and brilliant successes. It is lamentable that such heroism and devotion should have been disgraced by the uncompromising ferocity displayed at Brescia; but it must be remembered that, although Gaston de Foix was no better in this respect than other warriors of the same unhappy period, he was at any rate no worse.

Notwithstanding the death of the French commander, the moral effect of his victory was immense. On the very next day, the commandant of Ravenna opened negotiations for a surrender, and, while these were proceeding, the place was seized by the French, who again committed the most execrable atrocities upon the defenceless citizens. The whole of the Romagna submitted immediately after, and Julius himself evinced a willingness to treat with the all-prevailing Louis. The cause of the allies seemed irrevocably lost; yet a very short time sufficed to change the aspect of affairs. The death of Gaston de Foix had a disturbing influence which nothing could counteract. Disputes as to the command arose among the principal officers; the Duke of Ferrara departed with his troops; the German auxiliaries were recalled by Maximilian; and the French, dreading some catastrophe in their advanced position, withdrew into the territory of Milan. Julius II. speedily recovered his spirits, and the Papal troops reoccupied the cities that had been so quickly taken, and so hastily abandoned, by the invaders. Maximilian Sforza, son of Louis the Moor, was restored to the ducal throne of Milan on the 15th of December; the Swiss again poured into Italy; the French retreated before them to Pavia; and the Council of Pisa, recently summoned by the Emperor Maximilian and Louis XII., fled in dismay from Milan, where its members had been holding their ineffectual sittings. Even Pavia offered no safe refuge to the French commander, La Palisse; for the Swiss and Venetians compelled him, after a fierce engagement, to retire into France. Meanwhile, the Lateran Council was sitting at Rome, and giving to the successful Pope the moral support of its authority. Flushed by his unexpected triumph, Julius II. laid claim to a large part of Italy, even including certain districts which the German Emperor regarded as his own. The allies, in short, were speedily at issue with one another, and the Venetians began to act on their own behalf, without considering either the Pope or the Imperialists.

All parties, however, were united in the determination to put down the existing government at

At

Florence, against which their enmity was excited by the somewhat dubious neutrality it had observed during the recent war. The Florentine Republic was now under the direction of the Gonfaloniere Soderini, who had been elected for life, and whose former support of Savonarola made him particularly distasteful to the Papacy. Julius had even endeavoured to procure his assassination; but, as this attempt failed, it was resolved to effect a revolution in the State, and to restore the family of the Medici, who had been exiled in 1494. a Congress opened at Mantua for the purpose of arranging a general pacification, Julian de' Medici, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, hinted that his family, if restored to power, would furnish the Holy League with the sums it so urgently required. The bait was at once taken, and the Congress ordered Don Raymond de Cardona to march on Florence with his Spanish troops, and put down the existing administration. On its way thither, the army took Prato, which was given up to the usual massacre and pillage; and Cardona, before reaching the famous city of the Arno, sent forward a peremptory demand that Soderini should be banished, and the Medici reinstated-not, however, in their former position as sovereign princes, but merely as private citizens. While refusing to expel the Gonfaloniere, the Grand Council consented to admit the Medici under the proposed limitations; but Cardona, elated by his success at Prato, demanded a money payment, in addition to the stipulations which had been previously accepted.

The fate of the government was at length determined by a domestic revolution. A number of young men, belonging to a hierary society which had previously been in communication with Julian de' Medici, violently arrested Soderini on the morning of the 31st of August, and by terrorism compelled the Government to pronounce his deposition. Cardona's terms were then accepted; immense sums of money were handed over to the Spanish army, and to Cardona himself; and Florence ceased to be a Republic in anything but the name. Julian de' Medici became the nominal head of the State; but his brother, Cardinal Giovanni, was the real dictator. This, however, was only a provisional arrangement; and when Giovanni succeeded to the Papal throne, in 1513, Julian followed him to Rome, and left the direction of the Florentine commonwealth to his nephew Lorenzo, who governed it in the spirit of a despot, but without the brilliant and lofty genius of his namesake in the previous century.

A.D. 1512.]

51

FROM the blood-stained fields of Northern Italy, we must now revert to the western peninsula, where the union of the several provinces into a single monarchy was still incomplete. Ferdinand of Aragon was actually, though not titularly, the ruler of Castile also a position which he was to retain during the minority of his grandson, Charles. This double sovereignty gave him a command over the greater part of what is now understood as Spain; but Navarre remained independent, and its acquisition was considered necessary to the grandeur of the Spanish crown. The fortunes of the Pyrenean State had been somewhat varied. It was one of the earliest of the small Christian kingdoms in that part of Europe to resist, not only with heroism, but with success, the vast and farsweeping inroad of the Saracens ; and it preserved a dignified and even conspicuous position until, in 1285, it became an appanage of France, owing to the marriage of Philip the Fair with Queen Joanna I. Regaining its separate existence in 1328, when the House of Valois succeeded to the French throne, and the daughter of Louis X. resumed the Navarrese sceptre as Joanna II., the country pursued an obscure and prosperous course for more than a hundred years. In 1425, the succession passed to Blanche, daughter of Charles III. of Navarre, and wife to Juan, brother of the King of Aragon, who, on the death of his kinsman in 1458, united the two countries in a close association. Blanche had died in 1442, and Juan married a second time in 1447; yet the latter retained the title of King of Navarre, together with the supreme direction of affairs, though the actual work of government was at first entrusted to his son Carlos,

Prince of Viano, who was subsequently persecuted by his father, expelled from his maternal possessions, and, after his restoration in obedience to the demands of public opinion, treated with so much disfavour that he retired to Sicily, where he might have obtained the crown, had he not preferred the life of a scholarly recluse. The career of this amiable, gifted, and unfortunate prince hardly comes within the great movements of general history; but it may here be noted that, having returned to Spain by permission of his father, he was soon imprisoned in a mountain-fortress on the borders of Valentia, and remained there until released by an insurrection of the Catalans, who were subjects of Aragon. He died under suspicious circumstances in 1461.*

After the deposition of Carlos, Navarre was conferred by Juan (still with the reservation of his own suzerainty) on Leonora, Countess de Foix, his younger daughter by Blanche, whose son Francis succeeded in 1479, after the death of his mother, and of his grandfather Juan. Four years later, the crown passed to Catherine, sister of Francis. But Ferdinand the Catholic, son of Juan by his second wife, Joanna Henriquez, of the bloodroyal of Castile, was desirous of incorporating this mountain territory with his own dominions; and Isabella shared his views. They sought to marry Catherine to their son and heir, the Prince of Asturias; but the mother of the young Queen was a French princess, and in 1485 she contrived to unite her daughter to Jean d'Albret, a nobleman

The events of this period are somewhat fully related by Prescott in his "History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella."

The complications with respect to this small State were increased by the claim of Catherine's uncle, John de Foix, Viscount of Narbonne, who alleged that the succession to the Navarrese crown was limited to male heirs. After the death of this pretender, his claims were taken up by his son, Gaston de Foix, the hero of the war in Italy; and Louis XII., the uncle of Gaston, avowed his intention of supporting the youthful commander in his pretensions to the throne of Navarre. At the battle near Ravenna, where he met his death in 1512, Gaston wore a rich suit of armour emblazoned with the arms of that kingdom, and, as Ferdinand supported Catherine against his asserted rights, he regarded the Spaniards with great detestation. Those rights (such as they were) passed at his death to his sister, Germaine de Foix, the second wife of King Ferdinand, and therefore, in reality, to Ferdinand himself, since, by the very contention of Gaston and his father, women could not succeed to the crown. The King of Aragon had previously supported Queen Catherine against the claims of Gaston; but, to an unscrupulous man like Ferdinand, there was no difficulty or disgrace in suddenly changing his conduct when his own interests seemed to be involved. Catherine suspected mischief, and sought a treaty of alliance with France. Her husband, an easy, good-natured man, paid little heed to public affairs; and Ferdinand, bent on the acquisition of Navarre, pursued his intrigues without a check.

In the prosecution of these designs, he obtained the assistance of Henry VIII. of England, who had married his daughter, Catalina--the Catherine of Aragon of English history: a lady originally united to the boy-prince, Arthur, who died in April, 1502, in his sixteenth year. Ferdinand had already, as the reader is aware, effected an alliance with his son-in-law, on the understanding that Henry was to draw off a portion of the French army from Italy by invading Guienne, which, in the event of his success, he was to re-annex to the English crown. The pretence made by Henry to his Parliament was that he wished to compel Louis XII. to dissolve the schismatical Council of Pisa, and to restore Bologna to the Pope. These were objects in which the English people generally took little or no interest; but a war with France was always popular, and the prospect of recovering Guienne was agreeable to the national pride. The whole enterprise, however, was contrived and

a

motion of his own designs, and he took good care that it should have no other result. Henry equipped an army of nearly 10,000 men-a large force for the England of those days; and Ferdinand sent Spanish vessels to convey them to Bayonne, in the south of France, whence it was understood they were to operate against the former province of the Plantagenets. But this was a mere pretence, or blind. The wily Aragonese, having got the English soldiers on board his ships, landed them at Passages, in Guipuscoa, near the borders of Navarre, in June, 1512. The English commanders were Thomas Grey, Marquis of Dorset, and Sir Edward Howard, son of the Earl of Surrey; and both appear to have been completely entrapped, as, indeed, was Henry himself. At Passages they found commissioner from the court of Ferdinand, who, with many plausible arguments, represented that it would be dangerous to attack Bayonne without first securing Navarre, the sovereign of which was intriguing with France, and might assail their rear. As a matter of fact, it was not until the landing in Guipuscoa, and in consequence of it, that Jean d'Albret of Navarre concluded a treaty with Louis XII., containing promises of mutual assistance, and binding the former to declare war against the English who had assembled at Passages. But there had been previous indications of a desire on the part of Catherine and her husband to effect a union with France; and this supplied Ferdinand with the required pretext.

Before taking any active measures against Navarre, Ferdinand opened negotiations with Jean d'Albret, for the real or pretended purpose of inducing him to join the allies; but these efforts, which perhaps were never very sincerely intended, proved wholly ineffective. A French army now approached the frontiers of Béarn, and the Marquis of Dorset complained to Ferdinand that the time lost in soliciting the monarchs of Navarre had served only to give their common enemy an opportunity of concentrating his forces. He pressed for a fulfilment of the recent treaty, by which the English were to be assisted in an attack on Guienne; but Ferdinand replied that he dared not expose his dominions to invasion by the French and Navarrese, and suggested that a few towns belonging to the latter should be seized, as a means of bringing pressure to bear upon them. Dorset, however, declared that his instructions did not permit him to make war upon Navarre, and Ferdinand, compelled to rely on his own resources," ordered an immediate invasion of that kingdom. He alleged as his excuse that the Navarrese had

A.D. 1513.]

53

allying themselves with Louis XII., they had recognised the Council of Pisa, and were therefore comprised in the excommunication pronounced by the Pope. Jean d'Albret, seeing the utter impossibility of resisting so great a power as that of Spain, retired into France, and the Duke of Alva (grandfather of one who was to be terribly conspicuous in a later generation) subdued nearly the whole of Upper Navarre in less than a fortnight. The Marquis of Dorset re-embarked the English forces in October, and returned to his own country, protesting, and not without reason, that his sovereign had been scandalously duped. Ferdinand, on the other part, alleged that he had been badly used by his allies, who had in truth done nothing. Yet it must not be forgotten that the mere presence of the English army had served the ambitious designs of Ferdinand by apparently increasing the force at his command. From that time, Navarre became a province of Spain, with the exception of a small part north of the Pyrenees, which was subsequently united to the crown of France.

A little before the conclusion of the truce of Orthès, by which the Navarrese war was terminated, the life of Pope Julius II. came to an end. His death took place on the 21st February, 1513, and was due to a fever and dysentery, which at his advanced age soon carried him off. The character of this Pontiff was rather that of a soldier and politician than that of a priest; not that he was wanting in a sense of his position as head of the Western Church, but that his actions tended to the creation of a species of Theocratical monarchy in the Italian peninsula, which he hoped to strengthen and extend by diplomacy and the sword. His moral character was doubtless much better than that of Alexander VI., though his enemies did not scruple to accuse him of many crimes.

At any

rate, he was less guilty of nepotism than some who had preceded him in the same office; for, of the twenty-seven Cardinals created during his Pontificate, only four were in any respect related to him, and all of these seem to have been men properly qualified for their position. The arts. found a liberal patron in this martial priest, under whose sway the present church of St. Peter was commenced. The genius of Raphael and Michael Angelo found abundant opportunities for their development beneath the rule of one who desired to make the city of the Popes as grand and imposing as the city of the Caesars. The Roman school of painting is indissolubly associated with the reign of Julius II., and Raphael has preserved

in his imperishable lines. Yet, notwithstanding all his lavish expenditure on works of art, as well as in the prosecution of his ideas of policy, Julius was enabled, owing to the frugality of his life, to leave a large sum of money to his

successor.

That successor was Cardinal Giovanni de'Medici, second son of Lorenzo the Magnificent. It was the great ambition of his father that Giovanni should attain to the highest position in the Church; for, although Lorenzo was a sceptic in religion, he knew the Roman hierarchy to be one of the most important facts in the European system, and he was too much a man of the world not to shape his course accordingly. His influence as the ruler of a powerful Republic enabled him to procure the appointment of his son, while yet a boy, to several important positions of an ecclesiastical character. Innocent VIII. made him a Cardinal before he was thirteen years of age, and in a little while he was the possessor of six rectories, fifteen abbacies, one priory, and one archbishopric. From his parent he inherited a sumptuous taste for the fine arts, a quick and receptive intellect, and a profound indifference to the dogmas of the Church with which he was connected. His disposition was suave, his manners were delightful; he had read much, had travelled in many parts of Europe, had seen active service in the field, and had acquired at Florence all the literary and artistic culture of which that city was then the centre. That he was not a priest after the old pattern, but rather a polished courtier and an elegant scholar, was a very slight objection in days when the Church was no longer what it had been in the time of Gregory VII. or of Innocent III., but had become an intriguing monarchy, the rival of other monarchies for honour and position as an Italian Power. Leo X., as he elected to be called, took possession of the Lateran on the 11th of April, 1513, exactly a year after the battle of Ravenna, at which he had been present. The spectacle was of the most splendid description, and the standard of the Church was borne by Alfonso of Ferrara.

The new Pope, however, was speedily compelled to turn his attention to matters of business, for Italy was still disturbed by contending factions. Louis XII. of France had just entered into an offensive and defensive alliance with the Venetians, who had now separated themselves from the Holy League; and Maximilian's daughter Margaret had been authorised to conclude at Mechlin a treaty binding her father the Emperor, Ferdinand the Catholic, the King of England, and the Pope, to