A few days after Francis’s arrival at Madrid, and when he began to be sensible of his having relied without foundation on the emperor’s generosity, Henry VIII concluded a treaty with the regent of France, which afforded him some hope of liberty from another quarter. Henry’s extravagant demands had been received at Madrid with that neglect which they deserved, and which he probably expected. Charles, intoxicated with prosperity, no longer courted him in that respectful and submissive manner which pleased his haughty temper. Wolsey, no less haughty than his master, was highly irritated at the emperor’s discontinuing his wonted caresses and professions of friendship to himself. These slight offences, added to the weighty considerations formerly mentioned, induced Henry to enter into a defensive alliance with Louise, in which all the differences between him and her son were adjusted; at the same time he engaged that he would employ his best offices in order to procure the deliverance of his new ally from a state of captivity.

While the open defection of such a powerful confederate affected Charles with deep concern, a secret conspiracy was carrying on in Italy, which threatened him with consequences still more fatal. The restless and intriguing genius of Morone, chancellor of Milan, gave rise to this. His revenge had been amply gratified by the expulsion of the French out of Italy, and his vanity no less soothed by the re-establishment of Sforza, to whose interest he had attached himself in the duchy of Milan. The delays, however, and evasions of the Imperial court, in granting Sforza the investiture of his new acquired territories, had long alarmed Morone; these were repeated so often, and with such apparent artifice, as became a full proof to his suspicious mind that the emperor intended to strip his master of that rich country which he had conquered in his name.

Though Charles, in order to quiet the pope and Venetians, no less jealous of his designs than Morone, gave Sforza, at last, the investiture which had been so long desired; the charter was clogged with so many reservations, and subjected him to such grievous burdens, as rendered the duke of Milan a dependent on the emperor, rather than a vassal of the empire, and afforded him hardly any other security for his possessions than the good pleasure of an ambitious superior. Such an accession of power as would have accrued from the addition of the Milanese to the kingdom of Naples, was considered by Morone as fatal to the liberties of Italy, no less than to his own importance. Full of this idea he began to revolve in his mind the possibility of rescuing Italy from the yoke of foreigners; the darling scheme, as has been already observed, of the Italian politicians in that age, and which it was the great object of their ambition to accomplish. If to the glory of having been the chief instrument of driving the French out of Milan, he could add that of delivering Naples from the dominion of the Spaniards, he thought that nothing would be wanting to complete his fame. His fertile genius soon suggested to him a project for that purpose; a difficult, indeed, and daring one, but for that very reason more agreeable to his bold and enterprising temper.

Bourbon and Pescara were equally enraged at Lannoy’s carrying the French king into Spain without their knowledge. The former, being afraid that the two monarchs might, in his absence, conclude some treaty, in which his interests would be entirely sacrificed, hastened to Madrid, in order to guard against that danger. The latter, on whom the command of the army now devolved, was obliged to remain in Italy; but in every company, he gave vent to his indignation against the viceroy, in expressions full of rancor and contempt; he accused him, in a letter to the emperor, of cowardice in the time of danger, and of insolence after victory, towards the obtaining of which he had contributed nothing either by his valor or his conduct; nor did be abstain from bitter complaints against the emperor himself, who had not discovered, as he imagined, a sufficient sense of his merit, nor bestowed any adequate reward on his services.

It was on this disgust of Pescara, that Morone founded his whole system. He knew the boundless ambition of his nature, the great extent of his abilities in peace as well as war, and the intrepidity of his mind, capable alike of undertaking and of executing the most desperate designs. The cantonment of the Spanish troops on the frontier of the Milanese gave occasion to many interviews between him and Morone, in which the latter took care frequently to turn the conversation to the transactions subsequent to the battle of Pavia, a subject upon which the marquis always entered willingly and with passion; and Morone, observing his resentment to be uniformly violent, artfully pointed out and aggravated every circumstance that could increase its fury.

He painted, in the strongest colors, the emperor's want of discernment, as well as of gratitude, in preferring Lannoy to him, and in allowing that presumptuous Fleming to dispose of the captive king, without consulting the man to whose bravery and wisdom Charles was indebted for the glory of having a formidable rival in his power. Having warned him by such discourses, he then began to insinuate, that now was the time to be avenged for these insults, and to acquire immortal renown as the deliverer of his country from the oppression of strangers; that the states of Italy, weary of the ignominious and intolerable dominion of barbarians, were at last ready to combine in order to vindicate their own independence; that their eyes were fixed on him as the only leader whose genius and good fortune could ensure the happy success of that noble enterprise; that the attempt was no less practicable than glorious, it being in his power to disperse the Spanish infantry, the only body of the emperor’s troops that remained in Italy, through the villages of the Milanese, that, in one night, they might be destroyed by the people, who, having suffered much by their exactions and insolence, would gladly undertake this service; that he might then, without opposition, take possession of the throne of Naples, the station destined for him, and a reward not unworthy the restorer of liberty to Italy; that the pope, of whom that kingdom held and whose predecessors had disposed of it on many former occasions, would willingly grant him the right of investiture; that the Venetians, the Florentines, the duke of Milan, to whom he had communicated the scheme together with the French, would be the guarantees of his right; that the Neapolitans would naturally prefer the government of one of their countrymen, whom they loved and admired, to that odious dominion of strangers, to which they had been so long subjected; and that the emperor, astonished at a blow so unexpected, would find that he had neither troops nor money to resist such a powerful confederacy.

Pescara, amazed at the boldness and extent of the scheme, listened attentively to Morone, but with the countenance of a man lost in profound and anxious thought. On the one hand, the infamy of betraying his sovereign, under whom he bore such high command, deterred him from the attempt; on the other, the prospect of obtaining a crown allured him to venture upon it. After continuing a short space in suspense, the least commendable motives, as is usual after such deliberations, prevailed, and ambition triumphed over honor.  In order, however, to throw a color of decency on his conduct, he insisted that some learned casuists should give their opinion, “Whether it was lawful for a subject to take arms against his immediate sovereign, in obedience to the lord paramount of whom the kingdom itself was held?”. Such a resolution of the case as he expected was soon obtained from the divines and civilians both of home and Milan; the negotiation went forward; and measures seemed to be taking with great spirit for the speedy execution of the design.

During this interval, Pescara, either shocked at the treachery of the action that he was going to commit, or despairing of its success, began to entertain thoughts of abandoning the engagements which he had come under. The indisposition of Sforza, who happened at that time to be taken ill of a distemper which was thought mortal, confirmed his resolution, and determined him to make known the whole conspiracy to the emperor, deemed it more prudent to expect the duchy of Milan from him as the reward of this discovery, than to aim at a kingdom to be purchased by a series of crimes. This resolution, however, proved the source of actions hardly less criminal and ignominious.

The emperor, who had already received full information concerning the conspiracy from other hands, seemed to be highly pleased with Pescara’s fidelity, and commanded him to continue his intrigues for some time with the pope and Sforza, both that he might discover their intentions more fully, and that he might be able to convict them of the crime with greater certainty. Pescara, conscious of guilt, as well as sensible how suspicious his long silence must have appeared at Madrid, durst not decline that dishonorable office and was obliged to act the meanest and most disgraceful of all parts, that of seducing with a purpose to betray. Considering the abilities of the persons with whom he had to deal, the part was scarcely less difficult than base; but he acted it with such address, as to deceive even the penetrating eye of Morone, who, relying with full confidence on his sincerity, visited him at Novara, in order to put the last hand to their machinations. Pescara received him in an apartment where Antonio de Leyva was placed behind the tapestry, that he might overhear and bear witness to their conversation; as Morone was about to take leave, that officer suddenly appeared, and to his astonishment arrested him prisoner in the emperor’s name. He was conducted to the castle of Pavia; and Pescara, who had so lately been his accomplice, had now the assurance to interrogate him as his judge. At the same time, the emperor declared Sforza to have forfeited all right to the duchy of Milan, by his engaging in a conspiracy against the sovereign of whom he held; Pescara, by his command, seized on every place in the Milanese, except the castles of Cremona and Milan, which the unfortunate duke attempting to defend, were closely blockaded by the Imperial troops.

But though this unsuccessful conspiracy, instead of stripping the emperor of what he already possessed in Italy, contributed to extend his dominions in that country, it showed him the necessity of coming to some agreement with the French king, unless he chose to draw on himself a confederacy of all Europe, which the progress of his arms and his ambition, now as undisguised as it was boundless, filled with general alarm. He had not hitherto treated Francis with the generosity which that monarch expected, and hardly with the decency due to his station. Instead of displaying the sentiments becoming a great prince, Charles, by his mode of treating Francis, seems to have acted with the mercenary art of a corsair, who, by the rigorous usage of his prisoners, endeavors to draw from them a higher price for their ransom.

 

THE TREATY OF MADRID