invectives, writers have pointed out that 
 there is a resemblance between his Giudizi and the modern 
 newspaper. It is suggested that Charles V, who paid 
 Aretino more than he paid Titian, knew what he was 
 about in subsidising a rising power the power of the 
 press. It would be easy to spend several malicious and 
 partly true pages, suggesting certain similarities between 
 Aretino's methods and style and those of some news- 
 papers, and there is truth in the comparison, but not 
 enough to make us attribute too much force to the motive. 
 Charles V may have shrewdly calculated that the 
 pen of Aretino might arouse or allay certain hostilities to 
 his policy, but we know that when his ambassador first
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 115 
 
 advised Him to put Aretino on a pension, it was for fear 
 he might publish a particular private scandal about the 
 Emperor's life which was already talked about and 
 thought to be true. 
 
 And in addition, the power of the press has risen with 
 the power of democracy. Now, while Aretino was living 
 at Venice, the democracy everywhere throughout Italy 
 was either dying or dead.. Public opinion in the sense of a 
 general moral judgment producing political effects, did 
 not exist in the Peninsula. Charles V, who made a bas- 
 tard Medici Duke of Florence, and built a fortress in 
 Siena to hold a Spanish garrison, had little reason to 
 fear the political effect of public opinion. 
 
 Aretino's letters did not always bring golden answers. 
 Little unpleasantnesses occasionally arose. He found 
 it hard to hold his insolent tongue even about his 
 patrons. His greed kept him in intermittent irritation 
 over the smallness or delay of their payments, and they 
 resented things he said not intended for their ears. Here, 
 for instance, is a letter received in 1530 by the Ambassa- 
 dor of Mantua in Venice, "His excellency understands 
 that Pietro Aretino cannot stop talking evil about his 
 servants and his court, and that he threatens to say more. 
 Give him to understand that if from now on he opens his 
 mouth to talk, or his hand to write about the smallest per- 
 sonage, not simply of his excellency's court, but of Man- 
 tua, the Duke will be as much offended as if the words ap- 
 plied to his own person; and that, by the body of Jesus 
 Christ, he will have him given ten dagger thrusts in the 
 middle of the Rialto. He has had enough of his evil 
 tongue ; let him look to himself. The Duke does not feel
 
 n6 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 like bearing it any longer, and even though he does send 
 him the copyist he asks for, it is not because he is afraid 
 of his threats." 1 As the last sentence suggests, this letter 
 did not need to be taken very seriously. These quarrels, 
 though they often arose, seldom broke finally the relations 
 of Aretino and his patrons. He needed their gold pieces ; 
 they knew that flattery masked universal envy eager to 
 laugh or sneer. The scratch of Aretino's quill calling the 
 harpies to the feast of scandal, turned their self compla- 
 cency into an agony of mortified vanity. Aretino might 
 well sign himself "Free man by the grace of God." In 
 an age when all men feared princes, his keen mastery of 
 their common weakness made all princes fear him. At 
 the same time it must be true that genuine admiration had 
 a large place in the motives of Aretino's tributaries. In 
 the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, there are five of 
 Aretino's works bound with the arms of Francis I. 
 
 Even in Venice, however, where justice was often 
 firmly done and assassination comparatively dangerous, 
 Aretino did not always come off with idle threats. The 
 pension promised him by Henry VIII was not paid as 
 promptly as Aretino wished, and he said that Harwell, 
 the English agent, kept the money. Harwell, walking 
 with his servants, met Aretino on the street and gave him 
 a sound thrashing. Against this violence Aretino ap- 
 pealed successfully to the sympathy of his contemporaries. 
 The incident unquestionably suggests the difficulties with 
 which any one trying to carry on his trade in countries 
 north of the Alps, would have found the path to fortune 
 beset. The Italian of the sixteenth century thought ven- 
 
 1 Luzio, Pietro Aretino nei primi suoi anni, etc. Document! XXXVIIL
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 117 
 
 geance the sacred duty of a gentleman, but only a refined 
 and deliberate punishment was worthy of a man of cul- 
 ture. If Harwell had hired another Achilles della Volta 
 to stab Aretino, there would have been no shock to public 
 opinion. To give him a public thrashing seemed to 
 Italian society coarse and brutal. Which of these two 
 views is the less objectionable is a question of taste on 
 which Latin and Teuton will be apt to differ to the end 
 of time. 
 
 There is another story about a man who knew how to 
 treat Aretino, so good that the student is sorry to find 
 his suspicion that is too good to be true, confirmed. 
 Tintoretto was a man with whom it was ill jesting. His 
 manners were at times unconventional. When a self 
 elected critic was explaining to a crowd of visitors who 
 infested his studio, that though other artists painted more 
 slowly than Tintoretto, they painted more correctly, he 
 broke into the discourse, "That is, because they haven't a 
 lot of bores around them as I have." Tradition has it 
 that Aretino had been talking about Tintoretto. The 
 young painter meeting the too talkative man of letters in 
 the street, invited him to his house. He said he wanted to 
 paint his portrait. Aretino went, and when he was about 
 to sit down, Tintoretto suddenly produced a long pistol. 
 The frightened Aretino, thinking the time was come to 
 pay old scores, commenced to cry out "Jacopo, what are 
 you going to do?" He answered "Oh be quiet and let 
 me take your measure;" and going from head to foot he 
 said "You are just two pistols and a half long." Are- 
 tino merely answered "Well, you are a great lunatic and
 
 1 18 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 never act like anyone else." But he was not anxious to 
 backbite him again and became his friend. 1 
 
 The path of Aretino was not always strewn with com- 
 pliments. Several of his contemporaries attacked him 
 with tremendous bitterness. Two of the most determined 
 of these denouncers were young men he had befriended 
 and kept in his house. Franco had been rescued from 
 misery by Aretino, who employed him as secretary and 
 in the first edition of his letters praised him highly. After 
 he had been driven out of the house, Franco waged a des- 
 perate fight against his former patron, chiefly in sonnets, 
 many of which rival in obscenity the worst of Aretino's 
 lines. One of them in praise of the murderous Achilles da 
 Bologna, ends : "He is worthy of fame even though he 
 failed, for at least he longed to free the world of its 
 shame." Another on Titian's portrait of Aretino, con- 
 gratulates the "brush more than divine," on the triumph 
 of having "enclosed with a little square all the infamy of 
 our age." 2 Early in the quarrel, another of the young 
 men of Aretino's household stabbed Franco in the face 
 on the street. After Franco had fled from Venice, Are- 
 tino wrote a few letters in which he handled him without 
 gloves. But on the whole, he did not try to keep up his 
 side of the literary warfare. In one of his letters he 
 uttered the careless vituperation "You are destined by 
 your own sins to the gallows * * *." 3 Time made 
 it a prophecy; twelve years after Aretino's death, Pope 
 
 1 Quoted from Carlo Ridolfi, Vite de'Pittori Venezianl. Venezia, 1648, by 
 Mazzuchelli in Vita di Pietro Aretino, Eclizione Seconda, Brescia, 1763, page 75. 
 Ridolfi quotes no authority for the story. 
 
 1 Quoted by Mazzuchelli, page 163, from Delle Rime di M. Niccolo Franco 
 qontro Pietro Aretino. Terza Kdizione, 1548. 
 
 1 Aretino, Lettere, V, 31?,
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 119 
 
 Pius V hanged Franco in Rome as punishment for a rabid 
 attack on his predecessor. 
 
 Antonio Francesco Doni had been a close friend and a 
 warm admirer of Aretino. In 1538 he wrote Aretino the 
 following letter, "I hope to tell you in four words what 
 fame says of your good nature * * * Listen : Five 
 gentlemen, all litterati, illustrious and worthy of entire 
 confidence, undertook to cross the sea of your fame with 
 the prosperous wind of your conduct. One pointed out 
 how you are blessed of God with the gift of charity, be- 
 cause you give what you have to the enjoyment of all the 
 good, and receive men of talent in the arms of the riches 
 God and your own gains have given you. The second 
 affirmed and swore to it, that he had been in a gondola 
 with you, and that the poor ran to the front of the houses 
 while you, like a banker of mercy, gave money to all say- 
 ing, 'God has given it to me and for love of Him I want 
 always to distribute it.' A third confessed to having 
 experienced from you an act of divine goodness. He said 
 he had offended you. Fortune gave him into your hands 
 and you could have returned the offense with heavy inter- 
 est and you, like a Christian, embraced and forgave him 
 saying, 'I am sorry the offense was not greater that I 
 might forgive you even more willingly.' The fourth 
 said that your house supports secretly twenty-five poor 
 people and you do not know it. Think then how good a 
 master you are, since those who serve you give away with- 
 out any permission as those who think it a duty to follow 
 your steps; and do it without saying anything about it. 
 The last prophesied that you would have money and titles 
 of service and honour from all the princes of the world.
 
 120 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 The reason is this, that the good God wills to have it so, 
 in order that, since they want to give genius and poverty 
 misery for daily bread, you may atone for their defects, 
 and be able to supply by your prodigality enough to satisfy 
 everyone who asks. And I say that the goodness of God 
 has given you one hand to write and subdue princes and 
 the other to receive gifts, in order that with both you may 
 give. And you who recognize that divine gift, give and 
 will give to whoever asks, and even to him who does not 
 ask, if you only know of anyone in need. 
 
 "Your Doni, without other phrases, friend and servitor 
 from the heart." 1 
 
 Of this saintly, God-gifted person, Doni promised in 
 1552 to write the life. He kept his promise in 1556. 
 But meantime he and Aretino had quarrelled, and the life 
 which appeared was entitled "Earth-quake of Doni the 
 Florentine with the ruin of a great colossal beastly anti- 
 Christ of our age work written to the honour of God 
 and the defense of Holy Church as well as of good 
 Christians." It was addressed to "The vituperative and 
 scoundrelly Pietro Aretino, source and origin of every- 
 thing bad, stinking limb of diabolical falsity and true 
 anti-Christ of our century." z The work surpasses the 
 promise of the title and the address. As we have already 
 seen, filth seemed to drop into the ink of writers of the 
 day, and least of all in controversy were their pens clean. 
 
 Several others of less note attacked him. But a certain 
 pride in crossing swords with the dreaded Scourge of 
 
 1 Letter* al Aretino, I, part 2, page 347. Compare II, part 2, page 352. 
 II Terre moto di M. Anton Francesco Doni Contro M. Pietro Aretino. 
 Secondo la copia dell' anno, 1566. 
 
 Lucca, 1861. Per Bartolomeo Canovetti.
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 121 
 
 Princes, can be seen between their bitter words. Aretino 
 had several of the fashionable stock literary quarrels, 
 which the combatants sometimes ended by reciprocal com- 
 plimentary letters ; much as two attorneys after belabour- 
 ing each other in court will lock arms and go off to lunch- 
 eon together. We may think what we choose of Aretino ; 
 in his own lifetime the men who, over their own signature, 
 expressed the very highest opinion of him, were, in dignity 
 and numbers, fifty to one compared to the men who spoke 
 evil of him. The dilemma is clear; either the literary 
 world was terrified by a man of his stamp who openly 
 made a rich living by blackmail, or else they admired him. 
 Of all his assailants only one can be put in the same class 
 with dozens of his admirers, that was Francesco Berni. 
 Berni's hostility was so well known that the most rabid of 
 all the attacks on the Scourge of Princes, was printed un- 
 der his name. Scholars are now agreed that he did not 
 write it. A closing note to Pietro says "you are dying 
 of hunger," and ends, "whatever you do you will always 
 be an ass, a pig and a blockhead." Three of these four 
 statements are manifestly false. And the same propor- 
 tion would probably hold true of the alleged facts in the 
 rest of the work. 
 
 On the whole, Pietro did not take much trouble to 
 answer what his enemies said about him. He affected 
 towards them a lofty contempt which was perhaps more 
 clever than sincere. When Captain Gian Battista, mar- 
 shal of the camp of the Company of Pietro Strozzi, killed 
 a Signer da Monte Albaddo, who spoke ill of Aretino, 
 Pietro thanked him but expressed his regret ; because "we 
 are Christians" and because the "license of free speech is
 
 122 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 not to be punished by the cruelty of fatal violence." * 
 But in another letter he suggests that bloodshed was 
 superfluous in any case of the sort because "it is wonderful 
 that such enemies don't hang themselves for envy at the 
 success of my writings and the shame of theirs." 2 He 
 bids Dottore Cavallino, who was troubled at some as- 
 saults on him, not to be disquieted: "His enemies will 
 find his name a diamond which breaks the teeth of those 
 who try to bite it." 8 One of his medals shows on the 
 reverse a nude figure over whose head a winged Victory 
 holds a laurel crown. The demon of envy struggles 
 under its foot and Jove in the clouds above poises the 
 thunderbolt. The inscription reads "Veritas parit 
 odium." 
 
 It was fair enough for Aretino to use such an inscrip- 
 tion, for the subtlest trait of his art in wielding an evil 
 tongue was that he rarely lied. Luzio, who has tested 
 the statements of the only one of his Giudizi which has 
 survived, says, "The Archives of the Gonzaga prove 
 that Aretino rarely calumniates and invents. Ninety-nine 
 times out of a hundred he does nothing but propagate ac- 
 cepted scandals, put in circulation malignant asser- 
 tions of others, giving them a sharp and striking form." * 
 When one of the characters in Aretino's Cortigiana asks : 
 "How can I best say evil of men?" He receives the 
 answer, "By telling the truth by telling the truth." 
 For Aretino discovered very early that in his business of 
 literary blackmail truthfulness was the best policy. This 
 
 Aretino, Lettere, III, 65. 
 'Aretino, L,ettere, III, 66. 
 Aretino, I,ettere, III, 100. 
 Un Prognostico Satirico di Pietro Aretino. Torino, 1888, page XXXI.
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 123 
 
 crafty truthfulness gave him a great superiority over his 
 adversaries. And he further disarmed them by proclaim- 
 ing as virtues those things in his life they denounced as 
 infamous. It was useless for Franco to call him "an 
 angry cur to whom men fling bones in order not to be 
 bitten." Aretino had already in letters and medals proudly 
 announced himself the Scourge of Princes, drawing trib- 
 ute from their fears by denouncing their vices. And the 
 boasts had not checked the intimacy of great artists, drop- 
 ping into his house as if they belonged to the family, nor 
 prevented his aristocratic neighbours from sending fruit 
 and flowers from their gardens, nor stopped the rain of 
 gold chains that fell upon his neck from all quarters of 
 the world. 1 
 
 It is not to be supposed that Aretino's manipulation of 
 vanity was invariably successful. In Michael Angelo, for 
 instance, he found a difficult subject. For many years 
 Pietro was accustomed to use phrases of the utmost flat- 
 tery, devotion and admiration in writing to Michael 
 Angelo and also in writing about him. According to 
 his usual custom he expected something in return. In 
 1538 Michael Angelo had acknowledged one of his letters 
 in the most complimentary terms. 2 
 
 But Pietro expected something more than compliments, 
 and he kept writing with growing insistence to Michael 
 Angelo and to common friends for some drawings from 
 the master's hand to be added to his art collection. When 
 the drawings did not come, Pietro became annoyed. In 
 1544 he asks Michael Angelo, in a most flattering letter, 
 
 1 Aretino, Lettere passim. 
 
 * See the letter quoted on page 76.
 
 124 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 "Why don't you reward my constant devotion in rever- 
 encing your heaven-given qualities, with a remnant of 
 those sketches which you care least for?" * A little later 
 he tells a friend to ask Michael Angelo "how long he 
 thinks that I can suffer the continual torment of waiting 
 for the sketches promised me ?" z The next year, he 
 says, "In case there is any longer delay I shall be forced 
 to give up the faith I have placed in so great a man." 8 
 A month later he asks the same common friend, in a brief 
 letter without any of the admiring adjectives he has been 
 wont to apply to Michael Angelo's name, "In short, tell 
 me frankly whether I ought to put confidence in Buonar- 
 roti or not?" "If you say no, I shall understand that 
 you wish me to turn my affection for him into disdain." * 
 This veiled threat proved ineffective and Pietro showed 
 how dangerous he was in the character of indignant 
 friend; and what Michael Angelo might expect if he did 
 not send the sketches. Four months later he wrote a 
 letter intended for circulation, in which he attacked the 
 painter for showing the world in his Last Judgment, 
 "no less impiety in religion than perfection in painting. 
 He has placed in the greatest chapel in the world, above 
 the first altar of Jesus, before the eyes of the Vicar of 
 Christ, figures of angels and saints entirely nude." He 
 speaks of this action with grief, shame and indignation 
 as sacrilege and suggests that it is the Christian duty of 
 the Pope to destroy the picture. He adds that he does 
 not feel astonished that Michael Angelo has not kept his 
 
 1 Aretino, Lettere, III, 45. 
 Aretino, Lettere, III, 52. 
 Aretino, Lettere, III, 122. 
 'Aretino, Lettere, III, 131.
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 125 
 
 promises. For even the treasures left by Julius for a tomb, 
 could not make him keep his promise to finish it. "A 
 failure to do your duty which is looked on as your theft." 
 
 In this letter according to his usual method, Aretino 
 used truth as his most reliable weapon. The nudities in 
 the Last Judgment did shock the religious sensibilities of 
 the day. As we have already seen, Aretino had a good 
 deal of religious sensibility and he also may have felt the 
 shock. For some members of Italian society bore the 
 spectacle of a Pope and his Cardinals chuckling over the 
 obscene allusions of the Suppositi and the Calandra, with 
 more complacency than the idea of the unclothed figures 
 of Michael Angelo's fresco in the Sistine Chapel. But 
 the motive which made Aretino express this feeling in his 
 mordant letter, is unmistakably plain in the postscript. 
 "Now that I have a little blown off my anger against the 
 cruelty you show towards my devotion, and have, I think, 
 shown you that if you are divine (di-vina) I am not of 
 water (d'acqua), tear up this letter which I have also 
 torn up and make up your mind that I am the sort of man 
 whose letters even emperors and kings answer." 
 
 Perhaps Pietro did tear up his copy of this letter, but 
 he repeated the most damaging part of it without the post- 
 script and with extraordinary similarity of phrase, in a 
 letter written the next year, and then printed it. The 
 reader will probably be glad to be told that, so far as we 
 know, Michael Angelo never sent any sketches. 
 
 In another direction also, Aretino's system of literary 
 blackmail failed to work to his satisfaction. All through 
 his writings runs a series of damaging and denunciatory 
 allusions to the Papal court, the clergy and monks. These
 
 126 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 allusions are vague and general, and not at all incompatible 
 with his equally continuous professions of loyalty to the 
 orthodox faith and the ancient church. They do not 
 prevent the exchange of highly complimentary letters 
 with a large number of prelates and monks nor the receipt 
 of favours from popes. His attacks are generally by 
 way of slurs, as when he writes to the Cardinal of Trent 
 that "he is as truthful as every other man of his habit is 
 full of lies," 1 or says that a certain thing "would be 
 shameful even among cardinals let alone among cava- 
 liers," z or tells Cardinal Hippolito de' Medici "that as 
 others show the honours, incomes and favours gained in 
 the Roman court by their vices, he will show the offenses 
 he has received for his virtues." 3 Sometimes he repeated 
 a story like that of Julius II rushing out of his room 
 in fury at five o'clock in the morning to pursue a careless 
 singer in the corridors of the palace, not heeding one of 
 his attendants, who kept calling "Holy Father, go to 
 bed," and finally giving a terrible rap over the head to his 
 luckless steward who came to see what the row was and 
 was taken for the rash musician. 
 
 But on occasions he made more direct and deadly as- 
 saults. Just after the sack of Rome, he wrote a satiric 
 address to the Roman clergy, called the "Pax Vobiscum." 
 The scorching sentences struck Pope Clement in the midst 
 of his ruined city so cruelly that he let the book fall from 
 his hands and burst into tears. 4 In the presence of 
 Aretino's friend, the painter Sebastiano del Piombo, he 
 
 1 Aretino, Lettere, I, 69. 
 Aretino, Lettere, II, 192. 
 Aretino, I,ettere, I, 80. 
 * Lettere al Aretino, I, page 309.
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 127 
 
 said with a sigh, when in the castle of Saint Angelo, "If 
 Pietro had been with me I should not be here worse than 
 a prisoner/' and went on to explain that the representa- 
 tives of the Emperor would not dare to treat him so 
 shamefully if the dreaded pen of Pietro were on his side. 1 
 In this attack as in others, Pietro was cleverly using 
 for ignoble ends what was generally thought to be the 
 truth. It was the universal opinion, expressed by many 
 whose fidelity to the Church could not be questioned, that 
 the sack of Rome was the divine judgment on the sins of 
 the Curia. But the impelling motive of Pietro's criticism 
 of the Church was not prophetic wrath, nor were his tem- 
 porary reconciliations with the popes entirely the result 
 of that readiness to forgive injuries of which he often 
 boasts, and not without truth. In the case of the corrup- 
 tions of the Church, as in the case of the corruptions of 
 princely courts, he was using, sometimes without being 
 conscious of it at the moment, a not altogether ungen- 
 uine indignation to gratify revenge and greed. And the 
 man to whom that seems impossible does not know the 
 curious anomalies of character that flourished in the air 
 of the Italian Renascence. 
 
 The justice of this judgment on the chief motive of 
 his slurs on the clergy, and his willingness to exchange 
 invective for eulogy if he was paid for it, are made 
 perfectly plain by his own pen. Soon after Paul III be- 
 came Pope, Aretino wrote to a newly-made Cardinal 
 "Miserable men of genius everywhere fallen into need, 
 hope to rise again and with the piety of your aid to ob- 
 
 1 Lettere, al Aretino, I, page 12.
 
 128 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 tain from the best of popes their daily bread. And when 
 they have obtained it, you will be the cause of making 
 their spirits give breath to the trumpet of Holy Scrip- 
 ture, instead of sounding the horns of the defects of others 
 with the voice of desperation. What miracles will issue 
 from that genius and intellect when they are given not 
 bishoprics * * * but a proper income and a de- 
 cent competence by means of which they can study, and 
 honour God with the results of study. * * * Why 
 not aid them ? Why not use them ? If one of them has 
 a biting tongue extract it with 'cortesia.' Close his mouth 
 with a gift. See how the great Caesar * * * has 
 done this in honour of my free virtue giving me reason 
 to talk and write good. See further how Our Redeemer 
 entered into the heart of Saul with His grace in order 
 that he might become a bell sounding His name, as I 
 would become a bell to sound the virtues of the ministers 
 of His temple, if the imperial 'cortesia' were imitated." 1 
 He made this offer more plain in the Giudizio for 1534, 
 the only one which has survived. He asks the King of 
 France to induce the Pope to reward his servitu. And the 
 "necessities of Aretino being met, the name and works 
 of priests will not be lacerated. Whence, sire, you will 
 acquire no less glory by freeing from true and eternal 
 disgrace the clergy, now become the fable of the vulgar 
 because of my most just anger, than your predecessors 
 have acquired by having freed them from the hands of 
 their enemies. And obtaining such favour I will not only 
 keep silent about every signore and monsignore, but I 
 
 * Aretino, Letterc, I, 75,
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 129 
 
 will turn my natural style to speaking well," etc., etc. 1 
 Six years later, he struck another note on the same 
 string he so often sounded. He writes to the Apostolic 
 Legate with a copy of his "Life of the Virgin Mary." 
 "* * * Happy the ink, happy the pen, happy the pa- 
 per which are used, which are spread for the praise of 
 Mary. Now most reverend Monsignore, reputation of the 
 honour of the clergy, how long ought I to wait that Rome 
 should consider, not the many years which she robs from 
 my servitu, but the many books I have composed to the 
 honour of God ? Think of the Psalms of David, The Gen- 
 esis of Moses, the Humanity of Jesus. See how the Life 
 of His Mother is overlooked by the church because I am 
 not set down as approved in the catalogue of hypocrisy. 
 But where are the writings about Christ made by those 
 who receive so many honours, so many properties, so 
 many solid returns from the Church ? But if I, driven to 
 despair by the cruelty of the court, do not fail to show my- 
 self to be a Christian, what do you suppose I would do if 
 she should show herself grateful ?" 2 
 
 When the imperial pension had been granted, no one 
 had any further fear that Aretino would publish the 
 whispered scandals about the life of Charles V, and ut- 
 terances of which these are specimens, seem to show that 
 the red hat, or some reward less onerous to a man of his 
 temper and habit, would have kept the most "dangerous 
 tongue" in Italy from repeating what he heard about the 
 Court of Rome. Across the Alps, there was a contem- 
 porary of the dreaded Venetian whose mastery of words 
 
 1 Un Pronostico Satirico di Pietro Aretino, page 34. 
 Aretino, Lettere, II, 168.
 
 130 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 was greater, and whose power of denunciation was even 
 more terrible. Aretino always spoke of him, and, unless 
 this essay has failed, the reader must see he spoke without 
 hypocrisy as an enemy of the church, of society and of 
 God's truth. It would be far easier to sustain an indict- 
 ment for libel against details of Luther's utterances about 
 the Roman Curia, than against those of Aretino, but of 
 the lofty passion which made the German monk refuse 
 to sell his copyrights for a large sum Aretino could not 
 have the smallest understanding. 
 
 It was during the bitterest part of his attacks on the 
 papal court, that this bravo of the pen received his hardest 
 and most damaging blow. It came from the same house- 
 hold that furnished the assassin's dagger that drove 
 him from Rome. The Datario Ghiberti, afterwards 
 bishop of Verona, had as secretary Francesco Berni, who 
 wrote burlesque poetry with such success that he has given 
 his name to the Bernesque style which Byron used in 
 Beppo and Don Juan. Soon after the publication of the 
 "Pax Vobiscum," Berni wrote a famous sonnet in an- 
 swer. It contained at least one malicious libel, the story 
 about Aretino's sister, and enables the reader to judge 
 of the malodorous flowers that bloomed in the contro- 
 versial pages of Aretino and many of his contemporaries. 
 A simple prose translation is the needed relief from the 
 impossible task of reproducing its rollicking measure and 
 easy rhyme : 
 
 "Will you go on saying and making lie after lie, O, 
 rotten, putrid and unsalted tongue, until a dagger shall 
 be found better and luckier than that of Achilles?" 
 
 "The Pope is pope and you are a rascal who lives by
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 131 
 
 the bread of others and evil speaking. You have one foot 
 in the brothel and the other in the hospital. You miser- 
 able maimed thing ignorant and arrogant. Giovomatteo 
 (The Datario) and those he has at hand, who by the 
 grace of God are safe and sound, will drown you some 
 fine day in a privy vault. May the hangman punish thy 
 panderous manners. And if you want to go on chatter- 
 ing, look out for yourself ! Take care of your breast, your 
 head and your hands. (Achilles had wounded him in 
 these three places. ) But do you behave like the dogs who, 
 after they have shaken off a good beating, are better than 
 ever. Have the grace to be ashamed of yourself, pre- 
 sumptuous pig, infamous monster, image of vituperation 
 and starvation. A dung-heap waits for you, O rogue, 
 where you can die beside the two, your sisters, who do you 
 so much honour in the brothel at Arezzo, dancing to 
 the tune 'What does my love?' * * * Traitor, you 
 ought to write your ballads and stories about these and 
 not of Sanga, 1 who has no sisters. These are they who 
 by their evil life shall pay your expenses and their own, 
 and not the Marquis of Mantua, because now you are a 
 stench in the nostrils to every country, every man, every 
 animal. Heaven, God and the devil wish you ill. Those 
 ducal garments, the fruit of begging and cheating which, 
 fallen into misfortune, like morning weeds weep for you 
 and your back to the sound of the drubbings you get, 
 will be stripped off you before you die, by the Reverend 
 Father, Mr. Hangman, who will take you out of the 
 world by a halter and for a further favour, quarter you ; 
 
 1 A Roman attacked by Aretino. See Virgili's Life of Berni, note to page 
 248.
 
 I 3 2 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 and your parasites, panders of your vices, tavern loungers 
 will sing for you the eternal requiem. Now live and be- 
 have yourself, or a dagger, a cesspool or else a noose will 
 shut you up somehow." 1 
 
 It is a typical instance of the way in which Aretino 
 has been made the scapegoat of his time, that Berrii's bi- 
 ographer, Virgili, who cannot be stern enough about the 
 coarseness and irresponsibility of Aretino, should speak 
 of this sonnet as a "frank and loyal" attack on that unique 
 monster of wickedness. 2 Its tone and method are the 
 more illuminative of the manners of the age because 
 Berni was apparently not a man ready for any dirty 
 work a patron might ask of him. Those who had reason 
 to know asserted, that after he became a canon of the 
 church, he was suddenly taken ill while dining one day 
 with his friend and patron. Cardinal Cybo, and died in 
 a week, poisoned by the orders of his host. The cause 
 of the alleged crime was that Berni had sharply refused 
 Cybo's command to poison Cardinal Salviati. 3 
 
 There was only one Pope from whom Aretino received 
 anything like what he thought his due. After having 
 vainly written such letters to the court of Paul III, as 
 we have quoted, Aretino turned again to attack, and even 
 ended one poem by invoking the Turk to come and re- 
 form with cannon balls the horrible corruptions of Rome. 4 
 At the death of Paul III, Julius III became Pope. He 
 
 1 Berni, Rime, edited by Virgili, page 62. 
 
 * Virgili, Life of Berni, page 543. 
 
 Virgili, Life of Berni, and Staffeti, "II Cardinale Innocenzo Cybo." 
 Firenze, 1894. 
 
 Quoted from MSS. by Luzio, Giornale Storico della Lctteratura Italiana, 
 XIX, page 108.
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 133 
 
 was from Arezzo and the brother of one of Aretino's 
 friends. Aretino saluted him at once with complimentary 
 writings. Julius made him a cavalier of St. Peter and 
 invited him to Rome, saying he would make a second ju- 
 bilee because every one would flock to Rome to 
 see him. 1 
 
 Aretino felt this was what he deserved, but he 
 claimed something more. And two years later we find him 
 pointing out to a friend in Rome from whose intercession 
 he had failed to obtain more solid benefits, that his 
 "tongue is pestiferous to those it does not admire, for 
 example, Leo and Clement, whose diabolical holinesses in- 
 stead of wiping off the sweat of my servitu with the ready 
 hands of reward, dipped them in my blood for no other 
 reason than that I am without guile that truth is my 
 idol, that etc., etc." He goes on to brag of his services 
 to the church, his widespread fame, the rewards given 
 by all princes, and to ask why the clergy, for their own 
 honour and the safety of the church, do not also "gild 
 his pen?" 2 
 
 In 1553 the Duke of Urbino, made Captain Gen- 
 eral of the Church, took Aretino to Rome with him. 
 The Pope in audience rose from his seat to greet Aretino 
 with a kiss of "fraternal tenderness" and assigned him 
 magnificent apartments in the palace. He sent back to 
 Venice laudatory descriptions of what he had seen and 
 complimentary letters about the Pope. Julius' brother, 
 who had been enormously advanced in wealth and power, 
 had promised Aretino a pension of ten scudi a month. 
 
 1 Aretino, Lettere. VI, 160. 
 Aretino, Lettere, VI, 113.
 
 134 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 But for some reason or other, perhaps because Aretino 
 could not keep from evil speaking, this was suspended. 
 Aretino burst out in savage utterances against the Roman 
 court, but thought better of it and wrote most abject 
 letters, begging to be forgiven and have his pension again. 
 He had only bitten like "a family dog whose bone has 
 been snatched away;" "for men of virtu ought to be 
 compared to lean mastiffs who lick the feet of him who 
 gives them food and tear the legs of those who refuse 
 it to them." * When all his prayers could not obtain par- 
 don, he wrote a sarcastic letter of thanks to Baldovino, 
 thanking him "for relief from the disgrace of accept- 
 ing so vile a guerdon." 2 And far from being ashamed 
 of letters through which we know of this last vendetta 
 with Rome, the writer published them himself. 
 
 They are among the last we have from him. On the 
 2 ist of October, 1556, he died of a stroke of apoplexy, 
 in the sixty-fifth year of his age. Slander became busy 
 soon after his death in forming the legend that he died an 
 atheist. His native city of Arezzo, which made him a 
 patrician, gave him the title "Salvator Patriae," hung his 
 portrait in the council chamber, still preserves his house, 
 and made, in 1581, inquiries about his death. The sworn 
 attestation of Aretino's pastor found some twenty-five 
 years ago in the archives of Arezzo, has disposed of 
 the legend that he died an atheist. The priest sends a 
 deposition, sworn before a notary, that, shortly before his 
 sudden death, Aretino confessed to him and took com- 
 munion with tears that showed great feeling. 
 
 * Aretino, Lettere, VI, 215. 
 Aretino, Lettere, VI, 261.
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 135 
 
 When death had removed him from attack, war was 
 made on his works. Ten years before ^i> dfr^K a n ^- 
 tempt had been made to persuade the Pope to have his 
 
 i^ * 
 
 religious wuiks Emrnt. The_ 
 of fits' writings, twn years after. all r were placedjhyjjie 
 Church on the index of prohibited books. The need of 
 stopping their circulation if they were heretical, is sug- 
 gested by one account of the officers of the Inquisition. 
 They seized the stock of Cappello, a bookseller of Naples, 
 who was agent for Gabriel Giolito, a publisher and book- 
 seller of Venice with shops in Bologna, Ferrara and 
 Naples. In the stock of seven hundred and twenty-nine 
 books, one hundred and twenty-six were by Aretino ; the 
 next best selling author, if we can test by this standard, 
 was Erasmus, of whose works seventy-one copies were 
 found. There were in stock thirty-nine copies of Are- 
 tino's dramatic works, thirty copies of his letters and 
 forty copies of his religious books. Of his pornographic 
 writings only nine copies were found. 
 
 It has been assumed that Aretino's works were put upon 
 the index, because of his pornographic writings. This 
 assumption seems to be mistaken; the very slight refer- 
 ences which have survived to suggest the motives for 
 that condemnation refer to heretical tendencies. There 
 are things in his religious writings on which a charge of 
 departure from orthodoxy could have been based. And 
 when the influence of the Council of Trent was being 
 felt in reforming the abuses and restoring the discipline 
 of the church, Aretino's freedom in criticising the clergy 
 became offensive. 
 
 1 Aretino, I,ettere, III, 105.
 
 136 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 That this was the motive for putting Aretino on the 
 index is strongly suggested by the way in which the 
 redactors treated other lascivious writers. The Coun- 
 cil of Trent ordered that books should be placed 
 on the index which "intentionally narrate or discuss las- 
 civious and obscene things," because it was necessary to 
 defend "morals as well as faith." But the "Redactors of 
 the Index, the official correctors of profane literature, al- 
 most all forget the interests of morality, and think only of 
 reestablishing the honour of the ecclesiastical body." The 
 works of Straparola, Bandello and Firenzuola, extremely 
 licentious and coarse, escaped condemnation. The ex- 
 purgated edition of Bandello, published in 1560, lacks 
 little of the obscenity of the original, but the stories which 
 centered on scandals of clergymen are omitted. In 1573 
 the Pope ordered an edition of the "Decameron," which 
 Catholics might read without disobeying the index. This 
 edition, authorized by the inquisition, left lascivious 
 passages unchanged, but lacks words like "devil" and 
 "hell" and all obscene phrases which contained the names 
 of saints. And whenever a clergyman was the hero of 
 a scandalous adventure, the expurgator left the adven- 
 ture unchanged, but made the hero a layman, and the ab- 
 besses became citizens' wives. In addition every passage 
 which sounded like the phrases used by heretics, such as 
 the suggestion that "the grace of God comes without 
 merit," was cut out. 1 In a similar spirit the Spanish In- 
 quisition in 1619 erased from the original edition of Don 
 
 1 The foregoing paragraph is in part quoted, in part summarized, from the 
 valuable work of M. Dejob. De 1'influence du Concile de Trent sur Literature 
 et les Beaux Arts, Paris, 1884.
 
 PIETRO ARETINO 137 
 
 Quixote the playful remark of the Duchess when advis- 
 ing Sancho to scourge himself for the release' of Dulcinea 
 from enchantment, "Remember, Sancho, that works of 
 charity done in a lukewarm and half-hearted way, are 
 without merit and of no avail." * 
 
 These and similar comparfcnn . sug^fnt thnt Aretino 
 was condemned nrt for ^fof^ity hut for b prpQ y, 
 
 more particularly because of the snpprs an^ 
 
 remarks against the clergy, which were scattered so freely 
 
 through his works. 
 
 lie was buried in trie church of San Luca, but his 
 tomb was destroyed when the level of the floor was 
 changed. His epitaph was not the fabled one which ac- 
 cused him of never having known God, but probably the 
 one a German traveller reports at the end of the sixteenth 
 century : 
 
 "From a lowly origin, Pietro Aretino rose to such 
 height by denouncing impure vice that, through the fear 
 he inspired, he levied tribute from those to whom the 
 world paid tribute." 2 
 
 Jj 
 
 * 
 
 * Don Quixote, etc. A translation, etc., by John Ormsby. London, Smith, 
 Elder, 1885. Vol. Ill, page S99, note. 
 
 * Quoted Carlo Bertani, Pietro Aretino, etc. Sondrio, 1901. (237.) From 
 Shrader Monumenta Italia; Helmaestadii, 1592.
 
 Ill 
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 
 
 Two men have risen to larger power in England than 
 has been wielded by any other Englishman not connected 
 by birth or marriage with the royal line. They were of 
 the same blood, for Oliver Cromwell was descended in the 
 fifth generation from the sister of Thomas Cromwell, 
 who under Henry VIII wielded the highest authority in 
 Church and State. 1 They were very unlike in character, 
 but had common traits: unusual capacity for the affairs 
 of government, tact in dealing with men, an iron will and 
 the gift of foresight. 
 
 Fame has been unfair to both of these great men. In 
 giving judgment upon each in turn she has stood with 
 eyes bound, not to weigh more evenly good against evil, 
 but to take with blind confidence the opinion of his bit- 
 ter enemies as a just estimate of his work and character. 
 
 The opponents of Oliver Cromwell hung his coffined 
 body on the gallows, and then flung his bones into a 
 shallow grave at its foot. But they buried his memory 
 under obliquy so deep that, more than two hundred years 
 afterward, the city government of Leeds dared not ac- 
 cept the gift of a statue to him because they feared the 
 people. A saner judgment has at last prevailed. It was 
 
 1 Milton in his "Second Defense of the People of England," refers to this 
 descent of Oliver Cromwell "from illustrious ancestors distinguished for the 
 part they took in restoring and establishing true religion in this country." 
 
 138
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 139 
 
 voiced five years ago by the man who held at death the 
 almost unquestioned primacy among the writers of his- 
 tory in the English tongue. "It is time for us to regard 
 him as he really was, with all his physical and moral au- 
 dacity, with all his tenderness and spiritual yearnings, in 
 the world of action what Shakespeare was in the world 
 of thought, the greatest, because the most typical, Eng- 
 glishman of all time." 1 
 
 For the older but the smaller of these two kinsmen the 
 ebb and flow of the tide of injustice has been reversed. 
 Within two generations of Thomas Cromwell's death on 
 the scaffold at the hands of a priestly cabal, Fletcher or 
 Shakespeare put the popular estimate of his work and 
 character into the prophetic adjuration of the dying Wol- 
 sey : 
 
 "Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition. 
 
 .... Be just and fear not. 
 
 Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, 
 
 Thy God's and truth's ; then if thou fall'st, O Cromwell ! 
 
 Thou fall'st a blessed martyr." 
 
 But modern writers, particularly during this genera- 
 tion, have presented him as the importer of the unknown 
 vices of Italian politics, a mere tyrant's hireling and flat- 
 terer, the light of whose intellect displays no large aims, 
 but, as by infernal fires, only illumines the cruelty and 
 greed of an adventurer. This peculiarly sinister atmos- 
 phere comes chiefly from the Apologia, a long rhetorical 
 letter written the year before Cromwell's execution to 
 the Emperor Charles V, urging him to invade England 
 
 1 Samuel R. Gardiner, Oxford Lectures on Cromwell.
 
 140 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 and force it from schism to obedience. Its author was 
 Cardinal Reginald Pole, an Englishman of the blood 
 royal, outlawed for treason, who had tried to bring Papal 
 money into England to back an insurrection which men- 
 aced the throne and demanded Cromwell's head. * This 
 attempt Cromwell answered by sending to the block the 
 chief of the Pole family and their intimate friends. It is as 
 unreasonable to base a final estimate of Cromwell upon 
 such a document, as it would be to base a final estimate 
 of the character and purposes of Abraham Lincoln on a 
 letter of Jefferson Davis, written during the Civil War to 
 gain the alliance of a European power for the Confed- 
 eracy. 2 
 
 An historical sketch of Cromwell must judge him, not 
 by the ideals of his opponents, but by his own; test him 
 by the moral average of his times, and take account of 
 the qualities his friends truly praised, as well as the vices 
 his enemies justly condemned. This attempt is based 
 chiefly on the seven thousand letters, by, to or about 
 Cromwell, calendared in the Letters and Papers of Henry 
 VIII. There is nothing in it which cannot be supported 
 by citations from that collection or other contemporary 
 writings. The writer believes he has never differed from 
 the opinions of modern historians without being aware 
 of it, and every such difference implies a dissent which 
 seems to him justified by evidence drawn from the pri- 
 mary sources. 
 
 1 Letters and Papers, XII, part 1, 123, 1141. Pole denied this. The article 
 in the appendix shows by documents that he did not tell the truth. 
 
 In addition to this reflection, sufficient for the present purpose, the writer 
 has found the Apologia, after critical examination, erroneous in detail. The 
 article in the appendix of this volume, reprinted from the American Historical 
 Review, gives the grounds for this conclusion.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 141 
 
 Henry VIII had that eye of a king which sees ca- 
 pacity while yet in obscurity. Under his favor two men, 
 unaided by birth or money, rose to high positions which 
 became the background to display remarkable talents 
 Thomas Wolsey and Thomas Cromwell. 
 
 Thomas Cromwell, born toward the end of the fifteenth 
 century, was the son of Walter Cromwell, who was de- 
 scended from two generations of people of wealth and 
 importance in burgher society. He owned at various 
 times a blacksmith shop, a fulling mill and a brewery, 
 but in his later years lost most of his property. 1 The 
 only contemporary accounts of Cromwell's youth contain 
 several demonstrable mistakes, and have therefore been 
 perhaps unduly discredited. But it is certain that, while 
 still a lad, he traveled abroad and led a rough and adven- 
 turous life. In Italy he fell into great poverty, and for 
 a time served as a soldier. During this wandering life 
 he gained skill in business affairs, and acted as clerk, or 
 bookkeeper, in the two great commercial cities of Ant- 
 werp and Venice. At some time in his early life he ac- 
 quired Latin, French, Italian and a knowledge of law. 
 According to a story told by a man who would be apt to 
 know the facts, he developed, while still young, tact in 
 managing men. The town of Boston wished to obtain 
 some favor from the Pope, and Cromwell went with their 
 agent to Rome. The request was reasonable, but Crom- 
 well was delayed by a great crowd of suitors. In this 
 situation^ he used his wits instead of the usual presents 
 to attendants to get an audience before his turn. Wait- 
 
 1 See the summary of evidence in Thomas Cromwell, by Roger B. Merriman. 
 Macmillan, 1903.
 
 142 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 ing for the Pope as he came home from hunting, Crom- 
 well's company, when the cavalcade drew near, sang an 
 English "three-man song." The novel music attracted 
 Julius' attention, Cromwell clinched the favorable im- 
 pression by the gift of some English jellies or sweetmeats, 
 and in the audience he got obtained the favor Boston 
 sought. 
 
 Between the ages of twenty-five and thirty, he came 
 home, settled down and married the daughter of a shear- 
 man, an old neighbor, who had perhaps cooperated with 
 his father's fulling mill in the manufacture of cloth. For 
 a time he carried on the business of the fulling mill, to 
 which he added the profession of a notary and business 
 agent. His connections with the Italian and Flemish 
 merchants living in London evidently helped him, and 
 prosperity followed hard work. In 1524 he seems to 
 have given up the fulling mill and devoted himself to 
 his profession as a lawyer. He gained a good practice, 
 and increased his earnings by loaning them among the 
 merchants and gentry whose affairs he managed. 
 
 About ten years after he returned to England, he bought 
 land in a good quarter of London. He had already be- 
 come a person of position in the burgher society in which 
 he moved. In 1522 he was put down in a joint power 
 of attorney alongside of Poyser, grocer, London, as 
 Thomas Cromwell, London, Gent. 1 In 1523 he sat on 
 the inquest of wardmote for his ward. It was an ener- 
 getic committee. It presented Hanchok and Bonyfaut for 
 a defective pavement in front of their doors, and some 
 twenty other owners had similar complaints lodged 
 
 1 Lttters and Papers, Dom. Series, III, 2447.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 143 
 
 against them. There was a "noisome goose house in 
 Scalding Alley." William Delke had threatened mem- 
 bers of the inquest probably for doing their duty. The 
 wives of Spencer, Harrison and Badcoke were presented 
 for scolding, and the wife of Andrew Forest for being 
 a common scold. The draft of the committee's report is 
 partly in Cromwell's hand. 1 
 
 The same year he sat in the House of Com- 
 mons. Among his papers there is a draft of a 
 speech in Parliament, in the handwriting of his clerk, 
 which doubtless represents what Cromwell said or in- 
 tended to say. The King had declared war against 
 France and her ally Scotland. Wolsey, yielding when he 
 must, presented the need of the throne and asked for a 
 large grant of money, because the King intended to in- 
 vade France in person. The speech of Cromwell com- 
 bines most skillfully an appeal to patriotism, readiness 
 to support the King, and the suggestion, conveyed so 
 subtly that Henry could not have been offended, that the 
 plan was a poor one. He denounces the treachery of 
 France and the wrongs her King has done to England, 
 but he is alarmed by the idea that Henry should put his 
 person in danger across the sea. He points out the dif- 
 ficulty of bringing the Frenchmen to meet in open battle 
 the forty thousand men to be sent, the risk of pushing 
 on to Paris, leaving fortresses in the rear, and the im- 
 possibility of England's finding coin and bullion enough 
 to feed so great an army, "seeing that the inhabitants of 
 Flanders" (where provisions would have to be bought) 
 are so anxious "to have much of our money for little of 
 
 1 Letters and Papers, III, 3657.
 
 144 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 their victuals." These campaigns might prove more loss 
 to England than to France, and reduce the realm to coin- 
 ing leather. The true object of English arms was Scot- 
 land. "Who that intendeth France to win, with Scot- 
 land let him begin." It is folly to think of holding pos- 
 sessions across the sea when Scotland obeys another 
 Prince. Scotland once united to England all other pos- 
 sessions are safe. 1 
 
 It was after sitting in this Parliament that he wrote 
 one of the very few purely personal letters which have 
 survived, and the only one which suggests the flavor of 
 the pleasant conversation for which he was famous: 
 "Supposing ye desire to know the news current in these 
 parts, for it is said that news refresheth the spirit of life, 
 wherefore ye shall understand that by long time I 
 amongst others have indured a Parliament which con- 
 tinued by the space of seventeen whole weeks, where we 
 communed of war, peace, strife, contentions, debate, mur- 
 mur, grudge, riches, poverty, penury, truth, falsehood, 
 justice, equity, deceit, oppression, magnanimity, activity, 
 force, attempraunce, treason, murder, felony, and also 
 how a commonwealth might be edified and continued 
 within our realm. Howbeit in conclusion we have done 
 as our predecessors have been wont to do, that is to say 
 as well as we might, and left where we began." 2 
 
 The habit of not taking himself too seriously, the 
 friendly and familiar atmosphere out of which this comes, 
 was evidently the atmosphere of Cromwell's house. And 
 he seems to have early displayed that ready gratitude for 
 
 1 Letters and Papers, III, 2958. 
 Ibid., Ill, 3849.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 145 
 
 kindness, that fidelity to those who had helped him, for 
 which he became noted at home and abroad. People liked 
 to go to his home and remembered their visit with pleas- 
 ure. John Creke addresses him from Bilboa as "the dear- 
 est man in the world," and says that the recollection of 
 walking with Cromwell in the garden and talking of spir- 
 itual things, makes him desperate with loneliness. 1 Three 
 different men within the year choose, among the cus- 
 tomary superscriptions for letters, such forms as "my 
 right loving friend, right faithful friend, heartily beloved 
 friend." And several letters end with words of greeting 
 to common friends. In the little circle which gathered 
 round Cromwell, his wife and his mother played their 
 part. Correspondents ask to be remembered to them. 
 One wants the good housewife "to send another plaster 
 for his knee," and another desires to be commended "to 
 your mother, after you my most singular good friend. 2 
 These are slight instances, but everything in the few let- 
 ters which have survived from this early period points 
 toward a merry and gentle house, visited by good friends 
 and "gossips," with whom the Cromwells shared the 
 pleasures of life down "to half a fat doe." And it was a 
 prosperous house, for in 1524 Cromwell bought a sapphire 
 ring worth in modern value some 40 and a gold bracelet 
 with a jacinth worth 80. 3 
 
 For most of his correspondents Mr. Thomas Cromwell 
 became during the next five years "The Right Worship- 
 ful Thomas Cromwell." Though those who possessed, or 
 desired to claim, intimacy choose the more familiar of the 
 
 1 Letters and Papers, III, 2394. 
 
 2 Ibid., Ill, 2624, 3015, 3502; IV, 1385. 
 Ibid., IV, 166; IV, App., 57.
 
 146 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 usual formal addresses, as when Lord Berners addressed 
 his letter to "my well-beloved friend," or Lord George 
 Grey endorses his "to my fellow and friend." The rea- 
 son for this greater social consideration appears plainly 
 from 1528 on, for his full title then becomes "The Right 
 Worshipful Mr. Cromwell, Councilor to my Lord Car- 
 dinal's Most Honorable Grace." 
 
 Wolsey, the first man in the kingdom, whose wealth 
 rivaled that of the King, employed him as the manager 
 of the revenues of his diocese of York, and gradually a 
 large part of the Cardinal's legal business fell into 
 Cromwell's hands. As he trusted Cromwell's capacity, 
 Wolsey naturally came to employ him in the project near- 
 est to his heart the establishment of his two colleges, 
 one of which survives at Oxford, a monument to the love 
 which could plan such a palace for learning, and the pride 
 which blazoned his own insignia on every coign and chief 
 stone of its walls. It was a visible evidence of the secret 
 forces which were undermining mediaeval institutions by 
 changing scholastic habits of thought, that Wolsey ob- 
 tained in Rome a bull permitting the suppression of small- 
 er monasteries in England and the diversion of the funds 
 to the establishment of his two colleges. For, as a man 
 of the New Learning which had spread in his day from 
 Italy over Europe, Wolsey shared the humanists' dis- 
 like of the ascetic ideal, and was prepared to make war 
 on the results of that exaggeration of it which had left 
 Europe covered with thousands of monasteries, whose 
 inmates no longer played any very useful part in the 
 changed life of the world. 
 
 In this conversion of ancient 'foundations, which turned
 
 ITHOMAS CROMWELL 147 
 
 monasteries into colleges and substituted professors and 
 students for monks, Cromwell was Wolsey's most active 
 agent. And in this service he gained hatred. In any 
 suppression of the kind there must be suffering to those 
 who lose an assured living. Hatred is apt to follow, even 
 in the gentler atmosphere of this century. The sixteenth 
 century was anything but gentle, and therefore it is not 
 surprising to find a letter to Wolsey in France at the end 
 of August, 1527, telling him that "incredible things are 
 reported about Allen (Cromwell's coadjutor) and Crom- 
 well, as I have heard from the King and others." 1 What 
 these "incredible things" were does not appear. Crom- 
 well, like most men in subordinate positions, from royal 
 ministers to the pages of a Baron's waiting-room, took, 
 from the needs of suitors, fees and presents for such in- 
 fluence as they might have with their superiors. 2 And it 
 is more than probable that, during this suppression of 
 monasteries and the pensioning of their inmates, Crom- 
 well made money which, to one of more delicate feelings 
 of honor than those of the average man of his day, would 
 have seemed to soil the hand that took it. But there are 
 indications that the things reported were "incredible" and, 
 to a large extent, the result of the hatred of the sufferers 
 by the suppression, and its opponents. 
 
 In the first place, we know of these charges 
 only from letters which express disbelief in them, 
 the one quoted above, the one quoted below, and 
 
 1 Letters and Papers, IV, 3360. 
 
 2 "Es lag im Geist dieser und auch noch der folgenden Zeit das ungescheut 
 furstliche Diener sich die Hande schmieren liessen." Ulmann, Maximilian, I, 
 page 813. A dozen similar citations from men who know the period might be 
 given.
 
 I 4 8 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 one from John Rushe, a helper in the work, 
 who wrote to Cromwell, "You would be astonished to 
 learn what lies are told about us in these parts." 1 In the 
 second place, an investigation evidently took place, for ? 
 in the beginning of November, John Cheking wrote Crom- 
 well that various reports were spread in Oxford about 
 him, which he is glad to know proved false. 2 And the 
 next year, when Wolsey had fallen from power, Stephen 
 Vaughan, a servant and friend, who did not hesitate to 
 write a letter of stern warning and reproof when he 
 thought it needed, writes : "You are more hated for your 
 master's sake than for anything which I think you have 
 wrongfully done against any man." 3 At Wolsey 's fall 
 Cromwell was naked and open to his enemies. The Lon- 
 don burghers and the House of Commons were apt to in- 
 volve him in their vengeful feelings toward Wolsey, the 
 incarnation of the idea of the temporal power of the 
 clergy against which they so strongly protested. Crom- 
 well stood day after day in the House of Commons as the 
 chief obstacle to bar that vengeance. If charges of un- 
 usual peculation or extortion could have been supported 
 by any sort of evidence, it would have been easy to use the 
 hatred of the master to overwhelm the man. And even if 
 Cromwell, as seems probable, 4 had obtained privately the 
 royal assent to defend Wolsey, this would not necessarily 
 have saved him from assault. Henry was unable to de- 
 fend Wolsey against his enemies, and had to send se- 
 
 1 Letters and Papers, IV, 6110. 
 Ibid., IV, 4916. 
 
 Ibid., IV, 6036. Compare VI, 1385, 
 Jbid., IV, Appendix, 288,
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 149 
 
 cretly to assure him that he was not altogether aban- 
 doned. 
 
 Wolsey fell from the very faithfulness with which he 
 had served his King. He had opposed the war which 
 rendered heavy taxes necessary, and then, when the 
 storm of unpopulariy which frightened even Henry 
 arose, he shouldered all the blame. 1 And he had laid 
 himself open to that indictment for the crime of praemu- 
 nire, under which he was stripped of most of his property 
 and power, by bringing into England his commission of 
 Papal Legate at Henry's own desire. The King would 
 not stand by his unpopular minister. Henry had the 
 temperament of a tyrant, but he had also the Tudor in- 
 stinct for kingship, and though he might disregard the 
 opposition of this or that class, he never risked too firm 
 a resistance to any feeling he had reason to believe com- 
 mon to the mass of his people. And the bulk of the na- 
 tion wished for Wolsey's fall. 
 
 The King was displeased with the great minister be- 
 cause he had failed to get from the Pope permission to set 
 aside the Queen and crown another. But apparently 
 Henry, while he wished Wolsey's fall, did not desire his 
 utter destruction, and so when Cromwell, faithful in ad- 
 versity, became the prop of his master's falling house, he 
 saved it from ruin. He succeeded, by skillful bribery of 
 Wolsey's chief opponents and by open defense before Par- 
 liament, in preventing his attainder for treason. Caven- 
 dish, Wolsey's gentleman usher and biographer, writes : 
 "There could nothing be spoken against my lord in the 
 Parliament House but he would answer it incontinent or 
 
 Hall's Chronicle.
 
 150 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 else take until the next day, against which time he would 
 revert to my lord to know what answer he should make 
 in his behalf ; insomuch that there was no matter alleged 
 against my lord but that he was ever ready furnished with 
 a sufficient answer; so that at length for his honest be- 
 haviour in his master's cause, he grew into such estima- 
 tion in every man's opinion, that he was esteemed to be 
 the most faithfullest servant to his master of all other, 
 wherein he was of all men greatly commended." 
 
 No doubt he used the turn of the tide of feeling which 
 drifted his master out of danger, to further his own for- 
 tune. But they who in these most recent times assert 
 that he was faithful merely in the selfish hope of winning 
 praise, not only choose to attribute the meanest possible 
 motive to an action, but forget that he could not have been 
 sure of success when he began the perilous task of de- 
 fending his hated patron. Wolsey trusted him, and writes 
 often in such phrases as " mine only aider in this mine in- 
 tolerable anxiety and heaviness." 1 
 
 Wolsey did not take Cromwell's advice to submit and 
 return to the affairs of his archbishopric. He sought 
 French influences for his reinstatement. The Spanish 
 Ambassador reports that he sent messages suggesting 
 forcible outside interference with Henry's divorce. 2 He 
 seems to have written to Rome to cause pressure to be 
 brought on the King for his own recall ; at all events he 
 hoped for Papal influence.* The Duke of Norfolk, his suc- 
 cessor in the State, feared and Anne Boleyn hated him. 
 They got hold of Wolsey's physician, who could give ev- 
 
 1 Letters and Papers, IV, 6098. 
 
 Calendar State Papers, Spanish, Vol. IV, pp. 601, 619, 692. 
 
 8 Ibid., page 805.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 151 
 
 idence that was quite enough to excite the fierce anger 
 of Henry against any one who opposed a cherished plan. 
 The physician perhaps distorted what he knew or added 
 to it. 1 Wolsey was summoned to London, and his death 
 on the journey probably saved him from the scaffold. 
 
 In the beginning of 1531, about a month after Wol- 
 sey's death, Cromwell became a Royal Councilor, 2 an ap- 
 pointment which made it possible for him to be present at 
 Councils of State, but did not necessarily give him any 
 influence upon State policy. This, by the testimony of 
 the foreign ambassadors, was largely determined by the 
 Duke of Norfolk and the other relatives of Anne Boleyn. 
 That Cromwell should have passed from Wolsey's serv- 
 ice to the King's is nothing extraordinary. Large num- 
 bers of the Cardinal's "men," from yeomen of the guard 
 up, did the same thing, and the careers of Bonner, after- 
 ward Bishop of London, and Gardiner, afterward Bishop 
 of Winchester, were helped rather than hindered by the 
 fact that the one had been Wolsey's chaplain and the 
 other his secretary. Gardiner, as one of Cromwell's in- 
 timates wrote with disgust, refused to lift a finger to help 
 his former patron. 8 
 
 Of the way in which Cromwell became the King's man 
 we have two contemporary accounts. Ten years after- 
 ward Reginald Pole wrote to the Emperor to prove that 
 Henry VIII had become Antichrist through the 
 seductions of the diabolically inspired Cromwell. He 
 says that on one occasion, after Henry's at- 
 
 Calendar State Papers, Spanish, Vol. IV, page 819. 
 
 1 A letter, dated January 10, is addressed to him as "One of the King's most 
 gracious Council." 
 
 * Letters and Papers, Dom. Series, Vol. IV, 6112.
 
 152 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 tempted divorce had brought him into conflict 
 with the Papacy and the Empire, "when he saw 
 the strongest men of the State drawing back from the 
 affair to such an extent that even Wolsey, smitten with 
 dismay, had begun to withdraw his service, being very 
 much disturbed in mind, he observed with a great sigh that 
 he had sought a divorce from Rome in the hope of getting 
 it, but if the Roman Church was determined to deny it, 
 he would not go any further in the matter. He remained 
 in that state two days, and then began to renew his efforts 
 more sharply than ever." x Pole says he got the King's 
 remark from one who heard it, and thus far he is prob- 
 ably telling facts. 
 
 He then goes on to explain the cause of the 
 change by relating what, from his own account, is 
 conjecture. He says Satan sent to the King a messenger 
 "whose real name was that of the demon by whose im- 
 pulse he acted," "but to begin with the name he received 
 from his family before he fell into the hands of demons 
 and degenerated into their nature ;" it is Cromwell. Pole 
 gives a long speech (thirteen hundred and fifty words) 
 which he supposes Cromwell delivered to Henry. It is 
 an attempt to prove that a king may do as he pleases, 
 without regard to the laws of God or man, and that there- 
 fore Henry ought to declare himself head of the English 
 Church and deny all authority to the Pope. Pole gives no 
 authority for believing that Cromwell had any such in- 
 terview, and says expressly that he did not hear Crom- 
 well's speech or know what he said, but there is nothing 
 in the speech as he gives it which "he has not heard either 
 
 1 Apologia ad Carolum Quint um, page 110.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 153 
 
 from that devil's nuncio himself or, at different times, 
 from his friends." 
 
 Pole expressly tells us elsewhere that he had 
 only spoken to Cromwell once l in his life, and 
 gives an account of the interview. It makes no mention 
 of the very point of Cromwell's advice to the King, the 
 headship of the English Church and the denial of Papal 
 authority. Nor did Henry's first assumption of the title 
 of Head of the English Church, in January, 1531, nec- 
 essarily imply the denial of Papal authority. It seems 
 evident that Pole, in the account of this interview of 
 Cromwell with the King, which he gives as the cause of 
 his becoming a Royal Councilor, is making a conjecture 
 based on Cromwell's subsequent activity in passing and 
 defending the Act of Supremacy of 1534, which did sep- 
 arate England from the Papacy. And, as he tells the 
 story, the conjecture is a violent one. He represents the 
 King as in despair because Wolsey had drawn back from 
 the attempt to secure the divorce. This scene must there- 
 fore have taken place before the fall of Wolsey, in Octo- 
 ber, 1529. Cromwell was not appointed to the Royal 
 Council until 1531, and it was two years later before the 
 Spanish Ambassador became aware that Cromwell was of 
 sufficient importance to mention his name in a dispatch. 
 If this interview with the King ever took place, why was 
 the man who suggested the policy of England kept so 
 long in the background? And how did Pole find out 
 what the Spanish Ambassador, whose business it was to 
 know the intrigues at Court, was ignorant of the im- 
 
 1 E.v illo uno congressu et colloquio.
 
 154 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 portant fact that the King had a new all-powerful secret 
 councilor ? 
 
 The other contemporary account of the way in which 
 Cromwell entered the King's service is not a conjecture, 
 made in a highly rhetorical polemic by a man who in 
 all his life had only a single talk with Cromwell, but a 
 plain statement of fact by one who saw him often. Cav- 
 endish, Wolsey's gentleman usher, writing his master's 
 life, points out that Cromwell, at the time of Wolsey's 
 fall, not only won men's respect by faithfulness to fallen 
 fortunes, but also, having occasion to see the King fre- 
 quently in connection with the Cardinal's property, by 
 "witty demeanor" and capacity for business "enforced the 
 King to repute him a very wise man and a meet instrument 
 to serve His Grace, as it afterward came to pass." And 
 this fits exactly into the fact that for a long period after 
 his reception into the Royal Council, Cromwell had merely 
 legal and business affairs to manage. The only exception 
 was a disastrously unsuccessful attempt to induce the 
 King to employ in his quarrel with the Pope the pen of 
 William Tyndale, then abroad to avoid the laws against 
 heresy. Cromwell became a Privy Councilor as he had 
 gained wealth, by being, in the phrase of Tacitus, "equal 
 to business and not above it." 
 
 He had accumulated a comfortable fortune before he 
 entered the royal service. In July, 1529, he made a will 
 in which he left about 1660 and real estate yielding in 
 1534 and 1535 an income of some 163 a year. As 
 Cromwell considered five per cent, a safe and procurable 
 rate of income from land, this represents a total prop- 
 erty of some 5000, equal in modern purchasing power
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 155 
 
 to 50,000 to 6o,ooo. 1 He had added to the sapphire 
 ring and gold bracelet a number of rings, plain jewels, 
 intaglios or enameled stones. He shared the prevalent 
 taste for silver plate and owned a number of spoons, gob- 
 lets, flagons and cups. 23 His wardrobe was that of a 
 well-to-do gentleman of what might be called the upper 
 middle class. He dressed, usually, in black or russet, but 
 occasionally put on a coat of dark blue, or a green coat 
 "welted with green velvet." He sometimes wore the 
 orange tawny which was the dress of gentlemen servants 
 of Wolsey. He owned three rings, one set with a rock 
 ruby, one with a table diamond, and one with a turquoise. 
 He had three swords, one of them by a good maker in a 
 black velvet scabbard. His hats and caps were black satin 
 or velvet. 4 
 
 There is nothing in the State papers to indicate that he 
 had any particular weight within the Council until the 
 latter half of 1532, eighteen months after he entered it. 
 The Parliament of 1532 passed thirty-four bills. Drafts 
 of three acts for that Parliament, written or corrected by 
 Cromwell, have come down to us one the germ of the 
 future Act of Supremacy, one for the Improvement of 
 Seaports, one for the Improvement of Husbandry. Only 
 one of these was passed, which indicates that as yet he 
 
 1 Letters and Papers, IV, 5772; IX, 478; VII, 1610; IV, 5772. 
 
 'Ibid., IV, 3197. 
 
 1 It seems to have been the ambition of all English families to have silver. 
 An Italian traveler of 1500 records his astonishment at the amount of plate to 
 be seen in the houses of ordinary people. "In one single street named Strand 
 there are fifty-two goldsmith shops, so rich, and full of silver vessels, great and 
 small, that in all the shops of Milan, Rome, Venice and Florence put together 
 I do not think there would be found so many of the magnificence that are to be 
 seen in London." Camden Society, Vol. 37, page 43. 
 
 4 Letters and Papers, IV, 3197.
 
 156 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 was not employed in the more important affairs of the 
 Crown. But by the middle of the year he was "in the 
 high tide of prosperity and overwhelmed with affairs." 1 
 And in October he crossed to France, the only com- 
 moner appointed for the train of twenty-five men of title 
 who accompanied Henry to an interview with Francis I 
 at Calais. 2 
 
 On his return his influence is evident. His cor- 
 respondence, which had been increasing during the 
 year, now began to rise to enormous proportions. From 
 this time until his death, on the average, forty per cent, of 
 the documents calendared for each year in the govern- 
 mental series of Letters and Papers of Henry VII, are 
 addressed to Cromwell. In April, 1533, the Imperial 
 Ambassador perceived his importance, and mentioned him 
 in a dispatch as "Cromwell who is powerful with the 
 King." 3 This late perception of the importance of Crom- 
 well in the Royal Council was not due to the fact that his 
 power had been artificially concealed. 4 The testimony 
 of the State Papers points to the more natural conclusion 
 that the growth of his influence had been so gradual as to 
 escape notice until it was well established. Wolsey pos- 
 sessed great ability and a power of work which enabled 
 him on one occasion to write twelve hours on a stretch 
 without food or exercise. 5 Norfolk was incapable of the 
 tact, work and insight necessary in the crisis through 
 
 1 Letters and Papers. V, 1210. 
 
 Ibid., V. Appendix, 33. 
 
 1 Ibid., VI, p. 168. There is a previous simple mention of his name in a 
 dispatch of February 15 (Calendars of State Papers, Spanish, Vol. IV, part II, 
 p. 601). 
 
 The hypothesis of Mr. Merriman. 
 
 Cavendish, Life of Wolsey, page 96.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 157 
 
 which England was passing. Henry openly regretted his 
 great minister's death and rated the leading councilors 
 for their lack of skill. 1 The King promoted Cromwell be- 
 cause of proved capacity. A list of his chief titles shows 
 the offices conferred upon him and marks his rise in 
 dignity and power. Privy Councilor, Master of the 
 Jewels, Clerk of the Hanaper, Master of the King's 
 Wards, Principal Secretary to the King, Master of the 
 Rolls, Vicar General and Visitor General of Monasteries, 
 Lord Privy Seal, Vicegerent of the King in Spirituals, 
 Baron Cromwell, Knight of the Garter, Earl of Essex. 2 
 And his actual power was greater than his official author- 
 ity. For eight years the internal affairs of England passed 
 through his hands. 
 
 No English statesman has ever had a more difficult 
 task. The age was pregnant with disasters to the leading 
 states of Europe. Germany was consolidating the power 
 of scores of petty princedoms undermining the basis of 
 central authority, destroying the sense of national unity. 
 Among her people there was forming that fierce hatred 
 about religious opinions which the greed of her princes 
 was to use as an excuse to make her the fighting ground 
 of all the nations of Europe. Italy, bleeding at 
 every vein from the struggle of France and 
 Spain over her conquest, lay helpless before the for- 
 eigners who wasted her fields and sacked her cities. In 
 the Netherlands fear and hate were getting ready to turn 
 the revolt against Spain into one of the bitterest of civil 
 
 1 Calendars, Spanish, IV. part I. page 819. 
 
 See Merriman's list, Vol. I, p. 143. He also gives a list of Cromwell's 
 minor appointments, Vol. II, p. 183.
 
 158 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 strifes. Wise Frenchmen saw ominous signs of the out- 
 break of those intermittent Huguenot wars which rilled 
 France with fire and blood for forty years and threatened 
 to put a Spanish dynasty on the throne. Spain was fall- 
 ing under that Hapsburg absolutism, supported by na- 
 tional pride, defended by the money of the New World 
 and the pressure of the Inquisition, which, after stimulat- 
 ing a wondrous bloom of literature and art and guiding 
 a marvelous output of energy, crushed the race for cen- 
 turies into national nervous prostration. 
 
 England was to escape all these evils. She alone was 
 to be free from protracted civil war about religion, from 
 the misery and shame of foreign armies trampling her 
 soil, from a kind of absolutism which destroyed the stand- 
 ing ground of future liberty. 
 
 Cromwell could not have foreseen these miseries which 
 befell England's neighbors after his death, but he could 
 perceive, and set himself to fight, the tendencies which 
 produced them. The most dangerous of them appeared 
 to be the separatist influences of feudalism. In the dis- 
 orders of the ninth and tenth century a method of land 
 tenure had bred a bastard government, the child, not of 
 power and consent, but of power and circumstance. The 
 scholastic theology had given divine sanction to this 
 progeny by a scheme of the world in which God figured 
 as a supreme over-lord. During the last half of the fif- 
 teenth century the critical spirit of the Renascence had, 
 to the minds of many men, destroyed belief in the divinity 
 of the mediaeval scheme of the world. Some time before 
 this weakening of the mental habits which helped to sup- 
 port feudalism, it had ceased to be the necessary allevia-
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 159 
 
 tion of a bad situation. Barbarian invasions had come to 
 an end. Trade and manufactures enabled landless men 
 to live outside of serfdom or the profession of fighting. 
 Money exchange, replacing barter, decreased the social, 
 political and economic weight of landowners. Barons 
 who feared not God neither regarded man, trembled when 
 siege guns were leveled at the walls of their ancestral 
 castles. The fierce rush of Swiss mountaineers, the un- 
 broken phalanx of the Flemish artisans, the arrow flight 
 of English yeomen, had proved to the astonished knights 
 that a horse is a vain thing for safety. The day of chiv- 
 alry was gone. The rough game of the tournament 
 long survived as a fashionable amusement; but it lost 
 its meaning. The ideal of chivalry went to seed in the 
 formal phrases of gallantry, and few knights even tried 
 to remember, like Bayard, that privilege implies duty. 
 
 But feudalism had struck its roots too deep into selfish 
 passion and local pride to be exterminated easily. It was 
 a tremendous task for Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain 
 and the Valois in France to beat it into subjection to the 
 Crown, as the symbol of the new sentiment, almost un- 
 known to the middle ages, the sentiment of national 
 patriotism. In England, at the very time when it seemed 
 to be dying, feudalism had revived in a hybrid form. 
 Edward Third's marriages of his children to the heirs 
 and heiresses of great landed estates, had produced nobles 
 uniting feudal influence to the authority of royal blood, 
 and the aristocratic factions of the White and Red Rose 
 had for two generations marred the peace of England in 
 a struggle for the Crown. Henry VIII, whose favorite 
 emblem was the Red Rose imposed on the White, was
 
 160 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 the first King for more than a century who inherited an 
 undisputed title to the throne. He followed the policy, 
 mingling ruthlessness and craft with wisdom, by which 
 his father had won the nation's loyalty to a crown picked 
 up on the battlefield of Bosworth. Like his father, he 
 tried to fill his Council with men of great ability rather 
 than men of high birth. He realized that the support 
 of the Tudor dynasty was the middle class, so strong in 
 England that, to the astonishment of the French chroni- 
 cler, the barons had not dared to plunder and slaughter 
 the people, even in the merciless days of the wars of the 
 Roses. These strongest of England's children dreaded 
 the fires of civil war, and were willing to commit her 
 destinies to a powerful, if need be a tyrannical, throne. 
 Henry VIII continued the work of suppressing the rema- 
 nent abuses by which the aristocracy used their influence 
 to wrong their weaker neighbors. He employed the 
 power of the Crown, which his father had made efficient 
 to enforce common law in the Court of Star Chamber, to 
 break the power of the little great men of different locali- 
 ties. "Bearing," or the aiding of evildoers to continue 
 crime or escape its punishment; "maintenance," or the 
 willingness of a lord to stand by his "man" though thick 
 and thin; "livery," which was usually the symbol of an 
 expectation of maintenance and the willingness to back 
 the quarrel of the maintainer; "embracery," where bear- 
 ing showed itself in the attempt to coerce or bribe a jury 
 all felt the pressure of the king's justice. 
 
 The power of feudalism was broken when Cromwell 
 became the chief man in England under the King, but the 
 instincts and habits bred by it survived. Into the Tudor
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 161 
 
 struggle to suppress them Cromwell threw himself with 
 an energy which recked not of obstacles. His zeal for the 
 support of the general authority of law tended to make 
 him not too solicitous for justice to the individual. Most 
 men who have fought deep-rooted traditions and habits 
 of lawlessness in feudal, brigand or frontier communities, 
 have been driven toward the temper of the lyncher. The 
 epithet of "sinister," which modern historians are so fond 
 of applying to Cromwell, is not well chosen; but his 
 aims, and the opposition to them, constantly strengthened 
 in him some of the characteristics of the type which the 
 Italians label "nomo terribile" 
 
 There was no one left who could openly re- 
 sist the King or the national law. The Duke 
 of Buckingham, last of the great nobles of the 
 old style, who kept solitary state almost royal, had died 
 on the scaffold in 1521. But everywhere the forces of 
 disorderly local privilege needed the strong hand of a 
 master. Men were quick on the dagger. 1 A justice of 
 the peace reports a quarrel with a courtier. "He said, 
 'I lied like a fool/ and I that 'He lied like a knave.' Then 
 he drew his dagger and struck me on the head, and I 
 drew mine, but the other gentlemen stepped between us." 2 
 Strong bands of men broke into parks, killed the deer and 
 set the law at defiance. 3 As when, on one occasion, the 
 parson drank at the inn with the young bloods of the 
 neighborhood until they sallied out at two in the morn- 
 ing, some in harness, all with cross-bows or long-bows, 
 
 1 e.g., Letters and Papers, XII, part I, 129. 
 
 a Ibid., XIII, part II, 578. 
 
 *e.g.. Ibid., XIII, 318, and Appendix, 7,
 
 162 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 to hunt in the neighboring park, threatening to kill the 
 keeper unless he kept quiet about their poaching. The 
 great lords near Winchester dammed the streams, made 
 a marsh and destroyed the salmon fishing, and tried to 
 stop those who broke down the "waterworks" in obedi- 
 ence to statute. Latimer wrote from Hartlebury : "Here 
 is much bolstering and bearing, and malefactors do not 
 lack supporters. What is needed is a good Sheriff, and 
 that is not easy to find." * The country squires of the 
 borders oppressed their humble neighbors. "A poor 
 man, following the tread of an ox that had been taken, 
 found him lying in a petty gentleman's floor, and durst 
 not say a word for fear of his life." z On the Welsh 
 border things were so far. out of order that the Bishop of 
 Chester reported "by the common law they will never be 
 redressed." 
 
 Cromwell supervised the enforcement of law without 
 fear. The most disorderly parts of England were on 
 the marches of Scotland and Wales, where the ideas and 
 habits of feudalism were little affected by social 
 and economic changes. He induced Parliament to 
 extinguish the feudal courts of the Bishopric of 
 Durham 3 and, according to memoranda in his notebook, 
 wished to extinguish all franchises under which powerful 
 wrongdoers might take refuge from the heavy hand of 
 the King's justice. He continued the work of limiting, 
 and he wished to abolish the right of sanctuary, by which 
 criminals who reached the liberties of certain churches, 
 might dwell there untouched of law, or, if they wished, 
 
 * Letters and Papers, XIII, part I, 1258. 
 ' Letters and Papers, XIV, Appendix, 7. 
 
 * The County Palatine of Durham, Lapsley, pp. 1, 99, 187-54, note 255.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 163 
 
 withdraw unarrested from England. The five counties 
 of the North were put under a permanent Royal Council, 
 as the King said, "for the conservation of those counties 
 in quiet, and the administration of common justice." 
 
 Wales and its marches were placed in charge of a sim- 
 ilar Council, whose decrees were executed by a bishop with 
 a strong sense of injustice. "Two outlaws were brought 
 in. We have sent them for trial, and tomorrow they shall 
 have justice done them. God pardon their souls. Two 
 days later four other outlaws were brought to us. Two 
 had been at large for sixteen years. Three were alive 
 and one slain, brought in a sack trussed on a horse. We 
 have had him hanged on the gallows here as a sign. All 
 thieves in Wales quake for fear." l And he adds as a 
 postscript a "list of thieves slain." By December, 1537, 
 this bishop, with a halter for crozier, could write from 
 Shrewsbury: "All is quiet here, save now and then a 
 little conveying amongst themselves for a fat sheep or a 
 bullock, which is impossible to be amended, for thieves I 
 found them and thieves I shall leave them." 2 The good 
 work in the Welsh borders was rendered permanent by 
 the incorporation of Wales into England and its division 
 into shires. 
 
 It is evident that Cromwell liked to be known as a 
 promoter of stern and equal justice, for a series of letters 
 have survived written by suppliants, who either believed 
 him to be a defender of the rights of the weak or, at least, 
 hoped to please by calling him so. Edward Beck, of 
 Manchester, whom he sent to Ireland in 1535, writes: 
 
 1 Letters and Papers, X, 130. 
 
 2 Letters and Papers, XII, part II, 1237.
 
 164 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 "The country is in good peace and quiet, and in greater 
 fear of justice than it has been these forty years." Crom- 
 well made many enemies by his administration of Eng- 
 land. None of his modern biographers has been at the 
 pains to point out that he also made many friends. In 
 his character there was joined to that unscrupulous sever- 
 ity which marked all the efficient governments of his 
 time, a trait of humanity not so common. A man sus- 
 pected of offenses in the North appeals to Cromwell. 
 Sir William Goring writes : "He would rather die than 
 appear before my Lord of Norfolk, he is so extreme. 
 And he trusts you will hear him." * Latimer, commend- 
 ing a poor man's cause, writes that he thinks Cromwell 
 was set up "to hear and help the little ones of God in their 
 distress ;" 2 and Maude Carew, in a grateful letter, "prays 
 God to prosper and continue his Lordship to the comfort 
 of all poor widows." A prisoner gladly answers Crom- 
 well's agent, sent to look after poor prisoners, by a com- 
 plaint of evil treatment. 3 Another, asking for further 
 help, quotes his charitable pity in delivering him from 
 Ludgate Prison. 4 The widow of the Marquis of Dorset 
 writes to thank him and ask for more help, because she 
 has "no other succor in all her troubles." 5 She com- 
 mends to his care her son at Court, to whom he has al- 
 ready shown kindness. "Whenever you shall see 
 him in any large playing or great usual swearing or any 
 other demeanor unmeet for him to use, which I fear me 
 
 1 Letters and Papers, VII, 1534. 
 Ibid., XI, 1374. 
 "Ibid., IX, 431. 
 'Ibid., IX, 1133. 
 Ibid., V, 926.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 165 
 
 shall be very often, I pray you for his father's sake rebuke 
 him." 1 
 
 He evidently had a sympathetic ear for love 
 troubles. Mary Boleyn, the Queen's sister and former 
 mistress of the King, had made a clandestine marriage 
 with Sir William Stafford. The anger of the King and 
 Queen and her powerful relatives of the families of 
 Boleyn and Norfolk was great. In her troubles she 
 writes to Cromwell, saying that her sister, father, brother 
 and uncle are so "cruel against us" she dares not write to 
 them. She knows that her marriage displeases the King 
 and Queen, "But one thing, good Master Secretary, con- 
 sider : that he was young and love overcame reason. And 
 for my part, I saw so much honesty in him that I loved 
 him as well as he did me; and was in bondage and glad 
 I was to be at liberty ; so that for my part I saw that all 
 the world did set so little by me and he so much, that I 
 thought I could take no better way than to take him and 
 forsake all other ways and live a poor honest life with 
 him. For well I might a had a greater man of birth 
 and a higher, but, I ensure you, I could never a had 
 one that should a loved me so well. * * * We have 
 been now a quarter of a year married, * * * but if 
 I were at liberty and might choose, I ensure you, Master 
 Secretary, for my little time I have tried so much honesty 
 to be in him, that I had rather beg my bread with him 
 than to be the greatest Queen christened." And she 
 begs Cromwell, as he has "the name of helping all that 
 need," that he will help them. 2 
 
 1 Letters and Papers, VII, 153. 
 Ibid., VII, 1055.
 
 i66 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 At least one other pair of lovers turned to him for help. 
 An unsigned letter has survived, thanking Cromwell 
 for renewing his goodness "in writing to my father for 
 us, as I understand by my dear friend. If I did not trust 
 in you, I would soon tire of life to find my father no 
 better to me than he is. My mother, that was wont in 
 such matters best to persuade him, being taken to God's 
 mercy. * * * As he whom my heart resteth upon 
 regards you more as a father than a master, I will ever 
 as one body with him bear a daughter's affection to you. 
 Your Lordship's most bounden handmaid." * 
 
 Almost all who give an account of this age allude to 
 the harsh letter Cromwell wrote to the Princess Mary 
 when he was trying to induce her to avoid her father's 
 brutal treatment by accepting the decrees that declared 
 her mother's marriage void a submission which brought 
 her the Crown of England by her father's will. The 
 letter was hard, but Mary came to feel that Cromwell 
 had stood her friend. The Spanish Ambassador reports : 
 "The King has been all the time furious and Cromwell 
 himself in some danger of his life * * * owing to 
 his having shown sympathy for the Princess." 2 He says 
 that after Mary submitted to her father Cromwell paid 
 his respects to her, begging her pardon for the harsh 
 terms and rude conduct of his former visit. "This she 
 was glad enough to grant, knowing, as she now knows, 
 Cromwell's good intentions and affection toward her, and 
 that he has been, and still is, working for her welfare and 
 the settlement." And the Duchess of Norfolk, whom 
 
 1 Letters and Papers, XII, part II, Appendix, 26. 
 Calendars, Spanish, V, part II, pp. 184, 185.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 167 
 
 her husband abandoned for another woman, wrote to 
 ask Cromwell's help, "because she has trust in him," 
 having heard "how good he was to the King's daughter 
 in her trouble." * The year before Cromwell's death 
 Mary chose him "for her valentine," 2 which she would 
 hardly have done if she had felt in regard to his conduct 
 toward her as many modern writers have felt. 
 
 One of the charges in his attainder was that he had set 
 at liberty persons convicted of misprision of treason and 
 others suspected of treason. Lord Herbert of Cherbury, 
 writing three generations after his death, says : "He was 
 noted in the exercise of judicature to have used much 
 moderation." And the French Ambassador, who despised 
 him because of his humble birth and who disliked his 
 policy, wrote just before his fall: "He shows himself 
 willing to do justice, especially to foreigners." 3 
 
 To exalt the authority of the King as the incarnation 
 of common law, in order to subdue the lawless tendencies 
 bred by feudalism, was the least difficult thing Cromwell 
 helped to do. In that he only had to finish what was 
 begun in the generation before he came to power. When 
 he undertook to free England from connection with an 
 Italianized Papacy, and to limit the political power of the 
 clergy, he began a task harder and more dangerous. The 
 Papacy was Italianized; that is to say the Popes again 
 and again sacrificed the spiritual interest of Christendom 
 to Italian politics or family ambition. When, at the 
 beginning of the fifteenth century, three Popes claimed 
 the tiara, and the strife threatened to destroy the Church, 
 
 1 Letters and Papers, Vol. XII, part II, 143. 
 3 Ibid., XIV, part II, page 329. 
 *lbid., XV, 486.
 
 i68 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 Christendom had met in the Council of Constance, de- 
 posed all three Popes, elected another by a conclave where 
 representatives of the five chief nations sat with the 
 Cardinals, decreed that the supreme power of the Church 
 was in a General Council, not in the Pope, and solemnly 
 charged the new Pope with the duty of reforming the 
 Church in head and numbers, reporting as a responsible 
 executive to regularly assembled Councils. That respon- 
 sibility the succeeding popes had refused to acknowledge, 
 that duty of reform they had failed to carry out in a 
 hundred years. This is no longer a controverted state- 
 ment. It is conceded by the ablest Roman Catholic his- 
 torians, and its truth can be seen with unmistakable plain- 
 ness in the contemporary writings of loyal Churchmen. 
 Such a strictly orthodox clergyman and obedient Church- 
 man as Jacob Wimpheling (1450-1528) has left, in ser- 
 mons and writings, not only unqualified denunciations of 
 corruption in the Church, but detailed accounts of partic- 
 ular scandalous abuses. 1 
 
 One thing the popes since Constance had done. They 
 had ably restored the temporal power of the Papacy over 
 the States of the Church. This task had absorbed their 
 energies. And it lies on the surface of lives like those 
 of Sixtus IV, Alexander VI, Julius II, Leo X, Clement 
 VII, that they had little enthusiasm for the magnificent 
 ideal of the Pope as the Vicar of Christ, the visible repre- 
 sentative of the justice and mercy of God. They used 
 their authority as spiritual heads of Christendom, and 
 the wealth which came from it, largely to gratify the 
 
 1 See Wiskawatoff, Jacob Wimpheling, and Histoire Litteraire de la Alsace 
 Charles Schmidt.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 169 
 
 ambitions and tastes they shared with other princes of the 
 Italian Renascence. 
 
 The spectacle of this corrupted and Italianized Papacy 
 had been denounced again and again by Italian writers of 
 all shades of religious opinion from Savonarola to Mach- 
 iavelli. The world north of the Alps had long watched it 
 with an impatience foretelling exasperation. It was 
 taken for granted by most intelligent laymen that the 
 Church needed a thoroughgoing reformation. In 1495 
 a friend of the Emperor wrote to tell him of the presence 
 of the King of France in Rome and of his own fear 
 that the King will reform the Church "and so win through 
 all Christendom praise, honor and reputation, which, on 
 grounds both of human and divine right, belongs more to 
 your Imperial Majesty than to him." * 
 
 As a result of this condition and the prevalent opinion 
 about it, the general loyalty of Christendom to the splen- 
 did ideal of the Papacy, which had stood the strain of so 
 many bitter disappointments, was seriously weakened. 
 Biting epigrams were circulating through the world. 
 Like this on Alexander VI, who had been elected Pope 
 by notorious bribery, from which only five out of twenty- 
 three Cardinals were thought to have been free : 
 
 "Vendit Alexander cruces, altaria Christi 
 Vendere jure potest, emerat ille prius." 
 (Alexander sells Christ's crosses and altars for pelf. 
 He has a right to sell them he bought them first 
 
 himself.) 
 When an Imperial Ambassador, in a letter which ex- 
 
 1 Chmel Urkunden, etc., zur Geschichte, Maximilian I. Stuttgart lit. Verein, 
 VoL X, page 56.
 
 170 
 
 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 presses horror at the iconoclasm of the Lutherans, writes 
 that some of the Cardinals have "sneered at a General 
 Council to reform the Church, and offered to wager ten 
 to one it will never take place ;" * when another Am- 
 bassador writes from Rome to the High Commander of 
 Leon, "since Cardinals sell themselves so cheap, your 
 Lordship ought to consider that it would be impolitic to 
 defer rewarding those who are our friends," 2 it seemed 
 to some minds no longer a question of a theory of the 
 Church, but of an impossible situation. 
 
 There were only two things to do: make another at- 
 tempt to reform the Church, and secure the election of a 
 Pontiff with spiritual enthusiasm, or else decide that the 
 last two hundred years had shown the ideal of the Papacy 
 to be unworkable, abandon it, and establish a series of 
 national Churches, appealing for justification to another 
 Council of Christendom as really representative as that 
 of Constance. All those who believed that the "fullness 
 of power" was given by God to the Pope, stood by the 
 ancient ideal for conscience' sake. And they were 
 joined by people whose conservative temper suggested 
 the fear that truth would perish if traditional institutions 
 were destroyed. On the other hand, men whose radical 
 habits of thought led them to hope that truth and order 
 would survive the fall of ancient institutions to create new 
 forms of expression and guarantees of law, were inclined 
 to destroy the one remanent universal institution of 
 Christendom as no longer fitted to the needs of the world. 
 
 A feeling common to those classes of the English peo- 
 
 1 Calendars, Spanish Papers, IV, part I, page 835, 
 * Ibid., IV, part II, page 887.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 171 
 
 pie who possessed political power enabled the men of 
 radical temper to sway English policy on the question of 
 obedience to the Pope. There was a growing dislike of 
 foreign interference with English affairs, rapidly crystal- 
 lizing around the throne of the Tudors into the national 
 sentiment which was to be the background of the great 
 output of English energy under Elizabeth. The feeling 
 was old and had been shown before. In the fourteenth 
 century, when Wycliffe, not yet guilty of the crime of 
 heresy, had voiced England's refusal of Papal tribute, he 
 had been the hero of the majority of Englishmen who 
 were neither priests nor monks. When Cromwell came 
 to power, five generations later, this dislike of foreign 
 control was very strong. Circumstances enabled him to 
 evoke and shape it into legislation. 
 
 In 1527, Henry VIII had made application to the Papal 
 Court for a divorce from his Queen, Katherine, widow of 
 his older brother Arthur, to whom he had been married 
 eighteen years. There were reasons of state for such a 
 divorce. Henry had but one legitimate child, Mary. No 
 woman had ruled England except Matilda, four hundred 
 and fifty years before. And her reign had been a long 
 anarchy, ended only when she ceded the throne to her 
 cousin Stephen, on condition that at his death her son 
 Henry II should succeed. Henry VIII might well have 
 doubted whether any woman could carry on the policy of 
 the Tudors, for it was impossible to foresee the strength 
 of that loyalty of the mass of the nation to the Tudor 
 dynasty as the guarantee of peace, which afterward sus- 
 tained the repeatedly shaken thrones of Mary and Eliza- 
 beth. And in addition, only the single life of a delicate
 
 172 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 girl stood between England and the horrors of a certain 
 renewal of civil war over a disputed succession. 
 
 If Henry desired to avoid this danger to his dynasty 
 and England, he must obtain from the Church permis- 
 sion to put away his wife and take another who might 
 bear him heirs. He believed that he could obtain this 
 from the Pope. The Church maintained in theory the 
 noble attitude toward the sacredness of the marriage tie 
 which is now enforced upon the adherents of the Roman 
 Catholic communion. But the unreformed abuses of 
 the administration of the Curia rendered it possible for 
 people of wealth and influence to obtain facile divorce. 
 Henry's brother-in-law, the Duke of Suffolk, had two 
 living wives beside the King's sister. And this compli- 
 cated matrimonial situation had been made legal by Papal 
 bulls and dispensations. 1 
 
 In 1528, Henry's sister Margaret, Queen of Scotland, 
 obtained a divorce from the Earl of Angus on such flimsy 
 grounds that Henry bade Wolsey write her that "the 
 shameless sentence sent from Rome plainly discovereth 
 how unlawfully it was handled," and warn her of the 
 "inevitable damnation of adulterers." 2 Twenty-nine 
 years before the Pope had granted a divorce, which Louis 
 XII of France asked for reasons very similar to those 
 which lay behind Henry's request. When Louis came 
 to the throne in 1498, he had been married for twenty-two 
 years to Joan, daughter of Louis XI, noted for her good- 
 ness and the dignity of her character, but unattractive and 
 without children. Louis wished to marry Anne of Brit- 
 
 1 Anne Boleyn, by Paul Friedmann. Macmillan, 1884. 
 * Letters and Papers, IV. 4131.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 173 
 
 tany, his predecessor's widow. Strong reasons of state 
 as well as inclination suggested the match. The throne 
 needed direct heirs, and marriage with the Queen Dow- 
 ager would keep her hereditary Duchy of Brittany closely 
 bound to the Crown of France. The Pope appointed a 
 commission which granted the divorce, with his approval. 
 Louis immediately married Anne of Brittany. The peo- 
 ple resented the injustice to Queen Joan and nicknamed 
 the three commissioners Caiaphas, Herod and Pilate. 1 
 Henry had very good reason to expect that the Pope 
 would enable him to put away his wife in order to take 
 another. In his application for divorce he chiefly em- 
 phasized spiritual reasons. He said that the French 
 Ambassador, while conducting negotiations about the 
 marriage of the Princess Mary, had suggested that her 
 title to succeed to the English throne was not beyond 
 question, because Henry's marriage to Katherine, his 
 brother's widow, although resting on special Papal dis- 
 pensation, was against the laws of the Church and the 
 Word of God. 2 This remark, Henry said, had produced 
 increasing torments of conscience for living with his 
 brother's widow, in disobedience to the Word of God. 
 The intimates of the English Court suspected, with good 
 reason, that the most acute motive impelling him to seek 
 this divorce was a passion for one of the Court ladies, 
 Anne Boleyn, a woman of noble blood and vulgar nature, 
 who was skillfully dallying with Henry in order to be- 
 
 1 De Maulde la Clavitre Procedures Politiques du Regne de Louis XII. 
 
 1 Such a dispensation to marry a brother's widow was not unexampled. Hein- 
 rich Deichsler in his Chronicle records under the year 1489 that a Nuremburg 
 patrician married three brothers in succession, sending to Rome to obtain a dis- 
 pensation. Chroniken der deutschen Stadte, V, 352.
 
 174 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 come Queen of England. Self-indulgence and flattery 
 had bred in Henry a desperate selfishness and the temper 
 of a tyrant. It is a Nemesis for these sins that his most 
 active motives, which were generally his most unworthy 
 motives, have often seemed to posterity his only motives. 
 The facts, however, indicate beyond a question that 
 Henry's eagerness to marry Anne Boleyn was not all 
 passion, but partly statecraft, clearly seeing the need of 
 male heirs to the throne. When her power over him was 
 failing, Anne felt that the birth of a son would reinstate 
 her in his favor. And her enemies openly rejoiced as soon 
 as it became known that her child was a girl. 
 
 It is a superficial view of the complicated character of 
 Henry and the subtle, morbid character of his depravity, 
 to see in his professions of torments of conscience nothing 
 but bold, conscious hypocrisy. French literature has 
 made us familiar with the type of woman at once galante 
 and devote. Henry's conscience, too weak to control his 
 conduct, was acutely sensitive. He thought himself to be 
 religious, was proud of his training in theology, and 
 possessed skill as a casuist. Whenever he did a bad 
 thing, he usually succeeded in persuading himself that he 
 had a good motive for it. 
 
 However much England might need heirs to the throne, 
 the divorce was a most blatant injustice. Since an indis- 
 cretion of her youth, 1 Katherine had lived a life above 
 reproach. By her husband's own saying, she had been a 
 most patient and faithful wife. It is to the credit of the 
 Papacy that Henry, neither by bribes nor threats, could 
 induce the Curia to consent to the divorce. Clement VII 
 
 1 Calendar of State Papers, Spanish, supplement to Vols. I and II.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 175 
 
 was in great fear of Katherine's nephew, the Emperor 
 Charles V, whose Spanish and Lutheran regiments in- 
 flicted on Rome in 1527 a frightful sack, in which all the 
 world, whether they rejoiced at it or deplored it, saw the 
 punishment for the sins of the Curia. But it is unjust 
 to assume that fear was the only motive for refusal. 
 Even shifty and worldly Clement VII, using his office 
 of Pope chiefly to advance his family, probably shrank 
 from dishonoring one of his predecessors and disregard- 
 ing the appeal of a wronged woman to the visible judg- 
 ment seat of Christ. 
 
 When Cromwell began in in the middle of 1532 to ac- 
 quire influence in the Royal Council, he found the King 
 trying to force the Pope to grant a divorce from Kath- 
 erine that would enable him to marry Anne Boleyn. The 
 fate of Wolsey told any man of discernment that the 
 necessary condition of power was to help the King to 
 get what he wanted. The original motives, England's 
 need of more children of the royal blood, and the inclina- 
 tion of passion turned by self-deceiving casuistry into 
 the torments of conscience, were now reinforced by the 
 dominant trait of Henry's character. That habit, called 
 by those who approve of the objects toward which it is 
 turned strength of will, by those who disapprove of them 
 obstinacy, had mastered him. Opposition to a purpose 
 made him more bent on its accomplishment. Cavendish 
 heard the dying Wolsey tell Kingston, the lieutenant of 
 the Tower : "He is sure a prince of a royal courage and 
 hath a princely heart, and rather than he will either miss 
 or want any part of his will or appetite, he will put the 
 loss of one-half his realm in danger. For I assure you I
 
 176 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 have often kneeled before him in his privy chamber on my 
 knees for the space of an hour or two to persuade him 
 from his will and appetite, but I could never bring to pass 
 to dissuade him therefrom." Cromwell, years afterward, 
 described to the Spanish Ambassador how "the King's 
 whole Council were assembled for three or four hours, 
 and there was not one of them but remained long on his 
 knees before the King, to beg him for the honor of God 
 not to lose so good an opportunity of establishing a 
 friendship so necessary and advantageous, but they had 
 not been able to change his opinion." * 
 
 Only one thing ever made Henry give way the clear 
 perception that he was in danger of destroying that con- 
 sent of the English middle class on which he was basing 
 his throne. He now judged, and the result showed he was 
 right, that the openly expressed sympathy of large num- 
 bers of the people for Katherine would not take the form 
 of an irrepressible rebellion aiming to dethrone him, in 
 order to prevent her from being uncrowned. 
 
 Whether Cromwell felt the injustice done to Katherine 
 cannot be known. If he did, like many statesmen of his 
 own and succeeding generations, he was not capable of the 
 moral heroism of sacrificing the need of the state to the 
 rights of an individual. No one would be apt to feel 
 more strongly England's need of male heirs to the throne 
 than this hater of disorder, born of that very burgher 
 class to which the Tudor policy appealed. 
 
 He also saw in the situation an opportunity of doing 
 something which would please the King, and at the same 
 time be, from his point of view, of great service to Eng- 
 
 Letters and Papers, X, page 293.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 177 
 
 land. That was to make two changes in the English 
 Church. First, to remove it from the overlordship of 
 popes, spending the money they drew from England in 
 wars to create princedoms for their relatives, and, second, 
 to destroy the independent political power of the clergy. 
 The first intent was finally expressed by making the 
 Church of England a national Church, using in service 
 the vernacular instead of the universal Latin, constituting 
 its own Primate, without the authority of the representa- 
 tive of Christendom. The second intent was carried out 
 by subjecting the clergy to the efficient control of the 
 Crown. 
 
 Before Cromwell attained influence in the Royal Coun- 
 cil, Henry may have thought of revolting from the tradi- 
 tionally established Papal authority. But if he had 
 thought of schism from the body of Christendom, he had 
 not yet determined upon it. In 1531 he had compelled 
 the Convocations of the English clergy to acknowledge 
 him as Supreme Head of the English Church, "so far as 
 the law of Christ allows." But that title was not entirely 
 new. It was unpleasant to the defenders of the Papal 
 "fullness of power," but it did not necessarily imply a 
 denial of the authority of the Pope, nor was its assump- 
 tion taken by the Papacy as a declaration of schism. Prac- 
 tically it was quite consistent with a method of ecclesias- 
 tical management which the Papacy had conceded to 
 nations by Concordats. Henry had induced Parliament 
 to vote that annates, i. e., the whole or a part of the first 
 year's income of certain ecclesiastical offices, paid to the 
 Papacy by custom which had become law, should be with- 
 held. But this did not necessarily imply schism, for the
 
 178 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, under which the French 
 Church was managed from 1438 to 1516, forbade, under 
 penalties, the payment of annates to the Pope. And the 
 English act against annates was not final. It would only 
 become law in case the King failed to come to an agree- 
 ment with the Pope. Henry sent word to Clement that 
 the usual annates would be paid if they could agree. And 
 Henry and Francis, at an interview, promised to stand 
 together to force the Pope to do what each wanted. The 
 Acts of Parliament were as yet only threats to bring the 
 Pope to terms with the King. 
 
 But, soon after Cromwell's rise to great influence in 
 the Royal Council, this policy of threats and pressure, 
 which had often been tried before by kings who had no 
 intention of seceding permanently from the Papal obedi- 
 ence, was changed for a policy recently used by some 
 cantons of the Swiss Confederacy and some princes and 
 free cities of Germany. The English nation through 
 its constituted heads denied the right of the Bishop of 
 Rome to exercise any jurisdiction over the Church of 
 England. 
 
 This withdrawal from Papal obedience did not then 
 imply in any supporter of it who professed willingness to 
 submit to a general council, the denial of the traditional 
 creeds. It was many generations before the dogma of 
 the infallibility of the Pope was made de fide. It had 
 been most strenuously and explicitly denied, at some time 
 during the last two centuries, by each of the leading coun- 
 tries of Christendom. Even the doctrine of the Papal 
 fullness of power, the theoretical base of the conception 
 pf the Church as an absolute monarchy, though long
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 179 
 
 asserted, might still be freely attacked on canonical 
 grounds. At no time since the earliest suggestion of it 
 had the idea been fully accepted by all Churchmen. 
 And in the early fifteenth century, the Council of 
 Constance, the most widely representative assembly of 
 Christendom ever held, expressly denied it, and asserted 
 that the Pope was responsible to the hierarchy and the 
 representatives of the nations of Christendom. Schism 
 was a sin, but it did not become heresy unless it was ac- 
 companied by the refusal to submit to a general council of 
 the Church. Neither was the idea of a national Church 
 a novelty among men who had no quarrel with dogma. 
 For example, in 1495 when Henry VIII was yet a boy, 
 and long before Luther and other organizers of heretical 
 churches had appeared, a South German nobleman wrote 
 an open letter to the Duke of Saxony, suggesting that the 
 political intrigues of the Pope in support of the King of 
 France would be sufficient ground for the Diet, "because 
 of such wickedness, to withdraw obedience for a time from 
 the Pope, and set up in the place of the Pope a national 
 patriarch. 1 
 
 We cannot conclude, therefore, from his action that 
 Cromwell had adopted at this time any of the new theo- 
 logical opinions. As a patron of the New Learning he 
 probably disliked some traditional practices like pilgrim- 
 age, the veneration of relics and the sale of indulgences. 
 But men who did not secede from the Roman Com- 
 munion, men like Erasmus and More, had denounced the 
 abuses which had gathered round those pious customs. 
 
 1 Der Traum Hans von Herraansgrun. Ulmann. Forschungen zur deutschen 
 geschichte, XX, page 187.
 
 i8o RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 The mediaeval ascetic ideal seemed to him, as it did to 
 most men of the New Learning, to fetter the human spirit. 
 But those most active servants of the orthodox creed and 
 the traditional Church system, the Jesuits, were soon to 
 break away from it. His conduct is not sufficient reason 
 for assuming that he sympathized with the new theolog- 
 ical opinions. And we know at least two things which 
 indicate plainly a lack of sympathy with heresy. His 
 will made in 1529 leaves ten marks a year, equal to some 
 three hundred and fifty dollars, "to hire a priest to sing 
 for my soul for seven years." * And in May, 1530, he 
 wrote to Wolsey, "the fame is that Luther has departed 
 this life. I would he had never been born." 2 
 
 As to the question, since so ingeniously and warmly 
 debated, whether the withdrawal from the Roman obe- 
 dience was a schism, or the lawful assertion of the rights 
 of the English Church against Papal usurpation, it is not 
 probable that Cromwell took the smallest interest in it 
 one way or the other. When a thing had to be done, he 
 was not the sort of man to care much what it was to be 
 called. Moreover, his mind was probably little affected 
 by ideals of the Church. The intimate friends he made 
 in his days of obscurity, and kept in his days of splendor, 
 indicate that he cared for the things of the soul as well 
 as for those of the mind; but he was a lawyer, not a 
 clergyman ; a politician, not an ecclesiastic. His habitual 
 mood made him more actively interested in the glory of 
 England than in the glory of the Kingdom of God. 
 
 In addition, he seems to have gravitated by natural in- 
 
 1 Letters and Papers, IV, 5772. 
 '.Ibid,, IV, 6391.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 181 
 
 clination toward an opportunist point of view. His per- 
 ception that something ought to be done and his decision 
 as to what was best to do, were not apt to be obscured by 
 theories. Some of the rulers of men who have been most 
 useful in dealing with problems of politics complicated by 
 hatred arising from discussions about religion, have been 
 subject to this secular temper or have been inclined toward 
 the opportunist view point. Under Elizabeth, England es- 
 caped the dangers of feudal reaction and civil war about 
 religion which ruined France because the Valois could not 
 master them. Under Henry IV, who thought "Paris worth 
 a mass," France laid down the torch and the sword for the 
 plough and the loom. And it seems probable that the 
 essential teachings of Jesus Christ about the Father in 
 Heaven, had freer course under the opportunist peace of 
 secular-minded Elizabeth and Henry than amid the fa- 
 natic hatred of the Huguenot wars. But, useful as these 
 rulers of secular mood and opportunist temper have been 
 in times of intense hatred bred by differences about relig- 
 ion, certain minds find it difficult to be just to them. 
 The man whose strongest emotions turn him toward the 
 service of the church, is only too prone to conclude that 
 he who in times of religious strife looks first to the safety 
 of the state, must be an infidel. The man who holds that 
 a given form in church or state is of divine origin, thinks 
 the opportunist must have no ideal, because his ideal is 
 not definite. And the conservative, whose reverence for 
 institutions outweighs his hopes of progress, is always apt 
 to accuse the radical of undermining the moral founda- 
 tions of human society. This was the attitude of Reg- 
 inald Pole, Cardinal for England. He denounced Crom-
 
 182 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 well as an incarnate devil, denying the very distinction 
 between right and wrong. 1 
 
 But no mood defends a ruler against the temptations 
 of the power to do great things. If the patriot is tempted 
 to forget God, the ecclesiastic seems to be tempted to hate 
 man, which, according to John, makes him unable to love 
 God. The rule of ecstatically and sincerely devout Mary 
 was certainly no less cruel than that of her father. And 
 the maxim, "One may do evil that good may come," has 
 been labeled in common speech as having belonged 
 to the practice of Machiavellians and of Jesuits. 
 Cromwell gained power by helping the King to do what 
 he wanted, and, like almost all men of ability in politics, 
 he was ambitious. But there are reasons for what he did, 
 which millions of her people of his own and succeeding 
 generations have thought to be connected with the best 
 good of England. It is as superfluous to accuse him of 
 being moved only by the base ambitions of a greedy and 
 flattering adventurer, as it would be to assert that Pole, 
 in standing by the Roman obedience, was bribed by the 
 red robe of a cardinal and the income equivalent to 
 $100,000 which came to him from his benefices. 2 
 
 For his plan of breaking from the Papacy, Cromwell 
 could count on no assistance from the higher clergy, a 
 body very distinct from the parish priests. It is true that 
 only three of the twenty-six English bishops were now 
 absentee Italians. But many English bishops, abbots 
 and members of the cathedral chapters, believed that the 
 Pope's authority was given by God. All preferred it to 
 
 1 Apologia ad Carolum Quintum. 
 
 Philip's Life of Pole, Vol. II, page 294,
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 183 
 
 the rule of the laity. Both these grounds of scruple 
 were expressed in the protest of the Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury, Primate of the Church, that no concessions made 
 by Convocation were to be understood as implying any 
 restriction of the power of the Roman Pontificate, or any 
 infringement upon the liberties of the Province of Canter- 
 bury. And many things indicate that the clergy gave a 
 grudging assent to the revolt from the Papal authority, 
 which left them without shelter against the power of the 
 King. 
 
 This reluctance of the clergy to submit on equal terms 
 with the laity to the control of the laws, was one of the 
 strongest reasons why Cromwell thought it best for Eng- 
 land to separate from Rome. And the control of the 
 lav/s meant to him the control of the King, the guarantee 
 of peace and order, the symbol and defender of the nation. 
 American ecclesiastical establishments are entirely volun- 
 tary, they have almost no endowments, and this puts 
 them so entirely in the hands of the laity whenever they 
 choose to use their power, that it is difficult for an Ameri- 
 can to appreciate the situation in England at the begin- 
 ning of the sixteenth century. The clergy were a corpo- 
 rate body, freed from the ordinary jurisdiction of the 
 common law, deciding matters connected with marriage 
 and wills by courts constituted by themselves, having 
 sanctuaries where the criminal who entered was free from 
 arrest, enjoying an income two and a half times that of 
 the Crown, owning real estate estimated at one-third the 
 total of the kingdom, casting in the persons of the twenty- 
 six bishops and the twenty-seven mitred abbots almost 
 two-thirds of the votes in Henry VIII's first House of
 
 184 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 Lords, and able as great landed proprietors to exert in- 
 fluence on elections to the House of Commons. And this 
 formidable body confessed supreme allegiance to a ruler 
 living in Rome whose predecessors had repeatedly claimed 
 the divine and unquestionable right to dictate to kings 
 and nations about the conduct of their affairs. 
 
 A corporation legally so independent and politically so 
 powerful would not be suffered to exist in any modern 
 state. Large numbers of men of all shades of religious 
 opinion, thought this temporal power and political inde- 
 pendence of the clergy, appealing to the irresponsible 
 divine authority of the Pope, to be injurious both to 
 Church and State. The same attitude under modern 
 conditions has been taken in our own day by the Roman 
 Catholic people of Italy. They have felt it to be intolera- 
 ble that an ecclesiastical jurisdiction independent of the 
 laws of Italy should exist at Rome. Henry VIII ex- 
 pressed the views of numbers of statesmen in all coun- 
 tries of Europe, when he wrote to James of Scotland: 
 "What more intolerable calamity may there be to a Chris- 
 tian prince than unjustly to be defeated of the righteous 
 jurisdiction within his own realm, to be a king by name, 
 but not in deed? To be a ruler without regiment over 
 his own liege people ?" 
 
 Cromwell, a man of the Renascence, who had thrown 
 off mediaeval ideals, was trying to form out of England 
 a modern state, by that process of unification under an 
 absolute throne through which all the states of Europe 
 which early achieved nationality passed. He wanted, 
 therefore, to make the King the efficient head of the 
 Church. He determined to loose upon the clergy the
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 185 
 
 dislike of their independence and the jealousy of their 
 power felt by a part of the people of England. 
 
 Unmistakable instances of this feeling appear in con- 
 temporary writings. In 1514 Richard Hunne was ar- 
 rested for heresy. In reply, he brought a criminal charge 
 against the clergy who accused him. He was found 
 hanging in his cell in the ecclesiastical prison, and the 
 Chancellor of the Bishop was accused of murdering him. 
 The Bishop wrote to Wolsey, asking that the prisoner 
 might be tried by a commission of the Royal Council. 
 "Assured am I that if my Chancellor be tryed by any 
 twelve men in London, they be so maliciously set in 
 favour of heresy that they will condemn my clerk though 
 he be as innocent as Abel." * A popular pamphlet of 
 1527, in the form of a petition to the King reciting the 
 abuses of the clergy, asks rhetorically : "What remedy ? 
 Make laws against them ? Are they not stronger in your 
 own Parliament house than yourself? What law can be 
 made so strong against them that they, either with money 
 or else with policy, will not break or set it at naught ?" z 
 
 On the 8th of November, 1529, the Imperial Ambassa- 
 dor writes: "Sure as I am that your Imperial Majesty 
 does not care for mere speculation as to the future, which 
 after all is an art for which I am not at all fitted, I will 
 not venture upon predictions. * * * Respecting the 
 clergy of this kingdom I may say, without having re- 
 course to the said art of divination, that they will be for 
 certain both punished and reformed, fined and mulcted: 
 for they are generally very rich, from which circumstance 
 
 1 Hall's Chronicle, page 579. 
 * Supplication for Beggars.
 
 186 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 and hatred of the Cardinal (Wolsey) they are an object 
 of envy to the nobles and commoners of this country." * 
 A month later he writes that the reform of the clergy will 
 be pushed: "First in the hope of plunder by sale of 
 Church property, second because they hope by antagoniz- 
 ing the clergy to persuade the people to consent to this 
 marriage, because nearly all the people here hate the 
 priests." 2 
 
 This dislike of the wealth and power of the clergy, 
 had been expressed in laws before Cromwell gained 
 great influence. 3 In 1529 Parliament had passed an act 
 about the oppressions and exactions of the ecclesias- 
 tical courts in the probate of wills, which, in spite of 
 promises, "be nothing reformed or amended, but greatly 
 augmented and increased against right and justice 
 and to the great impoverishment of the King's sub- 
 jects." 4 It had also been enacted, for the increase of 
 "devotion and good opinion of the laity toward spiritual 
 persons," that no spiritual persons "should farm or buy 
 or sell for lucre;" and that an ordinary priest might not 
 hold more than one "benefice with cure of souls," and 
 must live in the place where his duty as a pastor was. 6 
 A third act had been aimed at what the anti-clerical chron- 
 icler Hall calls "the great polling and extreme exaction 
 which spiritual men used in taking corpse presents or 
 
 1 Calendars, Spanish, IV, part I, page 325. 
 Ibid., IV, part I, 367. 
 
 * Mr. I,ea has pointed out that the cahiers of the Spanish Cortes for two 
 hundred years show a similar dislike of the Spanish people, caused by clerical 
 privileges before the law and jurisdiction over civil matters. Camb. Hist. Refor- 
 mation, page 675. 
 
 Revised Statutes, I, 247. 
 
 Statutes of the Realm, III, 292.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 187 
 
 mortuaries, for the children of the defunct should all die 
 of hunger, go a-begging rather than they would of charity 
 give to them the silly (simple) cow which the dead man 
 ought, (owed to the priest) if he had only one." 
 
 Cromwell, from his first entry into the Royal Council, 
 appears to have been anxious to express this feeling 
 against the clergy in the form of a general attack upon 
 the clerical abuses under which many of the laity groaned. 
 This was finally done in the form of a petition of the 
 Commons against the Ordinaries (judges of the spiritual 
 courts), presented to the King i8th of March, 1532. 
 Hall says the petition was presented after a long debate 
 over "the griefs of temporal men caused by exactions of 
 the spirituality." Four drafts of this "Book against the 
 Clergy'' are among the English records. Two are written 
 in the hand of Cromwell's chief clerk; two in a strange 
 hand ; three of them are corrected and interlined in Crom- 
 well's hand. 1 Hence several writers on the period conclude 
 that Cromwell was the author. It is not improbable. He 
 was one of those London citizens among whom the feeling 
 against the clergy was exceedingly strong. He had done 
 business for many of them and they knew his capacity. 
 He understood the clergy from his relations to Wolsey. 
 Whether this complaint against the clergy originated 
 among the representatives of London, or, as was often the 
 case with petitions, was sent down by the Crown, it may 
 easily be true that Cromwell was asked to write or revise 
 it. The recently made suggestion that he artificially cre- 
 ated the discontent it expressed, is a conclusion not only 
 superfluous but against the facts. There is abundant reason 
 
 1 Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell, Roger B. Merriman.
 
 i88 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 to believe that the majority of those English citizens 
 who possessed political influence, felt what Sir William 
 Fairfax wrote to Cromwell : "There will never be peace 
 in England so long as spiritual men have so much tem- 
 poral power." * 
 
 It is more than probable that Cromwell was the framer 
 of a series of Acts of Parliament which did four things 
 defended the Crown against wars over the succession, 
 cut England from the Papacy, stripped the clergy of 
 wealth and political power and subjected them to the 
 King, conferred upon the Crown powers finally rising al- 
 most to summary court-martial to meet the attempt of 
 Papal Curia to force England back to obedience. The 
 vigor and unity of this legislation, and the skill and energy 
 of its administration, indicate a single mind at the centre. 
 The contrast between the eight years of Cromwell's 
 power and the years which preceded and followed them, 
 strongly suggests him as the author of this policy; sub- 
 ject always to the powerful will, the tyrannous temper, 
 the selfish impulses and the exceedingly able judgment 
 of Henry. 
 
 To accomplish this fourfold purpose Cromwell 
 used Parliament. Henry had consulted Parliament 
 comparatively little before Cromwell came to power. 
 During the first twenty years of his reign statutes were 
 passed only in eight. Wolsey feared or disliked Parlia- 
 ment. It met once between 1515 and 1529, and was soon 
 dissolved after a reluctant grant of money. On the con- 
 trary, there was legislation during six out of the eight 
 
 1 Letters and Papers. XII, part I, 192.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 189 
 
 years of Cromwell's power, and the laws passed during 
 his administration fill nearly forty per cent, of the pages 
 which record the legislation of the thirty-eight years of 
 Henry's reign. It must be remembered, of course, that 
 the Parliament of Henry VIII was not the Parliament of 
 to-day. Very few writers on Henry VIII's reign for 
 the last twenty years permit their readers to forget that. 
 We are told repeatedly that it was a "packed" House of 
 Commons. So it was. One of the complaints of the 
 Northern insurgents of 1536 was that "Parliaments ought 
 to have knights of the shire and burgesses at their own 
 election, not such men as the King will appoint." * But 
 the reign of Henry VIII was not the only time when the 
 members of Parliament did not represent the free choice 
 of large numbers of the English people. The House of 
 Commons was chosen under greater or less pressure from 
 the Crown or the territorial aristocracy down to the nine- 
 teenth century. An over emphasis on Cromwell's activ- 
 ity in elections, as if his conduct had been uniquely tyran- 
 nous, may easily produce a false impression. The facts 
 are these: He was in power during two general elec- 
 tions. Concerning those elections there have survived 
 two electioneering reports, one from the Duke of Nor- 
 folk, 2 the other from the Earl of Southampton, 3 and let- 
 ters in regard to six elections. 4 These letters and reports 
 show that divergent opinion was not entirely suppressed 
 for there was opposition to the Court candidate in at least 
 three places, and, with one exception, the often quoted 
 
 1 Letters and Papers, XI, 1244. 
 
 *Ibid., XIV, part I, 800. 
 
 1 Ibid., XIV, part I, page 224. 
 
 * Compare Ibid., X, 903; XIV, 564, 598, 672, 695, 706, and others.
 
 190 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 case of the Canterbury election, they could be duplicated 
 again and again in the election correspondence of the 
 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. And even the 
 Canterbury election is not unparalleled for the next two 
 hundred and fifty years. 
 
 Cromwell did his best to fill Parliament with the King's 
 friends. It was not too difficult a task for he was able to 
 find a large body of King's friends to choose from. And 
 members opposed to the royal policy could be to a large 
 extent controlled. For a century and a half later, strong 
 opposition to the Crown was dangerous. And it was much 
 more dangerous in the sixteenth than in the seventeenth 
 century. Wolsey had told the citizens of London that to 
 oppose the royal loan might "fortune to cost some their 
 heads." The policy of suppressing opposition in the 
 councils of the nation by fear, was freely used by Crom- 
 well's opponents. A single example will make this plain. 
 Cromwell disliked the Bill of Six Articles. The ap- 
 proval of Henry for it marked the rising influence of that 
 alliance between his deadly enemies, Gardiner, Bishop of 
 Winchester, and the Duke of Norfolk, which was to 
 bring him to the scaffold. When it came down from 
 the Lords, he sent a message to his friends in the House 
 of Commons, "that if any man should stand against the 
 bill earnestly the same should put himself in great danger 
 of his life." Thomas Brook, Alderman of Calais, spoke 
 against it, and Cromwell sent a personal message to him 
 telling him as he loved his life not to speak against the 
 bill. Brook continued his opposition, and Cromwell, meet- 
 ing him afterward, said, "he never knew man to play so 
 desperate a part as to speak against that bill, unless he
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 191 
 
 made a reckoning to be either hanged or burned; but 
 God," said he, "hath mightily preserved thee, whereof 
 I am glad." On his return to Calais, Brook was arrested 
 for heresy, as Kingston, the lieutenant of the Tower, had 
 threatened in open Parliament. He would undoubtedly 
 have perished but for his bold and skillful defense and 
 an order from Cromwell that he should be sent to Lon- 
 don for examination. 1 Cromwell had no objections to 
 this pressure upon electors and members, common then 
 and, by other methods, for generations afterward ; except 
 that he did not want it successfully used by his opponents. 
 
 But the conclusion that such unscrupulous terrorizing 
 of opponents reduced Parliament to a negligible quantity 
 is mistaken. Even under Henry VIII packing and con- 
 trolling Parliament had its limits. Bills supported by 
 the Crown were withdrawn and amended, and Henry 
 found there were things he could not do. 
 
 That Cromwell, when it was necessary, tried to force 
 Parliament to do what the King wanted done is not so 
 much a thing that can be proved, as a conjecture sup- 
 ported by scattered facts and strongly suggested by proba- 
 ble inference from the political opinions which must have 
 underlaid his policy as Chief Minister of the Crown. 
 The modern ideals of Parliamentary government were 
 unknown. To the Lancastrian constitutionalism which 
 had worked so badly in the fifteenth century, 2 Cromwell 
 
 1 Catley's Poxe's Book of Martyrs, Vol. V, 502-519. This narrative finds 
 support in the Letters and Papers, and Foxe could easily have known about it. 
 Foxe is a strong partisan. It has been shown that he is inaccurate in some 
 instances. But the present habit of disbelieving everything he says for no par- 
 ticular reason except that he says it, is not judicious. 
 
 3 It will be sufficient to cite the opinion of Stubb's Constitutional History, 
 Chap. XVIII, sections 363-373.
 
 192 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 preferred a Crown as powerful as possible. He believed 
 that the will of the King was the best safeguard for the 
 interests of the nation. But the nature of the absolutism 
 he promoted ought not to be overlooked. The Tudor 
 absolutism crushed opposition ruthlessly, but while break- 
 ing the two chief pillars of the mediaeval state, the nobil- 
 ity and the clergy, it was forced to find a base in the 
 national consent. The potential of liberty destroyed un- 
 der Hapsburg, Valois and Bourbon increased under 
 Henry VIII and his children. "The House of Commons, 
 down to the electoral reforms of the nineteenth century, 
 was the House as they created it." They added or re- 
 vived about ninety boroughs and the twelve shires of 
 Wales, nearly doubling the strength of the lower House. 1 
 Cromwell used the royal power to flatter or dragoon 
 members of Parliament, but he appealed, by printing press, 
 pulpit and in Parliament, to national support for his bold 
 policy, and the result shows that he must have obtained 
 it. No English King was ever threatened by greater 
 dangers than those Henry incurred in 1533 and 1534. 
 He had no standing army, and was obliged to depend for 
 defense on the levies raised by commissions issued to loyal 
 gentlemen. His regular expenses were exceeding the 
 Crown income. No one could say of him as was said of 
 the King of France that he could tax "as much as he 
 pleased." Wolsey's experience with the Amicable Loan 
 had warned him not to repeat the experiment of heavy 
 taxation without grant of Parliament. A throne cannot 
 rest on nothing. If the mass of the nation did not sup- 
 port Henry's throne, why did it not fall ? 
 
 Poole's Atlas, Vol. II. Map XXIII.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 193 
 
 Nor was Henry trying to disarm his people and reduce 
 them to the helplessness of the peasants who were slaugh- 
 tered by the nobles in the French Jacquerie, or massacred 
 by the princes in the German peasant revolt. Legislation 
 five times repeated forbade the use of the crossbow and 
 the hand gun, those facile but as yet less efficient foreign 
 weapons which were causing the "decay of the ancient 
 artillery of England." * Every man between seventeen 
 and sixty must keep a bow and shoot regularly at the 
 butts. He was forbidden to practice at less than two 
 hundred yards. For every boy between seven and sev- 
 enteen his parents must provide a bow of elm or hazel. 
 And bows must be sold cheap that every one might 
 buy. 2 
 
 It was not by overriding the feelings of the mass of 
 Englishmen who had political power that the ends of the 
 Crown under Henry VIII were accomplished. It was by 
 using and directing them. 
 
 Events gave Cromwell opportunity to move toward the 
 accomplishment of his purpose. 
 
 February 22, 1533, the Pope confirmed the election of 
 Thomas Cranmer as Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate 
 of England, to succeed Warham. In May the new Arch- 
 bishop secretly cited the King to answer a charge of liv- 
 ing unlawfully with his brother's wife, and declared his 
 marriage to Katherine null and void. He followed the 
 sentence by the declaration that the King's marriage to 
 Anne Boleyn, privately celebrated four months before, 
 
 1 Tract on Decaye of England. In 1541, when guns had improved, every 
 inhabitant of a city, borough or market town was expressly freed from this 
 prohibition, allowed to keep a long gun and practice at a mark. 
 
 ^.Statutes of the Realm; also St. Paul's Magaeine, Vol. V, page 330.
 
 194 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 was lawful. On June ist, Anne was crowned Queen in 
 Westminster Hall with great splendor. This whole pro- 
 cedure had been planned by the Crown, and was defended 
 beforehand by an act of Parliament, passed in February, 
 prohibiting "appeals to Rome in causes of matrimony, di- 
 vorce, etc." The Pope answered by a sentence declaring 
 the marriage to Anne null and her children illegitimate, 
 and threatening the King with excommunication unless 
 he repudiated her and took back Katherine (July n, 
 
 I533)- 1 
 Henry made every preparation to meet the threatened 
 
 excommunication and defend the succession to the throne. 
 He tried vainly to persuade the obstinately honest Kath- 
 erine to withdraw her appeal to Rome, offering, if she 
 did so, to recognize Mary's right to succeed to the Crown 
 in case he left no children by Anne Boleyn. Then he ap- 
 pealed in the ancient formula, "from the Pope ill informed 
 to the Pope better informed," and a pamphlet appeared 
 containing an "address from the King's Council to the 
 residue of his loving subjects." It exhorted them to "de- 
 spise the Pope" and stand by a marriage which "sets this 
 realm in the way of true heirs." The Parliament ses- 
 sions of 1534 and 1535 produced the legislation neces- 
 sary to carrying out the intentions of the Government. 
 It was contained in several bills which may be grouped 
 with two chief acts, Of Succession, and Of Supremacy. 
 Succeeding supplementary acts fell under the same heads. 
 The Act of Succession, "calling to remembrance the 
 great divisions which in time past hath been in the realm 
 by reason of several titles pretended to the Crown of the 
 
 1 Pococke, Records of the Divorce, II, App. 677.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 195 
 
 same . . . whereof hath ensued great destruction of 
 man's blood," declared the issue of Henry and Anne heirs 
 to the Crown, adjudged the penalty of treason to any one 
 obstinately and maliciously impugning their right, and 
 required an oath from every subject to keep the whole 
 contents of this act. A refusal of the oath was equivalent 
 to a denial of the act. 1 
 
 The Act of Supremacy, repudiating the authority of 
 the laws of any foreign prince, potentate or prelate, made 
 the King Supreme Head of the Church of England. The 
 clergy might pass no canons without his assent. He was 
 authorized to appoint a commission of thirty-two, sixteen 
 clergymen and sixteen lay members of Parliament, to 
 revise or repeal existing canons with their help and ad- 
 vice. From these two groups of acts concerning the Suc- 
 cession and the Headship of the Church, the threads of 
 Cromwell's legislation and administration lead out to the 
 accomplishment of his fourfold purpose to avoid the 
 danger of civil war over the Crown, break with Rome, 
 destroy the political power of the clergy, and defend what 
 was done. 
 
 For it needed defense. There were in England men 
 whose devotion to the ancient ways would not permit 
 them to see the power of the clergy and obedience to the 
 Pope destroyed without a struggle. On Easter, 1532, 
 Peto, a friar of the Franciscan Observant Monastery at 
 Greenwich, was invited to preach before the King. He 
 denounced the marriage with Anne and warned Henry 
 to repent lest he receive the punishment of Ahab, whose 
 blood was licked up by dogs. When the preacher was 
 
 1 Statutes of the Realm,
 
 196 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 answering Peto, the next Sunday, two friars interrupted 
 the sermon by denouncing him as one of "the four hun- 
 dred prophets into whom the spirit of lying has entered, 
 seeking to establish the succession of adultery." * Peto 
 and one of his supporters were reprimanded and sent out 
 of England. About a year later the Warden of a Fran- 
 ciscan convent in Southampton preached in defense of the 
 Papal authority, exhorting the people to stand and suf- 
 fer martyrdom for it. Cromwell had him brought to 
 London for examination, and then sent him back to his 
 convent. 
 
 In 1533 many of the clergy, in the pulpit and the 
 confessional, denounced the King's marriage and the de- 
 nial of the Papal authority. The most effective of these 
 appeals to popular sympathy for Katherine and devo- 
 tion to the Pope, was made by the Holy Maid of Kent, a 
 nun who for many years had great influence because of 
 her visions and miracles. She was thought to be con- 
 nected in some way with a letter from heaven written 
 by Mary Magdalen to a widow in London, with Jesus, 
 Maria, in gold letters at its head. And those associated 
 with her related, among other things, how the devil, when 
 she resisted his temptations, had spat in her face, and that 
 she showed the napkin with which she wiped it, "black 
 and stinking," to her confessor. 2 She prophesied that 
 the King would in a short time lose his kingdom, and 
 said she had "seen the place prepared for him in hell." s 
 She, two monks, two friars and two priests, accused of 
 
 iHarpsfield (1519-1575), The Pretended Divorce, etc., page 202, Camden 
 Soc., 1878; also Stow's Annals. 
 1 Letters and Papers, VII, 72. 
 'Ibid., VI, 1419.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 197 
 
 having circulated her prophecies, were attainted of treason 
 by Parliament and executed in May, 1534. On the scaf- 
 fold the two friars were offered their lives if they would 
 acknowledge the Act of Supremacy The nun had pub- 
 licly confessed, in the presence of the others, that she had 
 deceived the people by false miracles. This confession may 
 have been made in the hope of saving her life. But one 
 of those who died with her sent word to Cromwell that 
 he had been "miserably deceived by that false and dis- 
 sembling woman." 1 And Sir Thomas More wrote : 
 "Cromwell has done a very meritorious deed in bringing 
 to light such detestable hypocrisy, so that others may take 
 warning and be afraid to set forth their own devilish dis- 
 sembled falsehood under the colour of the wonderful 
 word of God." 2 
 
 Together with Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, the most 
 distinguished and respected of the English bishops, Sir 
 Thomas More, ex-chancellor of England, had been ar- 
 rested for misprision of treason in concealing the nun's 
 prophecies. He said that he had been skeptical about her 
 revelations, refused to listen to anything she said about 
 the King, and warned her of danger. No steps were 
 taken against him, but Fisher was attainted and con- 
 demned to the loss of all his property and imprisonment 
 during the King's pleasure. The confiscation was re- 
 mitted on payment of one year's revenue of his bishopric 
 and he was not kept in prison. 
 
 When the Oath of Succession, by which all subjects 
 were to be sworn to obedience to the King and Queen and 
 
 1 Letters and Papers, VII, 138. 
 Ibid., VII, 287.
 
 198 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 their heirs, and not to any other within this realm, nor to 
 any foreign authority nor potentate, and to defend the 
 whole contents of the Act of Succession, was offered, 
 every Englishman asked to take it did so; except some 
 of the Franciscan friars, the ex-Chancellor Sir Thomas 
 More, Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and a few others of 
 less note. 
 
 The Government closed the convents of the Francis- 
 cans, and in June, 1534, threw about two hundred of 
 their members into prison. Most of them were soon per- 
 mitted to go either to Ireland, France or Scotland, but 
 thirty-two were sent to prisons in various parts of Eng- 
 land. The jails of England then, and for generations 
 afterward, were cold and haunted by infectious diseases. 
 Few survived a long confinement in them. Three years 
 later only eight of these brave monks remained alive, and 
 they were at last allowed to go to Belgium. 
 
 Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher offered to take an 
 oath to the succession of the children of Henry and Anne, 
 but not in the form prescribed; nor would they swear to 
 the whole contents of the Act implying a rejection of the 
 Papal sentence annulling the marriage. They were com- 
 mitted to the Tower, April, 1534. 
 
 Their refusal to take the oath was a dangerous incident. 
 The English clergy had voted in Convocation in accord- 
 ance with the legislation of Parliament, but there was 
 great opposition among them, not only to lay control, but 
 also to the denial of the Papal authority. The Govern- 
 ment began to be aware that in the confessional, in the 
 pulpit, in private conversation, the nation was being urged
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 199 
 
 to stand by the Pope and resist the King. They felt it 
 necessary to take strenuous action. 
 
 It was the duty of a pope to extirpate heresy and 
 subdue schism. Previous popes had again and again 
 appealed to all good Christians to do this by the sword. 
 And the temper of the modern Curia had not changed. 
 The College of Cardinals wrote to the Emperor in March, 
 1524, telling him: "that former Emperors did not earn 
 their great reputation by expelling the French, conquering 
 the English nor subjecting Italy, but by making war on the 
 Jews, putting heretics to death and subduing Africa to the 
 Christian obedience. They exhorted him to follow their 
 example by concluding peace with France, making war 
 with the Turks and trampling under foot and extirpat- 
 ing the Lutheran heresy." 1 
 
 Cromwell wished to meet the attitude frankly expressed 
 to him by the Imperial Ambassador, "that if the Pope 
 were to fulminate censures * * * which would de- 
 prive the King of his title and deliver his kingdom to 
 those who took possession, it would be the most just and 
 catholic title that any prince could have." z An Act of 
 Parliament was passed in the end of 1534 making it trea- 
 son to deny any of the King's titles, or to pronounce 
 maliciously by words or writings that the King was here- 
 tic, schismatic, tyrant, infidel or usurper. 
 
 Under this Act, the Carthusian monks were required to 
 acknowledge expressly that Henry was Supreme Head of 
 the Church of England. The result was one of the pitia- 
 ble tragedies which continued intermittently down into 
 
 1 Calendars, Spanish, Vol. II, page 609. 
 1 Letters and Papers, VIII, page 371.
 
 200 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 the seventeenth century, because the conscience of some 
 Englishmen made them traitors in the eyes of others. 
 The Carthusian monks were honored of all men until 
 religion and patriotism came into conflict, and they had 
 proved the honesty of their convictions by their lives, 
 before they sealed them with martyr's blood. The 
 priors of these convents finally pleaded guilty to declaring 
 that "the King is not Supreme Head on earth of the 
 Church of England." They were executed May 4, 1535, 
 by the awful method of the legal punishment for treason, 
 their leader declaring at the gallows that he was there 
 because "Holy Mother Church has decreed otherwise than 
 the King and Parliament, and rather than disobey the 
 Church he was ready to die." Six weeks later three 
 more were executed on the same charge. For two years 
 the other brethren were confined in their convent, and 
 every effort was made by sermons and books to 
 persuade them to give up their allegiance to the Pope. 
 Under this treatment and the pressure of harsh discipline, 
 twenty of them took the oath acknowledging the royal 
 supremacy in May, 1537. Twelve recalcitrants went to 
 prison, where nine of them soon died. The remaining 
 three were sent to the gallows. 
 
 Their fate moved little pity in the minds of those who 
 approved the policy they opposed. Executions were very 
 common. Scores of men were hanged for petty offenses 
 against the common law. Death, therefore, did not seem 
 so severe a penalty as it does now. 
 
 Cromwell appears to have had a strong trait of hu- 
 maneness in him, but it is probable that he thought of 
 these executions for the safety of the state as calmly as
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 201 
 
 his opponents, Gardiner and Pole, when they came to the 
 head of affairs, took the burning of nearly three hundred 
 men whose conscience forbade them to consent to the 
 destruction of the church established during Cromwell's 
 administration. 
 
 Fisher was found guilty of treason by a jury and be- 
 headed in June, 1535. He ascended the scaffold meekly 
 and bravely, as became an honest old bishop dying for 
 conscience' sake. 
 
 Sir Thomas More was condemned to death on the ist 
 of July. An acknowledgment of the Royal Supremacy 
 or a denial of the Pope's power to depose the King or 
 invalidate his marriage, would at once have procured his 
 liberty. There was difficulty about the legal evidence to 
 convict him, for he was a skilled lawyer, and had kept 
 silence about his opinions. The testimony of Richard 
 Rich, the Solicitor General, to a private conversation in 
 the Tower was used to justify a verdict, and More de- 
 nounced Rich in open court as a perjurer. More was the 
 most celebrated of living Englishmen, the worthy intimate 
 of Erasmus. His virtues were as well known as his 
 learning, and all men loved him, except the friends of 
 heretics whom he had pursued to the death with con- 
 scientious severity and thought "worse than murderers." l 
 Everybody, including his own family, tried to persuade 
 him to conform, but he smilingly refused. In the writ- 
 ings of his youth he had rejected the ascetic ideal, pilgrim- 
 age, fasting and the use of relics, questioned the exclusive 
 priesthood of the clergy, impugned the good faith of the 
 popes, and satirized their influence upon political moral- 
 
 1 More's Works, page 901.
 
 202 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 ity. 1 But when reform deepened into revolution he, like 
 most of the older humanists, took alarm. His hopes for 
 the progress of truth gave way to a fear for the stability 
 of institutions, and the bold advocate of religious liberty 
 and the abolition of private property, persecuted heretics 
 fiercely and died in defense of the Papacy. In earlier 
 years he advised Henry not to print that treatise for the 
 Supremacy of the Pope which had earned the royal title 
 of Defender of the Faith. But his study of the question 
 under the stress of revolution converted him into a be- 
 liever in the Papal Supremacy, even as similar study 
 changed Luther from an adherent into an opponent of 
 the Pope, and More died for his convictions with such 
 beautiful simplicity that it seemed easy. When he laid 
 his life on the altar of God he did not think too highly of 
 the offering or take himself too seriously even as a martyr. 
 Kneeling on the scaffold, the last gleam of his sunny 
 humor played over the uplifted axe. He swept aside his 
 long beard, saying, "Pity that should be cut ; that has not 
 committed treason." 
 
 To modern judgment the execution of these men seems 
 both a crime and a blunder. It must be remembered that 
 in the sixteenth century the killing of men for opinions 
 was practised by all governments and approved by relig- 
 ious teachers of almost all types. Lutherans, Calvinists, 
 Zwinglians, Anglicans, Roman Catholics were agreed 
 that it was the right and, if needful, the duty of the state 
 to repress false opinions by the sword. When More 
 urged that he should not be put in peril of his life for 
 opinion, Cromwell replied it was as just to put men in 
 
 1 Utopia.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 203 
 
 peril before the law for opinions dangerous to the state as 
 for opinions dangerous to the church, and More, when in 
 office, had sternly enforced the laws against heresy. More 
 could only reply that the opinions for whose denial he 
 had condemned men to death were old and held in many 
 countries; this opinion which he denied was new and 
 held in one country. 1 
 
 More and Fisher, like the Carthusians, were appointed 
 to be tried because they were the most conspicuous de- 
 fenders of the Papacy. When the Government felt it 
 had made clear its determination to suppress without 
 faltering all attacks upon the succession to the throne, 
 executions stopped. More's son, condemned also for re- 
 fusing the oath, was pardoned. 2 
 
 Cranmer felt that the execution of More and Fisher 
 was a blunder. He advised that their offer to swear to 
 the succession in their own words should be accepted. 
 Cromwell wrote to him that the King could not agree, 
 because he felt "that manner of swearing, if it should be 
 suffered, might be an utter destruction of his whole cause 
 and to the effect of the law." This letter only expresses 
 what the King wanted to give out as the reason for 
 severity. It does not necessarily show either Cromwell's 
 own feeling or the real though perhaps unconscious mo- 
 tives of Henry. 
 
 There are no signs of Cromwell's feeling about Fisher, 
 unless this is one. Antonio Bonvisi, an Italian merchant 
 living in London, sent meat, wine and jelly regularly to 
 the two prisoners ; and More wrote him with charcoal on 
 
 1 Mart's Examination. 
 
 1 Life of Sir Thomas More, by Cressacre More.
 
 204 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 the eve of execution a beautiful letter of gratitude and 
 friendship. It was shown in court that he had done this 
 kindness to Fisher. He had long been a close friend of 
 Cromwell and the friendship continued intimate. 1 Fisher 
 was a sincere ecclesiastic, unable to conceive of the Eng- 
 lish State as existing outside of the Roman Church. 
 There was good reason to believe that he had not con- 
 cealed his opinions from friends. The upshot of those 
 opinions makes evident to us what Cromwell suspected, 
 that, if excommunication produced either insurrection or 
 invasion, Fisher would not stand by the Crown against the 
 adherents of the Pope. He had frequent secret confer- 
 ences with the Spanish Ambassador as to the best means 
 of thwarting the royal policy. At a time when Chapuys 
 was urging Charles V to forcibly interfere in the affairs 
 of England, "A work as pleasing in the eyes of God as 
 war upon the Turk," he writes: "Bishop Fisher advises 
 prompt action on the part of your Majesty, such as I 
 recommended in one of my last dispatches. Indeed, not 
 many days ago he sent me word to say that strong meas- 
 ures must now be taken." z 
 
 More, on the other hand, maintained silence on the 
 Royal Supremacy, would neither affirm nor deny it when 
 questioned in Court and had no dealings with any foreign 
 ambassador. There are strong indications that Cromwell 
 deeply regretted his death. When he heard he had first 
 refused the oath, he cried out, "He Vould rather his 
 own son had his head stricken off, for displeasure and 
 suspicion would now be aroused in the King's mind." 
 
 1 Letters and Papers, VIII, page 329; X, No. 439. 
 1 Calendars, Spanish, Vol. IV, pp. 812, 813, 821.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 205 
 
 In a note from the Tower More tells his daughter that 
 when he offered, if he had the King's license, to give his 
 reasons for refusing to answer, Cromwell interrupted 
 him, pointing out the legal danger of doing this even with 
 the King's license. "In this good warning he showed 
 himself my especial tender friend." And he writes that 
 when he finally refused the oath "Cromwell seemed 
 greatly to pity him." * 
 
 Fisher's fate, which was so closely bound to More's, 
 was sealed when the Pope appointed him a Cardinal. 
 Henry took this promotion of a man under the charge of 
 treason as a challenge to touch him. When the divine 
 right of kings was objected to Oliver Cromwell, who felt 
 that the life of Charles endangered the Commonwealth, 
 he answered, "I tell you we will cut off his head with the 
 crown on it." To "throw the mantle of the Church" 
 over Fisher was to draw the same fire from Henry. It 
 brought out the question underlying the whole contro- 
 versy, whether an Italian Pope or her own King was 
 supreme ruler of England. Henry swore that when 
 Fisher's red hat arrived he should have no head to wear 
 it. It may be conjectured that the real cause of More's 
 death was the jealous egotism of the King, now so in- 
 flamed that one word of criticism gave more pain than 
 fifty of flattery could cause pleasure. Henry VIII was 
 not satisfied to be allowed to do as he wanted. His 
 morbid conscience played into his vanity, and all his inti- 
 mates must also say on demand that what he wanted to 
 do was right. 
 
 The Bull of Deprivation, long threatened against 
 
 More's Works.
 
 206 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 Henry, was now (August 30, 1535) prepared but not 
 issued. It forbade his subjects to obey the King or his 
 officials or magistrates. It absolved all princes from 
 every oath to him and commanded them to break every 
 treaty with him. All princes were commanded to rise 
 in arms against him and all who obeyed him; all Chris- 
 tians were to seize wherever found the money, ships, cred- 
 its and goods of any one who acknowledged his author- 
 ity. And by the "fullness of power" given to the Pope, 
 these became the absolute property of whoever seized 
 them. All who refused to enforce this sentence became 
 subject to the same penalties. Every clergyman in the 
 world was to proclaim this curse before the largest possi- 
 ble concourse, and a lighted candle was to be cast down 
 and extinguished, even as the souls of Henry and his 
 supporters were condemned to hell. 1 But the publication 
 of the bull was suspended. 
 
 Such a sentence would readily suggest to Cromwell, 
 even if there were no other motive in his mind, that the 
 defense of his policy required the suppression of the mon- 
 asteries. This act earned Cromwell's familiar name, 
 "The Hammer of the Monks," and the worst traits of his 
 character, traits common to most men of the day, show so 
 plainly in the transaction that the solid reasons for it 
 which appealed to a man of his type have been obscured. 
 The monastic orders were corrupt. Cromwell sent com- 
 missioners to investigate the condition of the monasteries. 
 Their sweeping denunciations were based on hasty in- 
 vestigation and probably exaggerated for a purpose. 
 The so-called "Black Book" which presented to Parlia- 
 
 1 Wilkins' Concilia, III, 792.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 207 
 
 ment the reports of this commission to investigate the 
 monastic houses, has perished. It is safe to conclude, 
 however, that it was not drawn up in a judicial frame of 
 mind. But there are unquestionable judgments on the 
 general corruption of the monastic orders of the day. 
 
 Gasparo Contarini, afterward Cardinal, writing in 1516 
 on "The Duties of a Bishop," said: "Unfortunately in 
 some of the chief and celebrated cities most cloisters have 
 become almost lupanaria." * 
 
 Bembo, Papal Secretary to Leo X, afterward Cardinal, 
 wrote : "I have often found, under the affairs of friars, all 
 human wickednesses covered with diabolical hypocrisy." 2 
 In 1536 the Pope appointed a commission of the ablest 
 and best men around him to draw up a report on the re- 
 form of the Church. There is no language in any of the 
 English reports or discussions stronger than that in which 
 they denounce the condition of the monastic orders. 
 
 "Another abuse to be corrected is in the religious or- 
 ders, because many have departed from God to such an 
 extent that they are a scandal to secular Christians and 
 do much harm by their example. We think all the con- 
 ventual orders ought to be abolished', not, however, in 
 such a way as to do injury to any one, but by prohibiting 
 them from admitting novices. For thus, without any 
 wrong, they might be swiftly swept out of existence and 
 good religious could be substituted for them. But for 
 the present we think it would be best if all boys who have 
 not taken vows of any sort should be kept out of their 
 
 1 Opera Parisiis, 1571, page 426. 
 
 a Letters, 1520, Opere Venezia, 1729, I, III, page 385.
 
 208 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 monasteries." 1 This report was, quite properly, intended 
 to be private, but the Protestant apologetes having by 
 some means procured a copy, its publication was forced. 
 It was forwarded to Cranmer from Louvain, with the re- 
 port that the monks of that place "fear their houses will 
 perish. They have faith in the Provincial of the Car- 
 thusians who lately came from Italy, prophesying all 
 rules of religion to be annulled." 2 Cranmer forwarded 
 this letter to the Government, probably to Cromwell, add- 
 ing, "The book he sent me was Concilium delectorum 
 Cardinalium de emendenda ecclesia" and copies out the 
 passage quoted above. 
 
 There is reason to believe that the monasteries of Eng- 
 land were not as bad as those in some other parts of the 
 world. There are satires and attacks on them in English 
 popular literature, but they are less numerous and bitter 
 than in Germany or Italy. During the destruction of 
 the English monasteries there were no outbreaks of popu- 
 lar hatred against them, while several counties rose in 
 arms to defend them. On the other hand, the insurgent 
 German peasants, in 1525, though they killed no monks, 
 destroyed monastic buildings with a careful fury that in- 
 dicates hatred coming out of a long smouldering sense of 
 wrong. But though the English monasteries were proba- 
 bly neither as corrupt as monasteries in other parts of the 
 world nor as bad as they were reported to be by their 
 enemies, it would be possible to collect, out of the remanent 
 
 1 Concilium delectorum Cardinalium de emendenda ecclesia, British Museum. 
 
 * Letters and Papers, VIII, 739. This letter is assigned to the wrong date, 
 1585. The Concilium was first published in 1538. The letter also alludes to 
 an answer in preparation to the King's Epistle to the Emperor. The Epistle 
 appeared in 1588.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 209 
 
 material from which the Black Book was prepared, a 
 formidable body of definite evidence to show that in many 
 of them the ideal of their own order did not control the 
 lives of the inmates. The Jesuit apologete Sanders 
 wrote, in 1575, of "the publication of the enormities of 
 the monasteries, partly discovered and partly invented." * 
 This judgment by an orthodox Roman Catholic church- 
 man of the next generation after their fall, agrees with 
 the testimony which survives and is probably fair. 
 
 Whatever the degree of their guilt may have been they 
 menaced the state. There were in England more than 
 seven hundred monastic establishments and they owned 
 enormous stretches of land. Ninety monasteries of 
 Gloucestershire had an average of sixty-five thousand 
 acres apiece. Twenty-seven abbots had seats in Parlia- 
 ment. The bishops could not control the monks, whose 
 vows bound them to allegiance to their superiors, gener- 
 ally foreigners. They were directly connected with the 
 Papacy, and the monastic orders came to be spoken of as 
 the Pope's standing army. Cromwell was afraid of them. 
 The schismatic governments of Europe the Lutheran 
 states, the Scandinavian kingdoms and the Zwinglian 
 cantons of Switzerland suppressed the monasteries in 
 the sixteenth century. Most of the Roman Catholic coun- 
 tries limited the power and wealth of the monasteries 
 under different conditions in the nineteenth Portugal, 
 1834-64; Spain, 1835-51; Italy, 1866; Prussia, 1875; 
 France, 1880. The United States is a country whose 
 Constitution and practice exclude any suspicion of relig- 
 ious intolerance, but her Commission in the Philippines 
 
 1 Sanders' Anglican Schism, Ed. David Lewis, page 130.
 
 210 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 reported that the landed possessions of the monastic orders 
 were an obstacle to good government. And steps have 
 been taken to destroy their political power by buying their 
 great estates. There must be some reason, plausible to 
 say the least, for so universal an action. 
 
 At the beginning of the sixteenth century monastic in- 
 stitutions seemed to many people an anachronism in the 
 modern world coming into being. The ascetic ideal was 
 outworn. Cromwell, as a man of the Renascence, shared 
 that repulsion of the humanist for the monk which ap- 
 pears in Renascence literature from the Decameron to the 
 Utopia, and led the Jesuits, who used the new learning 
 in the service of the Church, to abandon the ascetic ideal. 
 The loss of its power over men's minds went far deeper 
 than appears in controversy. In the twelfth century four 
 hundred and eighteen monasteries were founded in Eng- 
 land. In the thirteenth, one hundred and thirty-nine. 
 In the fourteenth century only twenty-three. In the 
 fifteenth century only three. 1 The monks were no longer 
 the conservators of learning, but the strongest defenders 
 of scholasticism against the humanist revival of letters. 
 On the Continent they were the bitterest opponents of 
 Reuchlin and Erasmus. Nor were they more intellec- 
 tually progressive in England. Pole says that Reynolds 
 was the "only monk in England who knew the three 
 languages (Latin, Greek, Hebrew) in which all liberal 
 learning is contained." z 
 
 Beyond all this, in the opinion of many men, the 
 monks did too little and got too much. A contempo- 
 
 1 Pearson, Hist. Atlas, page 61. 
 Letters and Papers, X, page 406.
 
 (THOMAS CROMWELE 211 
 
 rary writer expresses their feeling roughly when he 
 writes of the "nourishing of a great sort of idle abbey 
 lubbers, which are apt to nothing only to eat and 
 drink." x Sir Thomas More, in his critical youth, wrote 
 of "those holy men, the abbots, who, not thinking it 
 enough that they living at their ease do no good to the 
 public, resolve to do it harm instead of good" 2 (by turn- 
 ing tillage fields into pasture). And Sir Richard 
 Gresham, Lord Mayor of London, gave the criticism prac- 
 tical form when he asked the King to put three hospitals 
 in the city under the rule of the Mayor and Aldermen, 
 because they "had been founded and endowed for the aid 
 of poor and impotent people, not to maintain canons, 
 priests and monks to live in pleasure." 
 
 Early in 1536 an Act of Parliament gave to the King 
 the property of all religious houses having a yearly income 
 below 200 (equivalent to $10,000-$ 12,000), because "of 
 the vicious, carnal and abominable living of small monas- 
 teries." Their superiors, if they did not try to conceal 
 the jewels of the houses, were to be pensioned. The 
 monks might be assigned to the greater monasteries, 
 "wherein, thanks be to God, religion is right well kept and 
 observed." Any monk who wished to return to the world 
 was to receive eight gold pieces. 
 
 But this last change in the ancient order caused the 
 cup of wrath against Henry to overflow. That there 
 was discontent in England and danger to the throne is 
 sufficiently shown by the legislation passed to defend it 
 and the nine executions under these laws. Observers dif- 
 
 1 Dialogue between Pole and Lupset. 
 1 Utopia.
 
 212 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 fered as to the extent of that discontent. The Spanish 
 Ambassador, who spoke no English and heard only what 
 the opposition faction of the nobility told him, thought the 
 great majority of the people were against the King and 
 waiting to welcome the Emperor when he should come to 
 punish Henry's rebellion from the Pope. This judgment, 
 so far as we can judge from what happened fifteen years 
 later, when the marriage of Mary to the Emperor's son 
 almost cost her the crown, was very much mistaken. 
 
 The opposition faction of the nobility were, it is true, 
 engaged in forming a conspiracy against the throne. They 
 had long been begging the Spanish Ambassador to per- 
 suade Charles V to invade England, and promising to sup- 
 port him in arms if he came. As early as the end of 1534 
 Lords Hussey and Darcy offered, if imperial troops were 
 sent to the North and the mouth of the Thames, to rise 
 under the imperial banner with a crucifix attached. They 
 promised the support of large numbers of noblemen and 
 gentlemen of the North. From several quarters advice 
 came to the Emperor to centre this discontent among the 
 nobles around Reginald Pole, an heir to the Yorkist claim 
 to the throne and intimately connected with three families 
 in the Southwest who had great wealth and influence. "In 
 two counties alone they might easily raise twenty thousand 
 men under arms, the best soldiers England can boast of." 
 The Ambassador told his master that many people thought 
 Pole's title better than Henry's, 1 and said Reginald's 
 brother Geoffrey continually urged that if Reginald came 
 with an imperial army England could easily be conquered. 2 
 
 1 Spanish Calendars, IV, part II, page 813. 
 Letters and Papers, VII, page 620.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 213 
 
 His elder brother, Lord Montague, was reported ready to 
 take arms, and his neighbor, the Marquis of Exeter, "only 
 regrets that he has no opportunity to shed his blood for 
 Katherine and Mary. If anything were doing, he would 
 not be among the laggards." But the threads of this con- 
 spiracy could not be drawn together, and it was surprised 
 by an unpremeditated outbreak against the throne arising 
 among the common people of the North. 
 
 England, north of a line drawn from the Wash to the 
 mouth of the Humber, has until recent times differed 
 much from the remaining two-thirds of the kingdom. It 
 was always conservative, standing for things as they were 
 or had been. In the civil wars of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury it became the stronghold of the Crown. During the 
 sixteenth century, it rose intermittently against the Crown 
 in attempts to restore the pillars of the old state, the aris- 
 tocracy and the mediaeval Church. It was thinly settled 
 and the inhabitants lived by raising grain and cattle, with 
 very little trade or manufactures. The instincts bred by 
 feudalism lingered in the North long after they had per- 
 ished elsewhere in England. The influence of the priests 
 over the people was stronger than in the South, and the 
 habit of righting with the Scots and each other, made the 
 inhabitants apt to take to their weapons. 
 
 The monastery of Hexham stood near the debatable 
 land of the border. Its stout walls and bold canons were 
 a defense against the raids of the Scots, a refuge to re- 
 treating English raiders. In September, the commission- 
 ers for its dissolution found the gates shut, the inmates in 
 full armor standing on the roof, and the people of the 
 neighborhood pouring in armed at the sound of the alarm
 
 214 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 bell. One of the canons, holding an arrow on the string 
 of his bent bow, called out, "We be twenty brethren, and 
 we shall die all ere you shall have the house." Before 
 any steps could be taken to subdue these bold monks, 
 Lincolnshire rose in rebellion. By the 6th of October, 
 "ten thousand well harnessed men, with thirty thousand 
 others, some harnessed and some not," were reported to 
 be marching on Lincoln. "And the country rises wholly 
 before them as they go." * They cursed Cromwell, and a 
 false rumor said they had hanged one of his men, sewed 
 up another in a bullskin and then baited him with dogs. 
 Their banner, displaying a plough and a chalice, and their 
 demand for the expulsion of "vile blood" from the royal 
 councils, indicates the mixed motives, agrarian, feudal, 
 religious, which roused them. 
 
 Steps were at once taken to raise the royal levies. A 
 list of two hundred and thirty-eight gentlemen and noble- 
 men who were to muster from two men to a thousand, 
 has survived. But there was no need to put forth the 
 strength of the kingdom. As the van of the King's 
 forces approached, the insurgents began to break up and 
 return to their homes. 2 On the I3th of October, one 
 week after the issuing of the commissions of array, Lin- 
 coln, the centre of the rebellion, was defenseless, and 
 the gentlemen, who claimed to have been forced to join 
 the Commons in this rising, were offering to come into 
 the royal camp. 
 
 But on the same day that this news arrived in London, 
 a message came from York, the second city of the King- 
 
 1 Letters and Papers, XI, 567. 
 Ibid., XI, 658, 694, 701.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 215 
 
 dom, asking aid against a new rebellion. It was far 
 more serious than the first. On the I7th of October 
 40,000 men were reported under arms. 1 The leaders 
 made every effort to organize the movement and force the 
 whole North into it. The commons were called to arms 
 on pain of death. And if any gentleman refused the 
 oath of the insurgents, he was to be put to death, the 
 next of his blood put in his place, "and if he deny it, put 
 him to death likewise, and so on." z This notice was to 
 be posted on the doors of all parish churches. 
 
 In the mind of the lawyer Aske, who was its active 
 leader, the movement was aimed against the statutes of 
 Succession and Supremacy and the Act suppressing the 
 smaller monasteries. 3 The commonalty rose in defense 
 of the old institutions they loved and against the men 
 who had changed them. "I trust to God," cried out a 
 priest when the insurrection was in full swing, "we shall 
 have the old world again." Their oath bound them to 
 enter into "The Pilgrimage of Grace for the Common- 
 wealth for the maintenance of God's faith and 
 
 Church, preservation of the King's person and issue, pur- 
 ifying the nobility of all villains' blood and evil coun- 
 selors to the institutions of Christ's Church, and sup- 
 pression of heretic opinions." 4 Their songs demanded 
 that the innkeeper (Cranmer) should give place to the 
 ancient nobles in the Royal Council and the shearman 
 (Cromwell) be hanged high as Haman. 
 
 However much power Henry might delegate to his 
 
 1 Letters and Papers, XI, 692, 758. 
 Ibid., XII, part I, 163. 
 Ibid., XII, part I, page 405. 
 *Ibid., XI, page 272.
 
 216 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 ministers, he was always King of England a strong- 
 willed man and an able ruler of men. From the time 
 when the trouble began in the North until it ended, let- 
 ters and reports came, not as before to Cromwell, but 
 to Henry. And the orders of Government issued directly 
 from the King. This was not simply to avoid irritating 
 the rebels, one of whose chief demands was Cromwell's 
 head. In the hour of danger the master wanted the 
 helm in his own hand. There are no signs that Henry 
 lost courage before the storm. There is in all his letters 
 no trace of any intention of yielding one bit to an in- 
 surrection raised, like most rebellions, in the name of the 
 throne it attacked and to free the King from evil counsels. 
 He was angry with the Duke of Norfolk for making a 
 truce with the insurgents, 1 because, Norfolk said, his 
 army was without fuel or provisions and the pestilence 
 had begun among them. Henry sent commissioners to 
 meet the rebel leaders in December, with instructions to 
 grant a Parliament to assemble when he should appoint, 
 and a pardon. If they demanded anything else, the 
 commissioners must ask twenty days' respite, secretly 
 levy the forces of the nearest shires, of which 8000 men 
 were to be ready at an hour's warning, hold the fords of 
 the river Don, and wait till he advanced in person with 
 the entire force of the kingdom at his back. 2 The royal 
 terms were accepted, and a letter sent from the King 
 invited Aske to London. 3 On his return he issued in 
 January a manifesto that the King would order his sub- 
 
 1 Letters and Papers, XI, 1226. 
 Ibid., XI, 1227. 
 Ibid., XI, 1806.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 217 
 
 jects' petitions in a Parliament to be shortly held at 
 York. 
 
 But the North did not trust these promises. Two 
 futile risings followed, and the Council of the North 
 advised Henry to exercise great severity. He took their 
 advice. These, as well as the two previous insurrections, 
 were punished with the rigor which marked the suppres- 
 sion of rebellion in England down to the eighteenth cen- 
 tury. Norfolk had been suspected by others beside the 
 King of not wanting to fight the rebels. The Spanish 
 Ambassador, writing to advise that the Pope should send 
 Reginald Pole with money and musketeers to aid the 
 insurrection, had reported that Norfolk sympathized with 
 their demands. And the Pope, in telling the Spanish 
 Ambassador at Rome that he had sent the money, said 
 the rebels had found a new leader whose name ended 
 in "folc." * Norfolk was anxious to disprove the reports 
 about his lack of zeal of which the King had informed 
 him. He executed seventy-four by martial law, induced 
 Aske and other leaders to go to London, and wrote 
 advising that they never come back. "Hemlock is no 
 worse in a good salad than I think the remaining of any 
 of them in these parts should be ill to the Common- 
 wealth." 2 Cromwell was not inclined to show mercy to 
 those who had asked his head and threatened England 
 with civil war. Henry had always insisted on force and 
 punishment, and accepted reluctantly the temporizing 
 policy which Norfolk and his Councilors advised. None 
 of the leaders came back to the North, except in chains 
 
 1 Letters and Papers, XI, 1159. 
 8 Ibid., XII, page 311.
 
 218 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 to be hanged. Aske, in private, just before his death 
 (July, 1537), acknowledged that they had expected help 
 from abroad, and accused the King and Cromwell of 
 having promised him life if he would confess. 1 There 
 is other reason to believe that the treachery of which 
 the age was full, mingled with severity in the punishment 
 of the insurrection. 2 
 
 It made evident that the forces which desired a re- 
 turn to the old Church and State were not strong enough 
 in England to stay the progress of the revolution which 
 was destroying the institutions of the Middle Ages. 
 Even in the northern counties, part of the gentry and 
 nobility could not be dragooned into joining the insur- 
 gents by the threat of death. The great families 
 had stood aloof, and some country gentlemen had held 
 their houses for the King by arms. The doubtful coun- 
 ties of Lancaster and Cheshire had offered 3000 men 
 each for the King. Only seven out of the thirty-seven 
 counties, and those the most thinly populated ones, were 
 affected at all. Nor could the utmost inquiries of the 
 Government find any dangerous signs of widespread sym- 
 pathy in the rest of England. If the southern coun- 
 ties had backed the North the throne of Henry must have 
 fallen. 
 
 The motives of the revolt were mixed, but it was pre- 
 dominantly religious, led by the priests and monks, or 
 due largely to their influence. The Government answered 
 by ordering the pulpits everywhere to attack the suprem- 
 
 1 Letters and Papers, XII, part II, page 121. 
 
 Es Ring ein zuttiefer verlogenheit durch die welt und Jeder hielt es fur 
 erlaubt, selbst seinen verbundeten in Jedem Augenblicke zu verraten. Huber 
 Geschickte Oesterreichs, Vol. Ill, page 280.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 219 
 
 acy of the Pope and defend the new Anglican Church. 
 And Cromwell did his best in every way to replace the 
 scholastic learning, which underlay mediaeval institutions 
 and ideas, by the New Learning of the Renascence. A 
 clergyman of Bristol felt this strongly and denounced the 
 "new preachers, preaching new learning with their new 
 books. Their new learning is old heresy new risen, like 
 unto old rusty harness new furbished. And whereas they 
 say they have brought in the light no no they have 
 brought in damnable darkness and endless damnation." 1 
 
 Just before this Northern rebellion, a new Parliament 
 had been called, June, 1537, to secure the work of the 
 Parliament of 1529. In a session of six weeks it es- 
 tablished two new oaths; on the Supremacy and the Suc- 
 cession. The first was to be taken by every ecclesiastical 
 and temporal officer. It solemnly renounced the Bishop 
 of Rome, his authority and jurisdiction, and promised 
 support to the King as Supreme Head of England in 
 Church and State. The second oath was appointed be- 
 cause the "whole peace, unity and greatness of realm 
 and subjects depends upon the surety in the succession 
 to the Crown." It promised to hold the marriage with 
 Anne Boleyn invalid and to defend the succession of 
 the children of Jane Seymour (made Queen May, 1536), 
 or failing children by her, the right of the heir named 
 by the King in his will. To refuse either oath was 
 treason. 
 
 The tragedy of Anne Boleyn had been foretold by 
 Wolsey because he knew Henry's brutal fickleness, by 
 
 1 Letters and Papers, XII, part I, page 528.
 
 220 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 Thomas More because he knew Anne's vulgar levity. 
 And only one child, a girl, had been born of her to meet 
 the kingdom's need of heirs. As Henry's passion cooled 
 into neglect Anne struggled desperately to hold her power. 
 Cromwell told the Spanish Ambassador she was doing 
 her best to get his head. She angered the King by hys- 
 terical reproaches for his infidelities. In the spring 
 of 1536 a new divorce was talked of in Court circles, 
 because of the lack of a male heir and the King's dislike 
 for his wife. There would have been small difficulty in 
 getting it from the subservient Archbishop for the same 
 grounds on which he declared Anne's marriage null and 
 void, May 17, 1536. But in the end of April, Anne was 
 accused to the King of adultery and desiring his death. 
 Together with her brother, three courtiers and a court 
 attendant, she was arrested, tried before the peerage of 
 England, the Mayor, Council and representatives from 
 the trade guilds of London, declared guilty in the pres- 
 ence of a great crowd of spectators, and soon after ex- 
 ecuted. 
 
 All of the prisoners but one asserted their innocence. 
 The distinct and definite charges which have survived in 
 summary are very difficult to reconcile with Anne's 
 innocence of the entire indictment. The chief reason for 
 doubting her guilt on all the charges, is that some are too 
 bad to be credible. The modern hypothesis that she was 
 the innocent victim of a diabolical plot, is not supported 
 by the evidence. If the object had been simply to smooth 
 the way for another marriage, Anne's death, and certainly 
 the death of five men, was unnecessary. And the hy-
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 221 
 
 pothesis is therefore not only unsustained but super- 
 fluous. 1 
 
 Cromwell knew that the "Pilgrimage of Grace," the 
 rising of the North for mediaeval ideals against the new 
 state, national and lay, independent of the Universal 
 Church and the power of the clergy, had been connected 
 with a Papal conspiracy to force England back to obedi- 
 ence. Of the nobles who had plotted with the Spanish 
 Ambassador, only Lords Hussey and Darcy had been 
 involved in the Northern rebellion, and Cromwell did 
 not know that the houses of Exeter and Pole had offered 
 to serve the Emperor against the King. But he had 
 gotten hold of the thread of conspiracy from the other 
 end. Secret information from Rome told him that the 
 Pope had made Reginald Pole Cardinal for England, 
 with the express purpose, as the Pope himself said, of 
 sending him "to Flanders, publicly to admonish the King 
 to return to the Church, secretly to aid the Northern in- 
 surrection" with money and Church authority. 2 He knew 
 that Pole had written a most terrific indictment of 
 Henry's policy, appealing for insurrection and foreign in- 
 vasion, and that, on arriving in Flanders too late to help 
 the insurrection, he threatened, unless England returned 
 to the Papal obedience, to publish his attack, together with 
 the suspended Papal excommunication calling on all Chris- 
 tians in or out of England to drive Henry from his 
 
 1 This opinion is also suggested by Mr. A. F. Pollard, in his recent small 
 but exceedingly strong Life of Henry VIII. 
 
 1 Letters and Papers, XII, part I, 123, 1141. The last reference reports that 
 the Pope does not want Pole to take priest's orders. The reason for this wish 
 is that he may be ready to marry Mary and replace Henry on the throne.
 
 222 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 throne, and denouncing upon the disobedient outlawry in 
 this world and damnation in the next. 
 
 Cromwell had tried to trapan Pole and bring 
 him to England. Pole had slipped away to Rome, 
 and Cromwell had written him a savage letter, hint- 
 ing "that ways might be found in Italy to rid a treach- 
 erous subject;" a threat that greatly alarmed Pole, 
 though a careful review of existing evidence implies that 
 Cromwell did not try to carry it out. 1 Two subjects of 
 the Emperor, who were trying to do precisely what 
 Pole was trying to do, stir up war against their former 
 sovereign, were assassinated in Italy by the Viceroy of 
 Milan in 1540, certainly with Charles' approval, probably 
 by his orders. And fanatic zeal was soon to make the 
 assassin's arm a common weapon of the great hatred 
 bred by disputes over religious opinions. But as- 
 sassination does not seem to have been Henry's way. 
 Not because it involved either treachery or cruelty. He 
 shrank from those as little as most contemporary sover- 
 eigns. But Lord Herbert of Cherbury wrote, two gen- 
 erations after his death, "I do not find him bloody but 
 where law, or at least pretext drawn from thence, did 
 countenance his actions." 
 
 Though it is doubtful that Cromwell tried to assas- 
 sinate Pole, he did make every other possible preparation 
 to defend his policy against assault from Rome, which 
 was using Pole as its chief implement. During the year 
 1538, he renewed his attack on the monk, that most char- 
 acteristic product of the ancient world whose institutions 
 he was destroying. Over three hundred monasteries had 
 
 1 The editor of the Letters and Papers thinks differently.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 223 
 
 been suppressed under the Act; two hundred friaries still 
 surviving were now swept away. 1 
 
 There remained over two hundred large monastic es- 
 tablishments, which had been, as a whole, excepted from 
 the charges of immorality presented against the smaller 
 ones. The abbots of some of these were executed for 
 complicity in the Northern rebellion; in which, Crom- 
 well was informed, the priests and monks were the chief 
 "doers." A process, not completed for three years, then 
 began by which the heads of these large monasteries were 
 induced to surrender their establishments to the King. 
 The way for this course of action had been opened by 
 the Act of Suppression, which, in addition to all mon- 
 asteries under 200 annual income, had given to the 
 King the property of any which might be granted to 
 His Majesty by their abbots. It looked for some time 
 as if there would be little difficulty in getting rid of 
 the last corps of this class of men, among whom were 
 to be found the most devoted adherents of the Pope. In 
 many monasteries some monks wanted to abandon the 
 monastic life. Six of the White Friars of Stamford, for 
 example, signed a surrender, "considering that Chris- 
 tian living does not consist in wearing a white coat .... 
 ducking and becking .... and other like papistical cere- 
 monies." 2 Many abbots were willing to take the pensions 
 or afraid to refuse surrender. Most of them doubtless 
 simply yielded to the inevitable. 
 
 But while thus steadily moving in a policy which de- 
 stroyed the centres of support for any invasion to carry 
 
 1 Gasquet, Henry VIII and the Suppression of the Monasteries, Vol. II, 
 page 239. 
 
 * Letters and Papers, XIII, part 2, 565.
 
 224 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 out the bull of excommunication Pole had dangled like 
 a sword of Damocles over Henry's head, Cromwell was 
 watching for an excuse to strike hard at a certain section 
 of the nobility which, if the threatened blow fell, would 
 be still more formidable. These were the Yorkist nobles, 
 the Marquis of Exeter, Lord Montague, Cardinal Pole's 
 elder brother, and Sir Edward Neville. He was the 
 son of Lord Abergavenny, whose father-in-law, the Duke 
 of Buckingham, had talked of his claims to the throne, 
 and revealed a mind to renew the War of the Roses if 
 the death of Henry should leave the infant Mary, an 
 unprotected little girl, as his heir. For these incautious 
 words Henry had sent him to the block in 1521. This was 
 the knot of nobles Exeter, Montague and Neville's 
 father which had been pointed out to the Emperor by 
 his ambassador as able to put 20,000 men into the field, 
 and to be depended upon to do so if they were given the 
 centre of an invading force. Cromwell did not know 
 this. But he knew they were dangerous to his plans, 
 and he used without the slightest scruple the first chance 
 to indict them for treason. 
 
 He heard that a certain Hugh Holland had carried 
 letters from Lord Montague to his brother, the Cardinal. 
 Holland was arrested and carried to London. Sir Geof- 
 frey, the youngest Pole, frightened out of self-control, 
 immediately volunteered confessions which threw the net 
 around the men Cromwell wanted. There was no evi- 
 dence of any overt act of treason, but there was stronger 
 evidence of a will to destroy the Tudor monarchy than 
 that by which Henry had executed Buckingham seven- 
 teen years before,
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 225 
 
 Executions because of verbal attacks on a government 
 were not confined to England. In 1517 the City Council 
 of Ulm executed a weaver in the market place for talk- 
 ing against the Council. 1 The celebrated Strasburg 
 preacher Geiler of Kaysersberg, who died in 1510, used 
 this argument in favor of punishing blasphemy by death : 
 "If any one speaks evil of the burgomaster or of a mem- 
 ber of the City Councils he is cast into prison and does 
 not come out except to be hung or drowned." An insult 
 to God, he argues, ought to be as severely punished. 2 
 And Claude Haton tells of a canon who made scandalous 
 remarks about Catherine de' Medici, was arrested and 
 only escaped the law by bribery. 3 
 
 And to read accounts of state trials is to become aware 
 that the modern presumption of the law among English- 
 speaking people, that a man is innocent until he is proved 
 guilty, did not obtain in trials for treason for more than 
 five generations later. In 1614 a manuscript sermon, at- 
 tacking the government and denouncing a death like that 
 of Ananias or Nabal for the King, was found among the 
 papers of Edward Peacham, a rector of Somersetshire. 
 It had never been preached. But, with the approval of 
 Francis Bacon, he was tortured to extract evidence of a 
 conspiracy, tried and condemned to death for treason. 
 At the end of the seventeenth century Algernon Sydney 
 died on the scaffold for opinions in an unpublished man- 
 uscript which Charles II and a Tory jury thought dan- 
 gerous to the monarchy. 
 
 There was current in England under Henry VIII 
 
 1 Chroniken der deutschen Stadte, XXV, 78. 
 
 " L'abbe L. Dacheux, Un reformateur catholique a la fin du XV* sicle. 
 
 8 Documents inedits. VIII, 330.
 
 226 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 a cant phrase to label the attitude of those whose 
 opinions threatened the throne. As men spoke of the 
 malicious "obstinacy" of heretics who dissented from 
 the orthodox Church, so the adherents of the "new 
 world" in England spoke constantly of the "can- 
 kered hearts" l of those who longed for the ancient sys- 
 tem in Church and State. Of such "cankered hearts" 
 there was good evidence in the case of the prisoners. 
 The breaking of the power of nobles and clergy, a career 
 open to talents, the revolt from Rome, an indisputable 
 succession to the throne these things were against their 
 feudal instincts and their religious feelings. "Knaves 
 rule about the King," Sir Edward Neville was wont to 
 sing, "but lords shall rule again one day." And Exeter, 
 shaking his fist, said, "I'll give these knaves a buffet 
 some day." Montague said, "The Northern rebels were 
 fools to strike only at the Council. They should have 
 struck at the head." Letters had been carried to Cardinal 
 Pole and brought from him. At the news of the arrest 
 some of these had been hastily burned. "They liked 
 not the proceedings of the realm, they approved the 
 opinions of Cardinal Pole." "The King will die sud- 
 denly," said Montague, "then we shall have jolly stir- 
 ring." 2 As remorselessly as they would have killed him 
 and destroyed his work, Cromwell had them condemned 
 for treason, executed in December, 1538, and their execu- 
 tion confirmed by Parliament in a bill of attainder. Mon- 
 tague's mother and Exeter's wife were included in the 
 
 1 See Letters and Papers, passim. 
 
 1 See the depositions against Neville, Montague and Exeter, Letters and 
 Papers, XIII, part II.
 
 THOMAS CROM3VELL 227 
 
 attainder, but they were not touched during Cromwell's 
 lifetime. 
 
 On the I7th of December, 1538, the long-suspended 
 Papal excommunication, condemning Henry and all who 
 obeyed his magistrates to hell, making them outlaws 
 and calling upon all Christians to attack and despoil them, 
 was published. 
 
 Cardinal Pole was sent from Rome on a mission to the 
 Emperor and the King of France. It was suspected, in 
 spite of Pole's denials, that his errand was to persuade 
 them to make peace and unite in a crusade against Eng- 
 land. The suspicion was correct, as appears in Pole's 
 r Apologia? written at the time, and in Charles' report 
 of his conversation to the Venetian Ambassador. For 
 the Emperor told Mocenigo that Pole tried to persuade 
 him to defer the Turkish expedition in order to attack 
 England, and related his own answer, pointing out the 
 danger of leaving Italy open to Turkish attack if he with- 
 drew his forces to attack England. 2 Henry and Cromwell 
 did not know that Charles would take this view of the 
 matter. In the middle of 1538 they had seen the war be- 
 tween France and Spain closed in a personal interview 
 of Charles and Francis, in which they showed the most 
 pleasant relations and swore eternal friendship. If 
 France, Spain, Scotland and Ireland should attack Eng- 
 land she would be ringed about by foes. Such a combi- 
 nation in support of a papal bull of deposition, though 
 difficult to form, was not impossible. The danger was 
 
 1 See Appendix. 
 
 * This conversation is reprinted in The Emperor Charles V , by Edward 
 Armstrong, M.A., Vol. II, page 21.
 
 228 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 not a paper one. The same threat fifty years later ma- 
 terialized into the great Armada, flying the banner of 
 a crusade and bringing a Spanish army to drive excom- 
 municated Elizabeth from her throne. The same spiritual 
 power gave its chief strength to the Holy League and 
 compelled Henry IV to be reconciled to Rome in order 
 to gain peace for France. It is not "reading history back- 
 ward" * to perceive that what caused and maintained war 
 in the end of the sixteenth century, was capable of caus- 
 ing it at the beginning of the century. Contemporaries 
 did not think the danger imaginary. The Spanish Am- 
 bassador writes from Venice, that it is common talk 
 throughout the city that Spain and France are to attack 
 England. 2 And the Venetian Ambassador at Paris had 
 reported to the Senate some time before that the Emperor 
 was disposed to obey the Pope by attacking England. 3 
 It would have been reckless indeed for the King and 
 his minister to take this danger as lightly as some 
 modern historians insist they ought to have taken 
 it. Henry wrote instructions to enforce Cromwell's 
 readiness to put England in a state of defense, adding as 
 a spur to his work, "Dilligence passe sence." * 
 
 Four thousand sets of armor and supplies of powder 
 were bought in Germany. And the King tried to engage 
 there 100 expert artillerymen. 6 Government ordered a 
 general muster of the kingdom, and the rolls show that 
 it was carried out, at least in part, for Wales and two- 
 
 1 William Stubbs, D.D., The Study of Medieval and Modern History. 
 " Letters and Papers, XIV, part I, 372. 
 a Documents inedits, Vol. 47, pte. 71. 
 4 Letters and Papers, XIV, part I, 529, 
 id., XIV, part II, App. 14-
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 229 
 
 thirds of England. The following entry in the records 
 of the Corporation shows what the capital did : "His 
 Highness was lately informed that the cankered and ven- 
 omous arch traitor Reynold Pole, enemy to God's word 
 and his own natural country, had moved diverse great 
 princes of Christendom not only to invade this realm of 
 England with mortal war, but also by fire and sword 
 to extermine and utterly destroy the whole generation 
 and nation of the same. . . . Thereupon His High- 
 ness in person took many journeys toward the sea coasts 
 and caused many bulwarks to be made. He also caused 
 towers to be built from the Mount to Dover and so to 
 Berwick. He caused the Admiral to assemble all the 
 navy at Portsmouth, and directed commissions through- 
 out the realm to have his people mustered. . . . But 
 when the Lord Mayor and his brethren were informed 
 by Lord Thomas Cromwell, Keeper of the Privy Seal 
 (to whom the city is and has been much bounden), that 
 the King himself would see his loving subjects muster 
 before him, they decided that no alien, even though he 
 were a denizen, should muster, and that Englishmen who 
 had jacks, brigandines or coats of fence should not go 
 out, but only such as had white harness and full accoutre- 
 ments." * The parade took place on the 8th of May, 1539, 
 and the French Ambassador estimated fifteen thousand 
 men in the ranks, for those days a large force. 
 
 The surrenders of the greater monasteries had stopped 
 with April, when two-thirds of the number had been sur- 
 rendered, and from then until the ist of November they 
 did not average one a month; whereas for the previous 
 
 *Ibid., XIV, part I, 940; Reprint from Archaologia, XXXII, 30.
 
 230 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 sixteen months they had averaged about six a month. 
 And the unsurrendered included a number of those most 
 dangerous from the Crown's point of view. There were 
 twenty-five mitred Abbots in England with the right to 
 sit in the House of Lords; only seven of them had sur- 
 rendered by the ist of November, 1539. And the Govern- 
 ment had reason to believe they were in communication 
 to encourage one another in resistance. Cromwell de- 
 termined to break their opposition. After his manner, 
 he struck at the tallest heads. The Abbot of Glastonbury 
 was, by virtue of his office, a great noble. The broad 
 acres of the monastery lands were rated to supply from 
 among their laborers and tenants twenty-five hundred 
 men to the royal muster, and brought in one of the 
 largest incomes in England. November I5th, 1539, the 
 Abbot was executed on a charge of robbing the monastery 
 church. On the same day the Abbot of Reading was 
 hanged. Two weeks later the Abbot of Colchester went 
 to the gallows. Both were charged with treason 
 for having supported the authority of the Bishop 
 of Rome over the King, desired the success of 
 the Northern insurrection, and wished Cromwell and 
 the other Councilors at Rome or in the North, i. e., at the 
 stake or on the gallows. The hiding of plate to keep 
 it from the spoiler, talking against the changes in the 
 Church and the Councilors who made them, these were 
 doubtless being done in most of the monasteries left in 
 England. They do not seem serious offenses. But the 
 same Parliament which imposed the penalty of death for 
 night fishing in a private fish pond, imposed the death pen- 
 alty on them. Cromwell, who with all his lack of scruple 
 was not inclined to bloodshed, might have let these of-
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 231 
 
 fenses go. But he needed an example, and he made it. So 
 far as we can judge, the evidence of the charges was quite 
 sufficient to justify a verdict according to the laws made 
 to defend the revolution in England against the plots 
 of those within and without her bounds who wanted the 
 "Old World" again. 1 
 
 The hard stroke broke the last resistance of the Orders. 
 Within six weeks twenty-nine monasteries surrendered, 
 among them ten mitred abbots. In another month the 
 "standing army of the Pope" was entirely disbanded in 
 England. 2 
 
 It has been estimated that the seven hundred and odd 
 conventual establishments thus suppressed yielded to the 
 royal treasury in gold and silver vessels, estimated simply 
 at their melting value, a sum equal to about five millions 
 of dollars. Of the large quantities of jewels set in sacred 
 vessels or shrines, no estimate can be found. The sale 
 of monastic lands realized between forty and fifty mil- 
 lions. The income of monastic estates during the eleven 
 years from the beginning of the suppression to the death 
 of Henry was between twenty and twenty-five millions. 
 Miscellaneous profits amounted to some three to four 
 millions more. The last included the sale of everything 
 in the monasteries down to the lead of the roofs. 
 
 1 See letters on the subject in Letters and Papers, Vol. XIV. This judgment 
 is made after full consideration of Gasquet's able special pleading for the vic- 
 tims. It is, perhaps, needless to remark that these laws, like most laws motived 
 by fear, were cruel. 
 
 3 A justification of the use in this connection of this common phrase is found 
 in the memoir which the zealous, orthodox preacher Wimpheling sent to Maxi- 
 milian in 1510. He warns him to be cautious in reforming the manifest abuses 
 of the church, lest "the mendicant monks, those devoted servants of the Holy 
 See, should preach against you, and the Pope should deprive you of your crown." 
 Hist. I,it. de la Alsace, I, 448.
 
 232 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 Cromwell was determined to make it difficult to restore 
 monasticism. The great churches, the stately buildings 
 which an Italian visitor in the beginning of the century 
 described "as more like baronial palaces than monasteries," 
 were carefully swept out of existence. From the church of 
 Lewes, four hundred and twenty feet long, supported by 
 pillars ten to fourteen feet thick, to the tiny house of Wil- 
 ton, with its church thirty-four feet by fourteen, a cloister 
 twenty-four feet long, a dortour sixteen feet by twelve, 
 a little garden and meadow-ground of three acres, wherein 
 dwelt one friar, 1 all went down in ruin ; an enormous de- 
 struction of beautiful creations of past generations. Of 
 the eight thousand monks and nuns supposed to have 
 lived in them, some who were priests received benefices, 
 and about one-half were pensioned. Abbots of large 
 monasteries received, on the average, from five to six 
 thousand dollars a year; monks, on the average, about 
 three hundred a year. Heads of smaller houses got less, 
 ranging down to nine hundred dollars a year. Of the 
 fifteen hundred friars and the fifteen hundred monks 
 in the smaller monasteries who preferred going out into 
 the world to transference to larger houses, some received 
 a present of from ten to fifty dollars. 
 
 Henry was subject, like most monarchs of his day, to 
 the vice of reckless extravagance, and like all selfish men, 
 when he needed money, he was exceedingly greedy for it. 
 This latter vice was exaggerated by popular report. And 
 the Abbot of Colchester doubtless expressed the 
 opinion of many when he said: "The King and his 
 Councilors were driven into such a covetous mind that if 
 
 Letters and Papers, XIII, part I, 690.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 233 
 
 the Thames flowed gold and silver it would not quench 
 their thirst." * Henry did not, however, take the greater 
 part of the vast profits of the suppression of the monaster- 
 ies for himself. In the many cases of suppressing monas- 
 tic and ecclesiastical foundations during and since the 
 sixteenth century, the privileged or influential classes 
 have always tried to make their profit out of the situa- 
 tion. On the whole, perhaps as large a proportion of 
 monastic property in England was devoted to public uses, 
 as in other suppressions when public opinion was un- 
 organized and the people powerless to control and re- 
 vise. Henry used in building and for personal and house- 
 hold purposes about twenty millions of dollars. Four 
 or five millions went in pensions and expenses. The 
 foundations of six new bishoprics used up five or six mil- 
 lions more. 
 
 The bells of the monasteries were melted into cannon, 
 and about forty millions, over half of the royal profits 
 from the dissolution, were spent on the fleet, coast de- 
 fenses and military preparations to resist the invasion 
 threatened by the papal excommunication. Of the estates 
 of the monasteries the King probably did not keep more 
 than a quarter. 2 He distributed the rest for nothing, or at 
 a very low price, to the ancient nobility, to country gentle- 
 men or to the "new men" he was raising to greatness 
 by his service. For Cromwell's policy used greed as a 
 factor, and his knowledge of human nature told him 
 
 1 Letters and Papers, XIV, part II, 458. 
 
 * This account is condensed from Father Gasquet, who bases his reckoning 
 on books of the Augmentation Office. The sums are roughly transferred into 
 modern American values. It is held by most English writers that the pur- 
 chasing value of money was then ten to twelve times what it is now.
 
 234 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 that the sharers of the spoils would never consent to 
 the reversal of that by which they profited. From 
 the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, the Marquis of Exe- 
 ter, etc., down to the cooks in the royal kitchen, every 
 one scrambled for a share in the spoils. 
 
 Cromwell took his share with the rest. 1 He accumu- 
 lated a great estate in monastery lands. Its exact value 
 cannot be estimated, but in rough numbers it brought him 
 in between 2000 and 3500 a year, equal in purchasing 
 value to between $120,000 and $200,000. His income from 
 all sources was large. In 1536 it was between $130,000 
 and $150,000. During the years '37, '38 and '39 he 
 received what is equivalent to between $2,250,000 and 
 $2,500,000. His expenses ate up more than half this. 
 But his accounts show that he invested some $600,000 to 
 $700,000 in lands and annuities, and put over $100,000 
 into a diamond and a ruby, probably because they were 
 portable. His steward's books show a balance in his 
 favor of 7000 ($350,000 to $400,000 modern value), 
 which agrees with the account of the ambassador who 
 wrote at his fall that people were surprised because much 
 money was not found in his house, the total sum being 
 only about 7000. 
 
 Cromwell made all he could out of his office and in- 
 fluence. The English of the sixteenth century seem to 
 have given presents very much as the modern Chinese 
 do, and the list of things Cromwell received is most 
 incongruous. It ranges from "twenty apples good to 
 drink wine with" and "ten bags of sweet powder to lay 
 
 1 This summary account of Cromwell's finances is the result of a careful 
 examination of all letters and accounts bearing on the subject in Letters and 
 Papers, checked, so far as possible, by the Valor Ecclesiasticus.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 235 
 
 among cloths," through a toothpick and a gold whistle, 
 four live beavers, seeds from Barbary, a complete Inns- 
 bruck harness and six Bibles, to a thousand-weight of 
 tin to make pewter vessels, and 18,000 slates to roof his 
 new house. He took fees and bribes very commonly, and 
 those possessed of any means who asked his help or in- 
 fluence, generally sent money or a promise of money. 
 Sometimes the gift was delicately conveyed in a pair of 
 gloves, left under a cushion or elsewhere in the house. 
 Much of this would be recognized as illegitimate at the 
 time, for Sir Thomas More, who as Chancellor astonished 
 his contemporaries by refusing to take any presents, was 
 greatly praised for uprightness. But the condemnation 
 was so formal that people did not lose caste by a practice 
 which was universal and taken for granted. Wolsey 
 received a huge pension from Francis I ; and other nobles 
 of Henry's Council, the Duke of Norfolk, the Bishop of 
 Winchester, Earl of Worcester, etc., Cromwell's enemies 
 as well as his supporters, received pensions from the Kings 
 of France or Spain to look after their interests. The 
 Councils of Switzerland, Germany and Flanders were 
 equally, if not more, corrupt. The Fuggers were used 
 to convey into Spain the foreign pensions of Councilors. 
 When Francis Bacon, Chancellor, was condemned in 1621 
 for having taken bribes, he wrote: "And howsoever I 
 acknowledge the sentence just and for reformation sake 
 fit, I am the justest Chancellor that hath been in the 
 five changes since Sir Nicholas Bacon's time" (I559). 1 
 Practices so deeply condemned by modern opinion as to 
 ruin those guilty of them persisted with small conceal- 
 
 *Spedding, Vol. II, p. 518. Boston, 1878.
 
 236 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 ment and no rebuke among English State officials into 
 the eighteenth century. Pitt created a great sensation 
 and won an unmatched reputation for honesty in 1746 
 by refusing to accept commissions on foreign subsidies 
 or to appropriate the interest of balances in his hands. 
 Cromwell's bribes and fees are not in the least to be 
 defended, but it is unhistorical to separate his greed from 
 its background and represent it as unusual in kind or 
 even unique in degree. 
 
 This wealth Cromwell spent freely. He built a stately 
 house opposite where the Stock Exchange now stands in 
 the heart of London. 1 The eight lots and four gardens 
 of the building plot he bought for the equivalent of 
 $i;2,ooo from his friend Antony Vivaldi. 2 The ward 
 was then a good residence quarter on the outer edge of 
 the city. The house, though stately, was not one of the 
 magnificent palaces built in the Tudor age. A rough 
 sketch which has survived indicates the heavy square gate 
 tower common to contemporary architecture ; a good spec- 
 imen of which can be seen at Coughton, the seat of Sir 
 Nicholas Throgmorton, whose false testimony brought 
 Cromwell to the block. The building has since been de- 
 stroyed by fire, but we have a description of the interior, 
 made after Cromwell's death. It had a large banqueting 
 hall, and ample kitchens well fitted for hospitality on a 
 large scale. And Cromwell considered buying in Flan- 
 ders for 40 crowns ($500) a carved dinner table "of such 
 size as there are few in England." We do not know 
 whether he got it. But we know that his house was finely 
 
 1 See description in Herbert, Twelve Great Livery Companies of London, 
 under Drapers' Company. 
 
 1 Letters and Papers, VII, 944.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 237 
 
 furnished by one who showed the tastes of the Renas- 
 cence. A mutilated list of his furniture at the time of his 
 death shows that he had twelve pictures. No list of 
 his books has survived. But there are scattered no- 
 tices of them among his papers from the beginning of his 
 power, when we find a poem, "Amongst all Flowers the 
 Rose doth Excel," jumbled up with the "Estimate of 
 charges of the King's house for a year;" "A Dialogue be- 
 tween Pasquillus and Marforius" next to "A list of wastes 
 done by divers persons to the King's forests of Dean," 
 and Italian verses between the "Supplication of the inhab- 
 itants of Rompney Marsh" and "The answer of the King 
 of Denmark and his Secretary." 1 
 
 Cromwell had attracted before he became great the 
 friendship of men of literary tastes. Miles Coverdale, 
 translator of the Bible; Henry Morley, author of a 
 large number of works on Biblical criticism; Thomas 
 Elyot, author of the Book of the Governor, a 
 Latin Dictionary and a number of other books; 
 Richard Morrison, author of several treatises and 
 translations; Thomas Starkey, one of the best writers of 
 his generation on affairs of church and state; John Pals- 
 grave, who did much for the knowledge of French in 
 England and wrote one of the earliest French grammars 
 and dictionaries all these were more or less intimate 
 with him in his early days of law practice. And they 
 made a circle very large in comparison to the limited 
 number of literary men in England. These and other 
 friends he made before his rise to power he kept after he 
 became great. 
 
 1 Letters and Papers, VI, page 136.
 
 238 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 The contemporary Italian novelist, Bandello, afterward 
 titular Bishop of Agen, made him the hero of one of 
 his tales. It presents Cromwell in the most odious 
 light, as a destroyer of the Church, who killed "an infinite 
 number of monks, decapitated many great prelates of the 
 holiest life and extinguished almost all the nobility of 
 England." But it relates and praises his gratitude and 
 magnificent liberality to a Florentine merchant who had 
 helped him in his poverty-stricken youth and, having lost 
 his fortune by the chances of trade, was in misery in Lon- 
 don. The fact that this Italian monk, supporter of ortho- 
 doxy, chose the great heretic and schismatic for the hero 
 of his tale on gratitude, is a proof that Cromwell had the 
 reputation that cannot be earned except by deserving it. 
 Richard Morison wrote : "You are the only man in your 
 place who has never forgotten his old friends." 1 
 
 Cromwell entertained largely, dining the King and 
 foreign ambassadors. And his varied and witty conver- 
 sation added to the pleasure of his guests. He kept a 
 large household and took care to have men among them 
 who could play on various instruments and make up a 
 band. 2 He was evidently fond of music, for his steward 
 paid a poor woman for bringing a nightingale, and "Mr. 
 Reynolds' servant for bringing a cage of canaries," sums 
 equal to over seventeen and twenty-five dollars. 2 He 
 kept a fool to amuse his guests, 2 and played bowls, 3 cards 
 and dice, 3 losing at the latter Court amusements sums 
 ranging from $50 to $1,200. He shot with the long bow 
 
 1 Letters and Papers, XIII, part I, 1297. 
 
 Ibid., XIV, part II, 782. 
 
 8 Ibid., VIII, page 433; also above note.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 239 
 
 and hunted. But his favorite sport was hawking. 1 The 
 gifts that pleased him best were hawks, spaniels or grey- 
 hounds. The Spanish Ambassador went out hawking 
 with him, to find a good opportunity for a private talk, 
 and his favorite sport colored his speech, for the ambassa- 
 dor reports that he said : "The Emperor and his agents, 
 like hawks, rise high to come down faster on their prey." 2 
 Just before his fall Parliament reenacted laws to prevent 
 the destruction of hawks' nests and eggs. He kept nearly 
 a hundred horses, but rode a mule to and fro between his 
 house and Court. 3 A bitter enemy said of him: "He 
 was a great taker and briber, like his brother the Cardinal 
 (Wolsey). No lord or gentleman in England favors 
 him, because he will do for no man except for money, 
 but he spent it honorably and freely like a gentleman 
 (though he were none), and helped many honest men 
 and preferred his servants well." 4 Nor was his hospital- 
 ity limited to his friends. His steward's accounts show 
 many entries of gifts to the poor, as, for instance, 6 2od., 
 equal to some $350, "to be distributed in alms in the 
 prisons about London." And Stow, no friend of Crom- 
 well, whom he thought guilty of an act of injustice to his 
 father, says that when a boy he had seen more than two 
 hundred poor fed twice a day at Cromwell's gate. 5 
 
 Around the house of Cromwell, with its filled banquet- 
 ing hall and open gates, there centred not only friendship 
 and gratitude but hatred. The hospitalty which has any 
 
 i Letters and Papers, V, 1281; VI, 1164, etc. 
 
 'Ibid., XII, part II, 629. 
 
 8 Ibid., XIV, part II, 337. 
 
 'Ibid., XIII, part I, 471. 
 
 * Stow, Survey of London, Ed. 1618, page 139.
 
 240 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 of its roots in extortion is apt to make more enemies than 
 friends. And there were other reasons beside the way in 
 which he gained part of his money, which suggests to us 
 how much he was disliked. The sincere and intense 
 antipathy of extreme conservatives for a radical and op- 
 portunist, the malignant hatred which some members of 
 any privileged class always feel toward the man who 
 destroys their privileges, the honest indignation of relig- 
 ious men who believed that the mediaeval Church was 
 the divinely authenticated form of the Kingdom of God 
 on earth these varied motives engendered in the hearts 
 of a large section of the English clergy a terrible anger 
 against him. 
 
 The nobility also disliked Cromwell. Even those who 
 may have come to acquiesce in the Tudor policy which 
 had destroyed their feudal independence, did not like the 
 prominent instrument of that policy. Almost all the 
 English nobles of ancient descent were men of small 
 capacity. A paper is extant, found among the archives of 
 the Papacy, in which some one has given a brief account 
 of the heads of the English nobility probably as a basis 
 for judgment about the possibility of exciting success- 
 ful religious war against the Crown. It passes favorable 
 judgments on "The Duke of Norfolk, 72 years, the chief 
 and best captain;" "The Marquis of Exeter, lusty and 
 of great power, specially beloved, diseased often with gout, 
 next to the throne," and "The Marquis of Dorset, 26, witb 
 little or no experience, well learned and a great wit." 
 But the more characteristic entries are: "The Earl of 
 Oxford, 66 years, a man of great power, little wit and 
 less experience" ; "The Earl of Derby, young, and a child
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 241 
 
 in wisdom and half a fool" ; "The Earl of Cumberland, a 
 man of 50 years, without discretion or conduct"; "The 
 Earl of Sussex, of little discretion and many words"; 
 "The Earl of Bath, old and foolish"; "The Earl of 
 Worcester, young and foolish"; "The Earl of Hunting- 
 don, of great power, little discretion and less experience." 1 
 The new nobles advanced by Henry received more favora- 
 ble judgment. "The Duke of Suffolk" (Henry's brother- 
 in-law), "a good man and captain, sickly and half lame"; 
 "The Earl of Wiltshire, wise and little experienced, Queen 
 Anne's father"; "The Earl of Hampton and Admiral of 
 England, made by the King, wise, active and of good ex- 
 perience ; one of the best captains in England" ; "The Earl 
 of Hertford, young and wise, brother unto the last Queen 
 deceased." * 
 
 The pride of an hereditary aristocracy degenerated in 
 ability often bears an inverse ratio to its capacity, and its 
 members resent particularly the rise of capable men to the 
 influence and positions once wielded by their class. The 
 new blood which the Tudors infused into the highest 
 classes of English society was greatly to the advantage 
 of the English nobility. The families they founded be- 
 came the great families of later times. But the members 
 of the played-out old lines did not welcome the new- 
 comers, and they hated Cromwell more than the rest be- 
 cause his influence was greater, and he was not of gentle 
 blood. Idle courtiers, who could not have led a company 
 in war without disaster or managed the simplest affairs 
 of state without confusion, had sneered at Wolsey as 
 "the butcher's dog." Cavendish wrote of Cromwell "as 
 
 1 Letters and Papers, XIII, part II, 738,
 
 242 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 a kite flying with royal eagles, a jay chattering in a 
 golden cage." And in the same spirit the Marquis of 
 Exeter, forced from the Royal Council, had shaken his fist 
 at the "knaves" (base-born men) "who ruled about the 
 King." The story, often repeated, that in 1536 he struck 
 Cromwell with his dagger, which was turned by a secret 
 coat of mail, is not very authentic. Cromwell may indeed 
 have worn a secret coat of mail. For at the end of 1533 
 the Duke of Norfolk had asked the Venetian Ambassador 
 to get five impenetrable coats, of the kind made at Brescia, 
 for himself, the father and brother of Queen Anne, the 
 Lord Treasurer and Cromwell. 1 They probably had 
 some reason to fear a plot to assassinate them, though 
 there does not appear to have been any. And the Spanish 
 Ambassador reports the delivery of five coats of scale 
 armor as a present from the Venetian Senate. 2 But 
 it is highly improbable that the dagger of Exeter ever dis- 
 covered one of these coats on Cromwell's body. The story 
 rests only on the malicious denunciation before a Somer- 
 setshire magistrate of the boastful words of a butcher, said 
 to have been spoken six months before they were de- 
 nounced. But we do not need this anecdote to tell us 
 that most of the nobility, like the orthodox clergy, were 
 enemies of Cromwell for reasons both good and bad. 
 
 It has been so frequently repeated that Cromwell was 
 generally hated because he filled England with spies, that 
 it is a little surprising to find how slight ground for the 
 charge is found in the State Papers. If Cromwell sus- 
 tained a general spy system throughout England, or had 
 
 1 Calendars. Venetian, Vol. IV, pp. 374, 382. 
 * Calendars, Spanish, Vol. V, part I, page 74.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL' 243 
 
 a regular establishment equivalent to the secret service 
 men of modern governments, it would plainly appear in 
 their reports made to him of arrests for seditious and 
 treasonable words. The ancient laws of England made 
 "tale-bearing" against "the great men of the realm" a 
 serious offense. A statute of Edward I, 1 twice confirmed 
 under Richard II, ordered the imprisonment of any one 
 repeating "such scandalous reports until he had brought 
 into court him who was first author of the tale," to be 
 punished by the Royal Council. The new law making it 
 treason to call the King heretic, schismatic or infidel, or 
 to deny the legitimacy of his heir or impugn his title of 
 Head of the Church, had commended to all magistrates 
 the enforcement of the old as well as the new law. I have 
 examined in the Calendars reports, made to Cromwell 
 between 1533 and 1540, of ninety odd arrests under 
 these laws, practically all that exist. In none of 
 them is there any suggestion of a system of spies to 
 watch the people or report their incautious words. A 
 King's commissioner, a yeoman of the Crown, a commis- 
 sioner of subsidy, each report one case; several county 
 magistrates, evidently seeking to curry favor, report a 
 few cases ; in five cases a constable or bailiff seems to be 
 the chief accuser. Even this does not indicate any "spy 
 system." And the overwhelming majority of the cases 
 are denunciations before the local magistrates by ordinary 
 inhabitants of town or village tinkers, ironmongers, 
 fullers, weavers, butchers, etc. They show that numbers 
 of the people throughout England believed in the laws or 
 were freely willing to use them. Some fifteen or twenty 
 
 1 III, Edward I, 34.
 
 244 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 cases are the denunciations of parsons by their parish- 
 ioners, who evidently want an incumbent of the "New 
 Learning." In ten cases priests denounce another priest. 
 This also probably was the "New Learning" against the 
 "Old Learning." Some ten cases look like simple mali- 
 cious false witness growing out of a quarrel ; and most of 
 these are so commented upon by the magistrates who re- 
 port them. The examination of these hundred cases is 
 very far from suggesting the presence, or the need, of a 
 body of spies to keep down the people. 
 
 In the year 1540 Cromwell suddenly fell before his 
 enemies. April I7th he was made Earl of Essex; July 
 28th he was beheaded. He had long foreseen his mis- 
 fortune. He told the Spanish Ambassador in 1536. "He 
 had admitted to himself that the day might come when 
 fate would strike him as it had struck his predecessors in 
 office; then he would arm himself in patience and place 
 himself for the rest in the hands of God." x During the 
 year 1540, Cromwell's foreign policy had brought him 
 into disfavor with his master for two reasons. It crossed 
 the theological beliefs of the King and it made him per- 
 sonally uncomfortable. 
 
 Cromwell prepared to resist the possible foreign in- 
 vasion in support of the Papal bull excommunicating 
 Henry, not only by fortifications and musters, but also 
 by alliances. Against a combination of France and Spain, 
 England must obviously seek allies in the North. Crom- 
 well did his best to form an alliance with the anti-imperial 
 and anti-Catholic princes of Germany. In this he found 
 one practically insurmountable obstacle the theological 
 
 1 Calendars, Spanish, V, part II, p. 82.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 245 
 
 differences between the Lutheran and English Churches. 
 Most of the Lutheran divines received from Luther him- 
 self a great tenacity of theological opinions and a strong 
 intolerance for dissent. They had refused to join a de- 
 fensive league with the Zwinglians; many of them were 
 to refuse fellowship with the Reformed of France. After 
 examining the doctrines of the English Church, they ad- 
 vised their princes not to make alliance unless the Eng- 
 lish accepted the true Word of God namely, the formulas 
 of the Lutheran Church. But, far from doing that, an 
 Act of Parliament in June, 1539, made the Six Articles 
 the test of religious orthodoxy in England. These de- 
 nounced the penalty of death against all who spoke or 
 wrote against transubstantiation, communion in one kind, 
 the need of celibacy in the clergy, the perpetual obligation 
 of monastic vows, private masses or auricular confession. 
 
 For some years Cromwell had been encouraging in 
 England the spread of Lutheran opinions. Between 1536 
 and 1539 two books were printed containing The Augs- 
 burg Confession and Melanchthon's Apology, "trans- 
 lated by Richard Ta vernier at the commandment of Lord 
 Thomas Cromwell." He had not only licensed Cover- 
 dale's translation of the Bible, but, as he told the French 
 Ambassador, spent six hundred marks (equivalent to 
 some $20,000) in getting it printed. It finally appeared 
 in 1539 with Cromwell's arms upon the title-page, and 
 a Preface setting forth a "Summary and Content of 
 Scripture" quite Protestant in tone. 1 He must have used 
 
 1 In the title-page of the subsequent editions under the royal patronage the 
 arms of Cromwell have been cut out of the plate, leaving a blank in the en- 
 graving. See copies in the British Museum.
 
 246 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 his influence to promote clergymen of anti-orthodox opin- 
 ions, for the heretical Bishop Latimer wrote him in the 
 end of 1538, saying: "Your Lordship has promoted 
 many more honest men since God promoted you than any 
 of like authority have done before you." 1 
 
 By the beginning of 1539 Cromwell was re- 
 garded by all who wished to see England ad- 
 vance rapidly toward the position taken by the 
 Protestant princes of Germany or the Zwinglian 
 cantons of Switzerland as the hope of "the gospel" in 
 England. Their opinion of him may be fairly represented 
 (making due allowance for the tone usual in prefaces 
 to patrons) by the dedication of Richard Morison's 
 Apomaxis, published in the middle of 1538: "Who 
 that knows anything is ignorant that all things depend 
 on you? Who does not wonder at your bodily strength, 
 broken by no labours? It is incredible that the strength 
 and memory of one man can suffice for so many and 
 such divergent affairs. You receive all suppliant let- 
 ters, you hear all complaints, you send few from you 
 without help, either in the trouble itself or, next best, 
 by counsel. Is there any one distinguished by virtue 
 or learning or any of unusual mental powers whom you 
 have not aided? All, except very few, gladly see con- 
 quered and bound by you Popes, heaps of indulgences, 
 pounds of lead, wax easily moulded to evil (Papal seals), 
 a thousand stratagems of fraud, huge armies of rapine 
 and finally the bodyguards of Papal rule Force, Terror, 
 Cruelty, Flames, Threats, Thunders captive, sad and 
 hopeless, following the triumphant chariot. 
 
 1 Litters and Papers, XIII, part II, 1036.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 
 
 247 
 
 "May Christ long keep you safe to ornament our state 
 and make plain our gospel." 
 
 How far Cromwell was moved by conviction in thus 
 promoting Protestant opinions is difficult to determine. 
 His early literary friends, with the exception of Lord Mor- 
 ley, had moved toward heresy as well as schism, and 
 Cromwell may have moved with them. In any case we 
 may assume that he thought more of England than of 
 theology. Probably he concluded that, if England was 
 to be kept from connection with Rome, she must not 
 only break with the mediaeval Papacy, but also with some 
 doctrines of the scholastic theology, for the two hang 
 so closely together that it is hard to separate them. And 
 he understood that if any permanent alliance was to 
 be formed in Germany, some concession must be made 
 to the doctrinal prepossessions of the Lutherans. 
 
 Now the King was not at all inclined to rapid diver- 
 gence from old theological opinions. He piqued himself 
 on his knowledge of theology. He hated Luther, who, 
 in controversy some years before, had handled him with- 
 out gloves. And he was so adverse to heresy that Crom- 
 well had not been able in 1531 to get him to have any deal- 
 ings with Tyndale, in spite of the strong support to theo- 
 ries of absolute power given to kings by God contained in 
 Tyndale's book. In protecting men who held opinions 
 denounced by the Act of Six Articles, Cromwell was play- 
 ing the dangerous part of forcing the hand of the King, a 
 thing which Henry always deeply resented. 
 
 In addition, Cromwell's policy had made Henry un- 
 comfortable, and that had come to be in his eyes the 
 worst possible offense. To cement the German alliance, 
 Henry, a widower since 1537, had married Anne, sister
 
 248 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 of the Duke of Cleves, whose rich and fertile domains in 
 the Rhine country, on the borders of the Netherlands 
 and Germany, made him a sort of diplomatic centre for 
 any anti-imperial European alliance. Before Cromwell 
 came Into power the advantages of marriage into this fam- 
 ily, whose eldest daughter was wife of the Elector 
 of Saxony, head of the defensive League of Lutheran 
 Princes, had been laid before the King in a memorial of 
 Herman Ring (May, 1530). The King had been told 
 that Anne was very beautiful and, satisfied with the 
 reports and a portrait painted by Holbein, had agreed 
 to the marriage. When she came to England, a glance 
 made plain that she was not at all beautiful. The 
 King at first sight took a great dislike to her, and 
 tried hard to get out of keeping his promise to 
 make her his wife. Cromwell pointed out how im- 
 possible this was, and he reluctantly went through the 
 ceremony. But woe to the man who forced him to do 
 what he disliked. An intense irritation gathered in his 
 heart. And the desire to get rid of Anne was increased 
 by his liking for Katherine Howard, a pretty young niece 
 of the Duke of Norfolk. Gardiner, Bishop of Winches- 
 ter, head of the orthodox clerical party and Cromwell's 
 bitterest opponent, gave the King opportunity to meet 
 Anne's rival in his palace. 1 Cromwell was aware of his 
 danger, but saw no way to avoid it. Sir Thomas Wrio- 
 thesley, one of the King's secretaries, deposed that five 
 months after the marriage, "He asked Lord Cromwell 
 to devise some way for the relief of the King, for if he 
 
 1 Letters and Papers, XVI, page 114, and Letters from Richard Hillis, Zurich 
 Lttters, Vol. I, page 200.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 249 
 
 remained in this grief and trouble they should all one day 
 smart for it To which Lord Cromwell answered that it 
 was true, but it was a great matter. 'Marry,' said Sir 
 Thomas, 'I grant, but let the remedy be searched for.' 
 'Well,' said Lord Cromwell, and broke off." 
 
 The French Ambassador perceived that a fight for the 
 control of the state had begun. The party of reaction, 
 with Gardiner and Norfolk as its leaders, and the radical 
 progressive party, under Cromwell, had locked arms for 
 a battle to the death. The orthodoxy of Henry, his dis- 
 like for Anne, his growing passion for pretty Katherine 
 were strong cards held by Gardiner. But Cromwell was 
 an old player and it looked for a moment as if he would 
 win. On the ist of June, the French Ambassador reports 
 the Bishop of Chichester in the Tower on a charge of 
 treason and adds : "A trustworthy person says he heard 
 from Cromwell that there were still five bishops who 
 ought to be treated thus, whose names, however, cannot 
 yet be learned ; unless they are those who lately shook the 
 credit of Master Cromwell so that he was very near com- 
 ing to grief. Things are brought to such a pass that 
 either Cromwell's party or the Bishop of Winchester's 
 must succumb. Although both are in great authority 
 and favour of the King, their master, still the course of 
 things seems to incline to Cromwell's side, as Winches- 
 ter's chief friend, the Bishop of Chichester, is down." * 
 
 On the /th of June the Bishop of Chichester wrote to 
 Cromwell a letter from the Tower showing an inclination 
 to be used against the leaders of the clericals. 1 Then the 
 frightened opposition struck a blow which they must have 
 
 1 Letters and Papers, XV, pages 351, 360.
 
 250 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 plotted some days before. On the loth of June Crom- 
 well was arrested for treason at the meeting of the Royal 
 Council. 
 
 He recognized in an instant that the ground was 
 countermined beneath his feet by some false but plausible 
 witness. A charge of treason against Cromwell, who 
 lived to exalt the throne, was ridiculous. As he saw his 
 work undone by the tricky but incapable Norfolk and the. 
 able but reactionary Winchester, he flung his cap on the 
 ground in sudden wrath, appealing to their consciences 
 whether he was a traitor, and bidding them not let him 
 languish long in prison. The French Ambassador under- 
 stood it perfectly as a faction fight "between this King's 
 ministers who are trying to destroy each other. Crom- 
 well's party seemed the stronger lately, but it seems quite 
 overthrown by the taking of the said Lord Cromwell, 
 who was chief of his band." J The King sent the am- 
 bassador word that : "He wished by all possible means to 
 lead back religion to the way of truth. Cromwell, as 
 attached to the German Lutherans, had always favored 
 the doctors who preached such erroneous opinions, and 
 that recently, warned by some of his principal servants to 
 reflect that he was working against the instructions of the 
 King and the Act of Parliament, he said that the affair 
 would soon be brought to such a pass that the King 
 with all his power could not prevent it, but rather his 
 own party would be so strong that he would make the 
 King descend to the new doctrines even if he had to take 
 arms against him." 2 
 
 The King's irritation, caused by dislike for Anne and 
 
 and Letters and Papers, XV, 766, 767.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 251 
 
 liking for Katherine, had increased, while at the same 
 time the peace of the Duke of Cleves with the Emperor, 
 and a truce between Charles and the French King made 
 Henry fear that the marriage he hated was a political 
 mistake. His distaste for heresy deepened. And at the 
 psychological moment, when the unconscious dislike for 
 the minister who had been the means of making him un- 
 comfortable was ready to burst into the fury of a selfish 
 man who is crossed, a sudden false accusation evoked the 
 terrible pride of the King. Rich, Chancellor of the Court 
 of Augmentations, and Nicholas Throgmorton, with 
 whom Cromwell had long been at odds, accused him of 
 having said two years before : "If the King would turn 
 from it (the promotion of the Protestant doctrine), yet I 
 would not turn; and if the King did turn and all his 
 people, I would fight in the field in mine own person with 
 my sword in my hand against him and all others." They 
 added that he pulled out his dagger with the words : "Or 
 else this dagger thrust me to the heart, if I would not die 
 in that quarrel against them all." 
 
 To have desired insurrection against the Crown was 
 against all Cromwell's ideas, to have plotted a hopeless 
 rebellion was utterly at variance with his sagacity, to 
 have expressed his intent before a personal enemy like 
 Throgmorton was a lack of caution impossible in one who 
 had so long walked with firm step the slippery corridors 
 of Henry's palaces. A son of Cromwell's grandchild 
 informed Fuller that, when told by Rich and Throgmor- 
 ton that he had an accuser of want of fidelity, he had 
 replied, "Were he here now I would strike my dagger into 
 his heart."
 
 252 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 Cromwell might have said this. He was not fool 
 enough to have said the other before such witnesses, 1 
 even in the highly improbable event of feeling it. Like 
 Sir Thomas More, Cromwell accused Rich of plain per- 
 jury. 
 
 Whether distortion or sheer invention, the false 
 witness served its purpose. The King at once 
 believed it, though later he came to think it false. 
 Cromwell had forced him into a hated marriage. He 
 had encouraged heresy when the King loved orthodoxy. 
 Henry had unconsciously wanted an excuse for a nervous 
 discharge of rage which might relieve his irritated ego- 
 tism. He stripped his favorite of all his dignities, and 
 every incapable scion of a noble house In England rejoiced 
 that the "base knave" who had risen to the head of the 
 English Government, because he was the most capable 
 man of affairs in it, was, in accordance with royal edict, to 
 be spoken of as "the shearman." The contemporary 
 chronicler tells us that "many lamented" his arrest, but 
 "more rejoiced, and especially such as had been religious 
 men or favored religious persons, for they banqueted and 
 triumphed together that night, * * * and some, 
 fearing lest he should escape although he were impris- 
 oned, could not be merry. Others, who knew nothing 
 but truth by him, both lamented him and heartily prayed 
 for him." A Spaniard long resident in London, who 
 thought Cromwell "had better never been born," wrote of 
 his execution: "He was brought forth with a thousand 
 halberdiers as a revolt was feared, and if all who formerly 
 
 * H had been on bad terms with Throgmorton, and he knew perfectly the 
 part Rich had played in the conviction of More.
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 253 
 
 wore his livery and called themselves his servants had 
 been there they might easily have raised the city, so be- 
 loved was he by the common people." * 
 
 At the Courts of France, Spain and Rome the news of 
 his fall was received with great joy, which, curiously 
 enough, has been taken by some modern writers as an 
 indication of the injury his ministry had done to England. 
 From France came accusations apt to insure his death 
 that he had plotted to marry the Princess Mary and seize 
 the Crown. No pretense was ever made of sending the 
 promised proofs when the King asked for them after 
 Cromwell's death. 
 
 From that death nothing could save him. For many 
 generations later little stood between a fallen minister and 
 the scaffold. A threat of the axe was the ancient equiva- 
 lent of a vote of want of confidence. From Wolsey, who 
 died on his way to death, the list is long of fallen rulers 
 of England who saw the scaffold on their path. More, 
 Cromwell, Norfolk, Seymour of Sudeley, Somerset, 
 Northumberland, Norfolk, Buckingham, Strafford, 
 Charles I, Sir Henry Vane, Clarendon, Danby, Shaftes- 
 bury and the Councilors of James II, all met death or 
 looked hard upon the axe. During a century and a half, 
 on the average, once in ten years a leader of the English 
 state died on the scaffold or was in danger of it. None 
 of these men, with the possible exception of Northumber- 
 land, could be convicted or attainted of treason by a 
 modern jury or Parliament. Cromwell was therefore 
 only one in a long list of those who came to the steps of 
 
 *A chronicle of Henry VIII of England, translated by M. A. S. Hume. 
 London, 1889.
 
 254 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 the scaffold by the violence of English political parties. 
 
 He understood that his one hope of mercy lay in the 
 will of the King, and tried by the most abject efforts to 
 placate the diseased egotism he knew so well. It was his 
 last card in the game of life, and he played it with the 
 same lack of dignity which his antagonist, the Duke of 
 Norfolk, head of the English aristocracy, showed when 
 his turn came. Cromwell got nothing by his abject ap- 
 peal, except that the title and estates were left undisturbed 
 to his son, which was, perhaps, all he hoped. 
 
 The men of the sixteenth century often died better than 
 they lived. There is no particular reason to doubt the 
 essential authenticity of Cromwell's prayer on the scaffold, 
 in which he humbly repents of all his sins, trusting in the 
 mercy of God, and asking that the righteousness of Christ 
 might hide and cover all his unrighteousness. Those sins 
 were many. But, to put his career against the back- 
 ground of his times, and look at it with the eyes of a man 
 who believes in God and righteousness rather than with 
 those of an ecclesiastic who believes that the world gets 
 at God and righteousness only by a church establishment, 
 is to see that there was in them no peculiar tinge of sinister 
 wickedness. He was the most active servant the Tudors 
 found in destroying mediaeval institutions. He stood for 
 a career open to talents and the energies of England, go- 
 ing out in the light of the new learning and the new pa- 
 triotism, into those paths of thought, of industry, of ad- 
 venture, which have brought the men who speak the Eng- 
 lish tongue into their inheritance. Therefore the distant 
 North and the ancient nobility hated him. But those who 
 knew him best liked him most. His gratitude was pro-
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 255 
 
 verbial. Prosperity did not make him forget the friends 
 of his adversity. He struck without scruple at those who 
 opposed his plans, but he did not willingly shed blood 
 which seemed needless, and he helped many of the weak. 
 He took bribes and sold his influence, but it is nowhere 
 recorded of him that he ground the faces of the poor. 
 He did not die, like Wolsey, unlamented. He was "be- 
 loved of the common people." His arrest had been secret 
 and sudden because of fear of trouble in the city. His 
 scaffold was guarded to prevent a rescue. A war of 
 broadside ballads arose over his death which had to be 
 suppressed by the council. 1 The joy at Madrid, Paris and 
 Rome was broken by laments from Germany and the 
 Netherlands over the deeds of "the English Nero" and 
 the martyrdom of the friend of "the Gospel." For in 
 those days nobody judged a man by what he was or what 
 he did, but by his attitude toward their faction in religion 
 and politics. 2 
 
 It was easier for the King to get rid of a good servant 
 than to find another. Wolsey, More and Cromwell were 
 the ablest men he raised to high office in the State. With- 
 in a year of Cromwell's death, the Spanish Ambassador 
 wrote : "The King has no confidence in his ministers, and 
 sometimes even reproaches them with Cromwell's death, 
 saying that upon light pretexts, by false accusation, they 
 made him put to death the most faithful servant he ever 
 had." 3 The last part of Henry's reign was the least suc- 
 cessful. He began to shed blood which, from any point 
 
 1 Publications of Society of Antiquaries, London. 
 
 1 It is impossible to write the history of the sixteenth century fairly until 
 this fact is more clearly and widely recognized than it has been. 
 8 Letters and Papers, XVI, 590, page 285.
 
 256 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 of view, was superfluous, so that the French Ambassador 
 reports : "Cromwell was reckoned the sole deviser of the 
 death of so many people, but it appears since that he was 
 not altogether author of that piteous tragedy, but rather 
 played his part as it was rehearsed to him." * No one 
 could be found to manage the English finances. The de- 
 basement of the coinage, continued during Henry's reign 
 before Cromwell came to power, suspended as long as he 
 had influence, went on again worse than ever, until Eliza- 
 beth made her generation pay for the mistakes of their 
 forefathers by returning it to purity and beginning to 
 build up again the ruined credit of England. 2 
 
 Cromwell left no account of his motives and no descrip- 
 tion of his policy. He shed without remorse the blood of 
 men who, if they could have gained the power they asked 
 the Spanish King and the Italian Pope to help them gain, 
 would have killed him without an instant's hesitation and 
 thought it God's service to destroy all his work. He in- 
 creased by every means the power of the throne, because, 
 in common with many of the ablest statesmen and writers 
 of the age, he believed an absolute prince to be the only 
 security for national peace and national prosperity. But 
 he did not try to strengthen the throne by creating a stand- 
 ing army or disarming the people. He defended his policy 
 by the pulpit and the printing press. He used the arts so 
 long familiar to English ministers to manage Parliament, 
 but he appealed to the consent of the nation through it, 
 and increased the potential of liberty. He broke Eng- 
 land from all connection with the Papacy. He fostered 
 
 1 Letters and Papers, XVI, page 289. 
 
 * Schanz Englische Handelspolitik, etc. Vol. II, Abtheilung, II, IV t
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL 257 
 
 the Renascence against medievalism, the New Learning 
 against the Old Learning. He reduced the Welsh and 
 Scotch borders to order. He helped the destruction of 
 local jurisdictions and made it possible to bring them un- 
 der the common law. He maintained the stability of the 
 succession by a policy which defended the loyalty to the 
 throne that carried England through the sixteenth century 
 without a great civil war. He finished the breaking of the 
 feudal nobility, eager to renew the War of the Roses, and 
 kept the path open to talents. He aided trade, retrieved the 
 finances and stopped the adulteration of the coinage. He 
 swept monasticism from England as an anachronism 
 which had outgrown its usefulness, and used half its 
 wealth for national purposes. He broke the temporal 
 power of the clergy and put the national Church under the 
 same control as all other national affairs. 
 
 Much of this is so opposed to certain theories of Church 
 and State that it seemed to their advocates a diabolical 
 work, even as it seemed to their opponents a blessed 
 work. The truth is that Thomas Cromwell was neither 
 martyr of Protestantism nor Satan's agent to attack the 
 Church; but a statesman working hard to give England 
 an efficient government, and to guide her safely during 
 the difficult transition from the mediaeval to the modern 
 state. Close mouthed and unscrupulous as he was, there 
 was nothing particularly mysterious about his methods 
 nor uniquely sinister about his personality. He 
 sought to advance his own fortune, but evidently he 
 had larger aims. Surely labors so consistent and efficient 
 must have been inspired by some other motive and reason 
 than the greed of a crafty adventurer flattering a tyrant,
 
 258 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 And if, without theological prejudice or ecclesiastical bias, 
 we judge him for what he was, a person whose ideals 
 were predominantly secular, we find him morally neither 
 better nor worse than the average man of his age ; if we 
 judge him by what he did, it seems difficult to deny him a 
 place among the most capable statesmen of all ages.
 
 IV 
 MAXIMILIAN I 
 
 The map of the present Empire of Austria shows at a 
 glance that it consists in the main of three quite distinct 
 lands. The first is a group of seven provinces containing 
 the Alpine ranges east of a line drawn from the Lake of 
 Constance to the Lake of Garda. Tirol, the most moun- 
 tainous of these provinces, extends toward the west be- 
 tween Italy and Bavaria and is shaped, to the complaisant 
 imagination, somewhat like the handle of the figure of the 
 spade on a playing card. At the eastern extremity of Tirol, 
 the border of the Empire runs sharply north and south and 
 the six other provinces of this group cover the foothills 
 until they reach the banks of the Danube on the north 
 and the lowlands on the east. The figure of the spade is 
 completed chiefly by two provinces, Hungary, a vast low 
 plain stretching from the edge of the Alps to the Car- 
 pathians and drained by the Danube; Bohemia, a high 
 plain sending its waters by the Elbe toward the north- 
 west. The distinction between this low plain drained into 
 the Black Sea, this high plain drained into the North Sea 
 and this mountain land to the south and west, is made 
 more marked by a glance at the names of the towns on 
 the map. In Tirol and the provinces which cover the 
 Alpine foot-hills, they are German. In Hungary, they 
 are for the most part, Magyar. In Bohemia, two-thirds 
 
 259
 
 260 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 of them are Czech, for the population of this triple empire 
 is about a quarter German, a half Slav and a quarter 
 Magyar. 
 
 The combination of these three lands under the power 
 of one ruler whose descendants took the name and state 
 of Emperor of Austria, was to a great extent the work 
 of Maximilian I, Duke of Austria from 1493-1519. And 
 at the same time that he assured to his descendants the 
 base for the future Empire of Austria in the east, his 
 matrimonial diplomacy won for them in the west the 
 provinces of the Netherlands, the crown of Spain, South 
 America and the dominant influence in Italy. Thus, east 
 and west, he saw his two grandsons, Charles and Fer- 
 dinand, heirs of a vast group of possessions artificially 
 combined by war and dynastic marriages. 
 
 Between these two groups of the possessions 
 of the House of Hapsburg, lay the German Em- 
 pire, to whose crown Maximilian was elected. Its 
 position and population destined it to be, not an 
 artificial state, bound together, merely by the right of 
 its head to rule the several parts, but a real state, resting 
 on the desire of its people to have a common organ to 
 work out the national destiny, a supreme ruler who might 
 incarnate common aspirations. But it was three hundred 
 and fifty years after the death of Maximilian before the 
 Germans living in the plains and valleys draining into the 
 North and Baltic Seas, became a nation. It is hardly fair 
 to say that the blame for the weakness of Germany lies 
 at the door of the Emperor Maximilian in the same sense 
 that the credit for the splendor of the dynasty of the 
 Hapsburgs must be given to him. True, he seemed to
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 261 
 
 have a great opportunity, for he was chosen as leader of 
 the Germans at a time when all classes of the people 
 wished a reformation of the Empire, an anachronism too 
 much affected by modern conditions to remain mediaeval 
 and too mediaeval to be easily transformed into a modern 
 state. But the hearts that turned towards him were not 
 single. Great numbers of Germans, however much they 
 might talk about the glory of Germany, were, when the 
 test came, willing to barter for a mess of pottage mingled 
 of local pride and petty jealousy, their national birthright. 
 The task his office laid upon him was perhaps too hard 
 for any man to accomplish, but not too hard for any man 
 to try. And Maximilian did little that was wise or effi- 
 cient to unify the inchoate confederacy of the Empire into 
 a German nation. When his interests as hereditary Duke 
 came into conflict with the advantages of Germany, he 
 set no example of self sacrifice. He turned his craft, his 
 energy, his skill into the channels of dynastic gain. He 
 never poured them out with manifest devotion for the 
 good of Germany. And to read through the mass of 
 his writings and letters, is to receive an ineffaceable im- 
 pression that he would rather have been the forefather of 
 a splendid dynasty than the ruler of a nation whose great- 
 ness narrowed the limits of the power of his house. To 
 one in whose mind the interests of a nation take precedence 
 of the interests of a dynasty, it seems that Maximilian 
 gained his dearest desire at the expense of his plainest 
 duty. 
 
 It is not to be supposed, however, that this was a con- 
 scious dereliction. In spite of the fact that he had re- 
 ceived a smattering of the new ideas which, during his
 
 262 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 lifetime, were spreading from Italy over Europe, Maxi- 
 milian always remained in his tastes and instincts a man 
 of the old order. Whenever the superficial polish of his 
 humanism was scratched, the knight of the fourteenth 
 century showed beneath. When egotism plunged him 
 into war, he always fought with a good conscience for his 
 "rights," and it is doubtful whether it ever crossed his 
 mind that any who opposed him might have had wrongs. 
 
 When he acceded to the Empire in 1493, he had vic- 
 toriously defended the great possessions of his son against 
 France on the west and reconquered the lands of his 
 father from Slav and Magyar on the east. When he died 
 a quarter of a century later he was a pathetic figure with- 
 out influence or authority. His grandson, Charles, was 
 manifestly to become the most powerful ruler Europe had 
 seen for seven hundred years, but for Maximilian himself, 
 the founder of this greatness, there was none to do him 
 reverence. 
 
 And the last state of the German Empire was worse 
 than the first. Her soil was ready for the seeds of the 
 selfish greed of petty dynasties and the brutal hatred bred 
 by controversy over religious opinions. The ruler Maxi- 
 milian's policy had left for the Empire, was too busy 
 managing Spain and the Netherlands and Italy to meet 
 these evils with an eye single to German interests. They 
 sapped the very roots of patriotism, and finally a century 
 after Maximilian's death, the harvest of the dynastic pol- 
 icy of the Hapsburgs was reaped by the German people 
 as it had before been reaped by the Spaniard, the Dutch- 
 man and the Italian. The sense of German brotherhood 
 was lost in thirty years of savage civil war. While from
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 263 
 
 every side greedy adventurers, Slav and Magyar, Swede, 
 Dane, Dutchman, Englishman, Frenchman, Spaniard, 
 Italian and Swiss, poured into the German Empire for 
 plunder and bloodshed. 
 
 The causes of this splendid success and this marked 
 failure, are not all to be found in Maximilian's capacity 
 and character, and his success is due more to himself and 
 less to fate and circumstance than his failure. A great 
 mass of literary work helps one who can read between the 
 lines, to estimate his ability and perceive his purposes, and 
 the light his writings throw upon his deeds, seems to show 
 that his weaknesses conspired with circumstances to work 
 out failure and his capacities moulded events to lead to 
 triumphs. This brief sketch attempts to set what he did 
 against the background of what he was. 
 
 Maximilian's mother was Eleanor, Princess of Portu- 
 gal. At the time of his birth in 1459, his father, Fred- 
 erick III, Duke of Austria, had been for nineteen years 
 Emperor of the German Empire, an honour to which he 
 was chosen by the electors after the death of his distant 
 cousin, Albert II. Frederick III prized the title of 
 Emperor, for he clutched at every mark of distinction 
 with an ambition which seemed more like an avarice for 
 dignities than a desire for power. But nothing except a 
 powerful personality wielding great resources could make 
 the office anything but a splendid burden of anxieties. 
 The bonds of the mediaeval Empire were decayed and no 
 new ones took their place. "The Holy Roman Empire 
 of the German Nation" gave its Emperor neither a treas- 
 ury nor an army. There was no common law and no 
 force to impose order upon a large class of people who
 
 264 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 deemed plundering and killing for private revenge a right 
 of freeborn Germans. The imperial crown brought to 
 him who wore it no power to fulfil its duties. He must 
 either neglect the tasks for which it stood or rely for their 
 accomplishment on his own resources. Frederick chose 
 the easier way of neglect. For Frederick always took the 
 line of least resistance, except when he showed the ob- 
 stinate tenacity of a turtle which seizes something it 
 wants and then retires so far as possible into its shell. 
 
 Even with the desire to rule the Empire, it is doubtful 
 whether he would have had the capacity. He could not 
 remain master of his own hereditary dominions, and at 
 two years of age the infant Maximilian was shut up in 
 Vienna besieged by his uncle. The first memories of the 
 child thus cradled in the lap of war with cannon shots for 
 lullabies, were of the hardships and perils of a soldier. 
 In later years Maximilian often recalled a second siege he 
 endured in the castle of Vienna. The boy, charmed by 
 the noise of the cannon, ran out to join his father who 
 was overseeing repairs to the walls, and the huge stone 
 of a bombard, breaking at that moment through the re- 
 pairs, barely missed both. 1 The coarse bread to which 
 even the Emperor and Empress were reduced, was very 
 distasteful to the pampered lad. He begged his mother 
 with tears for something nice. Word of the little prince's 
 distress reached a young man from Transylvania, a stu- 
 dent of the University in the insurgent city, and, at the 
 peril of his life, he smuggled into the ditch around the 
 fortress some partridges and other game. Thence 
 
 1 Latin Autobiography Jahrbucher der Kunst historischen Sammlungen. Vol. 
 VI, page 423 (35).
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 265 
 
 he was drawn up into the castle by a rope and gave his 
 dainties to the young prince. 1 Maximilian, as grateful 
 for benefits as he was unforgetful of injuries, 2 rewarded 
 and always remembered the kindness. 
 
 The boy's thoughts and ambitions all turned toward 
 war. The glimmer of armor and weapons was the first 
 thing that drew his attention and, while still in his nurse's 
 arms, whenever he saw a dagger he cried until he could 
 touch it with his hand. His favourite playthings were 
 little figures of jousting knights, two of which are still to 
 be seen in the New Museum at Vienna. 3 When he was 
 larger he begged successfully for some play cannon. Re- 
 fused ammunition, he formed a conspiracy with one of 
 his comrades to steal it. The two lads smuggled it out 
 of the powder magazine in folds of their clothes, crammed 
 the play cannon to the mouth and were ready for a grand 
 celebration. Their smutted faces excited the suspicion 
 of an attendant, the celebration was suppressed and, as 
 Maximilian afterwards thought, his life was saved. 4 
 
 So much in love was he with the life of a soldier and 
 hunter that it was hard to get him to stick to his book. 
 He hung around the stables and took fencing lessons from 
 the guards. He organized the boys of the court into 
 opposing bands and fought mimic battles. Sometimes, 
 fetching a horse from the stables, he led a wild band of 
 youngsters in and out through the courts and even the 
 
 1 Cuspinian Opera, page 602. 
 
 2 Alberi Relazioni degli ambasciatori Veneti al Senato. Firenze, 1839. Serie 
 I, VoL VI, page 27. 
 
 Reproduced in Jahrbucher der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen, etc., Vol. 
 XIV, page 10. Also shown in a picture of his boyhood made by Maximilian's 
 order for Weiss Kunig and reproduced in Vol. VI with that work. 
 
 4 Latin Autobiography Jahrbucher der Kh. S., etc., Vol. VI, page 423.
 
 266 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 halls of the castle. He slipped his hounds on the cats 
 and calves and his father's pet animals. Nothing short 
 of threats of a sound thrashing would break him of a 
 persistent fancy for stalking the castle chickens with bow 
 and arrows. 1 
 
 The lad promised to be worthy of the name Maximilian, 
 which was given him in the hope that he might unite the 
 skill and success of Fabius Maximus and Paulus ^Emilius. 2 
 And in all the exercises which became a knight, Maxi- 
 milian developed considerable, in some, remarkable skill. 
 An able horseman he could hold his own with other princes 
 in contests of the tournament, though one does not find, 
 outside of his own books or poems written to please him, 
 a record of his supreme skill in those dangerous games. 
 He could drive the shaft of an arrow without any iron on 
 it through two finger breadths of larch plank. 3 One of 
 his captains tells how, finding the Nuremberg contingent 
 drawn up for exercise and review during the Swiss war, 
 the Emperor got off his horse and beat all the gun masters 
 in shooting with the cannon. 4 He was a noted hunter, 
 killed huge boars single handed with the sword and fol- 
 lowed the chamois to the topmost crags. And in all these 
 accomplishments he used brains as well as strength and 
 skill. Like the great Italian soldier of fortune, Jacopo 
 Sforza, he appreciated the danger of a hard-mouthed 
 
 1 Grunpeck Die Geschichte Friedrichs III und Maximilian I. Geschicht- 
 schreiber der Deutschen Vorzeit. Zweite Ausgabe Fiinfzehntes Jahrhundert. 
 Band 3, page 40. 
 
 1 Weiss Kunig, page 49. 
 
 Weiss Kunig, page 86. 
 
 * Pirkheimer Schweizer Krieg. Herausgegeben von Karl Ruch. Munchen, 
 1896.
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 267 
 
 horse and invented a new bit. 1 When someone who knew 
 that he supervised the stables himself asked him why he 
 did not leave things to his master of horse, Maximilian 
 answered, "A nail holds the shoe, a shoe holds a horse, 
 a horse holds a man, a man holds a castle, a castle holds a 
 land, a land holds a kingdom." a 
 
 He had a knowledge of casting cannon and invented 
 several types of guns. 3 He practised powder making and 
 showed an armorer in Innsbruck how to fit a new sort of 
 screw to a cuirass. 4 He was never content to stupidly 
 follow accepted methods but tried eagerly and often suc- 
 cessfully to improve them. As a boy he seems to have 
 been less apt at his books. At the age of twenty-seven 
 he spoke to the Reichstag at Frankfort. His father was 
 very much astonished at his ability, and said to those 
 around him, "I don't know how he can read or talk Latin 
 for certainly at the age of twelve years I was afraid he 
 would turn out either a mute or a fool." 6 
 
 Maximilian himself had mingled memories of his first 
 learning : When a man he wrote to Innsbruck asking to 
 have the Latin grammar he used as a boy, found and sent 
 to him together with his blank book of Latin exercises, 6 
 but he had a severe judgment for his first teacher. One 
 of his biographers says he heard him wish Peter were 
 alive and he would make him repent of having been a 
 
 1 Cuspinian, page 614. The elder Sforza brought up his more celebrated son, 
 afterwards Duke of Milan, on three precepts. One was, "Never ride a hard- 
 mouthed horse." 
 
 Weiss Kunig, page 106. 
 
 * Max. I vertraulicher briefwechael mit Sigmund Pruschenk. von Krauss 
 Innsbruck, 1875. page 90. 
 
 4 Jahrbucher der Kh. Samm., tc., Vol. XIII. 
 
 E Cuspinian, page 602. 
 
 Jahrbucher Kh. S., etc., Vol. I, part 2, XXXVII.
 
 268 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 bad teacher. "We owe much," the Emperor continued, 
 "to good tutors but bad tutors ought to be soundly 
 thrashed for making us waste the precious hours of youth 
 and teaching us what it takes great pains to unlearn." l 
 
 In later years he made up for his early sluggishness 
 and his mind became active like his body. 
 
 The influence of the Renascence was just beginning to 
 reach Germany at the time of Maximilian's birth. By the 
 time he became a youth new ideals were influencing meth- 
 ods of education. The time was drawing near when all 
 the strongest German students were to look longingly to- 
 ward Italy as the promised land of scholars ; an Eldorado 
 of learning where new and untold treasures were to be 
 found. Already the suspicion was rife that a better 
 training than the traditional one was to be had and 
 that it was useful to those who were born to wealth and 
 station. Princes and rich merchants who had travelled 
 began to desire this "New Learning" for their sons in- 
 stead of the "Old Learning" of the scholastics. 
 
 Maximilian did not receive a training in this New 
 Learning according to the Ideals of its advocates, the 
 humanists such a training as Lorenzo de' Medici had 
 for example. At eighteen Commines thought him very 
 badly educated. A better Latin was of course a most 
 intimate sign of the New Learning as opposed to the Old. 
 Guarino, Vittorino da Feltre, or any good Italian master 
 of the new school, would never have sent Maximilian out 
 capable of composing the Latin he dictated. For to get 
 away from what poets and court scholars wrote about 
 Maximilian's Latin and read it, is to see at once that "a 
 
 1 Cuspinian, page 602.
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 269 
 
 more perfect monk's Latin could not be conceived." 1 But 
 though Maximilian did not receive a humanist education, 
 his quick mind was much affected by the stirring in the air 
 of thought which the Italian Renascence was producing 
 in Germany. The most unmixed triumph of his life 
 was his management of the University of Vienna. He 
 reorganized it so as to subject it to his own control, put 
 men of the New Learning into many of the chairs and left 
 it at his death with five thousand students and a very high 
 reputation for scholarship. 2 And the account of his educa- 
 tion given in Weiss Kunig shows plainly that, from the 
 time when he abandoned the cloddish attitude of his 
 boyhood, the widening of the circle of human interests 
 which produced the New Learning and was fostered by it, 
 appealed with constantly increasing force to his mind. 
 These influences did not change Maximilian. He always 
 remained a mediaevalist and never became a man of the 
 Renascence. The name "last of the knights," applied 
 to him is open to no objection except that there were 
 many more like him long after his death. The result of 
 the education he worked out for himself was to graft into 
 the stock of that mediaeval mind, producing by its chief 
 thoughts results like those of his ancestors, some bizarre 
 fruits of the New Learning, and to stimulate in him that 
 thirst for every and any sort of distinction, which was 
 the dominant passion of the men of the Italian Renas- 
 cence. 
 
 Throughout his whole life Maximilian hated idleness. 
 When he was not working or actively playing he was 
 
 1 Hermann Klaje. Die Schlacht bei Guinegate. Griefswald, 1890. 
 * Aschbach Geschichte der Wiener Universitat, etc. Wien, 1865.
 
 270 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 learning. He took an interest in everything with an 
 energy which suggests restlessness and perhaps accounts 
 for some of his shortcomings. A restless mind lacks grip 
 and trains itself away from the patient reflection which 
 makes a man wise and efficient. 
 
 Whether Maximilian suffered from over activity or not, 
 certain it is that out of his hatred of idleness there came a 
 versatility worthy of note even in a generation noted for 
 versatile men. To inventive skill in mechanic arts he 
 added competence as a draughtsman. He was proud of 
 his ability to design mummeries or costume dances, in 
 which he delighted to join. He left a record of his suc- 
 cess in managing the kitchen and the preparation of great 
 banquets. He planned over one hundred books 1 on every 
 possible subject from prayer to fencing and, with the as- 
 sistance of his secretaries, wrote thirty. He attended to 
 the details of the work of his councilors until he drove at 
 least one of them to the verge of distraction. 2 It is said 
 he could talk to the captain of his mercenaries in Wend- 
 ish, Flemish, English, Spanish, French and Italian, and 
 dictate letters to his scribes in several languages at once. 
 A number of letters written in French to his daughter 
 Margaret have survived, and if his other languages were 
 no better than his French, his captains must sometimes 
 have found him hard to understand. But it was a time 
 when a little knowledge of a foreign language went a long 
 way, and Maximilian's linguistic accomplishments were 
 
 1 See the account of various MSS. notes and memorandums of Maximilian 
 in Das Fischereibuch Kaiser Max. I. Dr. Michael Mayer. Innsbruck, 1901, 
 page 1, note b. 
 
 Pruschenk vertraulicher brief wechsel, etc. Letter from Cyprian von 
 Serntein to Paul von Liechtenstein.
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 271 
 
 perhaps as sound as those of most of the princely prodigies 
 of the sixteenth century. Germany possessed no capital 
 and her Emperor no palace. Therefore, these activities 
 of mind and body were interpolated among ceaseless jour- 
 neys, and the energy they implied survived the hardships 
 of repeated campaigns. 
 
 Maximilian's active career as a governor and leader of 
 men, began in his nineteenth year with his marriage to 
 Mary of Burgundy. Her father, the Duke of Burgundy, 
 had, by inheritance, marriage and conquest, joined a num- 
 ber of territories to form a triangular principality based 
 on the North Sea and driven like a wedge between France 
 and Germany. He created a fine army and planned to dis- 
 member France and become the dominant ruler of Europe ; 
 king of a state reaching from the North Sea to the Medi- 
 terranean; father of a dynasty more powerful than his 
 cousins, the Valois. A medievalist, he could not foresee 
 the conditions of a modern state and, when in three bat- 
 tles against the Swiss he annihilated his army and lost his 
 life, the elements of his future great kingdom threatened 
 to dissolve at once. 
 
 His daughter Mary, was at her father's death in 1477, 
 twenty years old. The richest heiress in Europe, her 
 hand had been sought by many suitors. Two months be- 
 fore his death, her father had written to her that he had 
 promised her hand to Maximilian, and already the duchess 
 had given him her heart. The young couple had never 
 met, but they exchanged pictures, and it was noted by the 
 Duchess' attendants that she took her medallion out 
 twenty times a day to look at it. The death of her father 
 added a heavy burden of trouble to the rich dowry of
 
 272 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 Mary. Louis XI, King of France, was her father's rival 
 and bitter enemy. On the ground that the King of 
 France was her feudal overlord, he claimed the right to 
 appoint her bridegroom, announced that she must marry 
 the dauphin, and proceeded to seize the Burgundian cities. 
 The burghers of the Netherland cities had been heavily 
 taxed by Mary's father to support the army with which 
 he served his boundless ambitions. They refused to 
 continue to pay the old rates, and demanded the restora- 
 tion of certain rights of self government which had been 
 forcibly taken from them, extending them for better 'de- 
 fense in the future. Mary, left without the means to con- 
 tinue her father's tyranny, was obliged to grant their de- 
 mands. The helpless girl immediately became the center 
 of intrigues woven by greedy men who wanted her dowry. 
 The King of England pressed the suit of his brother-in- 
 law. The King of France bribed two of her ambassa- 
 dors to back the cause of his son. The council of Ghent 
 promptly condemned them to death for falsehood and 
 treason, and their heads fell on the scaffold in spite of 
 Mary's earnest plea for mercy. Then the burghers tried 
 to force Mary to marry Duke Adolf of Cleves. 
 
 If Maximilian wanted his bride, it was the hour for 
 action. But never in his whole life did Maximilian move 
 quickly in great affairs. That Hapsburg's unwillingness 
 to reach a sharp decision and express it in action, appear- 
 ing in his father Frederick III, noticeable in his grandson, 
 Charles V, reaching the point of disease in the slow mov- 
 ing great grandson Philip II, beset Maximilian. On the 
 second of April, 1477, Frederick III issued a call to the 
 Princes of the Empire to meet at Easter and follow his
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 273 
 
 son to the Netherlands. The lagging lover had just re- 
 ceived this letter from his promised bride. It was brought 
 by a messenger whom he had sent back to Mary with a 
 jewel and a request for her colours to wear on his hel- 
 met : "My dear and friendly lord and brother, I greet 
 you from my whole heart. . . . You must not let 
 yourself doubt that I will yield obedience to the arrange- 
 ments made between us by my lord and father, now in 
 glory, and will be to you a true wife, and I do not doubt 
 that you will do the same. The bearer will tell you how 
 I am hemmed in and God, may He give us both what 
 our hearts desire, knows that I cannot talk to him as I 
 would like. I beg you not to remain away because of 
 the comfort and help you can bring to my lands when you 
 come and if you don't come, my lands can expect no 
 help or aid from you because I may be compelled to do 
 things that I should never want to do because I am forced 
 to do them and abandoned by you." On the twenty-first 
 of April there was a marriage by proxy, but still the hus- 
 band did not come, though the children in the street 
 cried out "Emperor, Emperor," and demanded their prince 
 Maximilian to save them from French conquest. At last 
 in the end of May the Prince was under way for the 
 journey. Two months later he had not gotten beyond 
 Cologne. Two causes helped this delay. The sluggish- 
 ness of the princes of the Empire in fulfilling their duties 
 and Maximilian's lack of money. His rich bride sent 
 money to meet him at Cologne and at last followed by 
 three of the Electors and many of the princes and nobles, 
 he set off on a slow ride of eighteen days across the low- 
 lands to Ghent,
 
 274 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 The city received him with ceremony and enthusiasm. 
 Fifteen hundred white clad burghers met him in stately 
 procession carrying two banners inscribed "Thou art our 
 Prince and our leader, fight our battle, and all that thou 
 sayest we will do." Mary, standing at the head of the 
 palace steps, received him with a kiss as he ascended by 
 torchlight. At five o'clock the next morning Maximilian, 
 in silver armour, rode again into the castle. In the chapel 
 his bride met him. She was clad in damask embroidered 
 in gold, and girt with a golden girdle set with jewels. She 
 wore a little ermine cloak over her shoulders and a rich 
 golden purse hung at her waist. On her head was the ducal 
 crown of Burgundy blazing with jewels. A papal legate 
 read mass. Then he took a bite from a baked cake and 
 Maximilian and Mary divided and ate it. Then they both 
 drank from the same beaker of red wine and stood man 
 and wife. 
 
 The bride whom politics had brought to Maximilian, 
 won an empire over his heart she never lost. This is the 
 way he describes her and his own life in a letter, written 
 four months after marriage, to his comrade left behind in 
 Vienna : "I have a pretty, virtuous wife that I am sat- 
 isfied with and give God thanks. She is as tall as the 
 Laxenbergerin but slender of body, much slenderer than 
 Rosina, and snow white. She has brown hair, a little nose, 
 a little head and face, brown eyes mixed with gray, clear 
 and pretty. The underlid of her eyes is somewhat relaxed 
 as if she had slept, but it is not very noticeable. The mouth 
 is a little high but clear and red. And besides there are 
 many girls prettier than I have ever seen together in my 
 life and merry. The women are not kept shut up in the
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 275 
 
 day time but only at night. The whole house is full of 
 women and girls, about forty of them. They can run 
 about the house everywhere all day long. The old lady, 
 our mother, is a fine old woman, very pleasant and good. 
 
 If we only had peace it would be a garden of roses 
 
 My wife is a thorough sportswoman with hawk and 
 hound. She has a wind hound that is very swift. It 
 sleeps generally all night in our room. Here everybody 
 goes to bed about twelve and gets up about eight. I am 
 the most miserable man in the world that I can't eat, 
 sleep, walk or joust because I have so much to do." 1 
 
 He might well complain of having much to do. The 
 Netherland cities were perhaps the richest in the world 
 outside of Italy. But though the burghers were able to 
 bear heavy taxes, they were not disposed to do so. Their 
 forefathers had been used to a voice in the use of public 
 moneys and the conduct of government, and the Flemings 
 were not so willing as Mary, to let the German boy who 
 had married her do as he pleased. Louis XI, with a 
 treasury and a powerful army at his command, was ready 
 to seize any portion of Mary's inheritance along the north- 
 eastern border he could get by force or bribery. War in 
 defence of these was a great injury to the trade of the 
 Flemish cities of the south, who not unnaturally objected 
 to spending their blood and money on a struggle which 
 brought them nothing but loss. In the northern provinces 
 two cruel factions, the Hooks and the Codfish, were en- 
 gaged in an obstinate feud. Each demanded Maximilian's 
 unreserved support to exterminate the other. And in addi- 
 tion, the inhabitants of the Duchy of Guelders on the east- 
 
 * Pruschenh vertraulicher briefwechsel, etc., page 27.
 
 276 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 ern border of the Netherlands had only submitted out of 
 fear to the rule of Charles, who bought the Duchy from 
 the noble who claimed to own it. The inhabitants, who 
 had never ratified the sale, preferred at Charles' death a 
 Duke of their own choosing and supported him against 
 Maximilian. 
 
 For two years after Maximilian married Mary, the 
 war with France over her inheritance came to nothing but 
 skirmishes and surprises interrupted by truces. It was 
 the summer of 1479 when the two armies met in pitched 
 battle. A council of war decided to attack the French 
 border fortress of Therouanne, and Maximilian started on 
 the invasion with a mixed force of English, Netherland, 
 Burgundian and German troops, amounting to twenty- 
 eight thousand. The bulk of the army was made up of 
 Flemish infantry, militia of the cities ; a good part of the 
 remainder were mercenaries. Scarcely was the siege be- 
 gun, when word came that the French army was within 
 three miles of Therouanne, evidently meaning to give 
 battle. It was difficult to receive an attack with a well 
 garrisoned hostile fortress on the flank; and an assault 
 upon the advancing enemy meant the passing of the Lys. 
 While the artillery and baggage crossed on the pontoons, 
 the infantry waded the river and mounted the hills of the 
 other bank to find themselves face to face with the French 
 drawn up in battle order, "their corselets and head pieces 
 glittering in the sun." They were about twenty-five thou- 
 sand strong. Maximilian formed his army with the Eng- 
 lish bowmen and German Schiitzen in front. Behind 
 them he placed the field guns, and in their rear the masses 
 of his pike-men in two columns. He took his own posi-
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 277 
 
 tion with his following of nobles in the last rank. He ad- 
 dressed his captains, bidding them fight bravely; and the 
 French leader also seems to have indulged in a flight of 
 oratory. All these arrangements took up the time until 
 two o'clock when artillery opened the battle. The French 
 answered by a flanking movement of the cavalry. The 
 inferior Burgundian cavalry tried to check it, and were 
 driven from the field in rout. Meantime the first lines of 
 Burgundian infantry had attacked, and the main body of 
 the French, whose leader was in hot pursuit of the routed 
 cavalry, left their strong position to meet them. Charg- 
 ing down the hill, they drove the English bowmen back, 
 took the cannon and charged the two columns of Flemish 
 infantry. They trembled and threatened to break. Then 
 Maximilian sprang from his horse and calling on his 
 nobles to follow, rushed into the ranks. The pikemen 
 rallied, rolled the enemy back through the guns and up 
 the hill, until they broke and fled, leaving their camp at 
 the mercy of the victors. Nearly half the French army 
 and many of their captains fell in the fight or were 
 slaughtered by the peasants in the rout. Maximilian 
 made no further use of the victory so gallantly won. Five 
 days after the battle he dismissed his army and withdrew 
 into Flanders with his booty. His wife rode out to meet 
 him and Maximilian, taking his infant son in his arms, 
 rode with her in triumph through the streets of Ghent 
 amid the shouts of the crowd. 
 
 Triumph brought him little rest. Louis XI continued 
 to inspire a border warfare, and factions, the Hooks in 
 the Dutch provinces, the native party in Guelders, French 
 partisans and democrats in Flanders, gave Maximilian
 
 278 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 few chances during the next three years to lay aside his 
 armour. Then in March of 1482 the great misfortune of 
 his life befell him. As they rode hawking in the meadows 
 near Bruges, the Duchess put her horse at a ditch, the ani- 
 mal fell and she received a fatal hurt. Maximilian broke 
 into such despair when Mary told him, "I feel we must 
 part," that she begged him to leave the room. "For so 
 it would be better for them both." She summoned the 
 knights of the Golden Fleece, the leading nobles of the 
 Netherlands, and solemnly swore them to be loyal to 
 her husband and support him as regent for her infant son. 
 Maximilian married twice afterwards but never forgot the 
 wife of his heart. In the great picture he planned to show 
 the triumphs of his life, his boyhood's bride and not the 
 wife of his maturity appeared at his side, and several of 
 his intimates have testified that to the time of his death he 
 could never mention Mary's name without the tears 
 springing to his eyes. 
 
 The loyalty she showed in the reception of her lover 
 had only increased during the five years of marriage, but 
 the loyalty with which the people of Flanders and the 
 other provinces greeted their young Duke had vanished. 
 The difficulties of government increased with Mary's 
 death, and for years Maximilian, either in person or by 
 lieutenants, waged almost ceaseless war against rebellious 
 peoples he claimed to rule in the name of his son. 
 
 To rule the Netherlands well was a difficult task for 
 anyone. Local pride and factional jealousy were ram- 
 pant everywhere. The provinces were an unassimilated 
 mass of separate administrative entities. Their various 
 privileges clashed sharply with the needs of any common
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 279 
 
 executive. It was a confederation, not a union, and its 
 strongest bond was that the same ruler wore the different 
 crowns. All the blame for these continuous civil wars 
 with his subjects ought not to be laid at the doors of 
 Maximilian, and yet certain qualities which limited his 
 ability to cope with the task, appear with great plainness ; 
 nowhere more plainly to the discerning eye than in his 
 own brief account of his troubles in the Netherlands. 
 
 This is found in the Weiss Kunig, one of a stately series 
 of works Maximilian composed with the help of artists 
 and secretaries, to record his virtues, capacities and tri- 
 umphs for the instruction of his descendants and the ad- 
 miration of posterity. 1 All of these four works, Weiss 
 Kunig, Teuerdank, The Triumphal Arch, The Triumphal 
 Procession, were planned and overseen in every stage of 
 execution by Maximilian himself. The interpolations and 
 revisions of the manuscript of Weiss Kunig and Teuer- 
 dank, the drafts dictated or written by him, have made 
 plain to their latest editors that Maximilian is their real 
 author. Even where some of the words are those of his 
 secretaries, all the thoughts and many of the phrases are 
 his own. 2 Whether these four works in which he re- 
 corded what he wished remembered of his life work, use 
 prose, poetry or engraving as the medium of expression, 
 they are allegorical. Maximilian, though trained in the 
 New Learning, kept like many of its votaries, the mediae- 
 val taste for allegory, and besides, that vague literary form 
 enabled him better to mould to his purpose hard facts 
 
 1 For an account of the Literary Activity of Maximilian, see an article by 
 the writer in the American Historical Review, October, 1905. 
 
 * Jahrbuch des Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen dee Allerhochsten Kaiser- 
 hauses, etc., Vol. VI, page 12. Vol. VII, page 5.
 
 280 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 whose cold record might not have given to his descendants 
 just that impression of his transcendent virtue and ca- 
 pacity in meeting them, of which Maximilian himself felt 
 so sure. It takes very little comparison of Weiss Kunig 
 with other accounts of events there spoken of, to con- 
 clude that Maximilian felt entirely justified in adjusting 
 or suppressing facts, in order to produce upon the minds 
 of his readers the impression of the great truth of his own 
 supreme tact, courage and skill in meeting adversity. 
 Weiss Kunig therefore is not history, and no one can rely 
 on it for any accurate account of what happened. 1 But 
 this only makes more certain the unconscious disclosures 
 of his motives for action and his attitude toward condi- 
 tions. 
 
 The most significant of these, is the absence of a sug- 
 gestion of the slighest suspicion that there might have 
 been any justification for the complaints brought against 
 his captains and councilors. For instance, he records 
 that the Flemings said, "His councilors and captains 
 were thieves. . . . That was a lie for his councilors and 
 captains were pious and honourable." Now it is certain 
 that the mercenaries Maximilian maintained pillaged the 
 people of the Netherlands, friend and foe, in the most 
 shameless and brutal manner. It would indeed have been 
 difficult for Maximilian to restrain them. He was al- 
 ways at his wits' end for money to pay their wages, and to 
 have maintained too strict a discipline would have brought 
 the danger of mutiny among the unpaid troops. That 
 difficulty he could not meet by any remarkable personal 
 
 Jahrbucher der K. H. S., etc., Vol. VI, preface, page xxviii.
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 281 
 
 influence. It is true that soldiers admired Maximilian 
 for the strength that enabled him to break the haft of a 
 great landsknechts spear by the unaided movement of his 
 hands, 1 and the reckless courage which always plunged 
 him into the thickest of every fight, but his court biog- 
 rapher is mistaken in the assertion that those who served 
 him were always full of love and loyalty. Seven marked 
 instances can be cited where his inability to command 
 the loyalty of his unpaid troops betrayed his fortunes to 
 the most dangerous losses. 2 And in the Netherlands he 
 kept the loyalty of his troops largely by losing the loyalty 
 of his people. 
 
 His unwillingness to entertain complaints against his 
 councilors came from noble traits of character ; generosity, 
 which made money run through his fingers to reward 
 those who served him, and an habitual desire to stand by 
 his friends. But however amiable in a private person, an 
 overwillingness to stand by one's "friends" has always, 
 whether under a monarchy or a republic, been a weakness 
 in a ruler, as fertile for the oppression of the people as 
 deliberate injustice. And a mass of concurrent testimony 
 renders it certain that Maximilian's confidence in his 
 officials was terribly abused. Almost all councilors 
 were at that time in receipt of pensions from 
 foreign potentates, fees to look after their "interests." 
 By the witness of ambassadors of all nationalities, Max- 
 imilian's councilors were particularly venal. The English 
 ambassador reports: "The Emperor has councilors as 
 corrupt as possible and plunderers in every way of their 
 
 1 Grunpeck. 
 
 2 Ulmann, Kaiser Maximilian I. Stuttgart, 1884. Vol. I, page 863.
 
 282 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 master's goods." 1 Another English agent reports that 
 those of Charles V's councilors who had served under 
 Maximilian, "are hated by all in Almayne." 2 Indeed the 
 Electors had made it a condition of Charles' election that 
 all Maximilian's councilors should be excluded from the 
 new Imperial Council. And at Maximilian's death the 
 people of his Austrian Duchies immediately made a clean 
 sweep of all his officials, and appointed new ones. 
 
 This exaggerated corruption of Maximilian's servants 
 continued all his life, until it became proverbial and passed 
 into anecdotage. Erasmus tells in his Colloquies 3 the story 
 of a young nobleman who, having collected fifty thou- 
 sand florins, returned only thirty thousand to the Em- 
 peror. Maximilian took it without question, but the 
 councilors induced him to summon the nobleman again 
 to give an account. The young man, looking around on 
 the assembled council, expressed his willingness to do so 
 if some of those present, "very ready at making up such 
 accounts," would show him how. According to Erasmus, 
 the Emperor smiled at the wit of the reply and asked 
 nothing further. 
 
 Another reason beside this willingness to stand by his 
 friends through thick and thin, brought Maximilian into 
 trouble with the burghers of the Netherlands ; that was a 
 deep rooted instinctive dislike to political power in any 
 but noble or princely hands. In spite of his popular man- 
 ners when he mingled at Augsburg or Nuremberg in 
 
 1 Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII. Domestic Series. Vol. 
 IV, part I, number 1447. 
 
 * Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII. Domestic Series, Vol. 
 Ill, part I, page 134. 
 
 8 Colloquies of Erasmus, translated by N. Bailey. London, 1900. Vol. II, 
 page 177.
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 283 
 
 city dances, and a sincere desire to do justice to the com- 
 mon people, Maximilian had no confidence in peasant 
 or burgher. This appears in every brief account given in 
 the Weiss Kunig, of different rebellions in the Nether- 
 lands. Germany needed nothing more than the hanging 
 of a score of robber barons, but the only executions pic- 
 tured by Maximilian's orders among the nearly two hun- 
 dred and fifty wood cuts of Weiss Kunig, are four show- 
 ing the executions of rebellious peasants or burghers. 
 One shows a block house surrounded by armed men, on 
 one side are wheels on posts; on top of each wheel is a 
 man broken, around the circumference is a fringe of men 
 hung. The note tells how he took a fort of the insurgent 
 Flemings and "whatever of the garrison was not shot or 
 stabbed, he had strung up." 
 
 When Maximilian entered Ghent in 1577, the people 
 hated France and hailed him with joy as their defender 
 against French conquest. Five years later on the death 
 of his wife, they threw themselves into the arms of France 
 to be rid of Maximilian's rule. However great the prov- 
 ocation they may have given to their regent, it is hard to 
 apologize for such a fact. People do not usually ex- 
 change a hatred for an affection unless they are driven to 
 it. 
 
 Maximilian was a constructer of day dreams in which 
 he played a glorious part as restorer of the Empire, or as 
 the head of a crusade driving the Turk from Europe, or as 
 a restorer of the Church, or the founder of the greatest line 
 of kings Europe had known, but his literary works show 
 a most dreary lack of any real power of imagination, and 
 it is probable that he never once succeeded in seeing his
 
 284 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 rule in the Netherlands from the Netherlander's point of 
 view. 
 
 He forced them to take his point of view. He was a 
 merciful man, but war was very cruel in those days. He 
 records that when he invaded France, he made so great 
 a burning that the smoke covered the sun and "for three 
 hours harness did not gleam." 1 He let his troops do 
 their best at destruction around Ghent, which was the 
 center of resistance to his authority, and, in the beginning 
 of the summer of 1485, he entered the city in triumph, ac- 
 companied by his young son, who had been kept from him 
 by the insurgents for years. His authority as regent was 
 fully acknowledged, and the leaders of the opposition were 
 sent to the scaffold. 
 
 But on almost the same day when the house of Haps- 
 burg thus vindicated by force control over the rich lands 
 of the west, disaster came to it in the east. All of the 
 reigning European houses run back to Adam through two 
 German Countesses, half sisters, who, in the middle of the 
 fourteenth century, married Princes of the houses of Aus- 
 tria and Baden. 2 The desire of the German princes to 
 marry heiresses, which this implies, was a marked char- 
 acteristic of the Hapsburgs, and their luck in getting rich 
 wives is recorded in the saying, "Tu felix Austria, 
 nube." 
 
 Frederick Ill's distant cousin and predecessor in the 
 Empire, Albert, had married Elizabeth, who was daughter 
 of Sigismund, Emperor of Germany and King of Bo- 
 
 1 Weiss Kunig, 148. 
 
 Lorenz O. Reichskanzler und Reichskanzlei Preuss. Jahrbucher, Vol. 
 XXIX, Introduction IX.
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 285 
 
 hernia, by Maria, Queen of Hungary. Albert's son, 
 Ladislas Postumus, therefore received the crown of Bo- 
 hemia through his grandfather and of Hungary through 
 his grandmother. At his death his guardian, Frederick 
 III, advanced a claim to Hungary and Bohemia. But it 
 was not very strong even when supported by his asser- 
 tion that Bohemia, as a fief of the Empire, was, in default 
 of a male heir, at his disposal. And when Bohemia elected 
 as King, George Podiebrad who had ruled with great skill 
 in the name of the boy-King Ladislas, Frederick, after 
 Austria had been wasted by King George's armies, made 
 peace, and gave a half promise to confirm him in the fief 
 of Bohemia and grant him the title of Elector of the Em- 
 pire. 
 
 The throne of Hungary was claimed by William, Duke 
 of Saxony and Casimer, King of Poland, husbands of 
 Ladislas Postumus' sisters. But the Hungarian nobles 
 were very unwilling to have an outsider for their ruler. 
 They chose Matthias, son of John Hunyadi, who had oc- 
 cupied in Hungary the same position George Podiebrad 
 held in Bohemia, and driven a great Turkish army from 
 the walls of Belgrade. 
 
 A rebellion against Matthias offered the crown of Hun- 
 gary to Frederick III and the civil war was closed by an 
 agreement that Matthias should be King, but if he died 
 without a son, Frederick or one of his sons should succeed 
 to the crown of Hungary. A war between George of 
 Bohemia and Matthias of Hungary, was closed by the 
 offer of George to acknowledge Matthias as heir. 
 Shortly after George died and the Bohemians, dis- 
 regarding the agreements between Matthias and George,
 
 286 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 chose Prince Ladislas of Poland, King. Matthias' persis- 
 tence in fighting for his claim to the Bohemian crown 
 when the Turks were threatening to destroy Hungary, 
 produced a rebellion among his nobles, who elected an- 
 other King. Matthias subdued the rebellion, and forced 
 Ladislas of Bohemia to surrender the greater part of his 
 possessions, with the privilege of redeeming them on 
 Matthias' death for a huge ransom. The Emperor Fred- 
 erick intrigued against Matthias' plans, and the outcome 
 of the ill feeling was that, in 1485, Matthias overran Aus- 
 tria and entered Vienna in triumph while the Emperor 
 Frederick fled from his duchy to ask help from the 
 German princes. 
 
 Their answer was to elect his son, Maximilian, King of 
 the Romans, a title which made him heir apparent to the 
 Empire. On the ninth of April, 1486, the three archie- 
 piscopal Electors of Cologne, Treves and Mayence 
 crowned him at Aachen. Maximilian promised to take 
 up the burden of the war in Austria, 1 but no sooner was 
 he crowned than he returned to the Netherlands, and 
 took the first opportunity of beginning a war of revenge 
 on France. By the summer of 1487 Flanders was 
 plunged into disorder and discontent. Maximilian's un- 
 paid mercenaries again plundered his subjects, and the 
 burghers of Ghent and Bruges saw no reason why their 
 money should be spent in a war whose only effect upon 
 their fortunes was the ruin of their trade with France. 
 
 The discontent was not long in finding expression. In 
 1487 a general assembly of the guilds of Ghent voted 
 unanimously that peace with France ought to be main- 
 
 1 PrtUchenk vertraulicher briefwechsel, etc.. page 68.
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 287 
 
 tained, and ordered an inquiry into the causes of the de- 
 plorable condition of the finances of the city. They de- 
 posed the city officials and appointed new ones. Max- 
 imilian replied to this revolt by putting a price of six 
 gold pieces on the head of each insurgent and twelve for 
 each prisoner. Bruges refused to vote troops to attack 
 Ghent, and sent a deputation to inquire into the causes 
 of the discontent in the sister city. Ghent replied by com- 
 plaining of the war with France, the maladministration 
 of the finances, the filling of the offices with foreigners, 
 and the protracted refusal to give any accounting for the 
 expenditure of the extraordinary taxes they had volunta- 
 rily voted to the government. 
 
 Meantime, trouble had arisen between Maximilian's 
 mercenary troops, hated on account of their pillaging, and 
 the people of Bruges. It was increased by the report of a 
 plot to seize the gates and let in the army outside to 
 master the city. The alarm bell rang, the burghers as- 
 sembled in the market place, overawed the men at arms 
 and the regent became a prisoner in his own city. A 
 jiumber of his officials accused of peculation were executed 
 after summary trials. 
 
 Vain attempts were made to free Maximilian. The Pope 
 threatened the maledictions of the Church on Bruges. 
 The Emperor summoned the forces of the Empire to 
 march to release the King of the Romans. His partisans 
 ravaged the country and rode round the walls. One of 
 the many adherents, whose loyalty he kept through good 
 and bad fortune, Kunz von der Rosen, a nobleman who 
 was in court half as friend and half as licensed jester, got 
 into Bruges in the robe of a monk to beseech Maximilian
 
 288 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 to take his disguise and steal out, leaving him to bear the 
 fury of the outwitted burghers. Maximilian refused the 
 stratagem as unworthy of his royal dignity. Despairing 
 of aid after four months' imprisonment, he yielded to the 
 insurrection. On the i6th of May, 1488, he solemnly 
 swore in the market place to dismiss his mercenaries from 
 the Netherlands, to give up the regency of Flanders and 
 allow a council to rule them in the name of his son. He 
 also promised to maintain peace with France. In the 
 other provinces he was to remain regent, but deputies were 
 to meet every year in a common assembly of the Nether- 
 lands, and neither peace nor war was hereafter to be made 
 without the vote of this assembly. In return, he was to 
 receive a sum of money to pay his mercenaries before dis- 
 missal and a considerable yearly income from Flanders. 
 Maximilian left hostages in Bruges and Ghent for the 
 keeping of this oath, and took it with mention of the pen- 
 alties of the church on perjury, and he promised to per- 
 suade the Pope, the Emperor and the Electors to confirm 
 these agreements. 1 
 
 Scarcely was he free when he heard that his father, with 
 an army of twenty thousand men, was on the banks of the 
 Rhine. Arrived in the camp, he tried to induce the army 
 to turn back, but was finally persuaded to break his oath 
 and fight with them ; probably on the ground that the citi- 
 zens of Bruges had treacherously imprisoned him and 
 compelled him to swear to the dishonour of the Empire. 2 
 
 1 De Smet Memoire Historique de La Guerre de Maximilian Roi des Re- 
 mains Centre les Villes de Flandre. Mem. de 1' Academic, Bruxelles, Tome 
 XXXV. 
 
 yimann, Kaiser Max. I. Vol. I, page 30 ff.
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 289 
 
 He himself wrote that he made the campaign not in his 
 own quarrel, but only as a Prince of the Empire bound to 
 follow its banner. At the same time he demanded the 
 payment of the sums of money which had been part of the 
 agreement he was breaking; an instance of the way in 
 which Maximilian's tenacity in holding to his own rights, 
 limited his power to put himself in another's place and 
 was unmitigated even by a sense of humour. 
 
 But the army could not take Bruges, and by the autumn 
 was back in Germany. In the end of December, Max- 
 imilian said farewell to the Netherlands where he had 
 spent twelve years of almost continuous fighting, and 
 followed it. His own authority in his infant son's prov- 
 inces was far from strong. Flanders and Brabant in 
 the south, Guelders in the east, were in the hands of his 
 opponents backed by the French and The Hooks were stir- 
 ring in Holland and Zealand. 
 
 He left his affairs in strong hands, Albert Duke of 
 Saxony was one of the most efficient of living Germans, 
 and in three years, by cruel war and bold diplomacy, he 
 had allayed or crushed opposition. 
 
 While Albert of Saxony was thus maintaining Max- 
 imilian's fight to remain regent of the Netherlands, the 
 King of the Romans was very busy with those troubles 
 of his house in south and east which his father had been 
 unable to master. In this he employed what was un- 
 doubtedly his greatest power, an ability to conciliate op- 
 ponents. Skill in conciliation was in those days, and 
 probably has been in all days, rarer than power to fight, 
 and Maximilian seems to have possessed a high degree 
 of it. He was an exceedingly amiable personality with
 
 290 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 tactful manners, based on real thoughtfulness for others. 1 
 One of his biographers called him the most affable prince 
 of his age. People embittered by wrongs were often ap- 
 peased by a meeting with him. And he always tried to put 
 everyone, prince or peasant, at his ease. Frederick the 
 Wise said, that "during his whole life he had never met 
 a more polite man than the Emperor Maximilian." 2 
 
 He employed this skill now in three directions to 
 reconcile King Matthias, the conqueror of the Austrian 
 lands, with his father Frederick III, to reconcile Fred- 
 erick III with his son-in-law, Albert of Bavaria, to rec- 
 oncile his distant cousin, Sigismund of Tirol, to the es- 
 tates of Tirol. 
 
 He agreed to meet Matthias at Vienna in August, 
 1489, and though the meeting never took place, an ex- 
 change of ambassadors brought the King of the Romans 
 and the King of Hungary very near to afi agreement for 
 the peaceable restoration of Austria upon payment of an 
 indemnity. Maximilian had reckoned without his old 
 and suspicious father, who, though powerless to recover 
 his domains, refused all compromise. But a truce until 
 September, 1490, was finally established. 
 
 Maximilian immediately moved westward to arrange 
 the affairs of his house in Tirol. At Innsbruck he found an 
 exceedingly strained situation. Duke Sigismund of Tirol, 
 a man of some parts and cultivated tastes, was too weak 
 and selfish to be even a tolerable ruler. He had fallen com- 
 
 1 In his last hour, when the clergy gathered in his room to chant the peni- 
 tential psalms, unable to speak, he made a sign with his hand for them to be 
 seated. Funeral Oration by Faber. Freher Struve, Vol. II, page 741. 
 
 ' Friedrichs des Weisen Leben und zeit geschichte nach Spalatins hand- 
 schrift herausgegeben. Neudecker und Preller, page 45.
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 291 
 
 pletely into the power of unworthy favorites and greedy 
 councilors. They had squandered the public money, and 
 finally induced Sigismund to declare in March, 1487, a 
 useless war on Venice. This ruined the trade by which 
 Tirolese merchants lived, and his incompetent command- 
 ers met disaster in the field. An assembly of the Estates 
 practically deprived him of the exercise of the powers of 
 government by putting affairs in the hands of a council 
 chosen by him out of their nominees. They added to the 
 decrees which established the new order, that, if the 
 agreement was broken, they should feel justified in calling 
 another prince of the house of Austria to become their 
 Duke. Sigismund quarrelled with his new council and 
 a dangerous deadlock was referred to the assembly. 
 Maximilian, coming to Innsbruck, persuaded his cousin 
 to break it by assigning to him the authority over Tirol 
 and the lands which went with it. The astonished assem- 
 bly gladly hailed Maximilian as Duke and he ratified all 
 their rights and privileges. 1 
 
 The third reconciliation was the most difficult. The 
 Dukes of Bavaria had long been rivals of the Hapsburgs, 
 and they had played on the weakness of Sigismund to the 
 utmost. Flattering his vanity, they had exploited his 
 needs, until, by sale or pledge, they had obtained large por- 
 tions of the Hapsburg lands between Tirol and Bavaria. 
 The older branch of the house found their opportunity to 
 protest against this when Albert of Bavaria, a hand- 
 some and brilliant Prince of thirty-eight, saw at Sigis- 
 
 1 Jager Albert. Der Uebergang Tirols und der osterreich ischer vorlande 
 von dem Erghergoge Sigmund an den romiscben Konig Maximilian, Archiv fur 
 osterreich ische Geschichte 1,1.
 
 292 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 mund's court the beautiful Kunigunde, the Emperor's 
 twenty-year-old daughter. He promptly fell in love with 
 her. Frederick was not unwilling to make the match if 
 the House of Bavaria would give back the lands they had 
 gotten from Sigismund. If this were done, he would 
 give his daughter her mother's jewels and a small dowry 
 in lands. The bankrupt Sigismund, with his usual gen- 
 erosity, also offered a dowry for Kunigunde. But in the 
 midst of these negotiations, the wooer took another 
 good piece of Hapsburg territory. The Imperial City of 
 Regensburg was deeply in debt. Albert offered to pay 
 this debt and grant privileges which prophesied pros- 
 perity. The council accepted his offer, ceased to be a 
 Free City owing direct allegiance to the Emperor, and be- 
 came subjects of Albert. The Emperor at once with- 
 drew his consent to the marriage. But Albert evident- 
 ly intended to get lands and bride too. He forged a let- 
 ter from the Emperor consenting to the match, and the 
 willing Sigismund and Kunigunde hastened the marriage. 
 And, far from giving back to the house of Hapsburg the 
 lands he held in pledge, he followed the marriage by the 
 largest purchase of lands he had yet gotten from the good 
 natured spendthrift who had helped him to his bride. At 
 h'is sister's request, Maximilian now tried to remove their 
 father's anger with his son-in-law. It was naturally very 
 difficult. But after he had made the house of Wittelsbach 
 willing to return, in exchange for the money advanced on 
 them, the lands sold or pledged, he finally succeeded in 
 effecting an outward reconciliation between the old Em- 
 peror and his children. 
 
 These three successful efforts at pacification were,
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 293 
 
 however, interrupted by war. King Matthias of Hun- 
 gary died in April, 1490. He left no legitimate son and 
 according to the old treaty with Frederick, made in 1463, 
 a Hapsburg was to succeed. The situation gave Max- 
 imilian a chance not only to reconquer Austria but to 
 seize the crown of Hungary. The magnates of Hungary 
 were not disposed either to carry out the old treaty, by 
 which the crown went to Maximilian, or the wishes of 
 their dead King, that his illegitimate son, John Corvinus, 
 should wear the crown. They elected Ladislas of Bo- 
 hemia, as their King. He marched promptly to secure 
 the possession of the Hungarian conquest of Austria. Un- 
 expected difficulty met him, for Vienna was tired of for- 
 eign rule. The burghers rose, shut the Magyar garrison 
 up in the citadel and prepared for defense. Maximilian 
 pushed the enlistment of mercenaries and in the end of 
 July, began a swift re-conquest of the lands his father had 
 lost. On the nineteenth of August, 1490, he entered 
 Vienna amid the shouts of the people, greeting one whose 
 entry a leading physician, in the joy of his heart, recorded 
 in his diary thus : "Omnipotent God of his grace gave to 
 the people the most just, most chaste, most strenuous, 
 most warlike, Maximilian (in black ink), Maximilian (in 
 red ink), Maximilian (with green ink)." * By the end of 
 the month the Hungarian was driven from the Hapsburg 
 lands. 
 
 The University of Vienna had solemnly voted that 
 Maximilian was rightful King of Hungary. The curse 
 of the age was senseless war, denounced by all its ablest 
 men from Erasmus to Machiavelli. It was a rare ruler 
 
 1 Fontes Rerum Austriacum, Vol. I, page 53.
 
 294 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 who could resist the temptation to assert a paper claim 
 upon foreign territory in campaigns which could bring 
 nothing but loss to the country of which he was the nat- 
 ural sovereign. Many years were needed before Henry 
 VIII outgrew the day dream of adding the crown of 
 France to the crown of England, and three successive 
 Valois squandered blood and treasure upon Italian in- 
 vasions denounced by their wisest counselors as promis- 
 ing more present loss than future gain. Maximilian 
 could hardly be expected to be cleverer than the bulk of 
 his contemporaries, especially since his father's reluctance 
 to make war, had seemed so much the outcome of weak- 
 ness rather than of wisdom. In October, 1490, he crossed 
 the Hungarian border with a strong army. His march 
 was a triumphal procession. In November he stormed 
 the rich Stuhlweissenburg where the Hungarian kings 
 were crowned and buried, and the whole kingdom lay 
 helpless at his feet. The mercenaries celebrated the vic- 
 tory with slaughter and plunder, and still demanded extra 
 wages. Maximilian, as usual, had no money and without 
 payment his men positively refused to move forward. In 
 December he was compelled to march back to Vienna. 
 Six months later his conquests were lost, and the only re- 
 sult of his attempt to gain the crown of Hungary was a 
 heavier debt for himself and the wasting of the farms of 
 Hungarian peasants with fire and sword. Nothing re- 
 mained but compromise and, in the end of 1491, the Peace 
 of Pressburg, ratified by the Hungarian magnates, ac- 
 knowledged Ladislas as King of Hungary and his male 
 children as heirs, on condition that, failing a male heir, 
 the crown should go to Maximilian and his descendants.
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 295 
 
 To celebrate his success in unifying the possessions and 
 enlarging the prospects of the Hapsburgs, Maximilian 
 had a medal struck in the spring of 1490. One side shows 
 his head. The reverse displays the arms of Hungary, 
 Austria and Tirol with the arms of Burgundy below. 
 
 Maximilian was glad to be set free from trouble in the 
 east. For many months he had longed to hasten toward 
 the west. His efforts for internal peace had for their 
 strongest motive a plan which promised at once revenge 
 on France and an extension of Hapsburg territories. He 
 had long been an ally of the Duke of Brittany, last of the 
 great semi-royal feudal magnates, who had so long ham- 
 pered the Valois in their efforts to make France a nation. 
 In 1488 the Duke had been defeated by the forces of the 
 crown, compelled to surrender his fortresses and to 
 promise not to marry his daughter and heir Anne without 
 the consent of the French King. Anne was fourteen 
 years old and like Mary of Burgundy, besieged by suitors. 
 Among them she preferred Maximilian ; strong, warlike, 
 able to champion her distress. The French crown of- 
 fered Maximilan free hand in Flanders if he would let 
 Brittany alone. Maximilian apparently accepted, but, in 
 the end of 1490, was secretly married to Anne by proxy. 
 
 His bride, little more than a clever child, was sur- 
 rounded by enemies. He knew he must help Brittany, 
 which he loved more than his Duchess, by the sword. 
 He was therefore compelled to come before the Reichstag 
 asking men and money for two enterprises ; against Hun- 
 gary in the east, and France in the west. They reluc- 
 tantly voted eight thousand men and, in August, Maximil- 
 ian announced to his father the intention of marching
 
 296 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 into Brittany with such a force as he could gather. His 
 father gave unwilling permission to carry the banner of 
 the Empire, but warned his son of disaster. The smallest 
 knowledge of men ought to have told Maximilian that, 
 whatever his enemies said, they were leaving nothing un- 
 done to break his marriage. And the smallest knowledge 
 of women should have warned him that they would surely 
 succeed if he kept too long away from the young girl who 
 had turned to him in distress. But impulsive as Maximil- 
 ian was in making a plan, he was very slow in carrying it 
 out, and he seems to have laboured under the delusion 
 that to form the idea of a stroke of state-craft, was the 
 same as accomplishing it. Lack of enough men and 
 money and the commands of his father to let Brittany 
 alone until he had attended to Hungary, may have made it 
 impossible for Maximilian to go to Brittany. But in that 
 case he ought not to have been surprised to hear, a week 
 after the agreement of Pressburg had made him heir to 
 the throne of Hungary if the dynasty failed, that the 
 young girl who for a year had vainly called for his help, 
 flattered by his enemies, attacked by her own, insulted by 
 his neglect, had given way. The Pope annulled her mar- 
 riage and in November, 1491, Anne of Brittany, became 
 Queen of France. Maximilian's daughter Margaret had 
 for years been in France where she was being educated 
 as the affianced bride of Charles VIII. At one stroke, 
 therefore, the Valois had taken Maximilian's bride and 
 jilted his daughter. 
 
 The fact that he had given the chance for this double 
 insult made Maximilian feel it the more. The slow burn- 
 ing Hapsburg hate never died out of his heart and during
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 297 
 
 all his life, it was hard for Maximilian to free himself 
 long from the instinctive desire to get even with the 
 Valois. At the moment he could do but little for ven- 
 geance. The princes of Germany would not give him 
 forces fit to invade France, and his allies, Henry VII and 
 Ferdinand of Aragon, allowed themselves to be bought 
 off by the French crown. He made a successful invasion 
 of the ancient Burgundian lands, and at Senlis, May, 1493, 
 received back the greater part of his daughter's dowry. 
 
 Both sides were ready for peace because Charles and 
 Maximilian were drawn from the war over Brittany and 
 Burgundy by larger plans. The young King of France 
 wanted to use the great power won for him by his keen 
 and unscrupulous father and his clever sister, in some 
 undertaking which should give him the pleasures of ad- 
 venture and the sense of glory. He mustered his soldiers 
 and called his nobility to follow him over the Alps and 
 Apennines to assert his claim upon the crown of Naples. 
 At the end of August, 1494, with the greatest army at 
 his back Europe had seen for a generation, he poured 
 down into the Lombard plain and opened a long series of 
 wars in which Frenchman, Spaniard, German and Swiss 
 slaughtered the Italian peasant in his field or plundered 
 the shop-keepers of the cities, to decide who had the right 
 to wear the crowns of the Italian principalities. 
 
 Maximilian was not able to keep out of this 
 conflict, into which he was called by duty, inclination, 
 ambition and hate. But the plan which made him eager 
 to put aside even his war upon France, looked to a larger 
 prize than the control of the destinies of Italy. The
 
 298 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 crusading impulse, so far as it affected the people of 
 Europe, was dead. The enthusiasm which had swept 
 thousands from their homes, careless of life and property, 
 to assoil their sins and wrest the tomb of Christ from the 
 infidel, could not be roused again. For a century, popes 
 who took their office seriously had tried in vain to light 
 that old flame and for a generation, popes who looked on 
 the office of Vicar of Christ as a means to gratify taste or 
 satisfy family ambitions, had used the duty of checking 
 the Turk as a pretext for raising money. The duty was 
 a plain one, and rested no longer on fanatic hatred of the 
 infidel but on the need of self defense. The Turk, firmly 
 established on the lower Danube, and entrenched at Con- 
 stantinople, had made evident his intention of conquering 
 Europe if he could. He was not really a menace. Asia 
 never was a match for Europe, and the forces of Mahomet 
 II were less able to beat the men who said their prayers 
 in Latin than the army of Xerxes was to master the men 
 who called on Zeus in Greek. The Teutonic and Romanic 
 peoples could have driven him back over the Armenian 
 mountains even without the help of Slav and Magyar. 
 But their eagerness to fight each other made the Turk a 
 menace. His galleys swept the shores of the Mediterra- 
 nean, his horsemen ravaged the banks of the Danube and, 
 by a diabolically ingenious circle of evil, war fed war. 
 Thousands of Christian children, whose parents had died 
 vainly defending their homes, bred up as Mohammedans, 
 menaced the cities of Europe in the ranks of the Janiza- 
 ries. Thousands of Christian captives laboured at the 
 oars which bore blood and fire and slavery along the coasts 
 of Italy.
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 299 
 
 The crusading impulse was dead, but the dream of 
 pouring an army down the Danube, breaking the 
 gates of Constantinople and driving the terror 
 and shame of Christendom across the Bosphorus was 
 still to fascinate the minds of many a European ruler. 
 Over none did it exercise a stronger sway, than it held 
 from boyhood to age over the romantic mind of Maxi- 
 milian, always starting to build the towers of his castles 
 in the air before he sat down to count the cost. He re- 
 corded in his autobiography that his mother wanted him 
 named Constantine because he was to recover Constanti- 
 nople, 1 and, two years before his death, he told the Earl 
 of Worcester that he had never cared for the title Em- 
 peror of the Holy German Empire, because he had in- 
 tended to take the title Emperor of Constantinople, of 
 which he was rightful heir. 2 Although an assault on 
 Constantinople was an undertaking beyond Maximilian's 
 ability, a man of his capacity might have defended Styria 
 and Carinthia from the ceaseless plundering of raiders. 
 But while Maximilian dreamed of storming Constantino- 
 ple, the Turkish horsemen were sweeping his people into 
 slavery, and he took the field against nearly everybody 
 else in Europe except the Turks. 
 
 The Emperor Frederick III had for several years 
 withdrawn entirely from public business. There are 
 no indications of any particular affection between him 
 and his son. They seldom met and Frederick did little 
 for his successor's plans except to hinder them. The old 
 
 1 Jahrbucher de Kh. S., page 423 (14). 
 
 * Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII. Domestic Series, Vol. II, 
 part II, page 1022.
 
 300 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 man had suffered for some time with decay of the bones 
 of one leg. He refused an operation so long as possible, 
 and even in the agonies of amputation at the knee, called 
 out, "Alas, Kaiser Frederick III, that you must carry to 
 all posterity the nickname of the 'Halting'." He had not 
 to bear his lameness long. He was passionately fond 
 of fruit, and ate in the early morning a huge quantity of 
 melons. The result was death in the seventy-eighth year 
 of his age (1493)- 
 
 The magnificent funeral of his father only interrupted 
 for a time the plans of Maximilian against Constantinople. 
 In all probability, his third marriage was related to these. 
 Lodovico Sforza, heir presumptive of the Duchy of 
 Milan, which he ruled as regent for his nephew, was not 
 of noble descent. His grandfather, Jacopo Attendolo, 
 was a peasant who had become one of the celebrated mer- 
 cenary generals of his day. His father, a great soldier, 
 had married the daughter of the Duke of Milan and 
 seized the Duchy at his father-in-law's death. It is diffi- 
 cult to see why the match with the pretty young daughter 
 of this house, Lodovico's niece, was accepted by Maximil- 
 ian. He never cared for her in the least, and her plebeian 
 descent was the object of scorn from the German princes. 
 It is probable that he thought he could use against the 
 Turk her large dowry of three hundred thousand ducats, 
 and her father, whom he promised to invest with the 
 Duchy of Milan, would protect him from trouble in 
 Italy and send troops for his crusade. Five months after 
 this marriage, he solemnly joined in Antwerp the Order of 
 St. George, and two weeks later, he sent out an appeal to
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 301 
 
 all princes of the world to join the Order and thus become 
 sworn soldiers of the cross against the crescent. 
 
 In November, 1494, he issued a call for a Reichstag- next 
 year at Worms, to make preparations for a stately journey 
 to Rome, that he might receive the crown of the Empire 
 at the hands of the Pope and then march at the head of 
 Europe against the infidel. 
 
 Before the Reichstag assembled in March, his plans 
 had changed. The young King of France had swept all 
 before him in Italy. Naples lay at his feet and he began 
 to dictate to the rulers of Italy like a master of the world. 
 It was reported that he intended to realize Maximilian's 
 daydream to drive the Turk from Europe and re-establish 
 the Roman Empire in the East. But the hegemony of 
 Italy was easier to gain than to keep. The states which 
 had invited his expedition against Naples, now frightened 
 at his power, drew together. Naples, Milan and the Pope, 
 formed in the end of March, the Holy League, ostensibly 
 against the Turk, but secretly against France. Maximil- 
 ian and Ferdinand of Spain were its allies. 
 
 Maximilian's entry into this League was in every way 
 natural. Most of the North Italian states were nominally 
 fiefs of the Empire, whose crown, according to custom, 
 must be taken at Rome. It was difficult for him to keep 
 out of any fight. An expedition across the Alps prom- 
 ised change, adventure, glory and it was hard for him to 
 see the rival who had taken his betrothed wife, threaten- 
 ing to assume that central position in the world's stage 
 which he felt belonged by divine right to himself. 
 
 Nor was he singular in this opinion. One of the most 
 interesting literary remains of the age is a "Dream" writ-
 
 302 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 ten in Latin in 1495 by Hans von Hermansgriin, a noble- 
 man who had studied in Rome under the distinguished 
 humanist Pomponius Laetus. The manuscript was cir- 
 culated at the Reichstag and read by its members. It 
 relates how the writer, returning to Saxony, spent the 
 night with a friend, Henry of Amensdorff, in his castle 
 at Rothenburg on the Saale. After dinner they talked 
 late of the dangerous situation of the Roman Empire. 
 When Hans retired, soothed by the good bed and the 
 pleasant murmur of the river which bathed the castle 
 walls, he soon fell into a deep sleep. He saw in his dream 
 the splendour and strength of the Roman Empire assem- 
 bled In the great church of St. Mauritius at Magdeburg. 
 No one presided over the assembly. While all stood in 
 expectation, three men of superhuman size, wearing im- 
 perial diadems, entered the church. All bowed to the 
 ground as they took their place on raised seats. One of 
 them arose and, introducing his comrades as Charles 
 the Great and Otto the Great, named himself as 
 Frederick Barbarossa, "who restored the falling 
 state of the Germans and bore the victorious 
 eagles over land and sea throughout the world." 
 Checking the murmurs of applause with a wave 
 of his hand and looking sternly on them, he addressed 
 the assembly. He pointed out that the Empire was 
 threatened by two wars, on the east from the Turks, on 
 the west from the French. Germany could meet both 
 these dangers if it were not for the decay of German spirit. 
 Luxury had imperiled the courage and ambition of her 
 princes and nobles. Military discipline was undermined. 
 Justice was no longer administered. The strength of the
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 303 
 
 nation was wasted in petty civil wars. Let them wake 
 from their sloth and disorder to remember the ancient 
 glories of the Empire. They ought not to attack the 
 Turk leaving France in the rear. France had seized 
 Italy, and they must hold it for certain that they could 
 not retain the orb of Empire unless they wrested Italy 
 from France. And France, after she had securely sub- 
 dued Italy, could with the wealth thus gained conquer 
 Germany. Let them make a close alliance with Venice 
 and Spain, call England to share in the spoil and destroy 
 France. It is true that their King, Maximilian, was more 
 fitted for the distaff than the spindle. Sunk in slothful 
 pleasures he had let the King of France conquer Bun- 
 gundy, Piccardy, Brittany, and the Duchy of Milan, 
 insult his daughter and seize his wife. Let the princes, 
 in spite of this weak and spiritless King, join in counsel 
 and save the Empire. While the assembly stood aston- 
 ished and ashamed at this oration of Frederick Barba- 
 rossa, Hans was awakened by his servant. 
 
 Such writing, from the pen of one of the few humanists 
 who have written anything but praise of Maximilian, 
 shows that the Imperial idea and its expression in the two 
 great wars of which Maximilian dreamed so long, was in 
 the air. 
 
 But the bulk of the Germans with political power did 
 not share this desire to make great exertions in order that 
 a German Emperor might control the Italians, dictate to 
 the Dutch and destroy the prestige of France. The mo- 
 tives for this lack of practical enthusiasm for the ideal of 
 the Emperor as the master of Christendom, were both 
 good and bad. Some of the princes were envious of the
 
 304 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 Hapsburgs and ambitious for the glory of their own 
 dynasties. Some princes did not want a strong Em- 
 peror lest he might curtail their own independence. 
 The cities hated war which destroyed their trade and 
 weakened them before the princes and barons, always 
 ready to humiliate or oppress them. Everyone shrank 
 from taxation, and nearly everyone felt that certain re- 
 forms in those German speaking states, lying between the 
 Alps and the North and Baltic seas, which formed the 
 core of the Empire, ought to precede any great expendi- 
 ture of energy toward the west, the east, or the south. 
 
 Maximilian could not be unaware of the need of inter- 
 nal reform, which had been ceaselessly discussed among 
 Germans since he was born. He hoped, and not alto- 
 gether unreasonably, to lay the foundation for it in a 
 revival or an increase of the control of the Emperor over 
 the different parts of the loose confederation of which 
 he was nominal head. Centralization around the im- 
 perial throne was his solution for the problem of reform. 
 He felt that to get the Germans to follow him in fight- 
 ing for the glory of the Empire against men who spoke 
 another tongue, was the best way to bring Germany into 
 order by bringing it to union. 
 
 He failed to persuade the Germans to adopt his plan 
 and the reasons for his failure seem to have been in him- 
 self. They may be stated under two heads: First, in 
 spite of his marked abilities, certain traits of his char- 
 acter roused a suspicion, which his conduct steadily nour- 
 ished, that he was not capable of conducting large enter- 
 prises ; though the difficulties which lay before him were 
 so increased by this very suspicion that his admirers
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 305 
 
 suggest as the chief reason for his failure, the 
 unwillingness of small-minded German princes to fol- 
 low him in large enterprises. Secondly, the suspicion, 
 also nourished by his conduct, that he regarded the glory 
 of the Empire as an appendage to the glory of his dynasty. 
 It is impossible to read through the letters and books of 
 Maximilian without seeing that this suspicion was just. 
 The unconscious self-betrayals of his writings show so 
 clearly that he who runs may read, that Maximilian was 
 Hapsburg first and German afterwards. 
 
 The Reichstag, or great assembly of the representatives 
 of the states of the Empire, was a very difficult body to 
 lead to any conclusion, and the task of reform was pro- 
 digious. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, the 
 ambassador Vincenzo Quirini, writing to the Venetian 
 Senate, says the sovereign states of the Empire consist 
 of two kingdoms, about thirty duchies and an arch- 
 duchy, four marquisates, a great number of countships, 
 five arch-episcopates, twenty-five bishoprics, twenty ab- 
 beys, fifteen priories, five knight's orders holding sover- 
 eign rights, one territory and a hundred free cities. He 
 estimates that the united incomes of three of these great 
 princes would exceed that of the Emperor ; the incomes of 
 ten of them would be more than double Maximilian's 
 revenues. He believes that the total income of the free 
 cities exceeds that of all the princes of the Empire, spirit- 
 ual and lay, put together. From these political units four 
 hundred and seventy-five representatives were summoned 
 to the Reichstag. All those summoned never assembled. 
 One hundred delegates, many of them holding proxies, 
 made a large Reichstag. The great cost of the meetings,
 
 3o6 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 where delegates rivaled one another in the size of their 
 trains and the display of their life, kept many from com- 
 ing. The tedium of the disordered, complicated and in- 
 effective procedure of the three chambers, electors, 
 princes and cities, made all who came anxious to get 
 away. Nor was everybody always summoned. There- 
 fore the Reichstag which met at Worms in 1495, some- 
 times called the great Reichstag, with five electors, one 
 hundred and six princes, counts and lords, and the repre- 
 sentatives of twenty-four free cities, was a large diet. 1 
 
 All Maximilian really cared about was a grant of men 
 and money to attack Charles VIII. What the enormous 
 majority of the Reichstag chiefly cared about, next to their 
 own territorial interests, was the reform of the Empire. 
 The need of reform could hardly be exaggerated. It 
 appeared most acutely in two closely connected disorders ; 
 the lack of any proper administration of justice, and the 
 feud right which filled Germany with plundering and 
 killing. Each of the political units of the Empire from 
 the smallest count to an elector, thought it a natural right 
 to avenge injuries by war upon a neighbour. And the 
 lack of a proper administration of justice or of any force 
 to compel obedience to the imperial courts, put temptation 
 to vengeance in the way of the just and gave an excuse for 
 highway robbery to every lazy and rapacious knight who 
 could hire a dozen mercenaries to serve in his petty "war" 
 against a neighbouring city. Some of the princes main- 
 tained order in their own borders, but in whole sections, 
 particularly in South Germany, the roads were unsafe be- 
 cause of noble highwaymen. Occasionally one of these 
 
 1 Albcri Relazioni, etc. Series I, Vol. VI.
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 307 
 
 was taken ami had his head cut off in the market place of 
 Nuremberg or Augsburg. But usually when the burgher 
 militia marched out to attack these pests of the industrious 
 inhabitants of town or country, they defied attack from 
 the walls of their castle on the crags, or took refuge in 
 the hills still thickly covered with forests. The frequent 
 feuds of the greater princes and the cities poured out little 
 armies killing and burning. The Empire was seldom 
 free from at least one of these feuds raging or smould- 
 ering. 
 
 The lesser nobility regarded them as profitable and 
 legitimate means of livelihood. Gotz von Berlichingen 
 was a robber baron with a sufficiently good conscience to 
 conclude in his memoirs recording how he plundered the 
 burghers, that "Almighty God had been with him, won- 
 derfully with His grace, help and mercy and had done 
 more for him than he had for himself." He tells how, 
 riding in the night with a prisoner held for ransom, he 
 saw wolves suddenly attack a flock of sheep. "In this 
 sight I took great pleasure and wished luck to them and 
 to us. Good luck, good comrades," I cried, "good luck 
 everywhere. I held it for a good omen that we had thus 
 attacked at the same moment." 
 
 He was not without a rough humour and describes how 
 he waylaid some burghers going to the Frankfort fair. "I 
 caught five or six of them, among them a merchant whom 
 I took for the third time in six months, besides once get- 
 ting some of his goods. * * * I pretended I was 
 going to cut off all their heads, or at least their hands. I 
 made them kneel down and lay their hands on a block. 
 Then I caught the first with my foot in the stern and gave
 
 3 o8 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 the second a good one on the ear ; that was the only pun- 
 ishment I gave them and then I let them go." * 
 
 Some of these human beasts of prey were less good 
 humoured, for a popular nobleman's song was, "Wilt 
 thou get a living, young nobleman ? Then follow my ad- 
 vice. Lurk in the greenwood. When the peasant drives 
 through, rush out at him, grab him by the collar, rejoice 
 thy heart, take what he has, cut loose his horses, be quick 
 and hardy. If he hasn't a penny, then slit his throat." 2 
 
 We must not exaggerate this evil. The German cities 
 had grown rich in spite of it. It did not prevail in all 
 parts of the land, and blackmail would usually bring 
 protection. Nor did a certain chance of plundering seem 
 as great danger to a generation used to arms as it would 
 now. The prospect of giving or taking death was not 
 intolerable to a large part of the community, for the 
 world was used to violence and the brute in man nearer 
 the surface. But while public robbery and private war 
 was being repressed in most other European lands toward 
 the close of the fifteenth century, Germany was going 
 backward. "The German people loves its laws," wrote a 
 Frenchman in 1493, "but the complaints are universal 
 that justice is deeply sunken in the imperial and other 
 courts and that even when verdicts are rendered, there is 
 no quick and strict fulfilment of them. Therefore, feuds 
 have long been a dreadful plague and robber knights 
 make the roads unsafe and care nothing for right and 
 justice." 8 
 
 1 Lebensbeschreibung des Hitters Gotz von Berlichingen. 
 
 * Quoted by Lamprecht, Deutsche Geschichte, Berlin, 1896, Vol. V, Erste 
 Halfte, page 80. 
 
 * Pierre de Froissard Lettres, 5-6. Quoted Janssen, Geschichte des deutschen 
 Volkes, Freiburg, 1881, Vol. I, page 457.
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 309 
 
 Maximilian could not have felt that the reform of this 
 condition was his first care, for he had planned to stay 
 only a couple of weeks in Worms, and then to carry off 
 the princes from the Rhine to the mountains of Tirol; 
 where he hoped to rouse such a "sound of horns and 
 hunting calls that the Turks and all other bad Christians 
 should hear them echo." * This was time enough to get 
 men and money. It was not time enough to arrange a 
 reform of the Empire. His fiery call to meet the French 
 in defense of their honour and freedom, was coldly heard 
 by the princes to whom the danger did not seem so press- 
 ing. And in the demands he made upon them Maximilian 
 laid bare one of his worst traits, a certain changeable- 
 ness, which grew upon him until his enemies came to count 
 on it as an ally. Often he made a plan of action, only to 
 suddenly lay it aside and take another, not because cir- 
 cumstances changed, but because his lively fancy had 
 slipped the control of will and reason and borne him 
 headlong in some other direction. He kept continually 
 altering his demands upon the Reichstag at Worms, now 
 asking for men and now for money, now bidding the 
 princes follow him in person, now pointing toward France 
 and now toward Italy. The answer of the Reichstag was 
 firm and practically unanimous. It would not make any 
 grant for war until complaints were redressed. And it 
 would not discuss a new military organization of the 
 Empire, unless provision was made for better courts and 
 the preservation of public peace. The members presented 
 to Maximilian plans for an imperial court, a permanent 
 
 1 Pruschenk vertraulicher brief wechsel, etc., page 102,
 
 3 io RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 "landfriede" or prohibition of private war, and an im- 
 perial council. 
 
 He finally agreed that a new imperial court should be 
 created, to sit permanently at Frankfort instead of follow- 
 ing the Emperor. It was to be composed half of knights 
 and half of doctors of law. The Emperor was to name 
 the chief judge. For the other places nominations were 
 to be made by princes, assemblies and cities, and a commit- 
 tee of the Reichstag was to choose among them. He 
 also accepted an "ewige landfriede," or lasting prohibi- 
 tion of private war, in place of the suspension for ten 
 years then ostensibly in force. 1 But the Imperial Council 
 Maximilian absolutely refused. The proposition was to 
 put the executive power of the Empire into the hands of 
 a Council of seventeen; he was to name the president; 
 each of the six active electors to name a member, the 
 other ten members, four from the archdioceses, four from 
 the civil divisions of the Empire, two from the cities, were 
 to be chosen by the Reichstag, and the council thus con- 
 stituted was to fill vacancies. Such a plan made the 
 Empire an oligarchy where the electors or greatest princes 
 held the chief power. It was perhaps not to be expected 
 that Maximilian would accept such a change. But it must 
 be remembered that the Empire was then nothing but a 
 name, and the rights he indignantly refused to yield only 
 paper ones. Indeed, at that very moment, the titular 
 Emperor of Germany was vainly begging the representa- 
 tives of his subjects for a few thousand men and a couple 
 of hundred thousand florins. The evils of which his 
 
 1 Ausgewahlte Urkunden, etc. Altmann und Bernheitn, Berlin, 1895, page 
 164.
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 311 
 
 subjects complained were patent and undeniable. He 
 must either accept this plan to destroy them, or propose 
 another which was effective. Two hundred years later, 
 William III, no lover of constitutional government, 
 granted all the parliamentary privileges of England in 
 order to secure her support in his war against France. 
 If Maximilian had been a great ruler, consulting facts 
 rather than his desires, and with any foresight of the 
 way men would act, he ought either to have done the 
 same, or else, abandoning his war with France, have de- 
 voted all his energies to crushing the oligarchical opposi- 
 tion by proposing a reform effective enough to do what 
 needed to be done, and thus rally a party round himself. 
 What he did do, was to accept the proposed landfriede 
 and imperial court, take the vote of a special aid and the 
 establishment of a regular imperial tax, half poll tax and 
 half property tax, and propose an Imperial Council de- 
 pendent on himself and acting only in his absence. The 
 notorious corruption among Maximilian's ministers, and 
 the lack of financial skill which left him at the opening 
 of the Reichstag unable to pay the inn bills of his wife in 
 the Netherlands, made the Reichstag afraid to trust the 
 expenditure of the new taxes to such a body. They 
 finally agreed to substitute for an Imperial Council, a 
 yearly meeting of the Reichstag to see that the reforms 
 were carried out. This failed to give Germany the 
 stronger executive she needed, but the radical reform 
 party was tired of the long discussion ; split up by jealousy 
 and selfishness. Maximilian thought seriously of noth- 
 ing except raising enough money to cross the Alps. 
 
 The money came in very slowly. The tax was voted
 
 3 i2 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 but not paid. Maximilian called a new Reichstag ta 
 meet in the Summer of 1496, and reached Italy in August, 
 1496, with only four thousand men and not a single 
 German prince behind him. The French King had left 
 Italy, and his easy conquest of Naples had been lost before 
 the troops of Spain and Venice. It was therefore enough 
 for Maximilian, as protector of the fiefs of the Empire 
 in Italy, to bar the Alpine passes against his return and 
 subdue his ally, Florence. But Maximilian proposed the 
 largest plans. He was to embark a great force and attack 
 France from the southern sea coast, while the German 
 princes, under the lead of the Elector of Mayence, the 
 head of the Reform party he had disappointed in Worms, 
 was to invade France from the west. Another imperial 
 army was to descend into Italy over the Alps. This was 
 great strategy, but for the tactics to express it Maximilian 
 had only four thousand men, reserves not mustered except 
 in his own mind, princes who did not want to fight France, 
 allies some of whom wished him back over the Alps. 
 His treasury was so empty that he was obliged to beg a 
 loan of two hundred or three hundred ducats to pay his 
 table expenses. A risky dash to take Livorno, the sea- 
 port of Florence, failed. Maximilian, discouraged and 
 disgusted with the insubordination of his allies, suddenly 
 gave up the attack on Florence, and, in a humour so bad 
 that he even refused his beloved sport of hunting, with- 
 drew over the Alps in the end of December, 1496. The 
 four months of his campaign in Italy had only confirmed 
 the unwillingness of the German princes to see in him 
 another Frederick Barbarossa, sent to restore the glory 
 of the Germanic Empire, and greatly injured the reputa-
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 313 
 
 tion as a soldier he had gained in the Netherlands and 
 Hungary. 
 
 It was eighteen months later before he again addressed 
 the German princes on his duty to fight France. He sum- 
 moned the electors and some of the other princes of the 
 Reichstag to his presence, at Freiburg, in June, 1498. 
 Charles VIII had died in April, 1498, and Maximilian 
 thought it an excellent time to regain his rights. In the 
 name of his son, Philip, he peremptorily demanded 
 the return of the duchy of Burgundy, seized by 
 the French King at the death of Philip's maternal grand- 
 father. He raised seven thousand men and threw them 
 across the border of France for a demonstration, but his 
 allies of the League did not want to back this war upon 
 the new ruler of France, and Maximilian's son Philip, in 
 whose name he waged it, agreed to do homage to the King 
 of France for Flanders and Artois and leave the question 
 of Burgundy to be settled, without war or law process, by 
 common agreement. 
 
 Maximilian was not turned aside from his intention by 
 the fact that no one except himself wanted to fight France 
 about Burgundy. He made to the princes he summoned 
 to his presence, a most impassioned address. It was now 
 impossible, he said, to recover the heritage of the House 
 of Hapsburg his son had surrendered, but he meant to 
 give France a slap in the face which should be remem- 
 bered for a century. He had been betrayed by the Lom- 
 bards and misled by the Germans. He would say that, if 
 he had to throw the crown from his head and tread it 
 under foot. If he was really deserted by the Empire, he 
 would renounce his imperial oath, for he had sworn also
 
 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 to defend the interests of the House of Austria. He 
 peremptorily demanded an answer, "yes" or "no," 
 whether the Empire would back him in punishing France. 
 In vain, Berthold, Archbishop of Mainz, pointed out that 
 the Reichstag had the right to be consulted about the use 
 and need of a war before they voted supplies for it. 
 Maximilian answered he would not be bound hand and 
 foot and hung up on the wall like Gunther on the 
 Nibelungenlied. To this mood the princes yielded some- 
 what, very much as men yield to quiet an excited woman, 
 but though he might thus have his own way to some ex- 
 tent, Maximilian, in the long run, only weakened his 
 ability to lead Germany. 
 
 He was certainly not leading Germany in the direction 
 of reform. The financial basis of the whole scheme 
 adopted at Worms in 1495 was the common tax, and 
 when inquiry was made about the collections, it appeared 
 that in the Hapsburg Netherlands the subjects of Maxi- 
 milian's son, for the most part, bluntly refused to pay, and, 
 in Maximilian's Austrian lands, the collection had not 
 been proportionately as successful as in several other 
 principalities of the Empire. Maximilian had been en- 
 gaged for months in skillfully reorganizing their admin- 
 istration, but he had taken no effective steps to force pay- 
 ment from recalcitrants. This inevitably suggested to the 
 princes that he took no deep interest in anything except 
 the filling of his war chest. This suspicion was increased 
 by the obvious fact that his attention could not be di- 
 verted from demands for an advance on the uncollected 
 tax, to discussions of methods which might make its 
 future collection surer and easier. For Maximilian often
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 315 
 
 appears like an excitable child when it dashes toward the 
 object of momentary desire, reckless of obstacles and, fall- 
 ing, rises again to continue the impetuous run. 
 
 Two campaigns, one to repulse a French raid on 
 Franche Comte, the other a vain attempt to reconquer the 
 revolted Duchy of Guelders for the Hapsburgs, engaged 
 him in the Autumn of 1498, and, before the latter was fin- 
 ished, Maximilian had on his hands the first war in which 
 his armies met continued disaster and defeat. 
 
 The people who lived in the mountain lands lying be- 
 tween the French border, the angle of the upper Rhine 
 with the lake of Constance, and the Italian slopes of the 
 Alps, had long been estranged from other Germans and 
 independent of the Empire. Neither Emperor nor Reich- 
 stag could easily exercise any efficient control over the 
 larger states of Germany, and this independence had been 
 increased by defensive Leagues among the political units 
 of the Empire. For generations, many cities of the north 
 coasts and a part of the watershed of the Rhine and Elbe, 
 had been united in the Hanseatic Union. Frederick III 
 had founded the Swabian League. In the same way the 
 Swiss cantons were bound together in a league. And as 
 time went on, this Swiss League had become practically an 
 independent Republic owning merely nominal allegiance 
 to the Emperor. This situation was to a great extent 
 based on a complete estrangement of feeling. The peas- 
 ants and burghers who pastured cattle, tilled land, manu- 
 factured and traded in those mountain valleys, had de- 
 stroyed feudalism as a governmental system, rejected its 
 fundamental ideas and established, either democracies or 
 commercial oligarchies with democratic features in their
 
 316 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 government. The German nobles, clinging to their feudal 
 rights, the German princes trying to build absolutism on 
 the ruins of feudalism and the liberties of the cities, had 
 for the Swiss that dislike of aristocrats and absolutists for 
 republican neighbours which seems in the long run to be 
 inevitable. Among some of the nobles this dislike was 
 changed to hatred by fear. The idea of questioning the 
 "right" of one family to tax other families was con- 
 tagious, and some inhabitants near the borders of the 
 Swiss League, saw in it a ready means to escape the 
 claims of their feudal lords. In some places the bitter- 
 ness spread to the population because of border raids. 
 It was expressed on the northern side by insults, surviving 
 in songs and proverbs, hard for any one to bear. Moun- 
 taineers are apt to be quick of their hands, and the de- 
 scendants of the people who, at Morgarten and Sempach, 
 at Granson, Morat and Nancy, had rolled the horse and his 
 rider under foot, were none too apt at taking the disdain 
 of men who had not yet waked up to the fact that the time 
 was past when knights could treat all peasants and 
 burghers as they choose. Arid pride of arms and the 
 commercial spirit, made them eager for gain, and not 
 more scrupulous than their neighbours how they got it. 
 There was a feeling, therefore, that the Swiss were trou- 
 blesome and disloyal members of the Empire who ought 
 to be put down. 
 
 They had beaten Maximilian's ancestors and killed his 
 father-in-law, but he wanted to be at peace with them. 
 Not out of fear. Maximilian never was afraid of any- 
 thing. He dashed alone into a strangling swamp to kill 
 a savage boar, or led a handful of men onto the locked 
 shields and great pikes, with the same reckless courage.
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 317 
 
 Maximilian disliked the Swiss war because he did not 
 want to be diverted from his hopes of getting revenge 
 on France and wresting glory from the Turks. The men 
 of the Alpine valleys were the best mercenaries in Europe. 
 He needed them behind his banner, and he disliked to 
 increase their tendency to take the prompter pay of 
 France. The cultivated patrician, Willibald Pirkheimer, 
 a great friend and admirer of Maximilian, commanded the 
 Nuremberg contingent in the Swiss war. In his account 
 of it 1 he lays the responsibility for its outbreak at the 
 doors of "those who were dear to Maximilian." Their 
 injuries and exactions provoked it against his will. And 
 it broke out when he was absent in another vain attempt 
 to compel the people of Guelders to give up a native 
 dynasty and acknowledge the house of Hapsburg. The 
 cities, Pirkheimer says, sent their contingents unwillingly 
 to follow the imperial banner because they knew that the 
 war had been brought on "not of necessity, but only by 
 impotence and arrogance." The nobles who had done so 
 much to provoke it were "not so bold in resisting an army 
 as apt at robbery and the plundering of travellers, for 
 they were strenuous in that exaction, which they had 
 inherited from their ancestors, thinking it no small proof 
 of courage and nobility to live like a thief from plunder 
 and on the misery of others." He gives the most un- 
 bounded praise to the Swiss militia. They were sworn 
 under penalty of death to instant obedience, to silence in 
 fight, never to leave the ranks or begin flight, touch the 
 
 1 Willibald Pirkheimers Schweizer Krieg herausgegeben von Karl Ruck. 
 Munchen, 1895. Quoted in following citations, pages 67, 83, 89, 72, 110, 98; 
 and elsewhere summarized.
 
 3i8 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 spoils or burn buildings without orders, to abstain from 
 all dishonour to churches or violence to non-combatants, 
 to kill all captives made during battle and not to hold them 
 for ransom. In consequence of this oath and their disci- 
 pline, Maximilian's offer of a hundred gold pieces for a 
 prisoner to examine, was vain. "They could be killed, 
 but in no way could they be captured." 
 
 The contest was fearfully bloody and wasteful. Pirk- 
 heimer says: "In a large mountain valley whose vil- 
 lages were burnt and deserted," he met "two old women 
 driving about forty little boys and girls like a flock of 
 sheep. All were starved to the most extreme emacia- 
 tion and, except that they moved, looked not unlike 
 corpses, so that it was horrible to see. I asked the old 
 women whither they were leading their miserable flock. 
 They, astonished and hardly able to open their lips for 
 sorrow and hunger, answered I should soon see whither 
 they led their wretched herd. Hardly had they replied 
 when we came to a meadow. They turned in and falling 
 on their knees began to eat grass like cattle, except that 
 they picked it first with their hands instead of biting it 
 from the roots. They had already learned the varieties 
 of the herbage, and knew what was bitter or insipid, what 
 sweeter or pleasanter to the taste. I was horrified at so 
 dreadful a sight, and stood for a long time like one who 
 can not trust his senses. Then the old woman asked, 
 Do you see why this wretched crowd is led here? Well 
 
 would it have been if none of them had been born 
 
 Their fathers have fallen by the sword, their mothers have 
 died of starvation, their property has been carried off as 
 booty, their houses burnt ; we two wretches, tottering with
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 319 
 
 age, are left to lead this miserable herd like beasts to 
 pasture and, so far as we can, keep them alive on grass. 
 We hope that a short time will release them and us from 
 our miseries. They were twice as many, but in a brief 
 time they are reduced to this number, since daily some die 
 of want and hunger, far happier in a quick death than in 
 longer life." When I had seen and heard these things I 
 could not restrain my tears, pitying the pitiable human 
 lot, and detesting, as every true man ought, the fury of 
 war." 
 
 For six months, disaster crowded upon disaster to the 
 imperial arms. The undisciplined levies badly led, could 
 not stand against the Swiss. At Dorneck, for example, 
 four thousand confederates surprised fifteen thousand im- 
 perialists, killed three thousand men and put the army to 
 utter rout with the loss of their banners and cannon. 
 Maximilian returning from the Netherlands with six 
 thousand troops, faced his losses like a man. Pirkheimer, 
 his companion in evil days, says that in the midst of 
 "irreparable misfortunes ... he could never see the 
 smallest sign of perturbation in the Emperor." But he 
 could not turn the tide, impose order upon his armies or 
 put sense or spirit into his worthless generals. In Sep- 
 tember, 1499, he accepted the good offices of his father- 
 in-law, the Duke of Milan, for a peace. The treaty as- 
 sured the practical independence of the confederates; 
 though they remained nominally subject to the Empire un- 
 til the peace of Westphalia in 1648. Within two years 
 the cities of Bale and Schaffhausen entering the league of 
 the Swiss, gave them fortresses and gates toward the east 
 and the north, and their reputation for fighting became so
 
 320 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 great, that, from the day of her reception as a member of 
 the league, Bale "substituted for the usual guard of her 
 gates an old woman armed with a distaff." 1 
 
 Louis XII of France had taken advantage of the Swiss 
 war to make himself stronger in Italy. He had made an 
 alliance with Venice which freed his path for an attack 
 on Milan, whose ducal crown he claimed by the poor title 
 that his grandmother had been a Visconti. He took the 
 city with little trouble, for Maximilian could not help his 
 father-in-law, nor could Ludovico hire Swiss mercenaries 
 to defend himself. He could only flee to the mountains 
 of Tirol. When he had made peace between the Swiss 
 and Maximilian, he raised an army and came down to at- 
 tack Milan. The people had found the plundering of the 
 French worse than the taxes of Ludovico. They threw 
 open their gates to him with an enthusiasm equal to that 
 which had welcomed his enemies. But he was to feel 
 one more turn of the wheel of fortune. Two months 
 later, as he stood prepared for battle with a new French 
 army, his Swiss mercenaries revolted and refused to fight 
 their compatriots who followed the lilies. Ludovico, at- 
 tempting to escape, was handed over to his enemy by 
 some of his own men, and carried to France, where he 
 died, ten years later, a prisoner in the castle of Loches. 
 
 Maximilian again appealed to the Reichstag for an army 
 to repress the insolence of France in seizing Milan, which 
 was a fief of the Empire. Instead, the Reichstag adopted 
 a plan for a regular army of about thirty thousand men. 
 It was to be raised by every four hundred inhabitants with 
 
 1 Daguet Histoire de la Confederation Suisse. Septteme edition, Paris, 1879. 
 Vol. I, page 401.
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 321 
 
 property contributing to the pay and equipment of one 
 infantry man. In addition the pastors throughout Ger- 
 many were to make collections in the churches for the de- 
 fense of the Empire. For this army, Maximilian's broth- 
 er-in-law, Duke Albert of Bavaria, was named general, 
 and the Emperor's command, even when he was present on 
 the field of battle, was much limited by the authority of 
 the general. The Emperor no longer felt strong enough 
 to decline the Reichsregiment or governing council he 
 had declined at Worms in 1495, nor could he persuade 
 the Reichstag or the Regiment to interfere in Italy for the 
 protection of the nominal vassals of the Empire against 
 France. 
 
 There is some reason to suspect that he was not quite as 
 determined as his speeches declared, to make war to the 
 end on France. He hated the house of Valois. He had 
 fought it ; but he now hoped to enter into alliance with it 
 for the gain of his own family. His son, Philip, was 
 very anxious to avoid further contest between the Haps- 
 burgs and Valois. Three deaths in three years had made 
 his wife heiress to the thrones of Castile and Aragon. 
 To secure her heritage and her claim on Naples, he joined 
 her father Ferdinand in seeking the friendship of France. 
 On the loth of August, 1501, a marriage treaty was 
 signed engaging Philip's infant son, Charles, to marry 
 Louis's infant daughter, Claudia. In October of the same 
 year, Maximilian enlarged this into a family compact 
 between Hapsburg and Valois ; the first of a series of such 
 agreements between the two houses. The marriage of 
 Carl and Claudia was to be matched by a marriage be- 
 tween the Dauphin and Philip's daughter, The King of
 
 322 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 France promised to favour so far as he was able, the ex- 
 pedition of Maximilian to Rome to obtain the imperial 
 crown, and also bound himself to support the claims of 
 the Hapsburgs on the thrones of Spain, of Hungary and 
 Bohemia. Within three years, he was to join the other 
 rulers of Europe in making under Maximilian, an ex- 
 pedition against the Turk. In return, Louis, after taking 
 the oath for Milan as a fief of the Empire, was to become 
 its Duke. The deposed Ludovico was to have the free- 
 dom of five miles around his prison and be generously 
 entertained. 
 
 This agreement, like those which followed it, skillfully 
 flattered Maximilian's two ruling passions. It promised 
 to increase the glory of the House of Hapsburg, and 
 held out the prospect of gratifying that desire to march 
 on Constantinople at the head of Europe, which was a 
 compound of his instinctive longing to hold the center of 
 the world's stage and his sense of duty as the first layman 
 of Christendom; the only one who communed in both 
 kinds, the God appointed protector of the church. 
 
 The peace thus won, Maximilian tried in vain to use in 
 his long continued attempt to conquer the Duchy of 
 Guelders and in preparations for crossing the Alps to 
 be crowned in Rome. From these enterprises he was di- 
 verted by a war in the heart of Germany, during which, 
 by skillfully taking advantage of events, he gained for the 
 first time in his life a large measure of control over the 
 Empire of which he was the titular head. 
 
 On the first of December, 1503, Duke George of the 
 Bavarian house of Wittelsbach died. The possessions of 
 the house had been divided about a century before between
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 323 
 
 three lines. One of them had died out, and George had 
 inherited from his father and his cousin. He left there- 
 fore great possessions in land and treasure which had 
 gained him the surname of the "Rich." By an old law of 
 the house, excluding women from inheritance, his cousins 
 Albert and Wolfgang of the Munich line, were heirs. 
 But George had made a will leaving everything to his 
 only daughter outside of a nunnery, Elizabeth, who was 
 the wife of Rupert, son of the Elector of the Pfalz. 
 Maximilian considered this will and the house law of the 
 dynasty of Wittelsbach it violated, encroachments upon 
 his rights as over-lord of the fiefs of the Empire. Al- 
 bert was married to his sister, Kunigunde, and Max- 
 imilian saw his chance, on the ground of his right to dis- 
 pose of vacant fiefs of the Empire, to increase the power 
 of the Hapsburgs at the expense of the quarreling heirs 
 of their great rival, the house of Wittelsbach. He im- 
 mediately acknowledged Albert and Wolfang as heirs 
 of George, in exchange for an agreement signed by Albert 
 to come to a friendly settlement of Maximilian's claims 
 upon the inheritance. The Assembly of the Estates of the 
 lands in dispute, also begged Maximilian to avoid civil 
 war by deciding the question of inheritance. Maximilian 
 appointed a day when he would hear all interested at 
 Augsburg. To the assembled claimants and representa- 
 tives he announced that George the Rich, by making a will 
 in spite of his warning and against feudal laws, had for- 
 feited to his over-lord all his property in land and people, 
 artillery, provisions and furniture. In short, everything 
 the Duke had, except cash and jewels, was now by law the 
 property of Maximilian. His previous investure of
 
 324 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 George and Wolfgang only extended, therefore, to what 
 they were legally entitled to receive. He did not propose, 
 however, to enforce his rights, and would take only two 
 cities, four castles, three count ships, about one hundred 
 thousand gulden of taxes and crops and all the debts he 
 owed to the late Duke. The remainder he proposed to 
 divide between the two brothers and Elizabeth. Her 
 husband, Rupert, refused to accept this award and, after 
 vain attempts to arrange a division acceptable to all claim- 
 ants, both parties left Augsburg to prepare for war. 
 
 Rupert began it by seizing, with the help of the in- 
 habitants, several cities which had been consigned to re- 
 gents until the dispute was settled, and Maximilian 
 launched the ban of the Empire, which made him and his 
 wife outlaws. Rupert's father, the Elector, backed him, 
 and he used his dead father-in-law's treasure to hire mer- 
 cenaries from Bohemian noblemen. The war was a slow 
 one, fought castle by castle and raid after raid. Brother 
 faced brother, and the poor peasant was slaughtered and 
 plundered by both sides. In the midst of it all Rupert 
 died, and his wife followed him to the grave about a 
 month later. Their faithful captains vainly tried to keep 
 up the contest for the claims of their children. And their 
 hopes depended on the arrival of a strong body of Bo- 
 hemian mercenaries. By forced marches Maximilian fell 
 unexpectedly on this force. They stood fiercely at bay 
 behind their great wooden shields. Maximilian led his 
 men at arms against the mass, and, after a desperate fight 
 where he was saved from being unhorsed and trampled 
 to death only by the devotion of one of his followers, 
 broke into their phalanx. Four-fifths of the Bohemians
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 325 
 
 were killed on the spot or in flight, the rest were taken 
 prisoners. This fight decided the war. It dragged along 
 in places, but Maximilian's decision was enforced; the 
 children of Rupert and Elizabeth received the treasure 
 and the lands north of the Danube, while Albert and 
 Wolfgang received the lands south of the Danube. Max- 
 imilian took for himself what he originally claimed, and 
 rewarded some of his faithful followers out of the estate 
 he had thus administered with fire and sword. The only 
 people who got nothing but loss out of the contest, were 
 the peasants whose labour gave value to the lands which 
 these nobles and princes fought over. 
 
 In the summer of 1505, Maximilian entered into 
 Cologne in triumph, marching in the party-coloured cos- 
 tume of a landsknecht, the great eighteen foot-spear over 
 his shoulder. Nearly a thousand princes and noblemen 
 followed him, and sat down to a banquet in honour of the 
 victory which Philip, aided by Maximilian's skill in hand- 
 ling artillery, had just won in Guelders. The stronghold 
 of the dynasty supported by France and the people, had 
 fallen, and the Duke was driven out, leaving Guelders in 
 the possession of the Hapsburgs. 
 
 Then began a period of four years when there was no 
 open and active party of opposition to Maximilian in Ger- 
 many. Berthold of Mayence, the head of the reform 
 party, had died in December, 1 504. Many of the genera- 
 tion of princes which supported his attempts to bring Ger- 
 many to law and order, as an aristocratic confederation in 
 which the oligarchy of the electors should hold the chief 
 power, died within a few years, and, just as the partisan 
 war over the succession to George the Rich, gave a field
 
 326 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 for Maximilian's best qualities as a soldier, his flashes of 
 energy, his skill in personal fight, his reckless daring, his 
 cunning, so the situation in the Empire gave a chance for 
 his talents for politics. He never forgot a face, if he had 
 seen it only once, twenty years before, at a Reichstag. 1 He 
 knew how to put the most awkward at their ease ; he had 
 great self-control, and, even when the veins of his neck 
 swelled out in wrath, he bit his lip and kept from harsh 
 words. His politeness was unfailing even to opponents, 
 and few who came to court with complaints could resist 
 the charm of his talk. These qualities aided him in a 
 policy thus described to the Senate by the Venetian Am- 
 bassador. 2 He points out that at the death of his father, 
 Maximilian found himself with little credit and a lack of 
 money, little feared or obeyed by the princes of the Em- 
 pire. These, under the lead of six, were so strong that the 
 Diet never voted what Maximilian wanted, "And be- 
 cause time always brings occasion, the King, seeing he 
 could not do anything he wanted because of the resistance 
 of these princes, determined to advance by temporizing, 
 and commenced, little by little, every time a prince-bishop 
 of the Empire died, to use his influence in support of the 
 election to the bishopric of some trusted friend or even a 
 relative of his own. And he did this not only with 
 ecclesiastical princes, but also tried always to favour and 
 flatter the eldest sons of secular princes, so that, when their 
 fathers died, they would follow his wishes. After this, 
 four years ago, the death of George of Bavaria caused 
 
 1 Friedrichs des Weisen Leben und zeitgeschichte nach Spalatins hand- 
 schrift herausgegeben. Neudecker und Preller. 
 Alberi. Series I, Vol. VI, page 32 ff.
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 327 
 
 the war between Duke Albert of Bavaria and the Elector 
 of the Pfalz (Rupert's father). Maximilian favoured 
 Duke Albert his brother-in-law, and, with the bishops and 
 princes he had already made his friends, destroyed the 
 power of the Elector of the Pfalz. About the time of 
 this destruction there died also the Archbishops of May- 
 ence and of Treves. In place of Treves there succeeded a 
 near relative of the King, and in place of Mayence an- 
 other prelate, not at all like his predecessor either in men- 
 tal ability or in power, who is very dependent on his ma- 
 jesty. Thus little by little, the King of the Romans, hav- 
 ing destroyed the Elector of the Pfalz, the powerful 
 princes his adversaries being dead, and the friends he had 
 raised to positions of power having increased, has grown 
 so influential that he has made himself almost omnipotent 
 among the princes of Germany, to such an extent indeed 
 that there is not one who is anxious to oppose him in any- 
 thing. This has come about not only by the fear inspired 
 by his destruction of the Elector of the Pfalz, but also by 
 the favour which the young princes and newly elected 
 bishops show him." 
 
 In other words, Maximilian had, by the beginning of 
 the year 1507, formed a party from which he could expect 
 support. In addition his son Philip had died in Septem- 
 ber, 1506, and the regent who ruled the Netherlands for 
 Philip's young son Charles, was Maximilian's daughter 
 Margaret; an able woman very fond of her father and 
 much more apt to take his advice than her brother Philip 
 had been. Maximilian's correspondence with her shows 
 that he often directed the foreign policy of her govern- 
 ment, and constantly used the patronage of the Dutch and
 
 328 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 Flemish states to reward his adherents and friends. 1 
 This power, based on prestige and personal influence, 
 Maximilian, in the next ten years, lost entirely. And it is 
 difficult to avoid the impression that he lost it because 
 nothing ever seemed to him important compared to the 
 glory of the house of Hapsburg, and because of an over- 
 mastering itch for distinction always driving him to play 
 a showy part in affairs. These two feelings, continually 
 tempting him out of the path leading to greatness, were 
 helped by palpable blunders in his chosen games of war 
 and diplomacy, where he thought himself supremely skill- 
 ful. For no one can read the Weiss Kunig without see- 
 ing that Maximilian thought himself a very great ruler 
 of men, a soldier comparable to Julius Caesar, a complete 
 master of state craft. 
 
 He first appealed to his backing among the members 
 of the Reichstag to support the claims of the house of 
 Hapsburg to the crown of Hungary. If the sickly King 
 Ladislas died, as was probable, without heirs, Maximilian 
 according to the earlier agreement between the houses, 
 was to succeed. But the Hungarian nobles wanted one 
 of their own number for ruler, and they swore an oath in 
 case of a failure of the succession to elect none but a Hun- 
 garian king. The assertion of a national right against a 
 dynastic right, was always meaningless to Maximilian. 
 Indeed no ruler of the age gave any true response to that 
 note. War in defense of his right was his instinctive 
 reply. The Reichstag voted the troops he asked, but 
 Maximilian succeeded in using that weapon of marriage 
 
 * Le Glay, Correspondance de 1'Empereur Maximilian ler et de Marguerite 
 d'Autriche. Paris, 1839, passim.
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 329 
 
 which brought him far more gain than arms. The daugh- 
 ter of Ladislas was pledged to marry one of Maximilian's 
 grandsons, Carl or Ferdinand and, if Ladislas had a son, 
 he was to marry Maximilian's granddaughter Mary. 
 Maximilian marched an army to the border, and de- 
 manded that the national assembly ratify this agreement 
 which secured the succession to the crown of Ladislas to 
 the Hapsburgs. The answer was a summons of Hungary 
 and Bohemia to arms. The birth of a son to Ladislas in- 
 terrupted the fighting. So long as this boy lived, the con- 
 tinuance of a Hungarian government seemed assured. 
 The magnates, therefore, made a peace which neither de- 
 nied nor acknowledged the Hapsburg claims (July, 1507). 
 
 Maximilian had created a party, it now remained to be 
 seen whether he could manage it. The plan for which 
 he asked the support of the Reichstag of Constance was 
 one which appealed to every German, a march to Rome 
 to receive from the Pope the crown of the Holy Roman 
 Empire of the German Nation. 
 
 But Maximilian desired no mere peaceful possession. 
 He proposed the restoration in Italy of the conditions the 
 Hohenstaufeus had perished in trying to maintain. Milan 
 must be recovered, the prestige of France must be 
 broken and the princes of Italy taught to look up to the 
 eagle instead of the lilies, French control of the papacy 
 must be destroyed, lest, at the next vacancy, French car- 
 dinals should choose a French pope who would crown 
 Louis XII Emperor to the dishonour of Germany. For 
 these ends he asked thirty thousand men. The Reich- 
 stag voted fifteen thousand, and Maximilian assured them 
 he would withdraw his attention altogether from small
 
 330 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 affairs to turn all his energies toward large enterprises: 
 by which he meant that he would leave to others the 
 bringing of Germany to order and devote himself to driv- 
 ing the French from Italy and leading the world against 
 Constantinople. 
 
 For the present, several small obstacles embarrassed his 
 progress toward a triumphal entry into Constantinople. 
 The Swiss, whose mercenary troops both Louis and Max- 
 imilian wanted to use and whose influential men both 
 bribed as heavily as they could afford, finally voted not to 
 allow their troops to be used against France, though they 
 agreed that six thousand men might follow the imperial 
 banner in an expedition to receive the crown at Rome. 
 In the second place, Venice had refused to permit the 
 Emperor to cross her territories on his way to Rome, 
 unless he came without an army. It was difficult to see 
 how he could get into Italy without the consent of the 
 Swiss, the French who held Lombardy, or the Venetians. 
 In the third place, the support promised by the Reichstag 
 had not materialized. By February, 1508, less than one 
 thousand men out of the fifteen thousand were with the 
 colours, and only a quarter of the subsidy had been paid, 
 while the contributions promised by some of the Italian 
 cities were still on paper. 
 
 Maximilian could not get through the Alpine passes. 
 It was very doubtful whether he could cross Italy to Rome. 
 He determined therefore to take the title without the 
 crown, and, after a ceremony in the cathedral of Trent, 
 announced in proclamations that he was henceforth to be 
 called "Elected Roman Emperor," instead of "King of 
 the Romans." The Pope solemnly approved the act.
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 331 
 
 Under these circumstances, it is hard to imagine what 
 motives worthy of a statesman's consideration, could have 
 induced Maximilian to make war on Venice. Her trade 
 increased the riches of German cities, and his own duchy 
 of Tirol suffered especially from an interruption of com- 
 merce. It is difficult to find any reason but revenge and 
 pride for leading his men down the Alpine valleys in an 
 attack on Venice. He did not stay with them long but 
 went back to Tirol to look after the finances. His gen- 
 erals met little but disaster. Fifteen hundred men were 
 cut off and utterly destroyed near Pieve di Cadore. The 
 Venetians took town after town around the northern 
 shores of the Adriatic. The peasants and burghers were 
 everywhere faithful to the Venetian masters who gave 
 them better government and lower taxes than they had 
 known under other rulers. The jealous imperial leaders, 
 without any central control, scattered their strength. They 
 could not save Trieste, which fell May, 1508. In vain did 
 the Emperor call upon the German princes for further 
 aid. Unable to properly defend his southeastern duchies 
 against Venetian raids, he made a truce of three years with 
 the Signory, on a basis which brought such loss of Aus- 
 trian possessions, that Maximilian's faithful soldier, Eric 
 of Brunswick, when he read the treaty, spat on it and 
 trampled it under foot. 
 
 Maximilian's desire for revenge, increased by the hu- 
 miliating treaty, was only deferred. To accomplish it he 
 became the close ally of the monarch against whom he 
 had repeatedly demanded from the Reichstag war to the 
 knife. There is some reason to believe that Maximilian 
 was more responsible than anyone else for the League
 
 332 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 of Cambray, which, in the end of December, 1508, united 
 the Pope, France, Aragon and the Emperor against 
 Venice. The war was to continue until she was stripped 
 of all the conquests on the mainland she ruled so well. 
 This booty was to be divided among the allies. England, 
 Hungary and the Italian states were to be invited to join. 
 The Pope was to release Maximilian from his oath to ob- 
 serve a truce with Venice for three years, and summon 
 him as the protector of the Church to attack her. 
 
 Venice was the only state in Italy strong enough to 
 make head against France. Whatever quarrels might 
 arise with the Empire, self interest would in the long run 
 make the Republic an ally of Maximilian if France tried 
 to do what he said he feared she was planning. It is dif- 
 ficult to find an instance where a childish desire for re- 
 venge, for glory or for new lands and cities to call his 
 own, has betrayed a ruler into a blunder in state craft 
 more palpable than this activity of Maximilian in marshal- 
 ing Europe for the destruction of Venice. His fancy led 
 him into dreaming of the world as it had been, and he 
 saw himself managing north Italy like another Frederick 
 II. His imagination, always his master instead of his 
 servant, was too weak to deal with facts, and his lack of 
 knowledge of men made him constantly assume that allies 
 as ambitious and crafty as himself, could be moved like 
 pawns on a chess board wherever he wished them to go. 
 
 The Reichstag, when it met at Worms in the Spring of 
 1509, was not much interested in sending the men and 
 money the Emperor asked to support this great scheme. 
 They dissolved without any action. The Assemblies of 
 Maximilian's personal duchies, the Austrian lands, also
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 333 
 
 showed the greatest reluctance to attack Venice. It was 
 only by granting new privileges that Maximilian could 
 obtain a vote of half the supply he demanded. Nothing 
 was left for him but to raise funds by mortgaging to the 
 great Augsburg bankers, the Fuggers, almost everything 
 as yet unmortgaged upon which they would lend. All 
 this took time, and when the battle of Aquadello laid the 
 Republic helpless before the allies, Maximilian was not 
 on hand to get his share of the plunder. Aragon, France 
 and the Pope seized the lands they wanted, but the ban- 
 ner of Maximilian was still on the other side of the Alps. 
 When Verona Vicenza, Padua and the towns about the 
 northern end of the Adriatic, bending before the storm, 
 raised the imperial colours, no proper garrisons were at 
 hand to man them. The Venetians were therefore able to 
 surprise Padua, and make it a rallying point for their 
 army broken at Aquadello. 
 
 It was the middle of August before Maximilian could 
 invest the city so carelessly lost. His army, made up of 
 four thousand French, a thousand Spaniards, a force of 
 Burgundians, a small troop of Papal mercenaries and 
 contingents from Italian princes, was about twenty thou- 
 sand strong; a force which seemed to his contemporaries 
 to insure success. While he waited for his siege guns, 
 the Emperor took neighbouring towns, established his 
 lines and collected provisions. His great cannon soon 
 made a breach. But the troops which mounted to the 
 assault were slaughtered by mines and the storm failed. 
 A second attack ten days later met no better fate. Never- 
 theless, the chance to reduce the city was still good. The 
 provisions and ammunition of the garrison were running
 
 334 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 low. The full strength of the besiegers had not been ex- 
 erted. Then, if ever, was the time to set all on the hazard 
 and play the game of glory to the end. Maximilian's 
 reputation never recovered from the fact that, early in Oc- 
 tober, he abandoned the attempt to take the city and soon 
 after returned to Tirol. The army, which was only held 
 together by his presence, at once broke up, leaving the 
 besieged astonished at their sudden release from mortal 
 danger. As a result, the Venetians, with the favour of the 
 inhabitants, recovered, before Winter, most of the 
 fortresses they had lost. 
 
 Maximilian turned in every direction to find means to 
 set on foot another army at whose head he could appear 
 in Italy. The Reichstag would not give it to him. In 
 vain he begged the King of France to lend him an army 
 or the means to raise one, taking as security the conquests 
 he was to make in Italy; and in the midst of his efforts 
 the cumbrous league of Cambray suddenly began to go 
 to pieces. 
 
 Pope Julius II was wiser than the Emperor. He had 
 recovered from Venice the vassals the Signory had taken 
 from the Church, and had no wish to lay Italy at the feet 
 of the French King by the destruction of her strongest 
 state. He suddenly announced himself an ally of the Sig- 
 nory to drive the French barbarians from Italy (May, 
 1510). He gained the support of Spain and the Swiss, 
 and would have preferred to add Maximilian to his allies. 
 He made, therefore, an effort to bring about peace between 
 the Emperor and Venice ; but Maximilian would make no 
 concession that the Republic would accept. He acted as if 
 he had so far won instead of lost in the war, demanding
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 335 
 
 not only the towns Venice had taken, but also the chief 
 cities of their possessions on the mainland. Venice was 
 not disposed to lose the fruits of victory, and Maximilian 
 stood by the alliance with Louis XII. 
 
 It is difficult to avoid the impression that this would 
 have been an excellent opportunity to withdraw at any 
 cost from what events had plainly shown must be a losing 
 game. Maximilian was constantly changing his plans. 
 An aptness to drop a half finished design and take up a 
 new one, has been noted by all moderns who have written 
 on any episode of his career. This lack of steadiness 
 was, by this time, a commonplace among contemporary 
 statesmen who knew him. Quirini thus describes this 
 prominent trait to the Venetian Senate in i^o?: 1 "He 
 has a good intelligence, and one so alert that he is cleverer 
 than any of his councilors in finding many expedients for 
 every need. But he has one defect, that, however many 
 expedients he may discover, he does not know how to 
 carry out any of them, and so he is as lacking in power 
 of execution as he is abundant in power of invention. 
 And although, out of two or three remedies for an evil 
 which may have suggested themselves to his mind, he has 
 chosen one as the best, nevertheless he does not execute 
 his design, because, suddenly, before he can execute it, 
 some other design takes shape in his mind which he 
 thinks better, and thus he is so eager to change from a bet- 
 ter thing to a better thing that time and occasion pass for 
 doing anything." But ready as Maximilian was to change 
 his own plans, he was very unready to have them changed 
 for him. Other contemporaries confirm Machiavelli's ob- 
 
 1 Rclazioni, etc. Scrie I, Vol. VI, page 27.
 
 336 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 servation that he never really consulted his councilors or 
 acted on anybody's advice. Besides, like many men, usu- 
 ally good natured and slow to take offence, Maximilian 
 had a temper exceedingly tenacious of a dislike once 
 aroused. The offence the Venetians had given in 1507 
 by refusing passage for his army in a march to be crowned 
 at Rome, overlaid in his mind the earlier hatred of Louis 
 XII. He would not therefore change his attitude to the 
 Republic. 
 
 It is easy of course to be unjust in judging Maximilian's 
 attitude toward Italian affairs, and to blame him for not 
 seeing what events made plain after his death. The forci- 
 ble union of Italy and Germany in the Empire, was a curse 
 to both peoples, and the full price they paid was the delay 
 of national unity until 1 870. But of all the rulers of Europe, 
 only the Tudors, and they half unconsciously, had become 
 aware that the strength of a dynasty lay in a national 
 rather than in imperial policy. The wisdom not to join 
 5n the fight for the control of Italy, was, perhaps, too much 
 to expect of any man in Maximilian's position. One of 
 his titles was "at all times increaser of the Empire." In 
 the oath of office he swore to defend its bounds. And 
 as a knight it seemed impossible to him to refuse to re- 
 sent an insult in arms. All his councilors, all his son's 
 councilors and all the princes of the Empire, were, it is 
 true, against his first descent into Italy. But he had rea- 
 son to suspect the motives of many of these advisers, and 
 the impulse to gratify his ambition and his love of action, 
 might rather easily assume in his own consciousness the 
 form of a sense of duty. The humanists, whose company 
 delighted him, who were his great admirers, were con-
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 337 
 
 stantly strengthening him in this delusion. Their utter- 
 ances made it easier for Maximilian to live in a world of 
 ideals long outworn, and to neglect the facts of the actual 
 world. The critical methods of the New Learning of the 
 Renascence, did not lead the early German humanists to 
 a correct understanding of the genesis, or the nature, of 
 the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. They clung 
 to the delusion of the fifteenth century jurists, and thought 
 it to be a direct successor of the Empire of Trajan. They 
 transferred ideas from one to the other, in a way most mis- 
 leading to any Emperor who read their writings or lis- 
 tened to their appeals. Worse political advisers than 
 these men, who thought they had found in old books wis- 
 dom to direct a new world, could hardly be imagined. 
 Their fundamentally wrong conceptions of the duty of an 
 Emperor played into all Maximilian's weaknesses. The 
 writings of Brant, Wimpheling, Celtes, Hutten, strength- 
 ened in him the erroneous ideas which carried him down 
 into Lombardy in spite of all difficulties and against all 
 protests, in order that he might display to an admiring 
 world of which he was the rightful head, the combined 
 virtues of his two namesakes, Fabius Maximus and 
 ^Emilius Paulus, and outdo the deeds of Julius Caesar. 1 
 
 But there was no reason why Maximilian should not 
 have abandoned a position events had shown untenable, 
 or given up a method of establishing his claims which 
 common sense ought to have told him would lead to dis- 
 aster. He had nothing to gain and much to lose by de- 
 
 1 In one of his memorandum books is this entry (1501-1505): "In this 
 affair his Majesty gave eight secretaries enough to write in order that his 
 Majesty might outdo Julius Caesar." Jahrbucher Kunsthistorischen Samm- 
 lungen, VI, page 9.
 
 338 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 stroying Venice. No one paid any attention to the com- 
 mands of an Emperor without an army. Germany would 
 not give him an army. His attempts to raise one had 
 completed the ruin of his finances, and cost him dan- 
 gerous concessions in every contest to maintain his au- 
 thority or claims within the Empire or on its borders. 
 What reason was there to suppose that the King of 
 France, whom he had repeatedly denounced as his dead- 
 ly enemy and unscrupulous rival, would do anything 
 for the German Empire in Italy? It was most fatuous 
 for him to turn a deaf ear to the warnings of his clever, 
 faithful daughter, Margaret, regent of the Netherlands 
 for her young nephew, that Louis XII in advising him 
 to continue the war with Venice was using him as a 
 catspaw. The chief cause of his making such a mistake, 
 was his instinctive disinclination to a policy of slow con- 
 struction, and his longing for a course of adventurous 
 action, preferably one which would make him the centre 
 about which all events turned. 
 
 This seems to have been the reason for the most extra- 
 ordinary of all his plans, the plan he attempted to put in 
 execution in August, 1511. When Julius II was reported 
 to be dying, Maximilian wrote letters, the face value of 
 which is that he hoped to take vows of celibacy, lay down 
 the imperial insignia and be crowned Pope. This is an 
 idea so wild, that many of the more recent writers have 
 insisted that it is possible to read all the phrases in an 
 allegorical or jesting sense, which, they are inclined to be- 
 lieve, covered a plan to elect Cardinal Hadrian of Corneto, 
 Vicar of Christ, while Maximilian received from him in 
 return the temporal rule of the States of the Church. By
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 339 
 
 ingenious argument, Maximilian's phrases can be made to 
 fit the hypothesis ; but the difficulty which suggested it, is 
 not removed by its establishment. If it is difficult to 
 believe that Maximilian cherished for a moment the idea 
 that he could be elected Pope ; it is scarcely less difficult to 
 believe that he could have thought it possible for him to 
 separate the spiritual and temporal power of the papacy. 
 Nothing but the force of arms could have made such a 
 revolution. How could an Emperor unable to defend 
 against Venice the small towns at the head of the Adriatic, 
 hope to take Rome and rule the Papal States ? * What- 
 ever the plan was, the unexpected recovery of Julius made 
 it superfluous. 
 
 It was really a year later, before Maximilian permitted 
 the Pope to arrange a ten months' truce with Venice 
 which left him between France and the Holy 
 League, sought by both and committed to neither. 
 Within a week of the truce, the French army 
 routed the army of the League in the slaughterous 
 battle of Ravenna and seemed master of Italy. This spec- 
 tacle was too much for Maximilian ; he opened the passes 
 of Tirol for the Swiss that they might march to the de- 
 fense of the Pope, he ordered all the German mercenaries 
 who had done so much to win the battle of Ravenna to 
 leave the lilies. The result was the retreat of the French 
 across the Alps. But in spite of this attack upon Louis 
 XII, Maximilian still continued negotiations for the com- 
 
 1 For this discussion references to literature Gebhardt Die Gravamina der 
 deutschen nation gegen den Romischen Hof. Breslau, 1884, page 90. 
 
 Ulmann, Maximilian I, Vol. II, page 439. 
 
 Jager Albrecht. Maximilian's verhaltnisse zum Papsthum in Sitzungsbe- 
 richte der Kais. Akad. d. Wissenschaften. Phil. Hist. Klasse, Vol. XII, 210.
 
 340 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 pletion of the marriage between Louis's daughter and his 
 own grandson Charles. The negotiations made the Pope 
 uncertain of his support and anxious to persuade Venice 
 to grant Maximilian's condition for a peace. Julius even 
 went so far, as to threaten Venice with the interdict and 
 an attack by papal troops under the command of Max- 
 imilian. Then Maximilian, having exacted the price of 
 his adhesion, joined the Holy League. This was politics 
 which seemed to promise the object he desired, the de- 
 struction of Venice. He forgot that the Venetians were 
 not going to be idle while their destruction was carried 
 out. 
 
 In March, 1513, they formed an alliance with their for- 
 mer deadly enemy, France. Maximilian's answer was a 
 league with England, Spain and the new Pope, Leo X, to 
 attack France and divide her territories, as the members 
 of the League of Cambray had promised to divide the 
 territories of Venice. 
 
 Once more the god of war, so long unfriendly, seemed 
 to smile on him. The Swiss marched to defend the young 
 Duke Maximilian Sforza, son of Ludovico, who had 
 died a prisoner in France. At Novara, June 6th, 1513, 
 they routed the French army, which retreated across the 
 Alps. In northern France, the English army of invasion, 
 which Maximilian joined without troops, to fight by the 
 side of his ally, Henry VIII, won, largely by Maximilian's 
 advice, the Battle of the Spurs (August i6th, 1513), a 
 rout which temporarily demoralized the French army. 
 In September the Swiss marched into Burgundy and in- 
 vested Dijon, the capital, weakly garrisoned and unable 
 to stand a strong attack. In October the imperial army
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 341 
 
 made up of Spaniards and Germans totally defeated the 
 Venetians near Vicenza, inflicting a loss of all their stan- 
 dards and artillery, together with five thousand men and 
 the majority of their officers. But none of these victories 
 were pushed home, and France gained time to prepare a 
 strong defence. 
 
 The pieces were then moved on the board of diplomacy 
 with bewildering rapidity. In order to make sure of the 
 support of Henry of England for attacking France again 
 in the spring of 1514, Maximilian promised to make 
 Henry King of France and to appoint him Vicar and suc- 
 cessor to the Empire. The alliance was to be sealed by 
 the marriage of Henry's sister Mary, to Maximilian's 
 grandson Charles. 
 
 The losses of the past campaign and the threat of con- 
 tinued attack, made the French King renew in the most 
 flattering form the offer of a marriage between his daugh- 
 ter and Maximilian's grandson Ferdinand. He now 
 promised the Duchy of Milan as a dowry. Tempted by 
 the offer, Maximilian joined Ferdinand's maternal 
 grandfather, Ferdinand of Spain, in a year's truce with 
 France with this marriage in prospect. Thereupon the 
 King of England, suspecting that he was deserted and be- 
 trayed by both his allies, broke the engagement of his sis- 
 ter Mary to Charles, married her to Louis XII, and made 
 a close offensive and defensive league with France in Oc- 
 tober, 1514. 
 
 Louis, relieved from danger, broke the engagement of 
 his daughter Renata to Ferdinand, and prepared to cross 
 the Alps and reassert his mastery over north Italy. The
 
 342 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 country to which he took his journey was farther, for on 
 the first of January, 1515, he died. 
 
 His successor, the youthful Francis I, enlarged and car- 
 ried out his plan. In August he came down into Italy, 
 and the next month, with the help of the Venetians, de- 
 feated the Swiss at Marignano in the greatest battle of the 
 generation. Milan surrendered and the Duke, Max- 
 imilian Sforza, was sent to France a prisoner. 
 Once more the pieces shifted on the diplomatic board 
 where the armies for these brutal wars of treacherous and 
 selfish princes were arrayed. Spain, England and Max- 
 imilian, fearing the overwhelming influence of France, 
 joined another league against her. In the Spring of 1516, 
 Maximilian appeared once more in Italy at the head of a 
 force of Spaniards, Germans and Swiss paid for by Eng- 
 lish gold, and, towards the end of March, threatened an 
 assault on Milan, whither the French army had retired. 
 The English commissioners, the Swiss, German and Span- 
 ish captains, advised a fight, but suddenly, Maximilian, as 
 at Padua seven years before, refused a decisive action and 
 announced his intention of leaving the army. The Car- 
 dinal of Zion who had brought the Swiss into action, and 
 Pace, the English agent, combatted this intention with 
 all their power, and Maximilian's councilors told him that 
 if he withdrew, "no man in Germany would esteem him 
 the worth of a groat." 1 To the despair of all around him 
 he persisted in abandoning the attack, although the Swiss 
 sent word "desiring him, if he was afraid, to put himself 
 in security in Brescia ; and they, with his horsemen, would 
 clear the French out of Italy." 
 
 * Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, Vol. II, number 1721.
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 343 
 
 The Emperor might have given some good reasons for 
 his caution. The French army was strong and behind 
 walls, the Swiss under his command were mutinous be- 
 cause their pay was delayed, and the Spaniards rivalled 
 their insubordination. Such an army was, however, 
 most easily controlled when it was fighting, and the 
 plunder of Milan would have kept the soldiers with the 
 standards. The Emperor afterwards said, he feared they 
 would sack the city, and he wished to conquer Italy by 
 kindness, not by fear. He had not shrunk from such vio- 
 lence before. He wasted Flanders with fire and sword to 
 force the submission of Ghent. He sent word to the King 
 of Spain that he intended to compel Florence to abandon 
 the alliance of France, by devastating "all the villages, 
 houses, gardens and vineyards outside of the city, and also 
 all the country in the neighborhood belonging to the Flor- 
 entines." 1 The truth probably was, that fear of betrayal 
 by the Swiss the idea that they would sell him to his 
 enemies as other Swiss had sold Ludovico Sforza to 
 France, sixteen years before was the chief motive for 
 his sudden preference for prudence over boldness. This 
 fear was not very well based, for there was a marked dif- 
 ference between the two situations. In 1500, the Swiss 
 were fighting against their cantonal standards. In 1516 
 they were with them. When the Swiss who fought with 
 France sent messengers to Maximilian's Swiss captains a 
 few days after the withdrawal, the imperial captains in- 
 dignantly repudiated the invitation to betray their leader, 
 reproached the French mercenaries and professed their 
 
 1 Chmel Urkunden, page 128.
 
 344 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 loyalty to Maximilian. 1 The Emperor's distrust of the 
 Swiss was increased by two things. A letter proposing 
 betrayal, intended to fall into his hands, was sent from the 
 French camp, and the night after he read it, he saw in a 
 dream his ancestors who had been defeated by the Swiss 
 at Morgarten and Sempach. They warned him not to 
 trust the hereditary foes of his house. 2 
 
 Whether his reasons were good or bad, the world could 
 see no good reasons why this man, usually so rash, should 
 suddenly prefer caution to action. His friends were 
 "greatly dispirited." In France it was thought that the 
 King of the Romans had shamefully withdrawn. 3 The 
 Venetian envoy wrote the Senate, "The Emperor has 
 gone back and to his great shame crossed the Adda." 4 
 
 Spinelli wrote to Henry VIII, "If the Emperor do 
 not shortly return (to his army) his reputation is 
 ruined." 5 Henry VIII exhorted him, "like a valiant captain, 
 to resume his heart and put a stop to the dishonourable 
 reports circulated about him." 6 And when Maximilian 
 persisted in not trusting himself in the field at the head 
 of his men, Pace finally wrote from Italy to Wolsey, 
 "The Emperor is so degraded it signifies not whether he 
 is friend or enemy." 7 His own German landsknechts, 
 mutinous for lack of pay, refused his orders to assault 
 a Venetian castle on the Lago d'Idro and called him 
 "Apple King and Straw King." The imperial army went 
 
 1 Letters and Papers, Vol. II, number 1737. 
 
 8 Ilistoria und wahrhafftige beschreibung von Herr Georgen von Frundsberg, 
 etc. Kriegsthaten, Frankfort, 1568, page 24. Confirmed also by Italian writers. 
 Letters and Papers, Vol. II, 2017. 
 Letters and Papers, Vol. II, 1841. 
 Letters and Papers, Vol. II, 1763. 
 Letters and Papers, Vol. II, 1753. 
 Letters and Papers, Vol. II, 1877.
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 345 
 
 to pieces, and the French swept everything before them in 
 north Italy. 
 
 From this time on, Maximilian hardly counted in Ital- 
 ian affairs. His grandson Charles, now King of Spain and 
 Naples, advised him to save danger to his person by ap- 
 pointing a general captain of experience, and England 
 leagued with the Swiss to re-take Milan, leaving out Max- 
 imilian altogether. 
 
 In August, Charles and Francis made the treaty of 
 Noyon without Maximilian's advice and against his will. 
 Nothing remained for the Emperor but to ratify it in De- 
 cember, 1516. It brought his nine years' war with Venice 
 to a close which could have given him little pleasure. His 
 effort to re-establish the power of the Empire south of the 
 Alps, had added a small strip to his duchy of Tirol, and 
 had left him a huge debt for which everything he owned 
 was mortgaged. 1 The Venetians or the French were in 
 possession of almost all he had claimed in north Italy. It 
 is doubtful whether the Emperor, isolated and helpless as 
 he was, would have agreed to such an arrangement if he 
 had thought it permanent. He still trusted in the chances 
 of the future and his own diplomacy. 
 
 In the Spring of 1517, another agreement was made 
 between Francis, Charles and the Emperor. Secret arti- 
 cles promised the erecting of two new fiefs of the Em- 
 pire. Maximilian was to create at once the kingdom of 
 Lombardy for Francis, and the Kingdom of Italy, com- 
 posed for Ferdinand, Maximilian's younger grandson, out 
 of Venice, Tuscany and other middle Italian states. Per- 
 
 1 Maximilian to the Estates of Tirol, January, 1518. 
 
 Archiv fur Kunde Oesterreichischer Geschichte quellen. 1854, page 219.
 
 346 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 haps neither Valois nor Hapsburg really expected to carry 
 out this agreement. At all events, the influence of the 
 Empire counted for nothing in Italy, until, five years later, 
 Maximilian's grandson, under the title of Emperor, but 
 using his resources as King of Spain, successfully renewed 
 the struggle against the overmastering Valois. 
 
 The war against Venice thus ended in com- 
 plete disaster. But in the east Maximilian had 
 meantime met with a great success. A lasting 
 agreement brought a final settlement to the ques- 
 tion of the Hungarian and Bohemian crowns. In 
 the spring of 1515, Maximilian met the King of Hun- 
 gary and Bohemia and the King of Poland at Vienna. 
 Maximilian was exceedingly proud of his ability at ar- 
 ranging banquets and masques, and has recorded it by 
 pen and burin in the works which he designed to hand 
 down his fame and posterity. He exerted his skill, and 
 amid a magnificent series of entertainments which must 
 have strained to the utmost his exhausted resources, these 
 rulers reached an agreement very favourable to the house 
 of Hapsburg. Louis, the Crown Prince of Hungary, was 
 married by proxy to Maximilian's granddaughter Mary. 
 His sister Anna was married to Maximilian himself, with 
 the understanding that his younger grandson, Ferdinand, 
 might, within a year, be substituted as titular husband. 
 Maximilian adopted Louis, named him imperial Vicar, 
 and issued a call to the Electors to choose him for the next 
 Emperor. This was the same promise Maximilian had 
 given to Henry VIII. Henry VIII apparently took it 
 seriously ; Louis may perhaps have done so, but it is cer-
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 347 
 
 tain that Maximilian never did. Six years later Ferdi- 
 nand and Anna began their married life, and when King 
 Louis, in 1526, lost his army and his life before the Turks 
 at Mohacz, Ferdinand was able, after a civil war and 
 much bribery, to secure the crowns of Bohemia- and Hun- 
 gary. Thus, east and west, the hopes of Maximilian for 
 the power of his descendants, were successful. He could 
 not reconquer Italy, but he did spread the lands of the 
 Hapsburgs in almost unbroken line from the Carpathian 
 mountains to the North Sea. 
 
 Far otherwise was it with his attempted reform of the 
 Empire. When he called on various Reichstags to sup- 
 port him in maintaining the imperial influence south of 
 the Alps against Venice and France, he had not entirely 
 neglected the crying need of Germany for justice and 
 peace. The reforms of Worms in 1495 proved entirely 
 ineffective. Twelve years later, the condition of the Em- 
 pire was no better than before. In 1 507, Quirini, writing 
 to the Venetian Senate, thus describes the conditions : * 
 "There are in this nation four classes of people: princes 
 of the Empire; gentlemen (knights); burghers of free 
 cities ; and peasants (populo minuto) . The princes l gen- 
 erally have some quarrel among themselves or else with 
 some free city, and, if they are poor, most of them permit 
 their retainers to assault and rob on the roads. The gen- 
 tlemen generally live in some castle outside of the cities 
 or in the court of some prince or among the hills in 
 solitary places. They are poor, enemies to the burghers, 
 and so proud that, under no circumstances, will they inter- 
 marry with a mercantile family, or debase themselves to 
 
 1 Relazioni. Serie I, Vol. VT, page 24.
 
 348 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 practice trade with them. They make a living as captains 
 of mercenaries, and when that fails, do nothing except 
 hunt or rob on the roads. If this King (Maximilian) 
 did not enforce a very strict justice, it would not be safe to 
 ride through any part of Germany ; in spite of it, in Fran- 
 conia, where there are many of these gentlemen, and also 
 around Nuremberg- and in other places, the roads are most 
 insecure." 
 
 This was just at the time when Maximilian, by war and 
 political use of his influence, had really obtained power in 
 the Empire ; and he proposed to the Reichstag reforms to 
 entirely suppress the habits of the robber barons. He 
 had two objects in view. He wanted to provide an efficient 
 court of justice, presided over by an imperial chief 
 judge and composed of sixteen judges, two from the 
 Hapsburg hereditary lands, six named by the Elec- 
 tors, six from each circle of the Empire, and two 
 from the lesser nobility. To enforce its decisions, as 
 well as to carry out the orders of the Imperial Council, he 
 proposed an imperial police, to be commanded by four 
 marshals, of the Lower Rhine, the Upper Rhine, the 
 Elbe and the Danube. To each of these was assigned two 
 councilors and twenty-four knights. For criminal mat- 
 ters, especially the repression of robbery, there was to be 
 a Marshal for the Empire. He was to go from place to 
 place, and enforce _order, with the aid of the marshal of 
 any circle whose roads were unsafe. For these proposi- 
 tions Maximilian found but little support in the Reichstag. 
 They feared that such an arrangement would enable him 
 to destroy all local power. The Reichstag refused to vote 
 for the imperial police. For, in truth, the party Maximil-
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 349 
 
 ian had rallied round him, was not the sort of a party 
 from which he could have expected much help in any 
 unification of the Empire. It was composed of princes, 
 bishops and nobles, many of them selfish and ambitious, 
 most of them promoted by his influence playing on per- 
 sonal desires. The opposition princes were many of them 
 equally selfish. Those who complained bitterly of the 
 disorders of the Empire, were not eager for any reform 
 which threatened loss to their independence. The only 
 possibility of forming an imperial party which would 
 have backed him in meeting the crying needs of the Em- 
 pire, lay in imitating the Tudors and seeking the aid of 
 the burghers against the nobility. Around such a union 
 of the middle classes and the crown, he might have rallied 
 a support which would have enabled him to do his first 
 duty. But this step Maximilian was, by his training, his 
 tastes and his past experience, incapable of making. The 
 classes whose privileges had survived from feudal times, 
 always seemed to him superior to the classes who had 
 won wealth and political influence in more recent genera- 
 tions, nor did the idea of turning for permanent support 
 toward the burghers occur to him as a possibility. 
 
 To form such a party would have been very dif- 
 ficult, for the cities also were selfish and jealous. But 
 the other support was shown by experience to be in- 
 sufficient, and Maximilian, having refused the radical 
 reform and accused its dead leader, Berthold of Mayence, 
 of treachery and lack of wisdom, was bound to find some 
 other plan to take its place. His great purposes in Italy 
 required the support of Germany. He could not get it 
 unless he gave Germany something beside a paper plan to
 
 350 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 subdue feuds and public disorder. This he did not do. 
 In the Weiss Kunig, indeed, he wrote, "He allowed in 
 his realm no robbery, but it was perfectly safe to travel 
 through his realm." The statement is false. 1 Succes- 
 sive Reichstags abounded in renewed complaints of feuds 
 and robbery. The members of the Reichstag of 
 1517 informed the imperial commissioners that the 
 imperial court was useless. Many of the judges 
 were not fitted for their places the calendar choked 
 the procedure intolerably slow. A decision in 
 a suitor's favour did not help him, for it could 
 not be enforced. Evil doers were not afraid even 
 of the ban of the Empire. The lower courts were no 
 better, and there was in Germany a frightful and general 
 state of disorder. Travellers were not safe on land or 
 river. The peasants who fed all, were going to destruc- 
 tion. Widows and orphans were not protected. No 
 messenger, no merchant, no pilgrim, could traverse the 
 roads to .perform his pious work or give his message or 
 attend to his affairs. These general complaints were ac- 
 companied by a large number of special instances, and 
 they show that Maximilian's reforms had not worked. 
 Perhaps they would have failed under all possible efforts. 
 At all events it is certain that the greater part of Maximil- 
 ian's energies were directed to his plans across the Alps. 
 He did do something, but it lies on the face of the facts of 
 his war against Venice and his eager engagement in the 
 
 1 It It not true even of his own hereditary duchies. Representative com- 
 mittees from the Austrian duchies complained bitterly in 1518 of the preva- 
 lence of highway robbery. 
 
 Archiv fur Kunde Oesterrichischer Geschichts Quellen. 1854, 239.
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 351 
 
 ten years of diplomacy spun like spider webs about its 
 action, that he did not do all he could. 
 
 There were in Germany a lot of titled evil doers hard- 
 ened in lawlessness. Kunz Schott, for example, caught a 
 Nuremberg burgher and ordered him to lay his hand on 
 a block. "At first he would not do it and then he said to 
 him 'Lay it out or I'll thrust a sword through you.' 
 The burgher said, 'Dear lord, I beg you have pity on 
 my three children about this.' He answered, 'Lay it 
 down at once.' Then he laid his left hand down, but he 
 had to lay down the right hand. Schott said 'You won't 
 write me any more letters,' and he drew his sword and 
 struck. But the burgher jerked his hand and the blow 
 fell on his fingers. But he had to put it down again. 
 He struck again to cut off his hand at the joint. He 
 jerked again and he struck him in the middle of the hand 
 so that the thumb hung by the skin, and Schott thrust the 
 cut off hand in his bosom, saying, 'Go carry that home 
 to your masters' " * (the Nuremberg Councilors). Such 
 scoundrels as are pictured in this rude miniature from a 
 burgher's diary, were not uncommon in Germany, and if, 
 instead of carrying the imperial banner over the Alps, 
 Maximilian had spread it against selected examples of 
 this class, and personally superintended their hanging on 
 the towers of their own castles, it would have gained 
 more for his own glory, for Germany, and ultimately for 
 the house of Hapsburg, than the finest diplomatic ar- 
 rangement by which he hoped to induce someone else to 
 conquer north Italy and hand its best towns over to him. 
 
 But when peace with Venice and France left Maximil- 
 
 1 Chroniken der deutschen Stadtc, Vol. XI, page 605.
 
 352 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 ian's hands free in 1517, he did not propose to turn his 
 energy toward the monotonous details of the administra- 
 tion of justice and finance. Two things occupied his 
 attention and filled his speech. The first was the suc- 
 cession of his grandson Charles to the Empire. In spite 
 of his promise to Louis of Hungary and Henry of Eng- 
 land, Maximilian had thought for a long time about secur- 
 ing the succession to Charles. In 1517, signs of break 
 down in his once extraordinary health began to appear. 
 The doctors interfered with his habits and hampered his 
 work, and his condition and their orders reminded him of 
 the chances of mortality. There was only one effective 
 argument to use with the Electors to induce them 
 to elect Charles, King of the Romans, bribery. The 
 Golden Bull expressly forbade both direct and indirect 
 bribery, but the Emperor could grant dispensations, and 
 offer the men he bribed exemptions from the law he asked 
 them to break. This gave him a great advantage over 
 the rival candidate, Francis I. Maximilian had no money 
 and no means of raising any. Never did the ruler whom 
 the Italians had long ago nicknamed "pochi danari," so 
 well deserve his name. Progressive bankruptcy had 
 brought him to the point where he literally lived on his 
 debts. He could only secure one thousand gulden from 
 his chief creditor the house of Fugger, after repeated at- 
 tempts, and the plea that if he could not get the loan, "His 
 Majesty would have nothing to eat." Charles had to 
 raise the cash to bribe the Electors on his resources as the 
 King of Spain. Prices were high, and the total of all the 
 amounts promised was the enormous sum of between five 
 and six hundred thousand gulden. Privileges and prom-
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 353 
 
 ises of good marriages were additional inducements. Trie 
 result was, that on August 27th, 1518, four Electors and 
 the ambassadors of a fifth, signed an agreement to elect 
 Charles, King of the Romans. 
 
 But in spite of this triumph of influence, the four months 
 Maximilian had to live, did not bring him the pleasure of 
 being sure that the crown of Empire was to join the ducal 
 crowns of the Netherlands, the royal crowns of Spain and 
 Naples and many other diadems, on the head of his oldest 
 grandson. Just what the hitch was does not appear with 
 certainty. The Papal objection to the union of the 
 crowns of Naples and the Empire, an objection surviving 
 from the conflicts of the Papacy and the Empire in which 
 the imperial family of Hohenstaufen had perished during 
 the thirteenth century, played some part. But this formal 
 objection, afterward overcome, could not have been the 
 real obstacle. Probably Charles was unable to raise 
 enough to pay cash on the completion of the bargain. The 
 election therefore went over until after Maximilian's 
 death, when the total price rose about sixty per cent 
 
 The skillful conduct of this afterwards successful nego- 
 tiation, was not the only matter which occupied Maximil- 
 ian's attention when the close of the war with Venice and 
 peace with France, gave him leisure. The reign of Mo- 
 hammed II, who, in 1453, took Constantinople, marked a 
 process of consolidation in the Turkish Empire and an ex- 
 tension of its power, which met its first serious disaster 
 in arms at Lepanto in 1571. The victories of Selim I 
 in Persia, Asia Minor and Egypt, between 1514 and 1517, 
 as well as the boldness of his slave hunting fleets on the
 
 354 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 Italian coasts, 1 pressed the standing menace of the Turkish 
 power upon the attention of Pope Leo X. He wrote a 
 letter to all Christian princes, exhorting them to lay aside 
 their quarrels and unite under the standard of the cross 
 against the common foe of Christendom. And in March, 
 1517, the Lateran Council voted to impose two taxes on 
 Christendom. One resolution authorized the sale of in- 
 dulgencies in order to restore St. Peters, so fallen into 
 ruins that the relics of the Apostles were exposed to in- 
 jury by the weather ; the other ordered the payment of a 
 tax on the clerical property of the world, and the sale of 
 another indulgence to aid the Church in arming Europe 
 for a crusade against the Turk. Many good churchmen 
 did not believe that this money would be used for the 
 purposes to which it was voted. A number of bishops of 
 the council insisted that the Turkish tenth should not 
 be raised or the Turkish indulgence sold, until the 
 crusade had begun, and they were beaten on the vote by a 
 very small majority. There is every reason to believe that 
 their suspicions were justified by facts. There is absolute 
 documentary proof of it in regard to parts of these mon- 
 ies. A receipt has been preserved, in which the Pope's 
 nephew acknowledges one hundred thousand livres from 
 the King of France, to be repaid out of the Turkish tenth. 
 And it is perfectly plain that a large part of the income of 
 the sale of the indulgence for the rebuilding of St. Peters, 
 went to repay the banking firm of Fugger for advances to 
 enable the Archbishop of Mayence to pay the papacy the 
 
 1 One of these entered the Tiber and threatened to take the Pope himself 
 prisoner. Letters and Papers, II, 2017.
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 355 
 
 customary enormous fees for the granting of the pallium, 
 or badge of his office. 
 
 The way in which the indulgence traffic exploited the 
 faith of the common people to line the pockets of greedy 
 prelates or princes, and the reckless preaching which, to 
 push the sale, often distorted to the injury of religion and 
 the undermining of morality, the true doctrines of the 
 Church concerning indulgences, had again and again been 
 denounced by laymen and clergymen. An Augustinian 
 monk who was one of the city pastors and University 
 professors of Wittenberg, a small city in Saxony, be- 
 came aware, through the confessions of his people, that 
 great harm was being done to faith by the preaching of a 
 vender of the St. Peter's indulgence. He issued in Octo- 
 ber, 1517, as a professor of theology sworn to defend the 
 truth of God, a protest against these abuses and an appeal 
 to the Pope to suppress them. Directed toward a pro- 
 fessional audience, it called out a great popular response, 
 and Martin Luther became a voice of Germany against 
 the indulgence traffic, as an open and scandalous sign of 
 manifest corruption in the ecclesiastical administration. 
 For, as yet, he neither intended nor suggested attack upon 
 the doctrine or constitution of the Church. 
 
 What Germany thought about the Turkish tenths, 
 which, though levied on church property, must of course 
 come finally out of the pockets of the people, found ex- 
 pression in various forms during the Reichstag which 
 opened at Augsburg in the Spring of 1518. 
 
 The Emperor and the Papal Legate appeared before it 
 in the attitude which corresponded to the mediaeval ideal 
 of the Empire as a double headed institution, where the
 
 356 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 sacred layman, chosen by God to bear the sword as a 
 terror to evil doers, worked in perfect harmony with the 
 Vicar of Christ, the head of the world in all spiritual 
 things. The Legate, at high mass in the cathedral, be- 
 stowed a cardinal's hat on the Archbishop of Mayence, for 
 the payment of whose debts the indulgence which roused 
 Luther's protest had been sold, and gave a consecrated 
 sword to the Emperor, exhorting him, in the name of the 
 Vicar of Christ, to conquer Constantinople and Jerusalem 
 and include the earth within the bounds of the Empire 
 and the Church. How much the Emperor really expected 
 the crusade to take the shape of an army, is hard to say. 
 He had written, to the papal letter of the beginning of 
 1517, a most enthusiastic answer, in which the man who 
 has studied Maximilian most profoundly, thinks he can 
 detect the note of irony. He afterward worked out a 
 military plan to occupy three years, which he sent to the 
 various princes of the world. It was to begin with the 
 conquest of north Africa by Hapsburg forces under the 
 lead of the Emperor, while Francis and Henry remained 
 at home to maintain European peace and keep down re- 
 bellion. It has been suggested that this plan may have 
 concealed the desire to add north Africa to the Hapsburg 
 domains, without any serious intention of assaulting Con- 
 stantinople in the third year. This is possible. It is also 
 possible, and more probable, 1 that Maximilian's errant 
 fancy was again carrying him through the realms of 
 glorious visions and his mind, drugged with egotism as 
 
 1 Compare development of this plan in the successive sketches presented to 
 the Auschusse of the Austrian Duchies. See Archiv fur Oest. Geschichts 
 forschung, 1854, 207 ff. A reasonable motive for this plan is there shown in 
 the desire to prevent the complete subjugation of the African prince by the 
 Sultan and the consequent increase of his power to attack the Danubian lands.
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 357 
 
 with opium, was finding a pleasure in the world of dreams 
 it had failed to find in the world of reality. At all events, 
 Legate and Emperor exhorted the Reichstag to vote that 
 every fifty householders should supply and arm a man 
 against the Turks, and that a tax of a tenth should be 
 paid by the German clergy, a tax of a twentieth by the 
 German laity, for the support of the crusaders. 
 
 The feelings of the assembly, and indeed of all Ger- 
 many, were shown with the least restraint in an anony- 
 mous pamphlet circulated at Augsburg. A few extracts will 
 show its tone, which only expresses without reserve the 
 meaning of a number of formal requests and exhortations 
 sent to the Reichstag from many sides. 
 
 "To break the rule of the uncleanest foe who tries with 
 all his strength to blot out the name of Christ, is a holy 
 effort that can be blamed by no one who would rather 
 serve Christ than the Turk. But under these pretences to 
 plunder the ignorant people, to suck dry the milk of the 
 nation, is a crime as bad as what the Turk does, not be- 
 cause of the money, but because it is unbearable that Satan 
 should change himself into such an angel should mingle 
 in the cup of piety the poison of godlessness that the 
 people, giving for the glory of God, should really give to 
 avarice, the mother of false religion." "If the money sent 
 to Rome for fees for the induction of bishops were saved, 
 it would be enough for the Turkish war." "The Pope is 
 richer from his own lands than any other Christian 
 prince, and still we buy palliums (Archbishops' cloaks) 
 and send mule loads of gold to Rome, building gallows to 
 hang Christ, promise presents, swap gold for lead" (the 
 seals of papal bulls) . "Where is there a college of priests
 
 358 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 that is not stained? Who has brought into Germany 
 the wickedest imaginable habits and has taught things a 
 decent man cannot even name? * * * This horrible 
 flood has proved itself out of the Romish filth over the 
 whole world, until there is no wilderness where before 
 dwelt only wild beasts, which is free from it. * * * 
 You wish to fight the Turk? * * * Seek him in 
 Italy, not in Asia. Against the Asiatic Turk every Chris- 
 tian prince can defend himself, but the whole Christian 
 world is not enough to restrain the other. You can only 
 satisfy this hell-hound with streams of gold. It needs no 
 weapon. Gold can do more than horse or foot." 
 
 Under the influence of such a spirit, the Reichstag pre- 
 pared their Gravamina, or complaints of injuries and 
 abuses inflicted by the Roman Curia on Germany. They 
 repeated and sharpened similar charges which had been 
 presented at Reichstags since the middle of the fifteenth 
 century. These complaints did not come simply from 
 laymen. The bishop of Liittich sent, in the name of the 
 clergy of his diocese, a complaint of abuses in the Church 
 through corrupt use of patronage centering in the Roman 
 Curia. It illustrated the counts of the indictments with in- 
 stances. It denounced the hunting of benefices, the mul- 
 tiplication of chaplaincies and papal officials, pluralities, or 
 the accumulation of many Church offices in one hand, the 
 consequent terrible drain of money from churches and 
 people, and the resultant degradation of religion and the 
 service of God. "The offices are filled with false shep- 
 herds, who try to skin the sheep instead of feeding them." 
 "Now, oh! Emperor and Reichstag, beg the Pope that 
 out of fatherly love and the watchfulness of a shepherd,
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 359 
 
 he may abolish these and other abuses, with the list of 
 which a book could be filled." 
 
 These complaints must not be taken as the utterances of 
 heretics. They came out of the consciousness that suc- 
 cessive popes and large numbers of cardinals, cared more 
 for the wealth and worldly power of their offices than for 
 their spiritual duties. The court of Rome was so openly 
 materialized the money which flowed there from all 
 parts of the world was so manifestly spent on worldly 
 objects many of the men in power there were so scandal- 
 ously lacking in any vocation for the care of souls, that, 
 all over the world, the zealous who knew the facts prayed, 
 and those careless about religion, who saw their gold flow- 
 ing over the Alps to enrich papal families, cursed. At 
 the beginning of the sixteenth century, it was a common- 
 place among men of intelligence everywhere, that the 
 Curia at Rome was desperately corrupt, and, in conse- 
 quence, the Church terribly in need of reformation. Such 
 a perception of obvious facts did not in the least imply 
 heresy in the perceiver, and many of the noblest men who 
 felt this situation keenly and helped to remedy it at the 
 Council of Trent, hated and fought schism all their lives. 
 
 In no country of the world had the people suffered more 
 from ecclesiastical abuses than in Germany, and, in the 
 water-shed of the Rhine and the Elbe, the perception of 
 the condition of the Church and the corrupt patronage, the 
 greed, bribery and ambition which lay at the bottom of it, 
 had passed from the classes to the masses. 
 
 Just as the Reichstag had prefaced every vote of sup- 
 plies to Maximilian by a demand for a redress of griev- 
 ances and a reformation of the Empire, so now they gave a
 
 360 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 negative or evasive answer to the demand for new eccle- 
 siastical taxes, and pressed for redress of grievances. And 
 in this instance, they backed their refusal by a strong state- 
 ment that, in the present state of popular discontent with 
 the administration of the Church, the attempt to levy a 
 new ecclesiasical tax would not be borne by "the common 
 man," 
 
 Maximilian had often entertained the idea of a reforma- 
 tion of the German Church, and even a violent reformation 
 of the Universal Church in head and members. He con- 
 sidered joining the rebellion which Louis XII tried to 
 create against Julius II. Had he done so, it would have 
 been, historically considered, nothing extraordinary. It 
 was only a hundred years since the largest assembly of 
 the Church ever held, the council of Constance, had de- 
 posed the Pope and elected another. He had considered 
 a more unprecedented intervention with the traditional 
 government of the Church, in his plan, whatever it was, 
 "to become Pope and Emperor." These schemes were 
 to a large extent political moves, suggested to Maximil- 
 ian's mind by the exigencies of the diplomatic entangle- 
 ments resulting from the league of Cambray. A large 
 motive for them in his mind, was to bring pressure to bear 
 that should force the Pope into line with political or 
 dynastic plans. But he was not without a real reformer's 
 impulse. This double motive appears in his letter to his 
 daughter Margaret, of June, 1510. "That cursed priest, 
 the Pope, won't on any account let us go to Rome in arms 
 for our imperial crown in company with the French, be- 
 cause he is afraid to be called before a council by us two 
 for the great sins and abuses which he and his predecessors
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 361 
 
 have committed and daily commit, and also some cardinals 
 which fear reformation, etc." * 
 
 The touch of reforming zeal suggested in this letter, 
 had moved him to ask (Sept. 1510) Jacob Wimpheling, 
 formerly cathedral preacher at Spires, a zealous church- 
 man and an orthodox theologian, most active in defense 
 of the doctrine of the immaculate conception of the 
 Virgin, to answer certain questions looking toward re- 
 form of the German Church. For years, Wimpheling, 
 with his two intimates, the celebrated popular preacher, 
 Geiler, cathedral preacher at Strassburg, and the pious 
 satirist Brant, chancellor of Strassburg, had been de- 
 nouncing the decay of religion and the corruptions and 
 abuses of the Church which gave it opportunity to in- 
 crease. 
 
 His reply pointed out ten distinct ecclesiastical abuses 
 centering in the corrupt use of patronage at Rome, under 
 which religion in Germany was suffering. 
 
 I. The way in which Popes violate by dispensations, 
 revocations and suspensions, the agreements of their pre- 
 decessors. 
 
 2 3. Interference with elections of German prelates 
 and heads of cathedral chapters. 
 
 4 5. Granting of German church offices to members 
 of the Roman court, even "expectations," conferring those 
 offices on absentees before the incumbents are dead. 
 
 6. Annates, a heavy tax on new incumbents of higher 
 offices. 
 
 7. Granting of pastorates "to unworthy candidates, 
 fitter to pasture and guide mules than men." 
 
 l l,e Clay, VoL I, page 294.
 
 362 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 8. The indulgence trade pushed to make money. 
 
 9. The Turkish tenths asked for war against the 
 Turks "and no expedition ever sails against them." 
 
 10. The summoning to Rome of ecclesiastical cases 
 which ought to be tried in Germany. 
 
 "If these things go on and the drain of German gold 
 to Rome continues, there is grave fear lest the common 
 people, unable to bear that addition to their other burdens, 
 should follow the example of the Bohemians in the last 
 century, rise in arms and separate from Rome." 
 
 But to this clear and concise statement of abuses, re- 
 peating older documents of the same sort, he added no 
 practicable plan to remove them. All he had to suggest 
 was a request to the Holy Father to treat his German 
 sons better. He even pointed out the danger of strenu- 
 ous action. The three clerical electors might not stand by 
 the Emperor, for fear of papal censures. The Pope 
 might launch an interdict suspending all religious serv- 
 ices in Germany, which the people would not bear. The 
 begging friars might rouse the people against him. It was 
 even possible that the Pope should do what popes had 
 done to other emperors, deprive him of his crown and 
 set up another. 1 
 
 Such a counsel was not apt to strengthen the reforming, 
 as against the political motive, in the Emperor's mind. 
 And when a new combination made the Pope a factor 
 
 1 See Un Re'formateur Catholique . . . Jean Geiler de Kaysersberg. 
 Par 1/abbe L,. Dacheux. Paris and Strassbourg, 1876. 
 
 Brieger's Zeitschrift fur Kirchen geschichte, Vol. Ill, page 203 ff. 
 
 Gebhardt, Bruno; Die Gravamina der Deutschen Nation gegen den romischen 
 Hof. zweite Auflage. Breslau, 1895. 
 
 Schmidt, Charles. Histoire Litteraire de I/Alsace a la fin du XV* at au 
 commencement du XVI siecle. Paris, 3879.
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 363 
 
 favourable to his political plans, Maximilian gave little 
 attention to reform. 
 
 This neglect came, however, rather from preoccupation 
 than from indifference. Maximilian was a genuinely 
 religious man. He was regular and zealous in his devo- 
 tions, and compiled a prayer book. In a crisis of his 
 affairs, he wrote, with evident genuineness of feeling, to 
 one of his faithful followers, that he was "become the 
 scorn of the whole world," but he "lived always in hope, 
 and comforted himself with the word of the Gospel that 
 the Lord would not forsake the righteous and that he al- 
 ways chastised those whom He loved." * He showed his 
 faith in conduct. He was free from the national dis- 
 grace of drunkenness, proverbial among the Germans of 
 his day, and notorious among the princes. His singular 
 decency of speech and his dislike of adultery, won him a 
 high reputation for chastity 2 which, according to the 
 moral standards of the age, was not impaired by the fact 
 that he had, during the twenty years of his widowhood, 
 eight illegitimate children. 3 In a chapter of his allegori- 
 cal poem of Teuerdank he represents himself, in answer 
 to the temptation of Satan, laying down three rules of 
 life : 4 
 
 1 MSS. in Dresden Archives, quoted by Ulmann, Vol. I, 164. 
 
 1 Among others Cuspinian. 
 
 8 See list of his children in Birk Fugger. Spiegel der Ehren des Ertz 
 Hauses Oesterreich erweitert durch L. von Birken. The objections to relying 
 on this work shown by Ranke would not apply to an item of general knowledge 
 like this. 
 
 * The completed study of the MSS. has made evident to Laschitzer, editor 
 of the final edition, that Maximilian is responsible for the entire poem. It is 
 certain that "Without his consent no verse or illustration of the poem was 
 sent to the printer." * * * "In short, not only the idea but also the general 
 plan and order of the poem, not simply in the large but in all the details, is to 
 be attributed to Maximilian." This does away with the old conclusion that 
 the moralizing parts of the poem were to be attributed to the imperial secretary.
 
 364 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 1. Bodily desires are to be ruled by God's command- 
 ments, and reason. 
 
 2. God's favour is worth more than honour among 
 men. 
 
 3. A man who hopes in God must not break his oath. 1 
 Religion influenced not only his feeling and his con- 
 duct but also his thought. His active mind turned 
 towards problems of the spiritual realm. Abbot Trithe- 
 mius of Boppard, published, together with his own an- 
 swers, a series of questions the Emperor left with him 
 after a journey in the imperial train along the Rhine, in 
 1508. 
 
 1. Why does God prefer being believed in by mortals, 
 to being known by them ? 
 
 2. Can heathen, ignorant of the Christian religion, 
 and faithful to the religion they know, be saved ? 
 
 3. Whence comes it that the prophets of false religions 
 work miracles ? 
 
 4. Why is the Holy Scripture neither complete nor 
 perfectly clear, lacking much which is demanded for com- 
 plete faith? 
 
 5. How is it that sorcerers are allowed power over 
 evil spirits? 
 
 6. How is the doctrine of the righteousness of God 
 reconcilable with the permission of so much evil, often in- 
 jurious to pious men ? 
 
 7. Can a special providence over the fortunes of men, 
 more especially over everything that happens, be proved 
 by Scripture and reason? 
 
 Not only was Maximilian a person of real religious 
 
 iTeuerdank Capitel, 10.
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 365 
 
 feeling, affected to some extent in all his activities by the 
 doctrine of the church, but he had a strong feeling of his 
 duty, to "the common man," who, as he was repeatedly 
 told, suffered most in mind, morals and pocket from 
 ecclesiastical abuses. He asked Geiler to form a collec- 
 tion of maxims upon the conduct which a prince, desirous 
 of making his subjects prosperous and happy, ought to 
 follow. He closes the little book of instructions on the 
 beloved sport of hunting, which he wrote, towards the end 
 of his life, for his grandsons and descendants, thus: 
 "Always rejoice in the great pleasure of hunting, for thy 
 recreation and health, also for the comfort of thy subjects, 
 because you can, through hunting, become known to them, 
 the poor as well as the rich. The rich as well as the poor 
 daily has access to you while you are hunting, so that they 
 can complain of their necessities and present them to 
 you, and you can hear their complaints with pleasure ; be- 
 cause, during the enjoyment of the hunt, you can hear the 
 petitions of the poor. To this end, you must always take 
 your secretary and some councilors with you on your 
 hunting trips, so that you are ready to give satisfaction to 
 the common man when he comes to see you and comes 
 near you; a thing you can do better on a hunting trip 
 than in houses. In order to lose no time, you must never 
 omit that except when the falcons fly or the hounds 
 run." 1 A coloured picture he had made for his Fischerei 
 buch, or list of fishing waters, interprets this word to his 
 descendants of the house of Hapsburg, and shows us his 
 
 1 Kaiser Maximilian I. geheimes Jagdbuch, etc. Ch. G. von Karajan zweite 
 Auflage, Wien, 1881. The halting English of the translation is an attempt 
 to reproduce the naive style of the Emperor, who wrote the only MSS. of this 
 little treatise entirely in his own hand and apparently without any criticism or 
 help from his secretaries.
 
 366 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 own habit. In one corner the Emperor has dismounted 
 from his horse. On the ground lie his cloak and riding 
 trousers. The climbing irons for following chamois on 
 the cliffs, have just been buckled onto his feet, but he 
 delays to receive a petition from a peasant who kneels 
 before him. 1 
 
 In spite of his sincere religious belief and the serious- 
 ness with which he took his office as the doer of 
 justice to "the common man/' these last appeals to lead 
 in the reform of the Church, the most forcible of the many 
 which had come to him during twenty years, seem to 
 have made no impression upon him. To Luther's pro- 
 test about indulgences he gave no heed. Maximilian 
 never saw Luther, whose name was then on the lips of 
 most Germans. But he was a poor judge of character and 
 ability. And, in all probability, even if he had seen the 
 Wittenberg professor, he would have failed to recognize 
 that power, which, within a few years, even those who 
 thought the power Satanic, admitted was in the man. 
 
 Signs of storms were common. In 1516 Aleander, aft- 
 erward papal nuncio, wrote to the Pope, "Germany is 
 only waiting for some fellow to open his mouth against 
 Rome." A thousand omens foretold the schism of Ger- 
 many from the Holy See. By word and deed, a genera- 
 tion of discontented peasants, had giving warning of the 
 terrible convulsion of the revolt of 1525. It does not ap- 
 pear that Maximilian read the signs of the times. It was 
 afterwards said "Germany is a magnificent horse which 
 only needs a rider." Charles, whose ability was as much 
 
 1 Das Fischereibuch Kaiser Maximilian I. Ludwig Frieherr von Lazarini und 
 Dr. Michael Mayr. Innsbruck, 1901. Plate to page 1.
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 367 
 
 greater than that of his grandfather as his parts were 
 less brilliant, tried for thirty-five years to make the horse 
 go where he wanted, and then dismounted to put his son 
 in the saddle. Perhaps no one could have ridden the 
 horse. At all events, in 1518, Maximilian did not even try. 
 
 Probably the last reason why Maximilian never serious- 
 ly undertook the reform of the Church which the human- 
 ists expected of him at his accession, was that he had 
 added a personal article to the doctrine of the Church, and 
 clung to it with the most passionate and intimate convic- 
 tion. It was the belief that the house of Hapsburg was 
 elected of God to play an enormous part in the destinies of 
 the world. To his mind it was inconceivable that any- 
 thing which injured their rights, could in the end help 
 mankind. Inevitably, and as by natural law, out of any 
 entanglement of motives and reasons, his mind drifted 
 to the conclusion that his plans for the present power and 
 future prospects of the Hapsburgs, had the right of way. 
 Everything else must wait. 
 
 When the Emperor left the Reichstag of Augsburg the 
 last week of September, 1518, he was in no mood for any 
 action. In his youth, Maximilian had a fund of health 
 and energy which seemed exhaustless. The secretary 
 who wrote to his dictation, and under his supervision, the 
 Latin autobiography, in one paragraph of it, tells how he 
 saw Maximilian go out at dawn and bring in three stags 
 then exercise in arms, using up three horses, receiving a 
 wound in the hand and giving a fall to his opponent that 
 proved fatal. Then he changed to a magnificent court 
 dress, danced and kept the ball going until the dawn of
 
 368 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 another day. 1 In 1518, Maximilian was not yet sixty, 
 but he had drawn terribly on his reserve strength. The 
 disastrous end of the long Venetian war, the decline of 
 his reputation as a soldier, the arrangement with France 
 forced on him by his own grandson, the refusal of the 
 Reichstag to do anything he wanted, must have weighed 
 heavily on his mind. With his usual courage he kept his 
 disappointments to himself. During the Reichstag he 
 was active in those great dances and banquets he liked 
 to plan or share. He had always enjoyed the society 
 of the wives and daughters of the city patricians. Once 
 when he was ready to leave a Nuremberg dance, the ladies 
 took off his boots and spurs, hid them and begged him 
 to stay the dance out. Maximilian stayed and danced 
 from noon until dark and, after supper, long into the 
 night. 2 Of all the German cities, Augsburg had long 
 been the pleasantest to him. He had a presentiment that 
 he should never see Augsburg again, and he asked his old 
 favourites to dance without the veils they were in the habit 
 of wearing at public balls. But though he kept this 
 smiling face as long as the Reichstag lasted, his heart was 
 very heavy ; and when it closed, he made for his beloved 
 hunting grounds of Tirol. 
 
 At Innsbruck a new trouble met him. The government 
 of Tirol was on the verge of bankruptcy, and the council 
 had not been able to pay inn bills for twenty-four thou- 
 sand gulden, he had contracted several years before. The 
 inn keepers, therefore, refused to receive his court. This 
 public shame, and the situation of the government, so 
 
 1 Latin life. Jahrbucher der Kb. $., Vol. VI, page 432 (16). 
 Chroniken der deutschen Stadte, Vol. XI, page 723.
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 369 
 
 desperate that the council resigned and could be per- 
 suaded to keep merely the name of councilors for three 
 months, deeply angered Maximilian. And two of his, 
 intimates think his excitement brought on the illness, 
 which attacked him. In spite of his weakness, he travelled 
 in a litter and by boat some hundred and fifty miles, but 
 at Wels, in Austria, in the end of November, it was plain 
 that his life was in danger. 
 
 Doctors were sent for from Vienna. Maximilian had a 
 high opinion of his own medical knowledge. He relates 
 in the Weiss Kunig that, in his youth, a doctor who taught 
 him medicine, told Frederick he could not teach his pu- 
 pil anything more, and records how twice he saved his 
 own life by acting against the mistaken orders of the 
 physicians. This knowledge, or the Viennese doctors' 
 advice, or the voice of nature, made him aware some time 
 before death came that his end was near. In the end of 
 December he made his will, and on the I2th of Janu- 
 ary he died. 
 
 All that we know of his last days is highly character- 
 istic. He faced death with courage and self control, con- 
 fessed and took the rites of the Church with a tranquil 
 mind and the entirely good conscience that appears in all 
 his references to his own life and deeds. His gentleness, 
 kindness and patience to his attendants, were unchanged. 
 His mind was active to the end, and he turned to the pleas- 
 ures which had solaced his labours for many years. He 
 had always been a patron of musicians and loved singing 
 birds, which he kept near him in cages when he could. 
 Tradition even assigns to him the Volkslied "Innsbruck 
 Ich muss dich lassen." It is probable that music soothed
 
 370 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 the hours which must have been heavy for one so unused 
 to confinement. We know that he clung to the pleasures 
 of literature and art until the last. 
 
 Literature and art had to him a peculiar use 
 and meaning. The bulk of his patronage had 
 been expended in using the skill of masters of 
 form, colour and words, to illustrate the glory of 
 the house of Hapsburg and the deeds of its greatest de- 
 scendant, Maximilian I. For this artists had drawn, 
 cast bronze and painted; scholars had made geneological 
 and historical researches; secretaries and writers had re- 
 corded his reminiscences and polished the style of his 
 dictations. The scholars had reached results highly sat- 
 isfactory to Maximilian. They had solemnly concluded 
 that it was proved by authentic records, "that the Arch- 
 duchy of Austria was the first Kingdom privileged by 
 Julius Caesar and his successors when they had all the 
 world in subjection." * They had, after long debates, es- 
 tablished a genealogical line leading back through Hec- 
 tor to Noah. 2 They had discovered one hundred and 
 twenty-three saints given to the Church by the house of 
 Hapsburg, and Maximilian had ordered wood cuts made 
 of all of them. 3 Dr. Mennel, one of the historiographers, 
 was at Wels during Maximilian's last illness. He has 
 told how the Emperor asked him, just before death came, 
 if he had anything new and pleasant to read aloud to 
 
 1 Chmel Urkunden, etc., zur Geschichte Maximilian I. Bibliothek des 
 literarischen Vereins in Stuttgart, Vol. X. Instruction to the valet de chambre 
 of the Archduke of Austria. 
 
 1 See Laschitzer introduction to the Genealogy in Jahrbiicher der Kh. S., 
 etc., Vol. VII, and also the very amusing extract quoted from the Fugger MSS. 
 in Deutsches Kunst Blatt, Vol. V. 
 
 ajahrbucher, Kh. S., etc., Vol. IV.
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 371 
 
 shorten tHe sleepless nights. For several nights through, 
 Mennel read him the legends of the saints of his race and 
 stories of his ancestors. For the ruling passion of Max- 
 imilian was strong to the end of life. 
 
 His will, besides leaving full directions for the founda- 
 tion of nine poor houses and for his burial in a coffin he 
 had carried with him for five years, commended to his ex- 
 ecutors the publication of his books and chronicles. All 
 of those which were left at all complete, were either ac- 
 counts of the glories of his house, or illustrated catalogues 
 of his own possessions, or records of his life and deeds 
 for the instruction of his descendants, and, so far as we 
 can judge, all those he ever planned were to be in some 
 way related to the same topics. 1 
 
 Maximilian also left in his will directions for the com- 
 pletion of his tomb. On the plan of this he had worked 
 for many years. The general idea was his own, and he 
 had constantly criticised and directed the sketches and 
 castings for the details. His final design was a life-sized 
 figure of himself kneeling on a bronze sarcophagus 
 adorned with twenty-four reliefs showing his great deeds. 
 The central mass was to be decorated and surounded by 
 forty life-sized figures of Maximilian's heroic relatives, 
 and one hundred smaller statues of saints of the lineage of 
 the Hapsburgs. 2 The list of heroes included King 
 Arthur, Theodoric, Charlemagne and Julius Caesar. For 
 
 1 The prayer book seems to be an exception. But the editor of the illustra- 
 tions made for it holds that it was intended as a book of prayers for the Order 
 of St. George, to which he invited all the princes and nobles of the world, in 
 order that under his leadership they might drive the Turk from Constantinople, 
 to the glory of God and the House of Austria, in the person of Maximilian. 
 See Jahrbucher des Kh. s'.. etc., Vol. XX. 
 
 * Jahrbucher, Kh. S., etc., Vol. XI.
 
 372 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 including Charlemagne and Julius Caesar in this family 
 gathering he had the authority of his historiographers. 
 But, so far as we know, King Arthur and Theodoric were 
 added to the group as the result of his own historical 
 studies. Only twelve of the large statues and a few of 
 the smaller ones, were done. Two of them, Vischer's 
 splendid figures of Arthur and Theodoric, made six years 
 before, were still in pawn, and the debt for which they 
 were held was not paid until 1532. 
 
 For Maximilian had been hampered in completing his 
 tomb, as in all of his magnificent undertakings, by pov- 
 erty. His large income was dwarfed by his larger de- 
 signs. A statement could hardly be framed which would 
 exaggerate the continuous influence of this lack of money 
 upon his career. It was the immediate cause of almost 
 all those delays in the execution of plans, which created 
 the common opinion of his contemporaries, outside of the 
 German humanists, that he was slow, inefficient or un- 
 trustworthy. 
 
 He recognized the fact that his finances were on an 
 unsound basis, but he never really took it into account 
 in his plans. He was fond of saying, in the peculiar Latin 
 for which he was praised by the humanists, "Est enim 
 una res miserabilis nostra paupertas," but he never 
 learned to cut his coat according to his cloth. Extrava- 
 gant habits, the outcome not only of taste and pride, but 
 also of policy, grew upon him. He ordered in Augsburg 
 a set of armor at one hundred thousand gulden, to appear 
 before the Reichstag. And in 1515, when everything he 
 owned was covered with mortgages, he spent two bun-
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 373 
 
 dred thousand gulden in banquets to the visiting Kings 
 at Vienna. 1 
 
 The only part of Maximilian's estate which was in a 
 sound condition at his death, was the treasure of the Haps- 
 burgs. He had inherited a great amount of plate and 
 jewels from his father. He kept adding to it, and his let- 
 ters continually record orders for plate and the purchase 
 of pearls, rubies or diamonds. To one of these, ordering 
 the councilors at Innsbruck to pay one thousand gulden 
 to the Fuggers for two jewels, they reply, that, if they 
 settle this bill, they will have no money left to pay the 
 personal expenses of the Archduchess. He occasionally 
 pawned portions of his plate or jewels. His credit was 
 so poor in the neighbourhood of his favourite city of 
 Innsbruck, that he had to leave a ring in pledge with the 
 hostesses of three inns for bills of six gulden. 2 But in 
 spite of all obstacles, the treasure of the House of Haps- 
 burg increased while Maximilian was its head. When 
 his younger grandson, Ferdinand, opened the chests 
 which contained it, he was astonished at its amount. 
 
 But though the treasure of his house had not suffered 
 from Maximilian's poverty, his greatest artistic project 
 had. When he tried, in 1517, to push the casting of the 
 statues for his tomb, the council at Nuremberg refused 
 to allow the artists of the city to accept commissions from 
 the Emperor, lest the city should have to pay for the com- 
 pleted work. A compromise was arranged by which half 
 
 1 Letters and Papers, Vol. II, part I, number 202. 
 
 2 At least I can see no other explanation for entries in the accounts of the 
 Council which record the redeeming of these rings from the hostesses of inns. 
 Jahrbucher Kh. S., Ill, Nos. 2371-2391-2393. See the documents calendared 
 here and in the back of other volumes for additions to the- treasure of the 
 Hapsburgs.
 
 374 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 of the city tax was to be devoted towards extinguishing 
 Maximilian's existing debt to the city. The other half 
 was henceforth to be used to pay for the work on the 
 monument. But the arrangement fell through, because 
 the Elector of Saxony claimed the entire tax had already 
 been pledged to him to cover a debt Maximilian owed. 
 
 Maximilian's death, therefore, left his tomb nothing 
 but scattered fragments. It was not until the end of the 
 century that descendants completed it on a smaller scale 
 than the original design. 
 
 Though the greatest work he planned has probably 
 gained by being freed from the forest and underbrush of 
 statues big and little with which he proposed to surround 
 it, Maximilian has won his most lasting fame as a patron 
 of literature and art. The man whose features Holbein 
 engraved in the Dance of Death, for whom Diirer drew 
 the designs for the border of the Prayer-book, at whose 
 orders Burgkmair handled the burin, whose suggestions 
 Vischer cast in bronze, and whose tomb is ornamented by 
 marble reliefs called by Thorwaldsen the most perfect 
 works of their kind, cannot be forgotten in the history of 
 art because of any criticisms of his taste or motives. His 
 taste was not highly discriminating. Men who have fol- 
 lowed with care and accuracy the details of his artistic 
 commissions, suggest a lack of reason for believing that 
 he could have seen any difference between the work of 
 Sesselchreiber and the daring idealism of Vischer; and 
 he seems to have been no better pleased with the illustra- 
 tions Burgkmair or Diirer did for him than with those 
 of inferior men. But what he may have lacked in critical 
 power, he made up in zeal, and in a patron of art, readiness
 
 MAXIMILIAN I 375 
 
 to recognize merit and find pleasure even in imperfect 
 work, is better than keenness in detecting faults. 
 
 It is clear that his love for art centred around 
 his dominant passions; thirst for distinction and 
 family pride. But we must not be too quick to 
 condemn it on that account. Few men have 
 served the muses for naught. Many of the masters of lit- 
 erature, from the Greeks to Goethe, have shown in their 
 works the love of fame mixed with the love of beauty. 
 That combination of motives was very common in the 
 age of Maximilian. General judgments comparing one 
 epoch with another are apt to be false ; but even a cursory 
 comparison of mediaeval and renascence art, suggests that 
 the patrons of the former gave, and its servants worked, 
 far less for their own glory and far more for the glory 
 of God, than the patrons and artists of the latter. Max- 
 imilian may only have been more frank than his contem- 
 poraries, in so dispensing his patronage of art that it 
 leaves upon one who reviews it all, an irresistible impres- 
 sion that the larger part of his interest in it, grew from the 
 hope of presenting his figure to posterity as the greatest 
 member of the glorious house of Hapsburg, and illustrat- 
 ing the lessons of his example to descendants who might 
 raise the dynasty to the heights of power where his day 
 dreams had placed it; with Italy, Spain, Portugal, Eng- 
 land, part of a dismembered France, the Netherlands, 
 Germany and the Danube Valley to the Black Sea, under 
 the sway of its sceptre.
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 REGINALD POLE AND THOMAS CROMWELL: 
 
 AN EXAMINATION OF THE APOLOGIA AD CARO- 
 
 LUM QUINTUM 
 
 THOMAS CROMWELL, beginning life as a merchant's clerk 
 without money or influence, finally rose to the highest au- 
 thority ever wielded by a British subject. The portraits of 
 this remarkable man presented by historians, have been most 
 influenced by accounts of him left by two of his contempora- 
 ries. John Foxe put him into the Book of Martyrs as one 
 who, having greatly served "the Gospel", died by the mach- 
 inations of the enemies of truth. Reginald Pole, cardinal 
 and Archbishop of Canterbury, denounced him as a false 
 counselor who helped the descent of a once innocent and 
 pious king into tyranny, crime, and irreligion by flattering 
 evil passions for his own gain. 
 
 The first of these judgments upon Cromwell became preva- 
 lent in England during the lifetime of his grandson and 
 continued dominant for many generations. But the image 
 of the martyr, suggested by Foxe, has been to a great ex- 
 tent replaced by the picture of an unscrupulous adventurer, 
 loving chiefly the profits of power, the English disciple 
 of Machiavelli, flattering the ideals of his age while he 
 sneered at them, cruel, treacherous, and, even when he 
 sought great ends, pursuing them by means baser than those 
 generally used by his contemporaries. The traits of which 
 this latter image are composed, have been drawn from dif- 
 ferent sources, and the image, therefore, varies according 
 
 377
 
 378 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 to the emphasis which the writer may have chosen to lay 
 upon this or that evil feature of the character of the earl 
 of Essex. But about all these images of the unscrupulous 
 adventurer type there is the same sinister atmosphere, and 
 one who has read the account of Reginald Pole, easily recog- 
 nizes that the presence of that sinister atmosphere, throw- 
 ing Cromwell into relief as the "arch knave" of his time, 
 is due to its influence. This is the first record of a critical 
 examination of this often-quoted account of Cromwell, and 
 it gives the writer's reasons for concluding that Pole's 
 sketch of Cromwell's character and motives, is biased, im- 
 probable, and inaccurate. 
 
 Reginald Pole was of the blood royal, tracing descent 
 from the Duke of Clarence and from Warwick the king- 
 maker. He was sent to Oxford by royal bounty, and, at 
 twenty-one, went abroad to study, with a royal pension of 
 loo/., equal in modern value to some $5,000 or $6,000. In 
 addition he enjoyed the income of three ecclesiastical bene- 
 fices which had been presented to him. He stayed five years 
 abroad as a student, and gained the friendship of some of 
 the most distinguished scholars of the day. On his return 
 to England, he was one of the very few English noblemen 
 (he had entered Magdalen College as a nobleman) who 
 might justly be called highly educated. When Henry VIII 
 wanted to repudiate his wife, Pole, who had again gone 
 abroad to study in Paris and still received his large pension 
 as "king's scholar", was employed to collect opinions from 
 the doctors of the university in favor of the invalidity of 
 marriage to a brother's widow. Having successfully com- 
 pleted this task, which he so hated that he delegated its 
 details to another, he returned to England by royal order 
 in July, 1530, and shortly after was offered the archbishop- 
 ric of York, rendered vacant by the death of Wolsey.
 
 APPENDIX 379 
 
 ' Knowing that if he accepted it he must approve the repudia- 
 tion of Catherine, Pole manfully refused, had a stormy in- 
 terview with the King, and in 1532 obtained permission to 
 go abroad. His pension was continued and he received an- 
 other ecclesiastical benefice. 
 
 Two years after Pole left England, a demand came to 
 him from the King that he should write his opinion on two 
 points: Is marriage with a brother's widow permissible? 
 Is the supremacy of the pope instituted by God? Pole's 
 answer to these questions grew into a treatise entitled In 
 Defense of the Unity of the Church (Pro Ecclesiastics 
 Unitatis Defensione, etc. It consists of four books, and ex- 
 presses in places great affection for Henry and the grief 
 Pole feels in being obliged to accuse him. The first book 
 attacks the new royal title of Supreme Head of the Church 
 in England, and threatens Henry with the divine vengeance 
 for the death of More and Fisher. The second defends the 
 supreme authority of the Pope, especially against the treatise 
 of Sampson, which had been sent to him by the King. The 
 third book exhorts Henry to prepare his mind to receive 
 these arguments by laying aside his pride, and then pro- 
 ceeds, in an ever-rising storm of invective, to denounce his 
 sins. Pole recites the facts in regard to Anne Boleyn and 
 shows the injustice to Catherine, calls the King a robber and 
 persecutor of the Church, charges him with having wasted 
 in senseless extravagances more taxes than his predecessors 
 had collected in five hundred years, calls him guilty of an 
 infamous incest, applies the strongest possible epithets to 
 Anne Boleyn, and asks Henry if he thinks her daughter 
 will be accepted as queen by the aristocratic families of 
 England. He denounces Henry for having slaughtered his 
 nobles on slight pretenses and filled his court with wretched 
 creatures. He calls up against him the blood of More, Fisher,
 
 380 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 and the Carthusian martyrs, saying that Nero and Domitian 
 had not killed such men. He stigmatizes him as worse than 
 the Tunisian pirates. In an apostrophe to Charles V, Pole 
 begs him to defer the Turkish war in order to attack this 
 new enemy worse than the Turk; for schism comes from 
 the same source as paganism. Indeed, this English Turkish 
 seed has produced worse results than are to be seen among 
 the real Turks. The real Turks tolerate the true religion, 
 but this king defends his false religion with the sword. 
 Therefore let the orthodox head of the Christian republic 
 draw the sword against him. And, pointing out that the 
 English people have before driven kings from the throne, 
 Pole calls upon England to renew her ancient spirit, look- 
 ing to the Emperor for aid. Henry is a sacrilegious per- 
 jurer, who has broken his oaths and overthrown the founda- 
 tions of his kingdom justice, clemency, liberality. He has 
 squandered England's treasures on unworthy favorites, and 
 despoiled every condition of men. He has made sport of his 
 nobility, plundered his clergy, never loved his people. He 
 might be glad to have upon his tomb that epitaph of Sar- 
 danapalus which Aristotle said was fitter for a bull than 
 for a man, that no room might be left for one not less true 
 but more shameful ; if, indeed, he might hope for any tomb, 
 and not, in the words of Isaiah, be cast out from his sepul- 
 chre as a useless trunk, as a putrid corpse have no fellow- 
 ship with his dead forefathers. His shame and ignominy 
 are known to every one, and all powers sacred and secular 
 are now leagued to cut off so pernicious a member from 
 the body of Christendom. Whither can he flee for refuge? 
 His riches stolen from the Church will not help him. No 
 tyrant had perished from poverty. Neither will the many 
 adherents who now support him save him; Richard III 
 had been killed by his father in spite of a great army,
 
 APPENDIX 381 
 
 Henry had but one refuge from unexampled dangers pen- 
 itence. And in the fourth book, asking pardon for his harsh 
 words, and "struggling with love and pity," Pole exhorts 
 the King to penitence ; that is, to repent of his sins, return 
 to the Church, and ask for absolution, and "in the word of 
 the prophet your iniquity will not be your ruin." 1 
 
 Pole came to manhood at the crisis of a great conflict 
 between two ideals for the European world. On the one 
 hand, there was the mediaeval ideal of Christendom as an 
 organism with a visible head whose just sentence anticipated 
 the sentence of the great day of judgment, made the rebel 
 against divine commandment on whom it fell, an outlaw 
 in this world, and sent him to hell after death. On the 
 other hand, there was the forming ideal of Christendom as 
 a series of distinct national institutions, each containing a 
 divinely-constituted seat of authority that rightly rejected 
 all outside interference in its own affairs, whose national 
 church admitted no foreign authority to damn its apostate 
 members, whose courts acknowledged no just power in any 
 foreign tribunal to judge concerning the honor, the prop- 
 erty, or the life of its citizens. These two ideals were to 
 engage four generations in wars. The wars were com- 
 plicated by theological opinions and religious beliefs, race 
 hatred and class feeling, dynastic greed and personal ambi- 
 tion, but behind them all, from the battle of Miihlberg to 
 the peace of Westphalia, there lay this central question, 
 whether Christendom was or was not divinely constituted 
 as an organic unity, possessing somewhere, either in pope 
 or council, or in both, a common, visible, and ultimate au- 
 
 1 Pole's description of his own book, in Epistolarum Reginald* Poli S. R. E. 
 Cardinalis et aliorum ad ipsum Collectio, Brescia, 1744-1757, 5 volumes, I. 74. 
 Pole's characterization of the third book is expanded here by illustrative 
 instances drawn from the book itself. Pole says it is written "acerbe et vehe- 
 menter."
 
 382 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 thority, appointed to define truth and judge righteousness 
 for every nation and every man. The trumpet-call for that 
 fight had come to Pole. Asked to say whether, in the last 
 analysis, the supreme authority over England in questions in- 
 volving a moral issue, was at Rome or in London, taste, 
 reason, and conscience led him to stand by the old ideal. 
 He threw down the glove to Henry as a tyrant who had be- 
 trayed England, because, in withdrawing from the papal 
 obedience, he had broken the unity of Christendom, the God- 
 given guarantee of saving truth and social order. 
 
 It is plain from Pole's letters at the time he was writing 
 this treatise, 1 that he thought himself to be doing some great 
 service to the cause of the Church. Just what service he 
 hoped to do his cause by interpolating into his answer to 
 Henry's questions a diatribe in a tone of such fierce in- 
 vective that some of his intimate friends, ardent church- 
 men, advised the correction of the manuscript, does not ap- 
 pear to a modern reader at first sight. A search through his 
 writings makes it plain that Pole hoped, now that the pas- 
 sion for Anne Boleyn which had driven Henry into his 
 impiety was cooled, to frighten him back to the path of right- 
 eousness by the threat of insurrection backed by a crusade 
 against England. 2 It seems strange that Pole could have 
 thought it so easy to frighten a Tudor, or could have im- 
 agined that the insensate pride, backed by a morbid con- 
 science, that ruled Henry's character, would submit to private 
 contumely or bow to public disgrace without a furious strug- 
 gle, but it is quite plain that he did cherish this hope, and 
 sent his book to Henry in manuscript with this idea. 8 There 
 was of course danger that the book might be used in pro- 
 
 rf., I, 427, 429, 438. 
 
 * Ibid., I, 475; V, 156; also James Gairdner, Letters and Papers, Foreign 
 and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, XII, part I, No. 429; part II, Nos. 
 107, 552. 
 
 *Poli Epistole, V, 61.
 
 APPENDIX 383 
 
 ducing the sort of civil war appealing to foreign aid which 
 afterward desolated France and Germany. And Henry's 
 effort to destroy the manuscript, strengthened Pole's resolve 
 to keep it hanging over his head like a sword of Damocles. 
 But in the year 1539, during his absence from Rome, it 
 was printed, without his consent, by friends to whom he had 
 confided it, and "not without the command of the pope." 1 
 His writings show that at several different times in his 
 life he contemplated publishing it. He wrote three pref- 
 aces, all printed for the first time two hundred years after 
 his death. The first one is entitled by the editor Apologia 
 Reginaldi Poll ad Carolum V Casarem super quatuor Libris 
 a se scriptis de Unitate Ecclesice? The second preface is 
 entitled Proemtium alteruin cjusdem libri a Reginaldo Polo 
 transmissi ad Regem Scotia. Internal evidence shows that 
 it was written not long after the fall of Cromwell, who was 
 arrested June 10, 1540. The third, which breaks off ab- 
 ruptly, is entitled Espistola ad Edwardum* VI. Anglia Re- 
 gem de opere adversus Henricum patrem, etc. This must 
 have been written 1547-1553. In it Pole says he had heard 
 that the Protestants intended to publish his treatise in de- 
 fense of the unity of the Church, and thought it better to 
 do so himself. Shelhorn conjectures that he abandoned 
 this intention on account of the death of Edward VI and 
 the accession of Mary. 
 
 l Epistola ad Edwardum VI, Section xlviii, ibid., IV. 
 
 2 There are only four editions of the Pro Ecclesiastical Unitatis Defensione : 
 (1) Rome, without date. (2) Strassburg, 1555. (3) Ingolstadt, 1587. (4) 
 Bibliotheca Maxima Pontificia, Tome 18, 169S. Bibliographical manuals and 
 catalogues assign the first to 1536 (British Museum Catalogue, 1535?; Brunei, 
 circa 1536; Grasse, vers 1536; etc.). This assignment overlooks Pole's own 
 account in the Epistola ad Edwardum VI, cited above, which fixes the date as 
 1539. This date also agrees with the preface of the Strassburg edition, which 
 says (1555), "This book has been published as I suppose about fifteen years." 
 Schelhorn pointed out in 1737 in his Amoenitates Historic? Ecclesiastics et 
 Literarice, Leipzig and Frankfort, 2 vols., 1737-1738, I, some of the reasons for 
 assuming this date.
 
 384 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 In this third preface, Pole says that he had been very 
 unwilling to have the book circulated, but some copies had 
 been taken without his knowledge from the places where 
 they were stored, and had come into the hands of many. 
 The rarity of the first edition suggests the diligence of the 
 author in preventing general circulation. The second edi- 
 tion was issued in 1555 by the Protestant apologist Ver- 
 gerio, who said that Pole had concealed his book and given 
 copies only to cardinals, popes, kings, bishops, princes. 
 Pole's anxiety to prevent the general circulation of the 
 book, appears in his answer to the letter of Damianus a 
 Goes (October 12, I54O), 1 who had heard of a printed copy 
 and asked for one. Pole replies, "Up to this time I have 
 published nothing, and how my writings have come into 
 those hands where you say they have come, I do not know. 
 When I do publish, I will satisfy your desire." Now the 
 Apologia shows, that, at the end of 1538, or the beginning 
 of 1539, Pole did intend to publish this book and send it to 
 the Emperor. 2 And in the Proemium ad Regem Scotia, he 
 says, just about the time he refused to send Damianus a 
 Goes a copy, that he intends to send one to the King of Scot- 
 land, and publish it under his auspices. 3 But, as copies of 
 these prefaces do not seem to have been found in Spain or 
 Scotland, 4 it is to be assumed that Pole changed his mind. 
 
 He changed his mind so completely, that in the last of 
 these three prefaces, the letter to Edward VI, he asserted, 
 that though he had tried to force himself to yield to the 
 arguments of his friends, he had never been willing to 
 publish his book. The reasons for this mental struggle, 
 which we perceive when we thus compare the contemporary 
 
 1 PoJi Epistola, III, 37. 
 
 3 Apologia, Section vi, "omnia tune scripta quae nunc edo," ibid., I. 
 
 * Ibid., I, 175, "In lucem exire volo." 
 
 * The Apologia was printed by Quirini from a manuscript found in Germany; 
 frecfatio ad Monumenta Prvlitninaria, ibid., I.
 
 APPENDIX 385 
 
 record of his feelings made by his own hand with his subse- 
 quent memories, are not far to seek. Any one who will 
 read all Pole's writings and set them against the back- 
 ground of the age he lived in, can scarcely fail to see them. 
 The correspondence of Pole was printed in the middle of 
 the eighteenth century, long after the close of the epoch 
 of wars about religion. At that time a cardinal who 
 fomented insurrection against a legitimate prince, or de- 
 manded war to drive him from his throne for religious 
 causes, would have been regarded with disfavor by most 
 orthodox churchmen and, under many popes, would have 
 been reproved in Rome itself. The editor therefore shows 
 in his notes a strong desire to clear Pole from the imputa- 
 tion of having been a rebel, even in the sense of those 
 enemies of the Church who had condemned him for treason. 
 The attempt is a vain one, as is admitted by Pole's best 
 biographer, Father Zimmerman, 1 who points out that Pole 
 believed the English people had the right to depose a king 
 but not a bishop or a pope. But this anxiety of his editor, 
 writing in a later age when all rebellion was apt to be re- 
 garded as sin, marks only the ultimate triumph of a senti- 
 ment which, even in Pole's day, exercised a strong influence 
 on human action the sentiment of patriotism, leading men 
 to support, against every interference from men speaking 
 other tongues, the action of the national government whose 
 language they spoke. That sentiment, though not yet en- 
 tirely prevalent anywhere, was stronger in England in 
 the middle of the sixteenth century than in any other part 
 of the European world, with the possible exception of Spain. 
 Pole himself had formed his opinions and made his chief 
 friendships among Italians, where the patriotic sentiment 
 
 i Athanasius Zimmerman, S. J., Kardinal Pole, se.in Leben und seine Schrift- 
 en, Regensburg, 1893.
 
 3 86 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 was so extremely weak, that the destinies of Italy were 
 swayed, down to our own generation, by foreign force. But 
 there are plain indications that he had conquered it in his 
 own mind only with pain, and we may well believe his as- 
 sertion that he wrote, with bitter tears, 1 the book that made 
 him an exile and a public enemy to England, in obedience 
 to a conscience which bade him stand by the highest au- 
 thority, established by God at Rome. But perhaps the 
 struggle in his own mind, suggested to him the strength of 
 the sentiment he was opposing. Therefore, while he hoped 
 at times for insurrection backed by the sword of France, 
 or of Spain, or of both, 2 he shrank from appearing before 
 the world as a denouncer of war. That would be to draw 
 down upon himself and the Church a renewal of the old 
 reproach, most sharply expressed in Zwingli's epigram, that 
 cardinals were appropriately clothed in red; their robes 
 were stained with the blood they had caused to be shed. 
 In saying this there is no intention of charging Pole with 
 any extraordinary craftiness unexampled among his con- 
 temporaries. Pole, devoted to the institution he loved more 
 than anything else in the world, was not superior to the 
 temptation to which many men on either side of that great 
 controversy whose issue was a war for life and death, 
 yielded, the temptation to be sometimes without being 
 quite conscious of it less than frank, if the cause might 
 be helped by guile. Martin Luther, in the case of the 
 bigamous marriage of the landgrave of Hesse, was willing 
 to consent secretly to what he would not publicly approve, 
 and Pole gave and shared secret counsels expressing hopes 
 and intentions which he would not avow. This conclusion 
 is derived from many instances in Pole's writings, even 
 
 1 Epistola ad Edwardum VI, Section xl, Poll Epistola, IV. 
 8 This is contrary to the opinion of several authoritative writers, but the 
 references given below prove it beyond doubt.
 
 APPENDIX 387 
 
 stronger in the sum than in any instance. It comes per- 
 haps to its most acute point in these particular passages. 
 
 On February 16, 1537, he wrote to the royal Council of 
 England r 1 "You say the Pope is the King's enemy, to which 
 I reply thus: I dare to affirm of this Pope, whose acts I 
 see, whose talk I often hear, that I have never heard of 
 a single act or word of his, either concerning the King or 
 concerning those who are in his kingdom, which did not 
 show the affection of a father, and that indeed the most 
 indulgent father toward his son, or the affection of a most 
 loving pastor toward his flock." This solemn assevera- 
 tion was written on the eve 2 of Pole's departure on a Papal 
 mission whose object, as the Pope told the Spanish ambas- 
 sador, who repeated it to his master, was to aid the north- 
 ern insurrection in England. 3 Pole must of course have 
 known of this object to carry it out. That he did know 
 of it, is shown positively by his letters to the Pope on start- 
 ing from Rome and on returning. 4 
 
 Now the motives that caused Pole to deny plans for 
 promoting insurrection of which he was an instrument, 
 would also be active in leading him, after hesitation, to sup- 
 press his book. For that book, as has already been said, 
 he wrote three prefaces. The first, entitled the Apologia, 
 contains the famous picture of Thomas Cromwell. In style 
 and form it is not a preface, but an oration about two and 
 a half times as long as this essay, arranged with art and 
 most rhetorically written. Section viii shows that it was 
 begun after the launching of the papal bull which com- 
 manded all faithful Christians to deprive Henry of his 
 
 1 Poli Epistolte, I, 185. Everything included in Pole's Epistles is either 
 Latin or Italian. The passages are Englished by the writer. 
 3 Although unwell, he was at Bologna on February 28, 1537. 
 
 * Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, XII, Part I, No. 123, confirmed by 
 Ibid., Nos. 463, 625, 1141. 
 
 * Pali Epistola;, II, cclxxiv, 46.
 
 3 88 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 crown, and either just before, or during, Pole's journey to 
 Spain on a mission to Charles V, begun December 27, 1538. 
 A passage about the middle of the Apologia shows, how- 
 ever, that it could not have been finished at that time; for 
 the writer speaks of having seen, "per hos dies," the 
 book which set forth the reasons the English Council gave 
 for the attainder or execution of three members of Pole's 
 family. 1 
 
 That book was not ready for distribution on January 
 9, I539, 2 and what must have been one of the first copies 
 distributed, was sent to France by the French ambassador 
 on January i6. 2 Pole could not therefore have seen the 
 book before he passed through south France. (He was at 
 Avingnon January 22.) It is not probable that he saw it 
 then, for that supposition implies that he was writing dur- 
 ing the rapid journey 8 to Toledo, which he reached on 
 February 13. It is most probable, that after returning from 
 Toledo, some time between the end of March and the end 
 of September, 1539, he took up and finished the Apologia, 
 which he certainly began when he was looking forward to 
 seeing the Emperor as the representative of the Pope. It 
 was written under great disappointment, for Pole had 
 hoped that Henry would be forced back to the Church by 
 the insurrection of the North and the invasion, which, as 
 he had served notice in the manuscript of the Pro Unitatis 
 Defensione, he would invoke, if the King did not yield to his 
 prophetic denunciations of sin and exhortations to repent- 
 ance. 
 
 He had now come to believe that his hopes of frighten- 
 
 1 An invective agenste the great and detestible vice of treason wherein the 
 secret practices and traitorous workings of them that suffered of late are dis- 
 closed, London, 1539. 
 
 1 Letters and Papers of Henry Vlll, XIV, Part I, Nos. 37, 72. 
 
 Ibid., No. 126.
 
 APPENDIX 389 
 
 ing and persuading Henry to repent and return to the Church, 
 had been blocked first by the devil, and second, by an emis- 
 sary of the devil, Thomas Cromwell. He might well have 
 hated and attacked Cromwell bitterly on personal grounds, 
 for Cromwell had been the chief agent in executing his 
 brother, Lord Montague, and condemning his mother, the 
 countess of Salisbury, for treason. But it is not to be 
 assumed that the Apologia was written out of personal re- 
 venge. Its motive is a burning zeal to speak, as the ex- 
 ponent of God's justice, in denouncing the enemies of hu- 
 manity and religion. 1 For Pole now saw plainly, what was 
 the undoubted fact, that this man was the chief influence 
 in frustrating the sacred hopes with which he had sailed on 
 his mission (1537) to aid the English rebellion in defense 
 of the Catholic Church, and on his other mission to induce 
 the Emperor to force Henry back to obedience to the Vicar 
 of Christ, which had just proved a failure. Pole, therefore, 
 joins Cromwell to Henry as the object of invective in the 
 name of God and the Church. 
 
 Let us now consider the historic value of this document, 
 as a chief source for gaining a true impression of the work 
 and character of Thomas Cromwell. In the first place, it 
 must be noted that Cromwell was a man whose character 
 and motives Pole could have appreciated, even under cir- 
 cumstances the most favorable to fair judgment, only im- 
 perfectly. Two more antipathetic personages could hardly 
 be imagined. Pole was a man of the highest aristocratic 
 lineage. Cromwell, as Pole is careful to point out, had 
 risen from the common people. Cromwell's intelligence 
 was a product of the Renascence training. Pole, though 
 a correspondent of Erasmus and a friend of Bembo, was al- 
 
 1 That the Apologia was not written merely as a private letter to the emperor 
 is shown by its whole tone and by the end of Section viii: "Necessarium si 
 cupimus multitudini prodesse hoc prius ostendere."
 
 390 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 ways too much of a theologian of the old type to be really 
 a man of the New Learning. 1 Cromwell expelled scholasti- 
 cism from Oxford and made provision for the effective teach- 
 ing of Greek. 2 When Pole became the first subject in Eng- 
 land, he deplored the cessation of scholastic learning and 
 changed the lectureship in Hebrew to one on the Master 
 of the Sentences. 3 Pole was a believer in the old ideal 
 liberties of a semi-feudal commonwealth defended by the 
 two privileged classes of nobles and clergy. 4 Cromwell was 
 a man of an era to come, who had been a chief instrument 
 in the policy of ruthlessly smashing the remanent power of 
 feudalism, breaking the political influence of the lay 
 lords, destroying that of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and 
 making England a nation centered around an absolute throne 
 resting on the consent of the middle classes. 5 
 
 Pole belonged to an era that was past. Cromwell was 
 destroying that ancient divine institution for which Pole 
 had sacrificed everything in the world. To look for a judi- 
 cious estimate of the character and aims of Abraham Lin- 
 coln in a letter of Jefferson Davis, written, in the midst of 
 the Civil War, to gain the recognition of the Confederacy 
 from some foreign government, would be far wiser than 
 to approach without caution the Apologia which Pole ad- 
 dressed to Charles V. The expectation of finding in it a fair 
 and final judgment on Thomas Cromwell is unreasonable. 
 
 1 See his correspondence with Sadolct. 
 
 8 Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, IX, Nos. 312, 350. 
 
 *Poli Epistola, V. 47, 84. 
 
 4 Thomas Starkey, Dialogue between Pole and Lupset, in England in the 
 Reign of King Henry VIII, edited by J. M. Cowper for The Early English 
 Text Society, London, 1871. This is probably in accord with the general drift 
 of Pole's views, and it agrees with the political allusions of his letters. 
 
 B The Tudors had no standing army. They destroyed the power of the 
 nobility and clergy. By repeated legislation Henry VIII tried to make the 
 people keep and practise arms. If his throne was not in the last analysis sup- 
 ported by the loyalty of the middle classes, what kept it from falling under the 
 repeated attacks made upon it?
 
 APPENDIX 391 
 
 And this necessary caution is increased when we understand 
 the purpose and feel the tone of the Apologia. 
 
 Pole's correspondence is not a common book, and the 
 calendar of the Apologia to Charles V, printed in the Letters 
 and Papers of Henry VIII, is so condensed that it gives no 
 hint of the violent polemic tone of the writing. Nor does 
 the description of Zimmerman enable the reader to form 
 any idea of it. A few extracts from more characteristic * 
 passages will suggest how little the historic, and how 
 entirely the polemic, spirit ruled the mind of its author 
 when it poured from his indignant soul against the enemies 
 of God and His Church. The molder of the German tongue 
 could never have forced his diction, virile to coarseness, into 
 the artificial rhetoric of Pole's sixteenth-century Ciceronian, 
 but not Martin Luther himself could write a polemic, which 
 in effect, was more violent that the Apologia. The object 
 of the treatise is to show that Henry is Antichrist, confirmed 
 in his subjection to Satan by Cromwell, Satan's emissary, 
 and its rhetorical climax is an appeal to the faithful for a 
 holy war to free the world of his tyranny and impiety. Did 
 Moses, Pole asks, have a juster reason for calling upon the 
 Israelites to wipe out the crime of the worshipers of the 
 golden calf even in the blood of brethren and friends, than 
 the Vicar of Christ has to call to all the pious, in view of the" 
 worse crimes of Henry, Who is on the Lord's side let him 
 gird his sword on his thigh? If it was said to the tribe of 
 Levi, Blessed are ye of the Lord, ye who have consecrated 
 your hands in the blood of your relatives, how much greater 
 blessing will they deserve, who, at the call of the Vicar of 
 
 1 The Apologia contains passages expressing the great sorrow it gives Pole 
 to be compelled to denounce Henry. Such expressions are usual in the most 
 comminatory writings of popes, cardinals, or bishops. But they are not charac- 
 teristic of the Apologia. It is more denunciatory than that third book of the 
 Pro Unitatis Defensione, which Pole himself said was written "acerbe et vehe- 
 mcnter," "aspere." Regretful expressions are not applied to Cromwell at alL
 
 392 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 God, consecrate their hands in- the blood of those who have 
 inflicted such slaughter joined with ignominy on the people 
 of God? "Can it be, the chiefs of the tribes of the people 
 of God, to whom I, one of those Levites, am sent to hold up 
 that glorious and most pious example of the tribe of Levi," 
 will fail to listen to me? 
 
 Henry is the vicar of the devil. Henry is worse than 
 Nero, crueler than the Turk. "Unless Christian princes and 
 peoples unite against him, God will give them no victory 
 over the Turk." Strengthened by God's justice to the 
 office of a prophet, Pole announces that, if they neglect this 
 worst enemy of God, "He will not only not roll back the 
 Turkish charge, but will make it prevail in the day of battle." 
 
 Henry has expressed the very form of the rule of Anti- 
 christ foretold in Scripture, as it has never been expressed 
 before. Pole would gladly give his body to be burned to 
 save him, but the king is so lost that his conversion would 
 be a miracle never before heard of, "that one not four days 
 dead, but long dead, should be restored to life, and, from that 
 hell into which he descended, brought back living to the 
 upper regions." An emissary of Satan had confirmed Henry 
 in evil, and led him to set himself up in the place of God. 
 His real name was that of the demon by whose impulse he 
 worked. But if we begin with that human name he received 
 from his family, before "he fell into the hands of devils and 
 degenerated into their nature," we find it to be Cromwell. 
 A man of no lineage, whose father, they say, earned his 
 living in a little village by fulling cloth, he was like the 
 man in the tombs possessed by a legion of devils nay 
 worse ; "For if a legion of devils drove a herd of swine into 
 the sea, how many legions, or rather how many armies of 
 devils, must be in this Cromwell who has thrust such vast 
 numbers of men down to hell?" No heretic, no schismatic
 
 APPENDIX 393 
 
 has ever been so bad as Cromwell. They had cast crowds 
 of men into the sea of death. But Cromwell had gone far- 
 ther and destroyed the very foundation of righteousness, 
 committing the sin for which Lucifer was cast into the 
 abyss, the assertion that the norm of right and wrong is 
 man's own will. Pole says that he is not talking mystically 
 but in a common-sense way. He can prove what the com- 
 mands of Satan brought by Cromwell to the King, were. 
 
 The greater part of his proof is as follows : He had had 
 only one conversation with Cromwell, 1 and that was ten 
 years before, soon after his own return from Italy (1528), 
 when Cromwell was a "sycophant" of Wolsey's. Cromwell 
 was trying, as the Duke of Norfolk tried, to persuade Pole 
 (see Pole's letter to Edward VI) not to oppose the King. 
 The keen man of the world doubtless told the young student 
 of the cloisters things about kings' courts and the sort of 
 arguments to use at them, which were true enough. And 
 Pole did not know them, or else he would not have thought 
 it possible to frighten Henry by the Pro Unitatis Defensione 
 or raise a crusade against him by the Apologia. More, in the 
 Utopia, made to Raphael some excellent remarks about not 
 being a philosopher in the councils of princes, which might 
 easily have been distorted by an enemy who repeated them 
 after the lapse of ten years. And we may well believe 
 that there was more cynical worldly wisdom than piety in 
 Cromwell's talk, without turning his advice into that sys- 
 tematic attack upon the very foundations of morality which 
 Pole says it was, as his judgment of Cromwell's devilish 
 
 *Pole says (Apologia, 132), "hoc fateor, me publice autem ilium loquentum 
 nunquam audivisse, privatim autem semel et iterum, nunquam amplius." This, 
 as it stands, means twice. But a few lines farther down on the same page Pole 
 contradicts it by saying "facile ex illo uno congressu et colloquio perspiciebam" ; 
 and in the next line, "Talem enim futuram ille uno sermone docuit." The only 
 explanation I can suggest is to drop the editor's comma after iterum and take 
 the phrase iterum nunquam amplius as loose Latin for "never again." The 
 Apologia needs the file in many places, as its editor Quirini remarks.
 
 394 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 work molded, across the lapse of years, his memories of a 
 single talk. And we may easily believe that, in rejecting the 
 temptation to justify the cruel injustice of Henry's divorce, 
 Pole chose the better part, without seeing Cromwell as the 
 diabolic personage Pole makes him appear in this trumpet- 
 call to sacred war against him. 
 
 Pole says, that at the end of the conversation, Cromwell 
 offered to lend him a book on statecraft if he would read it. 
 It is expressly stated that Cromwell did not mention its 
 name or send it. But Pole "took no less care to get it, by 
 inquiring from those who knew the bent of his studies, than 
 men take to intercept the despatches of a hostile general to 
 know his plans." After these inquiries, Pole concluded that 
 the book Cromwell had offered to lend him was the Prince 
 of Machiavelli ; and, as soon as he began to read it, he per- 
 ceived that "though a man's name was on the title-page, the 
 book was written by the finger of Satan even as the Holy 
 Scriptures are said to be written by the finger of God." And 
 this fact, that Cromwell once offered to lend him a book that 
 had just appeared, and that he "afterward" found out that 
 Cromwell read and approved Machiavelli's Prince, is Pole's 
 proof that Cromwell, possessed of an army of devils, is an 
 emissary of Satan to the King. Then he proceeds to tell 
 also how Cromwell accomplished his mission from Satan. 
 
 Pole heard it from one who was present, that, on a certain 
 occasion, the King, with a great sigh, said that, if he had 
 known how difficult the divorce was, he would never have 
 begun it. From this mood of hesitancy he was brought by 
 Cromwell ; and Pole gives a long speech of over 1,500 words 
 made by Cromwell to the king. Pole says that he does not 
 know that he has the order of this speech correct, for he 
 was not present ; but he can affirm that there is in it nothing 
 which he has not heard, either from the speaker himself or
 
 APPENDIX 395 
 
 from those who were the sharers of his counsel. Now when 
 we remember that ten years had elapsed since the speech 
 which Pole did not hear was supposed to be delivered, when 
 we notice that he never referred to either conversation or 
 speech in his writings during the interval, and perceive 
 the unmistakable traces of Pole's reading of Machiavelli 
 all through his version of Cromwell's supposed speech to 
 the King, the conclusion seems inevitable, that it was largely 
 constructed under the predominant influence of Pole's con- 
 viction that the diabolic activity of Henry's government, 
 could best be accounted for by the belief that its chief 
 councilor was the first man to introduce into English state- 
 craft the principles of that Satan's Bible, // Principe. 
 
 The reasons which Pole alleges for seeking some direct 
 diabolic influence to account for Henry's conduct, should first 
 be noticed. Pole was in no mood to recall the evils con- 
 nected with the veneration of relics and pilgrimages, an- 
 imadverted upon for more than a generation past by both 
 schismatics and those who stood by the orthodox church. And 
 to him, the wickedest things ever done by any tyrant in the 
 history of the world, were the destruction of the shrine of 
 Saint Thomas a Becket and the dishonoring of his bones, 
 and the destruction of the tomb of Saint Augustine. 1 To 
 one who shares this opinion, it may perhaps appear that the 
 government of England under Cromwell's influence, was so 
 uniquely and diabolically wicked that we must assume for it 
 some peculiar relation to principles explicitly denying all the 
 foundations of right and wrong. To one who does not 
 share this view of the unexampled atrocity of the destruc- 
 tion of a saint's shrines and the brutal treatment of relics, 
 the assumption that the government of England between 
 
 1 These were deeds "qua nullus unquam apostata tentavit unquam nullus 
 hereticus est conatus," ibid., 110.
 
 396 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 1531 and 1538, so incomparably exceeded, in craft or cruelty 
 or despotism, the reigns of Henry's contemporaries, men like 
 Ferdinand of Spain, Charles V, Pope Clement VII, or 
 Francis I, that it must of necessity have been guided by 
 some uniquely immoral principles, is scarcely worthy of 
 serious discussion. 
 
 Moreover, if Cromwell had owned a manuscript of the 
 Prince in 1528 and, as we shall see, there is very strong 
 reason for believing that he did not see the Prince until ten 
 years later there would have been nothing especially sig- 
 nificant about that fact. The Prince was first printed in 
 1532, at Rome, by the same printer who printed Pole's book, 
 and under the favor and sanction of the Pope, 1 who granted 
 him a ten-years' copyright. It was then considered a per- 
 fectly proper book for a pious man to own. By 1554, some 
 dozen editions had appeared, and the book was read by 
 every one who read widely in politics at all. Sir Thomas 
 Smith, a younger contemporary of Cromwell, and one of 
 the fairest statesmen of his times, had it in his library of 
 history and politics, of which a catalogue has survived. The 
 possession of the Prince, between 1528 and 1540, would sug- 
 gest no presumption whatever that its owner was a singu- 
 larly sinister personage ; "it is known that Charles V," 
 for whom Pole wrote the Apologia, "carefully studied it, 
 that his son and courtiers perused it/' 2 
 
 That Cromwell became, as Pole says, Henry's chief coun- 
 selor in the process of breaking allegiance to Rome, de- 
 stroying the political power of the clergy, and suppressing 
 the monasteries, is true enough. In carrying out this plan, 
 
 1 See G. Amico, La Vita di N. Machiavelli, Florence, 1875, 415. 
 
 2 Pasquale Villari, Niccold Machiavelli, Milan, 1895-1897, Volume II, I<ibro 
 Secondo, Cap. v, 421, chapter on the critics of the Prince. 
 
 L. Alberti Ferrai makes a similar assertion in his essay on Francesco I e 
 Carlo V in La Vita Italiana nel Ciuquecento. Milano, seconda edizione, 1897, 
 page 7.
 
 APPENDIX 397 
 
 he used the ruthless and crafty methods common to the 
 politics of the century ; the condition of his power was will- 
 ingness to serve the caprices of a despot whose morbid con- 
 science gave to his evil deeds a singular stamp, which has 
 thrown them into high relief among the many tyrannical 
 acts of the age. But that Cromwell owed his policy or 
 methods to the teachings of Machiavelli, is in itself highly 
 improbable. Machiavelli did not create, he only interpreted 
 the political methods of his age. Pole's direct proof that 
 Cromwell was an emissary of the devil, is, to any one who 
 knows that generation of the sixteenth century, entirely 
 valueless. And it must be remembered that he himself, 
 presumably with the advice of his friends, never gave the 
 Apologia to the emperor, for whom he wrote it, nor to the 
 world. 
 
 In addition to these considerations, there are the following 
 detailed reasons to show that Pole's account of Cromwell as 
 the messenger of Satan, drawing his policy from Satan's 
 Bible, is untrustworthy : First we should observe that Pole, 
 like most men, was capable of making mistakes in repre- 
 senting long afterward what he had felt at a certain time, 
 and, in regard to small things, in relating what he had 
 done. For example, the letter to Edward VI (1547-1553), 
 denying the charge that he had undertaken his mission in 
 1539 to induce kings to take arms against Henry, asserts 
 that he merely intended to persuade the Emperor and the 
 French King to use the reasoning of love and friendship with 
 Henry. He never wished that they should attack him by 
 force of arms. He says he will not deny that he advised, 
 in case love and kindness failed, that threats should be 
 added, and that as a last extreme remedy they should de- 
 clare a commercial blockade. 1 Now this does not necessarily 
 
 l Epistola ad Edwardum VI, xlv, Poli Epistola, IV.
 
 398 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 involve any conscious misrepresentation of facts. But we 
 may confidently affirm that it is, in effect, an entire misstate- 
 ment. Pole was directed by the Pope to carry the bull of 
 excommunication to Charles and ask his aid in its execu- 
 tion, so far at least as by recalling his ambassadors and for- 
 bidding all trade with England. 1 This of course was only 
 an indirect way of using force, because we know from Pole's 
 secretary that it was hoped by cutting England from all 
 communication with Christendom, to cause' such misery that 
 the people would rise in rebellion against Henry. 2 But this 
 consideration by no means measures the error of Pole's 
 recollection. Section viii of the Apologia shows that the 
 account Pole gave after 1547 of his motives and feelings in 
 1539, is explicitly contrary to fact. That section, written 
 when he was about to undertake his mission, but not pub- 
 lished until two hundred years afterward, plainly states 
 that the motive of his mission, is to persuade the Emperor 
 to postpone the Turkish war and turn his arms against 
 England. Moreover we know that this is what Pole tried 
 to persuade the Emperor to do ; for the following despatch 
 of Mocenigo, the Venetian ambassador, records the account 
 the Emperor gave, soon after Pole left him, of his interview 
 with Pole : 3 
 
 "On the one hand it seems that the Cardinal wishes me 
 to forbid trade with this King of England as a sort of warn- 
 ing, on the other hand he appears to want me to make war on 
 him : my answer is that I know full well what war means 
 that it is easy to begin and not so easy to end : * * * 
 if His Holiness is counselling such enterprises, it is because 
 
 1 Pope Paul III to Charles V, January 7, 1540, Calendar of State Papers, 
 Spanish. VI, Part I, 97. 
 
 1 Beccatelli's Life of Pole, 17, in Poli Epistola, I. Beccatelli was Pole's 
 secretary and intimate companion. 
 
 * Quoted and summarized in The Emperor Charles V , by Edward Armstrong, 
 M. A. (Macmillan, 1902), II. 21.
 
 APPENDIX 399 
 
 he is far distant from the said King; were he as near him 
 as I am, his advice might be different." 
 
 Charles reminded Pole that at Nice the Pope had im- 
 pressed upon him that the crusade was so important that 
 all other enterprises must be postponed for this ; he could 
 not imagine why His Holiness had changed his mind. Pole 
 urged that the English evil was intrinsic, the Turkish ex- 
 trinsic, 1 and demanded that the intrinsic danger should re- 
 ceive the first attention. "But," replied the emperor, "if 
 the Turk came to Italy and right up to Ancona, as come he 
 undoubtedly would, would His Holiness regard that as an 
 extrinsic evil?" Thus the Emperor's account of what Pole 
 said on his mission, agrees entirely with Pole's own record 
 in the Apologia of his feelings just before and after that 
 mission, and shows that Pole's account of that mission writ- 
 ten years afterward to Edward VI, was so incomplete as 
 to be entirely misleading. 
 
 It may also be shown in the same connection, that Pole 
 is capable, as most men are, not only of making mistakes 
 as to the main meaning of what he felt and said in time 
 past, but also capable of making mistakes in telling what he 
 did long ago. He writes, in the Epistola ad Edwardum VI, 
 that when his friends printed his Pro Ecclesiastics Unitatis 
 Defensione without his consent, during his absence from 
 Rome in 1539, they arranged it in several books, "which I 
 never had done." 2 But in the first part of the Apologia, 
 composed on the eve of that absence, as the eighth section 
 shows beyond question, he writes, "I have divided the work 
 into four books," and he then describes them one by one. 
 
 1 The fatuousness of this argument, exposed by the humorous reply of the 
 Emperor, is one of several indications that might be adduced to show how much 
 Pole needed Cromwell's advice not to indulge in scholastic discussion at princes' 
 councils. 
 
 a Epistola ad Edwardum VI, Section xlviii, Poli Epistola, IV.
 
 400 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 Now, if Pole's memories about his feelings and acts were 
 thus obscured and confused 1 in the interval between the 
 writing of the Apologia (1539) and the Epistola (reign of 
 Edward VI, 1547-1553), it is evident that his memories 
 about his feelings and acts as regards Cromwell, might be- 
 come confused in the interval between 1528 and 1539. That 
 they did so become confused, is plainly shown by what he 
 wrote in this interval. It is impossible to compare carefully 
 the Apologia with the Pro Unitatis Defensione and Pole's 
 letters between 1532 and 1539, without a suspicion, rising 
 almost to certainty, that, in this elaborate rhetorical invective 
 against Cromwell, he is telescoping, in a very misleading way, 
 events long separated. In order to prove that Cromwell is 
 a devil ("degeneravit in naturam daemonum"), Pole tells 
 the Emperor that long ago he had a talk with Cromwell 
 about the duty of a prudent counselor with his prince. At 
 the end of it Cromwell offered to lend him a book on the 
 subject written by a certain acute modern of experience. 
 The subject of the conversation and the offer to lend him 
 the book, are facts that would be apt to remain in a man's 
 mind. There is not the smallest reason to accuse Pole of 
 inventing them. 
 
 There are, however, very strong reasons for doubting that 
 the unnamed book which Cromwell offered to lend Pole, 
 was Machiavelli's Prince. But does not Pole say that Crom- 
 well offered to lend him Machiavelli's Prince"? He says 
 nothing of the kind. Cromwell offered to lend him a book 
 which he did not name or send. But "afterward" Pole 
 
 1 The suggestion which Pole's editor, Quirini, seems to imply (Monuments 
 Praliminaria, ibid., I, Ixxxvii) does not stand examination. If it did, it would 
 free Pole from this mistake in memory only by involving him in another. Even 
 taking Quirini's improbable suggestion, Pole's own writings show that he was 
 mistaken either in the statement that he had never divided his treatise into four 
 books or in the statement that he could never write a preface for the published 
 work.
 
 APPENDIX 401 
 
 found out from Cromwell's friends that Cromwell admired 
 Machiavelli's Prince, and he concluded that it was the book 
 Cromwell had so much praised. How long "afterward"? 
 There are the very strongest reasons for believing that it 
 was not before 1537, conjectural reasons for believing that 
 it was during 1 538 ; or some ten years after the conversation 
 took place. 
 
 Before examining these reasons, let us notice the very 
 good ground for believing that the unnamed book which 
 Cromwell offered to lend Pole in 1528 or 1529, was not the 
 Prince of Machiavelli at all, but the Courier of Castiglione. 
 (i) The Prince was not printed in 1529; the first edition 
 was of May, 1532. This does not, as some writers have 
 thought, render it impossible 1 for Cromwell to have had 
 it, but it makes it improbable. Manuscripts of the Prince 
 existed, but they were not very plentiful. (2) There is 
 strong positive reason (to be afterward given) to believe 
 that Cromwell did not see the Prince until long afterward, 
 when a friend sent him a copy. (3) The Courtier, on the 
 other hand, was printed in April, 1528, and was most widely 
 read. In ten years it was published in seventeen editions 
 and translated into Spanish and French. (4) We know that 
 Cromwell had a copy, from the following letter written to 
 him, in the summer of 1530, by Edward Bonner, afterward 
 bishop of London: 
 
 Right worshipfull, in my veray hartiest maner I com- 
 mende me to you. And wher ye willing to make me a good 
 Ytalion promised unto me, longe agon, the Triumphes of 
 Petrarche in the Ytalion tonge. I hartely pray you at this 
 tyme by his beyrer, Mr. Augustine his seruant, to sende 
 me the said Boke with some other at your deuotion; and 
 
 1 It appears from the correspondence of Pietro Aretino that MSS. circulated 
 in Italy in 1530 and copyists were still employed.
 
 402 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 especially, if it please you, the boke called Cortigiano in 
 Ytalion, etc. 1 
 
 '(5) The Prince has nothing whatever to say about the 
 subject on which Cromwell was talking to Pole the atti- 
 tude of a prudent counselor toward his prince. Pole's recol- 
 lections of this long-past conversation are not to be as- 
 sumed as reliable in detail. He would not write it down, 
 for in 1528 Cromwell was a man of no importance. But 
 he would probably remember the subject and the general 
 drift of the talk. This is his recollection : 
 
 Pole said in opening, "In my judgment this belongs to 
 the duty of a counselor, not to dissent from those honest and 
 useful things which natural law and the writings of pious 
 and learned men teach." Cromwell replied that scholastic 
 discussion differs from a king's council ; that much depends 
 on when, where, to whom, and by whom a thing is said ; and 
 that it is the part of a prudent and experienced man to 
 know this. In this matter the learned, who lack experience, 
 often make mistakes, and, because of their abruptness, cause 
 the hatred of princes, because they do not know how to 
 accommodate themselves and their remarks to place, time, 
 and person. Hence, those who come fresh from schools to 
 princely councils, for lack of experience, often run on this 
 rock ; which he confirmed with some examples of those 
 who, because they held too firmly to scholastic opinions, were 
 hated by princes, and were, not only useless, but actually per- 
 nicious, as counselors. Hence he summed up his opinion 
 about the duty of a prudent counselor that the first part 
 of it is to study the will of his prince. 2 
 
 (6) The Courtier is written about the character of 
 princes' friends and the relation of counselors to their 
 
 Sir Henry Ellis, Original Letters, Third Series, London, 1846, II, 178, 
 *Poli Epistola, I, 133 :
 
 APPENDIX 403 
 
 sovereigns. It is all about the duty of a prudent counselor. 
 And the following passages are curiously apposite to the 
 advice which Pole says Cromwell gave him: 
 
 Nor do I think that Aristotle and Plato would have 
 scorned the name of perfect Courtier, for we clearly see that 
 they performed the works of Courtiership, and wrought to 
 this end, the one with Alexander the Great, the other 
 with the kings of Sicily. And since the office of a good 
 Courtier is to know the prince's character and inclinations, 
 and thus to enter tactfully into his favour according to need 
 and opportunity, as we have said, by those ways that afford 
 safe access, and then to lead him towards virtue, Aristotle 
 so well knew the character of Alexander, and tactfully 
 fostered it so well, that he was loved and honoured more 
 than a father by Alexander. * * * And of these 
 achievements of Alexander the author was Aristotle, using 
 the means of a good Courtier : which Callisthenes knew not 
 how to do, although Aristotle showed him ; for in his wish 
 to be a pure philosopher and austere minister of naked 
 truth, without mingling Courtiership therewith, he lost his 
 life and brought not help but rather infamy to Alexander. 1 
 
 This very close parallel strongly suggests that the un- 
 named book was the Courtier and not the Prince. 
 
 But, whether this book that Cromwell offered to lend 
 was the Courtier or not, there is the strongest reason for 
 believing that Pole did not think it was the Prince till a 
 long time "afterward." He describes how he "sought out 
 this book as carefully as one seeks out the despatches of 
 an enemy to know his plans." He certainly did not do this 
 immediately, for in 1528 (or 1529), when this talk took 
 place, Cromwell was of no importance whatever in the 
 English state. Pole himself describes him as a man of 
 no family, a mere hanger-on of Wolsey. Nor did he rise 
 at all, until, in the beginning of 1531, he became a member of 
 
 1 Quoted after L,. E. Opdycke's translation, New York, 1903, 2S4-285.
 
 404 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 the royal Council. It is hard to understand why, previous 
 to that time, Pole could possibly have been inclined to seek 
 out, "as the despatches of an enemy's general," the book 
 Cromwell had offered to lend. That he did so in 1531 
 is very improbable for the following reasons. Pole gives, 
 as a proof of his accuracy in reporting this talk with Crom- 
 well, that as soon as he saw Cromwell growing in authority 
 with the King, he left England, fearing what would happen 
 "when he held the helm of state." In regard to this one 
 point of leaving England, there is very strong reason to 
 believe Pole mistaken in his memories of his motives seven 
 years before he wrote. He left England in January, 1532, 
 and he had been trying to obtain permission to leave for 
 some time. 1 In 1531, when he must have begun to ask license 
 to go to Paris, it would have been very difficult for any one 
 to foresee Cromwell's future great weight in the English 
 councils of state. He was not important enough to be 
 even mentioned in the despatches of the imperial ambassador 
 until April 16, 1533, when he is spoken of briefly as "Crom- 
 well, who is powerful with the King." 2 Norfolk and the 
 other kindred of Anne Boleyn were in power at the time 
 Pole left England. We have another account of the reason 
 for Pole's leaving England besides that given here. It 
 does not make any mention of Cromwell. Beccatelli, Pole's 
 intimate friend, who wrote his life, says that he left England 
 because of the fury of the King in an interview he had 
 v/ith him, when the King was so enraged at Pole that he 
 gripped the hilt of his dagger as if to use it, "as Pole him- 
 self told me." "Moved by this offense of the King, Pole 
 felt he ought to make every effort to leave England." 8 
 
 1 Despatch of imperial ambassador Chapuys to Charles V, Letters and Papers 
 of Henry VIII, V, No. 737; Epistola ad Edwardum VI, Section xi, Poli Epis- 
 tol<c, IV. 
 
 ' Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, VI, No. 351, 
 
 Vita, vi and vii, Poli Epistolai, I.
 
 APPENDIX 405 
 
 This lacuna between 1528 and 1533 is filled up by Pole 
 with the account of the long oration of Cromwell to the 
 king alluded to on page 394. The implication that this 
 hypothetical oration made Cromwell at a stroke chief coun- 
 cilor of the king, has been accepted without examination. 
 But when tested by facts, by the State Papers, and by Pole's 
 own writings, it appears very highly improbable. Pole was 
 out of England from October, 1529, to July, 1530. On his 
 return he lived in retirement. How did Pole find out that 
 Cromwell was the real power behind the throne, when the 
 Spanish ambassador, whose business it was to report the 
 intrigues of the court, and who was in constant communica- 
 tion with the Queen and her friends, had no suspicion that 
 Cromwell was of any determining importance until 1533? 
 The straightforward account of Cromwell's rise to power 
 given by Cavendish 1 agrees with all the facts and presents 
 no mysteries. Cavendish, Wolsey's gentleman usher, saw 
 Cromwell constantly, and talked with him just before he rode 
 up to court to see the King on Wolsey's tangled affairs, and, 
 as he said in his favorite phrase, "to make or mar." Caven- 
 dish did not approve of Cromwell's policy, and therefore 
 could have had no prejudice in his favor. Moreover, as the 
 account of Cromwell's rise comes as a side issue into Caven- 
 dish's account of Wolsey's life, there was no motive, con- 
 scious or unconscious, for distortion. Pole had spoken to 
 Cromwell but once in his life. His account is in a highly 
 rhetorical polemic. The hypothetical conversation of Crom- 
 well with the King, is necessary to his argument that Henry 
 is Antichrist inspired by the devil. Tried by every possible 
 test for determining the value of historic evidence, the ac- 
 count of Cromwell's entry into the royal Council given by 
 
 1 George Cavendish, Life of Cardinal Wolsey, first printed in Condon, 1641.
 
 4o6 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 Cavendish, is far more trustworthy than the account of Pole. 
 Cavendish says that Cromwell, in settling Wolsey's affairs, 
 saw the King several times, and impressed him by "witty 
 demeanour" and capacity for business. The King took him 
 into his service and made him a royal councilor. The State 
 Papers show that his influence in the Council was at first 
 very small. He rose by capacity. In the summer of 1532 
 he was overwhelmed with business. In the fall he was the 
 only commoner appointed to go with the King to France. 
 In 1533 his power with the King was apparent to the Spanish 
 ambassador. 
 
 Not only are there these reasons for doubting the accuracy 
 of Pole's memory that he left England because of Crom- 
 well's rise to power, but Pole's letters show unmistakably, 
 that, nearly five years after he left England, he did not 
 regard Cromwell as possessed by the devil. Therefore he 
 had not yet "searched out" the book that Cromwell offered 
 to loan him and found it to be the Prince, for he says, 
 "I had hardly begun to read it, before I saw it was written 
 by the hand of Satan." Four years after leaving England, 
 Pole wrote to Cromwell as follows: 
 
 "In my heartiest manner I commend me unto you." He 
 says he is glad to hear through his brother of Cromwell's 
 friendly words in assuring him of the continuance of the 
 King's gracious favor, which "I cannot but accept for a great 
 singular pleasure and acknowledge the same for such a 
 benefit as few of my friends could a given beside." He 
 desires Cromwell to do him "a yet greater pleasure" : "That 
 it may please you to ascertain His Highness of my service- 
 able and prompt mind to do him service at all times, wherein 
 I can say no more but pray Almighty God to send me 
 some good opportunity, who ever have you in his blessed
 
 APPENDIX 407 
 
 keeping." He signs himself "Your assuredly bound Ray- 
 nold Pole." 1 
 
 Pole could not have written this letter to a man he 
 thought was governing England by Satan's Bible. More 
 than a year later (February, 1537) Pole still had not 
 searched out this satanic book, for at that time Michael 
 Throgmorton, a gentleman usher of the Cardinal, writes to 
 his friend Richard Morison, "in the house of my Lord Privy 
 Seal," (Cromwell) a long letter, 1 in which he "faithfully 
 assures" Morison that Pole bears Cromwell "hearty affec- 
 tion, which, after long communication, by entire and hearty 
 fashion of speaking, he manifestly declared, seeing that what 
 chance soever should happen, he might be assuring of him to 
 his power to shew him that friendly heart and pleasure that 
 he, by his kindness and goodness showed toward him, hath 
 deserved, with further words to the same tenor that at 
 this time I will not rehearse. But briefly to conclude, I think, 
 surely my Lord, your master, may assuredly rely of my 
 master's heart to him as of any friend he hath in England" ; 
 so that, if the King's Highness will send any one into Flan- 
 ders, (to confer with Pole) "I think my master would be 
 most best content to speak with him than any other." 
 
 This suggestion Pole himself repeats in a letter to Crom- 
 well written three days later. He says: "by writing me- 
 seemeth we do not understand one another, so that to 
 reply more in this manner I see no point," suggests that 
 learned persons from the King should meet him in Flanders, 
 "and glad I would, if it might be that you might be one of 
 them, for you pretending (the word had not yet acquired the 
 sinister meaning of falsely putting forward) that affection 
 to the King's honor that I no less (and with the greatest) 
 
 1 Nine Historical Letters, etc., privately printed for J. P. C. (John Payne 
 Collier), London, 1871; Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, IX, No. 701.
 
 408 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 do bear to His Grace, if we spoke together, peradventure 
 some better ways might be taken than can ever be brought 
 to pass by writing; wherein there will never be that end 
 that both would desire." 1 If Pole believed that Cromwell 
 had degenerated into the nature of a devil and was the 
 minister of Satan, preaching the overthrow of all founda- 
 tions of right and wrong, out of a book written by the ringer 
 of Satan himself, in order to confirm Henry in the career 
 of Antichrist, these are extraordinary messages for a car- 
 dinal of the Church to send and write to him. 
 
 Pole, unaware that Cromwell knew by advices from Rome 
 and the French King, that the object of his mission to Flan- 
 ders had been to aid the insurrection in England, 2 had stead- 
 ily denied any rebellious intentions. In his letter to Cromwell 
 of May 2, I537, 3 he says the King's demand for his sur- 
 render as a rebel, was caused by "the sinister and false re- 
 port of others that, by false conjectures of things they knew 
 not, had ill informed the King of my purpose in coming 
 to these parts." But the rebellion he had hoped to aid 
 was extinguished. He thought himself in danger of assas- 
 sination. He was in danger of being trapanned and taken to 
 England, as in 1529 Charles V had seized and carried off 
 from the very shadow of the Vatican a priest who had ap- 
 
 1 This letter, printed in full in Nine Historical Letters, privately printed for 
 J. P. C. (John Payne Collier), is not calendared. The following letter explains 
 its omission: 
 
 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, 1st August 1902 
 Mr. Paul van Dyke 
 Dear Sir. 
 
 The letter from Pole to Cromwell 16 Feb. (1537), to which you refer is in 
 this office but the abstract of it was accidentally omitted from the Calendar for 
 the year 1537. The nine letters are all undoubtedly genuine. 
 
 I remain 
 
 Yours faithfully 
 
 R. H. BRODIE. 
 1 See reference, page 387. 
 
 'Nine Historical Letters, etc.; Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, XII, 
 Part I, No. 1123.
 
 APPENDIX 409 
 
 pealed from his authority to Rome. 1 What he wrote to the 
 Pope was true enough. Ready as he might be to die if if 
 could profit the Church, his death could now only be to 
 her dishonor. Having permission to withdraw, he deter- 
 mined to leave Flanders secretly. Throgmorton wrote a 
 letter 2 on August 20, insinuating that if Pole returned to 
 Rome without obtaining some concession from the King 
 about the papal authority, his book would be printed and 
 the excommunication launched. The threat was repeated 
 September 2 in the suggestion made to the English agent 
 in Flanders, 3 that, if the King wished to stop such things as 
 were likely to be put forth shortly in Rome, he should 
 send at once to Pole. 
 
 This attempt to frighten Henry by the threat of publish- 
 ing papal censures calling on all Christians to drive him 
 from his throne, supported by a book denouncing civil war 
 and appealing for foreign invasion, received as sharp an 
 answer as one with real knowledge of human nature would 
 expect. Two commissioners, one named by Pole himself, 
 were appointed to go to Pole, with the demand that he lay 
 aside his claim to represent the incarnate justice of God 
 sitting in judgment on the sins of the King of England, or 
 abide the issue which that claim made inevitable. 4 The 
 time of threats was past. Cromwell, playing his game 
 to destroy in England the political power of the clergy, 
 who, in Pole's opinion, were able to appeal for support to 
 a college of cardinals mainly composed of Italians, French- 
 men, and Spaniards who believed themselves appointed to 
 speak the divine judgments to all peoples of the earth, forced 
 
 1 Journal d'un Bourgeois de Paris sous le Regne de Francois I, public par 
 M. L,. Lalanne, Societe de 1'Histoire de France, 1854, 403. 
 Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, XII, Part II, No. 552. 
 Ibid., No. 635. 
 Ibid., Nos. 619, 620.
 
 410 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 his adversary to show his hand a hand which Pole thought 
 contained infamy for Henry, serious danger of insurrection 
 at home, and the imminent possibility of foreign invasion. 
 But Pole, without waiting for the arrival of the commission 
 he had asked for, was already on his way to Rome, 1 having 
 started August 22. Throgmorton, as he afterward boasted, 
 had tricked Cromwell; 2 and Cromwell answers this threat 
 of publishing the book and loosing the anathemas of the 
 Church to provoke rebellion and invasion, by a letter defying 
 Pole and the Pope. "You have bleared my eye once," he 
 writes to Throgmorton, "you shall not again." He threatens 
 Pole with the most brutal agencies known to contemporary 
 politics assassination and proscription of his family. 3 Then 
 Pole began to see in Cromwell what he had never seen 
 before the agent of Satan for hardening Henry in the 
 career of Antichrist. 
 
 The words "had never seen before" are used advisedly. 
 Not only are Pole's letters to Cromwell, up to the beginning 
 of 1537, inconsistent with a belief on his part that Crom- 
 well had become a devil and was the instrument of Satan 
 hardening Henry in crime, but, in 1536, he wrote an alto- 
 gether different account of the agent of Satan in that per- 
 suasion. When he had been asked to reply to the question, 
 
 1 Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, Nos. 559, 598, 725. 
 
 * He had left England to return to Pole, telling Cromwell that if he could 
 not persuade Pole to resign the cardinal's hat and resume allegiance to the 
 King, he would desert Pole's service. 
 
 * In regard to these two letters from Cromwell, one sending commissioners, 
 the other threats and defiance, Mr. Gairdner seems to have fallen into a slight 
 error, a thing very unusual for that distinguished scholar. He says in the 
 preface to Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, Volume XII, Part II, 
 xxxvi, "In short the King . . . had entertained the idea of send- 
 ing some one to confer with Pole . . . [but] had on second 
 thoughts resolved to cast aside all decency and distinctly threaten," 
 etc. No. 725, a letter from Hutton, shows that Cromwell's letter No. 619, 
 promising to send the commissioners asked for by Pole, had been forwarded to 
 Throgmorton, but that Pole and Throgmorton had already gone to Italy without 
 waiting to receive it, the letter of Throgmorton not being delivered to Hutton
 
 APPENDIX 411 
 
 whether the supremacy of the pope had been established 
 by God a book by Richard Sampson 1 against the papal 
 supremacy had been sent to him that he might consider its 
 arguments. Pole's answer to the question, as already re- 
 lated, took the form of the book Pro Ecclesiastics Unitatis 
 Defensione. He says, 2 addressing Henry: "God permitted 
 Satan to come to you and persuade you that you would 
 increase your glory by taking the name Supreme Head of 
 the Church." "But how did Satan persuade you to this? 
 Why should we ask how, when we have the book of Samp- 
 son, who was the instrument of Satan to persuade you to do 
 it? Is anything hidden which Sampson and the other in- 
 struments of Satan said in thy ears, since they have been 
 willing to commit it to writing?" Now if in 1536, when 
 he wrote these words, Pole had been certain that Cromwell 
 had come straight from Satan to Henry he says in the 
 Apologia (1539), "I knew who sent him and I knew the 
 message he brought" as the special emissary of the devil 
 to persuade Henry to take the title Supreme Head of the 
 Church, and that Cromwell had done it by arguments drawn 
 from the book of Machiavelli, it is psychologically very hard 
 to believe, that, while speaking of those implements of Satan, 
 Sampson and Sampson's book, Pole should not have men- 
 tioned either Cromwell or Machiavelli's book. But neither 
 Cromwell nor Machiavelli is mentioned, either here or any- 
 
 until twelve days after date (No. 635). It was after receiving this note from 
 Hutton, telling him that Pole and Throgmorton had gone on without waiting 
 and that there was no use in sending commissioners, that Cromwell wrote No. 
 795. In spite of this threat, there is nothing to show that any attempt was 
 made to assassinate Pole. One instance where Pole was afraid of a certain 
 man, which is cited in the preface of a volume of the Letters and Papers of 
 Henry VIII as a proof of the attempt, is shown by documents in the volume 
 to be a mistake. The supposed murderer was at the time trying to get pardon 
 and employment from the King. An attempt was made to trapan Pole, bring 
 him to England, and execute him, but Henry refused Wyatt's offer to have him 
 assassinated. 
 
 1 Oratio qua docet hortatur admonet omnes potissimum Anglos regicr digni- 
 tati cum primis ut obediant, etc., London, 1533. 
 
 3 Ingolstadt edition, Book III, 401.
 
 412 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 where else in the Pro Ecclesiastics Unitatis Defensione. 
 
 Having shown that up to February of 1537, Pole did not 
 regard Cromwell as possessed of a legion of devils nor as 
 preaching Satan's Bible, // Principe, the next question would 
 be, When did Pole first read Machiavelli, and so finding out, 
 as he says, the principles of his action, discover Cromwell's 
 devilish nature? For direct evidence on this question, I 
 have searched in vain Pole's correspondence and that of 
 his friends. In his extant writings to 1540, so far as 
 printed, Pole does not mention Machiavelli except in the 
 Apologia. This also is a strange thing, if he knew, for years 
 before he wrote the Apologia, that Cromwell was responsible 
 for the sins of Henry, that Machiavelli and the devil were 
 responsible for Cromwell's advice. The omission is not 
 however conclusive, for some of Pole's letters may be lost. 
 
 But it is a fact that, so far as we know, the only time Pole 
 alluded to Machiavelli's evil influence, before he wrote the 
 Apologia, was in March, 1538. This was not long after 
 a trip to Florence (February or March, I538), 1 where, as 
 he tells us in the Apologia, he discussed Machiavelli's doc- 
 trines, and not long before he began the Apologia. A rec- 
 ord of this conversation has been preserved in a curious way. 
 John a Legh, a traveler to many lands, who had spent some 
 years in Italy and had been conversant with Pole, returned 
 to England in 1540. He was arrested and put in the Tower 
 
 1 1 have been able to date this visit to Florence by a process too long to be 
 described in a note, but apparently certain in its result. Mr. L,. A. Burd, in his 
 admirable edition of // Principe (Oxford, 1891), dates the passage of the 
 Apologia that tells of discussing Machiavelli in Florence, 1534 (p. 37). He is 
 doubtless misled by the idea that the Apologia, being a preface to the Pro 
 Unitatis Defensione, was written when it was published, and he follows Grasse 
 (vers 1536) and Brunei (circa 1536) for the publication of the Pro Unitatis 
 Defensione. Professor Villari in his Machiavelli does the same thing. As 
 already shown, page 388, the publication was in 1539. If, as seems probable, 
 the Apologia was finished in the spring or summer of 1539, "superiore hyeme" 
 would mean the winter of 1538 (Pole's usage often includes in "winter" the 
 first month of spring and the last of autumn).
 
 APPENDIX 413 
 
 for examination. A deposition giving an account of his in- 
 tercourse with Pole, has survived. 1 He writes that at a 
 dinner given at the time when Pole, as head of the English 
 Hospital at Rome, made a certain Hillyear master and a 
 certain Goldwell custos, Pole talked about the sacrilege of 
 the English King in "pulling Thomas of Canterbury from 
 his shrine." He then asked "what stories I had read in 
 the Italian tongue." I answered that as yet I had no leis- 
 ure, but, on going home, I would get some and read them. 
 He warned me against reading "the story of Nicolo Match- 
 auello," which had already poisoned England and would 
 poison all Christendom, and said he would do all he could to 
 cause it "to be dystynkyd and put down howt off rem- 
 berans." This conversation could not have taken place 
 before March, 1538.2 
 
 Another strange chance has preserved to us a record of 
 the fact that one of Cromwell's intimate friends, Lord 
 Morley, a man who had frequently engaged with him in 
 literary conversation, and more particularly in conversation 
 about Florence (see passages in his letter), sent him, in 
 the beginning of I539, 8 a volume containing the Florentine 
 Histories and the Prince of Machiavelli, as something which 
 Cromwell had never seen before. Now if Pole explicitly as- 
 serted that Cromwell had Machiavelli before 1539, and 
 
 1 Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, XV, No. 721. 
 
 2 This is established by information kindly furnished by the head of the 
 English College at Rome, which is the successor and literary heir of the English 
 Hospital. All documents relating to these appointments were not found, and 
 current statements about them are, probably confused, but an index of docu- 
 ments which was found mentions a papal letter of March, 1538, appointing 
 Cardinal Reginald Pole head of the Hospital. 
 
 3 Sir Henry Ellis, who printed this letter in full (Original Letters, Third 
 Series, III, 63), dated it 1537. It is dated only February 13. The editors of 
 the Letters and Papers of Henry VIII (XIV, Part I, No. 285) have assigned 
 it to 1539, for good reasons, which may be traced in Volume XIV. If it were 
 written in 1537, it would make no great difference to the reasoning of this 
 article.
 
 414 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 Lord Morley, early in 1539, sent Cromwell the book as a 
 novelty, the very strong probability would be that Pole was 
 mistaken and Lord Morley right; for Pole had talked with 
 Cromwell only once in his life, and Morley had often talked 
 intimately with him on politics and literature. But the 
 reader must again be reminded that Pole does not say that 
 Cromwell had Machiavelli at any given time. He records 
 an old conversation with Cromwell, and says that "after- 
 ward" he found out that he was a close student of Mach- 
 iavelli. The conclusive reasons for believing that "after- 
 ward" must carry us on at least to March, 1537, have been 
 given from Pole's own writings. What is more reasonable 
 than to believe, that, in the spring of 1539, Pole had heard 
 from his sympathizers in England that Cromwell was dis- 
 cussing with keen interest the book sent him by Lord Mor- 
 ley, and that in the Apologia, which Pole was finishing at 
 the time, he should combine with an attack on Cromwell 
 and Henry the fulfilment of the resolution expressed the 
 preceding spring, which John a Legh naively reported as a 
 plan to cause "Nicolo Matchauello" to be everywhere 
 "dystynkyd and put down" out of all remembrance? 
 
 Besides this special line of investigation, many instances 
 might be cited to show that the judgments of the Apologia 
 are not those of a historian, but of a polemic, writing out of 
 a mood the very honesty of whose intense zeal makes his 
 work untrustworthy. Before doing so, it is well to recall 
 that a partizan bias in forming moral judgments was com- 
 mon to the age. An intense partizan is apt, often uncon- 
 sciously, to judge an opponent of his cause far more se- 
 verely than a supporter of it ; and the working of this natural 
 tendency can be seen nowhere more plainly than among the 
 judgments upon the morality of actions uttered by men of 
 the sixteenth century. The delinquencies of the princes
 
 APPENDIX . 415 
 
 who embraced Lutheranism, bulk smaller in the pamphlets 
 of Lutheran divines than those of Roman Catholic princes. 
 Huguenot writings or speeches at the time of the civil wars, 
 are apt to paint in vivid colors the atrocities of Roman 
 Catholic soldiers. They seldom emphasize strongly the 
 savage deeds of Huguenot partizan bands. And to Pole, as 
 to most men of his time, circumstances, unconsciously to 
 himself, altered cases. 
 
 According to the method pursued in this article, his 
 tendency to suffer his moral judgments to be altered by cir- 
 cumstances, will first be illustrated by an instance taken from 
 his writings outside the Apologia, Damianus a Goes, writ- 
 ing to Pole, spoke of the great ingratitude of Richard 
 Morison, who, after being supported by Pole at Venice, had 
 repaid his benefits by controversial attacks. Now this was 
 precisely the charge his enemies made against Pole. He 
 had been supported as a student on a royal pension for 
 years, and had used his learning against the King. Pole an- 
 swered, with unquestionable sincerity, that he had done so 
 for conscience's sake. It never seemed to occur to him that 
 there was any possibility of force in Morison's plea that 
 he had stood by the King against his former benefactor, for 
 conscience's sake. He answers Damianus a Goes : "Concern- 
 ing what you write about Morison, you rightly detest his 
 ungrateful soul. The vice of ingratitude is a very summary 
 of evil. But if he has been so ungrateful to God, what 
 wonder that he has been so ungrateful to me ?" No one with 
 any knowledge of human nature, would see in this a proof 
 of insincerity. It only expresses a tendency common to all 
 partizans, intensified in the death-struggle of opposing ideals 
 in the sixteenth century. When Protestant Elizabeth 
 ascended the throne, John Knox was not so positive as he 
 had been under Roman Catholic Mary, in asserting that the
 
 416 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 rule of a woman was against the laws of God and nature. 
 When the Huguenot, Henry of Navarre, came into sight as 
 the legitimate heir of the throne of France, Huguenot con- 
 troversialists began to feel the power of the divine right of 
 kings, and Jesuit writers began to see new force in argu- 
 ments for the supremacy of the people. 
 
 A very slight examination of the Apologia makes evident 
 the fact that Pole's moral judgments are tremendously 
 swayed by his partizan religious sympathies. 1 For instance, 
 he denounces in the most unmeasured terms the lustful- 
 ness of Henry VIII. Most courts at that time were bad 
 places, and Henry's was not one of the best. But it is 
 hard to see that Henry was a more licentious man than 
 James V of Scotland. James had illegitimate children by 
 six different mothers, four of them being daughters of 
 noblemen of his court. Pole could hardly have been un- 
 aware of this, for several of these children held important 
 ecclesiastical benefices conferred at Rome. Yet, in his 
 letters to James, Pole addresses him in terms of unbounded 
 admiration: "You set yourself forth as the strenuous min- 
 ister of Christ's piety, the noble offspring of pious kings, 
 the constancy of whose piety you repeat in all things." 
 
 The conclusion is inevitable that the judgment expressed 
 upon the unique and unexampled licentiousness of Henry in 
 the denunciation of the Apologia, is, probably unconsciously, 
 based upon the fact that Henry's passion for Anne Boleyn 
 was the chief cause which led him to deny the papal suprem- 
 acy. Pole would evidently have agreed with Sanders, who 
 wrote in The Rise and Growth of the Anglican Schism: 2 
 "The royal household consisted of men utterly abandoned, 
 
 1 The writer here intends no defense of Henry. He is only suggesting a 
 method of testing the accuracy of Pole's judgment that Henry's deeds display a 
 unique atrocity of lust and cruelty. 
 
 8 ICdition by David Lewis, London, Burns and Oates, 1877, 24.
 
 APPENDIX 417 
 
 gamblers, adulterers, panderers, swindlers, false swearers, 
 blasphemers, extortioners and even heretics." 
 
 Pole's judgment upon the unexampled cruelty of Henry, 
 is evidently inspired by the fact that its victims were largely 
 supporters of the old relation of England to the Papacy. 
 Henry shed more noble blood, but he did not put to death 
 more people, than several other rulers of his age. In the 
 year 1534, when Pole was writing the Pro Unitatis Defen- 
 sione, which denounced Henry as guilty of inhumanity 
 unmatched in history, Francis I, whose character Pole 
 praises, burnt twenty-three Lutherans in Paris, presiding 
 at the execution of six who were dipped in the balanqoire, a 
 machine which swung them up and down in the flame in 
 order to prolong the death-struggle. Pole could scarcely 
 have been ignorant of this. 
 
 Pole rebukes in the severest terms the cruelty of Henry's 
 punishment of the northern rebellion which centered around 
 the Pilgrimage of Grace. He has no word of blame for the 
 comparatively greater severity of Mary in executing about 
 one hundred for Wyatt's rebellion. He denounces the ex- 
 ecution of More and Fisher as deeds worse than those of 
 Nero and Domitian. It was a savage act; but when Pole 
 was head of the English Church and chief councilor of the 
 throne, to whom Philip had solemnly committed the care of 
 his wife and kingdom, he expressly approved a deed, which, 
 from the modern point of view, was, like the excution of 
 More and Fisher, an act of savage and superfluous cruelty. 
 In a letter to Philip he reports with full approval 1 the burn- 
 ing of Latimer and Ridley. And if, during those three years 
 of Mary's rule whose record of executions cannot be 
 matched during the entire reign of Henry, Pole used his 
 authority as head of the English Church, or his influence as 
 
 li Epistolee, V, 84.
 
 418 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 chief councilor of the throne, to save any one from death, no 
 record of it has survived. He had, for Mary's conduct 
 and character, nothing but the fullest praise. These ob- 
 servations do not imply the least doubt of the sincerity of 
 Pole's denunciations of the crimes of Henry, nor question 
 the entire honesty of his approval of the punishment of the 
 two or three hundred heretics burnt by Mary. They simply 
 illustrate the fact, that the controversial writers of the six- 
 teenth century, used words like cruelty and wickedness from 
 a standpoint of moral judgment which would be assumed 
 by very few men of to-day, whether Roman Catholics or 
 dissidents from the ancient church. And the Apologia of 
 Pole, in purpose, tone, language, and judgment, is one of 
 the most violently polemic writings of the century. 
 
 The writer ventures to suggest, in view of the foregoing 
 examination, that there is far more reason for rejecting 
 Pole's portrait of Cromwell in the Apologia than the por- 
 trait of Cromwell in Foxe's Book of Martyrs, now very 
 properly set aside by modern writers as one-sided. The 
 true portrait of Thomas Cromwell, is to be made out of 
 the positive record of his acts. And he ought to be judged 
 by his own ideals, not by ideals he rejected. Over seven 
 thousand letters and papers relating to him, have been cal- 
 endared. The inaccurate memories of his bitterest enemy 
 should no longer distort their interpretation. Thomas 
 Cromwell was no "Martyr of the Gospel." But the diabol- 
 ically inspired disciple of Machiavelli, is a creation of the 
 excited imagination of Pole. And the mysteriously sinister 
 atmosphere which modern writers have borrowed from Pole 
 to throw around their portraits of one of the most capable 
 of English statesmen, is not the light of history.
 
 LIST OF BOOKS CITED 
 
 AGRIPPA DE NETTESHEIM, HENRI CORNEILLE. Sur la Noblesse et 
 Excellence du sexe feminin de sa Preeminence sur 1'autre sexe 
 et du Sacrament du Mariage. Leiden, 1716. 3 volumes. 
 
 ALBERI, EUGENIO. Relazioni degli Ambasciatori Veneti al Senate. 
 Firenze, 1839. 14 volumes. 
 
 ALBERTI L., in La Vita Italiana nel cinquecento. Milano, 1897. 
 
 ALTMANN UND BERNHEIM. Ausgewahlte Urkunden zur Erlauterung 
 der Verfassungsgeschichte Deutschlands im Mittelatter. Berlin, 
 
 1895- 
 
 AMICO, G. La Vita di N. Macchiavelli. Firenze, 1875. 
 
 ARCHAEOLOGIA, or Miscellaneous Tracts relating to Antiquity pub- 
 lished by the Society of Antiquaries of London. 1779, etc. 
 
 ARCHIV FUR KUNDE OESTERREICHISCHE GESCHICHTSQUELLEN. 
 
 ARETINO, PIETRO. The works of Aretino, aside from his letters, exist 
 in many old editions. The best collection of these is in the 
 Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris, and a list of them may be found 
 in the printed catalogue, of which the first volumes are already 
 issued. 
 
 ARMSTRONG, EDWARD. The Emperor Charles V. London, Mac- 
 millan, 1902. 
 
 ASCHAM, ROGER. Works edited by the Rev. Dr. Giles. London, 
 
 1864. 4 volumes. 
 
 ASCHBACH, JOSEPH. Geschichte der Wiener Universitat Wein, 
 
 1865. 2 volumes. 
 
 BEMBO, PIETRO. Opere. Venezia, 1729. 
 
 BERTANI, CARLO. Pietro Aretino e le sue opere. Sondrio, 1901. 
 
 BRIEGERS ZEITSCHRIFT FUR KIRCHENGESCHICHTE. 
 
 BURD. See Machiavelli. 
 
 CALENDAR OF STATE PAPERS. Spanish. London. Rolls Series. 
 
 CALENDAR OF STATE PAPERS. Venetian. Rolls Series. 8 volumes. 
 
 CAMDEN SOCIETY. Volume 37. A relation, etc., of the Island of 
 
 England, etc., about the year 1500. London, 1847. 
 CAPELU, A. Lettere d' Ariosto. Milano, 1887. 
 CASTIGLIONE, COUNT BALDESAR. The Book of the Courtier, trans- 
 
 419
 
 420 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 lated from the Italian by Leonard Eckstein Opdycke. New 
 
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 CAVALCASELLE AND CROWE. Tiziano. La Sua Vita e i suoi tempi. 
 
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 CAVENDISH, GEORGE. The Life of Cardinal Wolsey, by George 
 
 Cavendish, his gentleman usher. With notes and other illustra- 
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 A translation with introduction and notes by John Ormsby. 
 
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 CHMEL, JOSEPH. Urkunden Briefe und Actenstiicke zur Geschichte 
 
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 CIAN, V. Un Decennio della Vita di M. Pietro Bembo. Torino, 
 
 1885. 
 DE MAULDE LA CLAVIERE, R. Procedures Politiques du Regne de 
 
 Louis XII. Paris, 1886. 
 DE MAULDE LA CLAVIERE, R. La Diplomatic au temps de Machiavel. 
 
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 CONCILIUM DELECTORUM CARDINALIUM DE EMENDENDA ECCLESIA. 
 
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 CONTARINI, GASPARO. Opera. Parisiis, 1571. 
 CUSPINIANUS. Opera. 1601. 
 DACHEUX, L. Un Reformateur Catholique a la fin du XVe Siecle. 
 
 Paris et Strasbourg, 1876. 
 DAGUET, ALEXANDRE. Histoire de la Confederation Suisse. Sep- 
 
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 DEJOB, CARLO. De 1'influence du Concile de Trent sur litterature et 
 
 les beaux arts. Paris, 1884. 
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 ELLIS, SIR HENRY. Original Letters illustrative of English History. 
 
 1824-1846. ii volumes. 
 ERASMUS, DESIDERIUS. The Colloquies of D. E. Concerning Men, 
 
 Manners and Things. Translated into English by N. Bailey. 
 
 London, 1900. 
 GARDINER, SAMUEL RAWSON. Cromwell's Place in History. Founded 
 
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 1901.
 
 LIST OF BOOKS CITED 421 
 
 GASQUET, FRANCIS AIDAN. Henry VIII and the English Monas- 
 teries. London. John Hodges, 1889. 
 
 GEBHARDT, BRUNO. Die Gravamina der deutschen Nation gegen den 
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 GlORNALE SXORICO DELLA LETTERATURA. 
 
 GOTZ VON BERLICHINGEN. Lebensbeschreibung. Schonhuth. Heil- 
 
 bronn, 1859. 
 
 GRAF, ARTURO. Attraverso il Cinquecento. Torino, 1888. 
 GRUNPECK. Die Geschichte Freidrichs III und Maximilian I. 
 
 Geschichtschreiber der deutschen Vorzeit. Zweite Ausgabe. 
 
 Band 3. 
 FISH, SIMON. Supplication of the Beggars. Early English Text 
 
 Society, 1871. 
 FONTES RERUM AUSTRIACARUM. Wien. 
 
 FORSCHUNGEN ZUR DEUTSCHEN GESCHICHTE. Gottingen. 26 volumes. 
 
 FOXE, JOHN. Book of Martyrs. Edited by S. R. Catley. London, 
 1837. 8 volumes. 
 
 VON FRUNDSBERG. Historia und Beschreibung Herrn Georgen von 
 Frundsbergs Ritters Mannlicher Kriegsssachen, etc. Franckfurt 
 am Meyn, 1568. 
 
 FRIEDMANN, PAUL. Anne Boleyn. London, 1884. 2 volumes. 
 
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 durch S. von Birken. Niirnberg, 1668. 
 
 HALL, EDWARD. Hall's Chronicle, etc. London, 1809. 
 
 HARPSFIELD, NICHOLAS. A treatise on the pretended divorce be- 
 tween Henry VIII and Catharine of Aragon. Printed for the 
 Camden Society, 1878. New series, volume 21. 
 
 HERBERT, WILLIAM. The History of the Twelve Great Livery Com- 
 panies of London. London, 1836. 2 volumes. 
 
 HUBER, A. Geschichte Oesterreichs. Gotha, 1885-1896. 5 volumes. 
 
 HUME, M. A. S. A Chronicle of Henry VIII of England trans- 
 lated by M. A. S. Hume. London, 1889. 
 
 JAGER, ALBRECHT. Sitzungsberichte der Kaiserlichen Akademie der 
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 JAGER, ALBRECHT. Archiv fiir Oesterreichische Geschichte LI. 
 
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 HOCHSTEN KAISERHAUSES, etc. Vienna. 
 
 JANSSEN, JOHANNES. Geschichte des deutschen Volkes zeitdem 
 Ausgang des Mittelalters. Siebente verbesserte auflage, Frei- 
 burg im Breisgau, 1881. 
 
 JOURNAL D'UN BOURGEOIS DE PARIS sous LE REGNE DE FRANCOIS I. 
 La Societe de 1'Histoire de France, 1854.
 
 422 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 DEUTCHES KUNSTBLATT. 
 
 VON KRAUSS, VICTOR. See Maximilian. 
 
 KLAJE, HERMANN. Die Schlacht bei Guinegate. Greifs wald, 1890. 
 
 LAMPRECHT, KARL. Deutsche Geschichte. Berlin, 1894-1905. 7 vol- 
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 LAPSLEY GAILLARD T. The County Palatine of Durham. Harvard 
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 LE GLAY. See Maximilian. 
 
 LETTERS AND PAPERS, FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC OF THE REIGN OF HENRY 
 VIII. London, 1862-1905. 19 volumes. 
 
 LETTERE SCRITTE A PIETRO ARETINO EMENDATE PER CURA DI TEODORICO 
 LANDONI. Bologna, 1873. 2 volumes in four parts. Edizione 
 di Soli, 202 Esemplari. 
 
 LETTERE DI M. PIETRO ARETINO. Paris, 1609. 6 volumes. All quo- 
 tations of letters are from this edition. It was apparently set, 
 partly, by printers ignorant of Italian. It is called by an essayist 
 on Aretino "Edizione scorrettissima." The first volume is ac- 
 cessible in the well edited volume of Daelli, Bibliotheca Rara, 
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 LORENZ, O. Reichskanzler und Reichskanzlei. Preuss. Jahrbiicher, 
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 Luzio, ALESSANDRO. Pietro Aretino nei primi suoi anni a Venezia 
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 Bergamo, 1900. 
 
 MACHIAVELLI NiccoLd. II Principe. Edited by L. A. Burd. Ox- 
 ford, 1891. 
 
 MAXIMILIAN I. A large number of his works and books he caused 
 to be made, are magnificently printed in the Jahrbucher der 
 Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen, etc., as follows: 
 Genealogie VII. 
 Heilige IV. 
 Weiss Kunig VI. 
 
 Latin Autobiography (fragment) VI. 
 Zeugbiicher XIII and XV. 
 Teuerdank VIII. 
 
 His letters may be found in the following works: 
 Correspondance de 1'Empereur Maximilien ler et de Marguerite 
 
 d'Autriche. Le Glay. Paris, 1839. 
 
 Maximilians I vertraulicher Briefwechsel mit Sigmund 
 Priischenk. Victor von Krauss. Innsbruck, 1875.
 
 LIST OF BOOKS CITED 423 
 
 Lettres ine*dites de Maximilien I sur les affaires des Pays 
 
 Bas. Bruxelles, 1851. 2 volumes. 
 Lettres de Maximilien a 1'Abbe de Saint Pierre a Gand. Mes- 
 
 sager Historique de la Belgique. 
 
 Other letters are scattered through a large number of journals. 
 Memorandum books. Printed in Hormayr's Taschenbuch fur 
 
 die Vaterlandische Geschichte. Volumes IV, V, VIII. 
 Albrecht Diirers Randzeichnungen aus dem Gebetbuche des 
 Kaisers Maximilian I mit eingedrucktem original-texte. 
 Miinchen J. Roth. 
 Kaiser Maximilian's I Geheimes Jagdbuch. Herausgegeben von 
 
 Th. G. von Kara jan. Wien, 1881. 
 Das Jagdbuch Kaiser Maximilians I. Herausgegeben von Dr. 
 
 Michael Mayr. Innsbruck, 1901. 
 Das Fischereibuch Kaiser Maximilians I. Herausgegeben von 
 
 Dr. Michael Mayr. Innsbruck, 19x11. 
 Freydal; des Kaiser Maximilian I Turniere und Mummereien 
 
 Quirin von Leitner. Vienna, 1882. 
 The Triumphs of the Emperor Maximilian I, edited by Alfred 
 
 Aspland for the Holbein Society. London, 1872. 
 MAZZUCHELLI, GIAMMAMA. La Vita di pietro Aretino. Edizione 
 
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 MOLMENTI. Storia di Venezia nella vita privata. Torino, 1885. 
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 1828. 
 
 MORE, THOMAS. Workes. London, 1557. 
 
 MORISON, RICHARD. An Invective agenste the great and detestible 
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 NINE HISTORICAL LETTERS PRIVATELY PRINTED FOR J. P. C. London, 
 
 1871. 
 
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 ORATIO QUAE DOCET ADMONET OMNES POTTISSIMUM ANGLOS REGIAE 
 
 DIGNITATI, ETC. London, 1533. 
 PEARSON, CHARLES H. Historical Maps of England. London, 1883.
 
 424 RENASCENCE PORTRAITS 
 
 PHILIPS, THOMAS. History of the Life of Reignald Pole. Oxford, 
 
 1764. 
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 tographum ira Britischen Museum, herausgegeben von Karl 
 
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 ST. PAUL'S. A Monthly Magazine. London. 
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 SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES. Catalogue of a Collection of Broadsides, 
 
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 STOW, JOHN. A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, 
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 ULMANN, HEINRICH. Kaiser Maximilian I auf urkundlicher Grund- 
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 VALOR ECCLESIASTICUS TEMP. Henr. VIII. 1810-1834. 6 volumes. 
 
 VASARI, GIORGIO. Vite de' Pittori. 
 
 VILLARI, PASQUALE. Niccolo Machiavelli. Milano, 1895. 
 
 VIRGILI, F. BERNI. Firenze, 1881. 
 
 WILKINS, DAVID. Concilia Magnae Britanniae, etc. Londini, 1737. 
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 ZIMMERMAN, ATHANASIUS. Kardinal Pole seine Leben und seine 
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 ZURICH LETTERS, THE. Parker Society. Cambridge, 1842.
 
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