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* Guicciard. lib. xv. Du Bellai, lib. ii.

1525.

Fatigue and the bad season (for it was the depth of winter) had wasted the French army. The imperial generals meanwhile were not inactive. Pescara, and Lannoy, viceroy of Naples, assembled forces from all quarters. Bourbon, having pawned his jewels, went into Germany, and with the money, aided by his personal interest, levied a body of twelve thousand Lansquenets, with which he joined the imperialists. This whole army advanced to raise the siege of Pavia; and the danger to the French became every day more imminent.

The state of Europe was such during that age, that, partly from the want of commerce and industry every where, except in Italy and the Low Countries, partly from the extensive privileges still possessed by the people in all the great monarchies and their frugal maxims in granting money, the revenues of the princes were extremely narrow, and even the small armies which they kept on foot could not be regularly paid by them*[**missing period] The imperial forces, commanded by Bourbon, Pescara, and Lannoy, exceeded not twenty thousand men; they were the only body of troops maintained by the emperor, (for he had not been able to levy any army for the invasion of France, either on the side of Spain or Flanders.) Yet so poor was that mighty monarch, that he could transmit no money for the payment of this army; and it was chiefly the hopes of sharing the plunder of the French camp which had made them advance and kept them to their standards. Had Francis raised the siege before their approach, and retired to Milan, they must immediately have disbanded; and he had obtained a complete victory without danger or bloodshed. But it was the character of this monarch to become obstinate in proportion to the difficulties which he encountered; and having once said, that he would take Pavia or perish before it, he was resolved rather to endure the utmost extremities than depart from this resolution.

The imperial generals, after cannonading the French camp for several days, at last made a general assault, and broke into the intrenchments. Leyva sallied from the town, and increased the confusion among the besiegers. The Swiss infantry, contrary to their usual practice, behaved in a dastardly manner, and deserted their post. Francis’s forces were put to rout; and he himself, surrounded by his enemies, after fighting with heroic valor, and killing seven men with his own hand, was at last obliged to surrender himself prisoner. All most the whole army, full of nobility and brave officers, either perished by the sword or were drowned in the river. The few who escaped with their lives fell into the hands of the enemy.

The emperor received this news by Pennalosa, who passed through France by means of a safe-conduct granted him by the captive king. The moderation which he displayed on this occasion, had it been sincere, would have done him honor. Instead of rejoicing, he expressed sympathy with Francis’s ill fortune, and discovered his sense of those calamities to which the greatest monarchs are exposed.[*] He refused the city of Madrid permission to make any public expressions of triumph; and said that he reserved all his exultation till he should he able to obtain some victory over the infidels. He sent orders to his frontier garrisons to commit no hostilities upon France.

* Vera. Hist. de Carl. V.

He spoke of concluding immediately a peace on reasonable terms. But all this seeming moderation was only hypocrisy, so much the more dangerous as it was profound. And he was wholly occupied in forming schemes how, from this great incident, he might draw the utmost advantage, and gratify that exorbitant ambition by which, in all his actions, he was ever governed.

The same Pennalosa, in passing through France, carried also a letter from Francis to his mother, whom he had left regent, and who then resided at Lyons. It contained only these few words: “Madam, all is lost, except our honor.” The princess was struck with the greatness of the calamity. She saw the kingdom without a sovereign, without an army, without generals, without money; surrounded on every side by implacable and victorious enemies; and her chief resource, in her present distresses, were the hopes which she entertained of peace and even of assistance from the king of England.

Had the king entered into the war against France from any concerted political views, it is evident that the victory of Pavia and the captivity of Francis were the most fortunate incidents that could have befallen him, and the only ones that could render his schemes effectual. While the war was carried on in the former feeble manner, without any decisive advantage, he might have been able to possess himself of some frontier town, or perhaps of a small territory, of which he could not. have kept possession without expending much more than its value. By some signal calamity alone, which annihilated the power of France, could he hope to acquire the dominion of considerable provinces, or dismember that great monarchy, so affectionate to its own government and its own sovereigns. But as it is probable that Henry had never before carried his reflections so far, he was startled at this important event, and became sensible of his own danger, as well as that of all Europe, from the loss of a proper counterpoise to the power of Charles. Instead of taking advantage, therefore, of the distressed condition of Francis, he was determined to lend him assistance in his present calamities; and as the glory of generosity in raising a fallen enemy concurred with his political interests, he hesitated the less in embracing these new measures.

Some disgusts also had previously taken place between Charles and Henry, and still more between Charles and Wolsey; and that powerful minister waited only for a favorable opportunity of revenging the disappointments which he had met with. The behavior of Charles, immediately after the victory of Pavia, gave him occasion to revive the king’s jealousy and suspicions. The emperor so ill supported the appearance of moderation which he at first assumed, that he had already changed his usual style to Henry; and instead of writing to him with his own hand, and subscribing himself “Your affectionate son and cousin,” he dictated his letters to a secretary, and simply subscribed himself “Charles.”[*] Wolsey also perceived a diminution in the caresses and professions with which the emperor’s letters to him were formerly loaded; and this last imprudence, proceeding from the intoxication of success, was probably more dangerous to Charles’s interests than the other.

Henry, though immediately determined to embrace new measures, was careful to save appearances in the change; and he caused rejoicings to be every where made on account of the victory of Pavia and the captivity of Francis. He publicly dismissed a French envoy, whom he had formerly allowed, notwithstanding the war, to reside at London;[**] but upon the regent of France’s submissive applications to him, he again opened a correspondence with her; and besides assuring her of his friendship and protection, he exacted a promise that she never would consent to the dismembering of any province from the monarchy for her son’s ransom. With the emperor, however, he put on the appearance of vigor and enterprise; and in order to have a pretence for breaking with him, he despatched Tonstal, bishop of London, to Madrid with proposals for a powerful invasion of France. He required that Charles should immediately enter Guienne at the head of a great army, in order to put him in possession of that province; and he demanded the payments of large sums of money which that prince had borrowed from him in his last visit at London. He knew that the emperor was in no condition of fulfilling either of these demands; and that he had as little inclination to make him master of such considerable territories upon the frontiers of Spain.