VII. 1544. April 11. exceeded the French by at least ten thousand men. They BOOK met near Cerisoles, in an open plain, which afforded to neither any advantage of ground, and both had full time to form their army in proper order. The shock was such as might have been expected between veteran troops, violent and obstinate. The French cavalry rushing forward to the charge with their usual vivacity, bore down every thing that opposed them; but, on the other hand, the steady and disciplined valour of the Spanish infantry having forced the body which they encountered to give way, victory remained in suspense, ready to declare for whichever general could make the best use of that critical moment. Guasto, engaged in that part of his army which was thrown into disorder, and afraid of falling into the hands of the French, whose vengeance he dreaded on account of the murder of Rincon and Fregoso, lost his presence of mind, and forgot to order a large body of reserve to advance; whereas Enguien, with admirable courage and equal conduct, supported, at the head of his gens d'armes, such of his battalions as began to yield; and, at the same time, he ordered the Swiss in his service, who had been victorious wherever they fought, to fall upon the Spaniards. This motion proved decisive. All that followed was confusion and slaughter; the marquis del Guasto, wounded in the thigh, escaped only by the swiftness of his horse. The victory of the French was complete, ten thousand of the imperialists being slain, and a considerable number, with all their tents, baggage, and artillery, taken. On the part of the conquerors their joy was without allay, a few only being killed, and among these no officer of distinction 4. This splendid action, beside the reputation with which Eff, cts of it. it was attended, delivered France from an imminent danger, as it ruined the army with which Guasto had intended to invade the country between the Rhone and Saone, where there was neither fortified towns nor regular forces to oppose his progress. But it was not in Francis's power to pursue the victory with such vigour as to reap all Bellay, 429, &c. Memoires de Monlue. Jovii Hist. I. xliv, p. 327, 6. VII. 1544 BOOK the advantages which it might have yielded; for though the Milanese remained now almost defenceless; though the inhabitants, who had long murmured under the rigour of the imperial government, were ready to throw off the yoke; though Enguien, flushed with success, urged the king to seize this happy opportunity of recovering a country, the acquisition of which had been long his favourite object; yet, as the emperor and king of England were preparing to break in upon the opposite frontier of France with numerous armies, it became necessary to sacrifice all thoughts of conquest to the public safety, and to recal twelve thousand of Enguien's best troops, to be employed in defence of the kingdom. Enguien's subsequent operations were, of consequence, so languid and inconsiderable, that the reduction of Carignan and some other towns in Piedmont was all that he gained by his great victory at Cerisoles . Operations in the Low June. The emperor, as usual, was late in taking the field, but Countries. he appeared, towards the beginning of June, at the head of an army more numerous and better appointed than any which he had hitherto led against France.. It amounted almost to fifty thousand men; and part of it having reduced Luxemburg and some other towns in the Netherlands, before he himself joined it, he now marched with the whole towards the frontiers of Champagne. Charles, according to his agreement with the king of England, ought to have advanced directly towards Paris; and the dauphin, who commanded the only army to which Francis trusted for the security of his dominions in that quarter, was in no condition to oppose him. But the success with which the French had defended Provence in the year one thousand five hundred and thirty-six, had taught them the most effectual method of distressing an invading enemy. Champagne, a country abounding more in vines than corn, was incapable of maintaining a great army; and before the emperor's approach, whatever could be of any use to his troops had been carried off or destroyed. This rendered it necessary for him to be master of some places e Bellay, 438, &c. VII. 1544. ror invests of strength, in order to secure the convoys, on which alone BOOK he now perceived that he must depend for subsistence; and he found the frontier towns so ill provided for defence, that he hoped it would not be a work either of much time or difficulty to reduce them. Accordingly, Ligny and Commercy, which he first attacked, surrendered after a short resistance. He then invested St Disier, which, The empethough it commanded an important pass on the Marne, St. Disier. was destitute of every thing necessary for sustaining a July 8. siege. But the count de Sancerre and M. de la Lande, who had acquired such reputation by the defence of Landrecy, generously threw themselves into the town, 'and undertook to hold it out to the last extremity. The emperor soon found how capable they were of making good their promise, and that he could not expect to take the town without besieging it in form. This, accordingly, he undertook; and as it was his nature never to abandon any enterprise in which he had once engaged, he persisted in it with an inconsiderate obstinacy. vades The king of England's preparations for the campaign Henry were complete long before the emperor's; but, as he did VIII innot choose, on the one hand, to encounter alone the whole Scotland. power of France, and was unwilling, on the other, that his troops should remain inactive, he took that opportunity of chastising the Scots, by sending his fleet, together with a considerable part of his infantry, under the earl of Hertford, to invade their country. Hertford executed his commission with vigour, plundered and burnt Edinburgh and Leith, laid waste the adjacent country, and re-embarked his men with such dispatch, that they joined their sovereign soon after his landing in France. When July 14. Henry arrived in that kingdom he found the emperor engaged in the siege of St Disier, an ambassador, however, whom he sent to congratulate the English monarch on his safe arrival on the Continent, solicited him to march, in terms of the treaty, directly to Paris. But Charles had set his ally such an ill example of fulfilling the conditions f Hist. Scot. i, 83. BOOK 1544. vests of their confederacy with exactness, that Henry, observing him employ his time and forces in taking towns for his own behoof, saw no reason why he should not attempt the reduction of some places that lay conveniently for Henry in himself. Without paying any regard to the emperor's Boulogne. remonstrances, he immediately invested Boulogne, and commanded the duke of Norfolk to press the siege of Montreuil, which had been begun before his arrival by a body of Flemings, in conjunction with some English troops. While Charles and Henry shewed such attention each to his own interest, they both neglected the common cause. Instead of the union and confidence requisite towards conducting the great plan that they had formed, they early discovered a mutual jealousy of each other, which, by degrees, begot distrust, and ended in open hatred. Gallant defence of St Disier. By this time, Francis had, with unwearied industry, drawn together an army, capable, as well from the number as from the valour of the troops, of making head against the enemy. But the dauphin, who still acted as general, prudently declining a battle, the loss of which would have endangered the kingdom, satisfied himself with harassing the emperor with his light troops, cutting off his convoys, and laying waste the country around him. Though extremely distressed by these operations, Charles still pressed the siege of St Disier, which Sancerre defended with astonishing fortitude and conduct. He stood repeated assaults, repulsing the enemy in them all; and, undismayed even by the death of his brave associate De la Lande, who was killed by a cannon-ball, he continued to shew the same bold countenance and obstinate resolution. At the end of five weeks, he was still in a condition to hold out some time longer, when an artifice of Granville's induced him to surrender. That crafty politician, having intercepted the key to the cypher which the duke of Guise used in communicating intelligence to Sancerre, forged a letter in his name, authoriz ing Sancerre to capitulate, as the king, though highly lierbert. VII. 4544. satisfied with his behaviour, thought it imprudent to ha- BOOK zard a battle for his relief. This letter he conveyed into the town, in a manner which could raise no suspicion, and the governor fell into the snare. Even then he obtained such honourable conditions as his gallant defence merited, and, among others, a cessation of hostilities for eight days, at the expiration of which he bound himself to open the gates, if Francis, during that time, did not attack the imperial army, and throw fresh troops into the town. Thus Sancerre, by detaining the emperor so long before an inconsiderable place, afforded his sovereign full time to assemble all his forces, and, what rarely falls to the lot of an officer in such an inferior command, acquired the glory of having saved his country. ror pene ef France. As soon as St Disier surrendered, the emperor advan- August 17. ced into the heart of Champagne; but Sancerre's obsti- The empe nate resistance had damped his sanguine hopes of pene-trates into trating to Paris, and led him seriously to reflect on what he might expect before towns of greater strength, and defended by more numerous garrisons. At the same time, the procuring subsistence for his army was attended with great difficulty, which increased in proportion as he withdrew farther from his own frontier. He had lost a great number of his best troops in the siege of St Disier, and many fell daily in skirmishes, which it was not in his power to avoid, though they wasted his army insensibly, without leading to any decisive action. The season advanced apace, and he had not yet the command either of a sufficient extent of territory, or of any such considerable town as rendered it safe to winter in the enemy's country. Great arrears, too, were now due to his soldiers, who were upon the point of mutinying for their pay, while he knew not from what funds to satisfy them. All these considerations induced him to listen to the overtures of peace which a Spanish dominican, the confessor of his sister the queen of France, had secretly made to his confessor, a monk of the same order. In consequence of this, pleni h Brantome, tom. vi, 489. |