BOOK 1538. serve or recover the liberty of their country. Nor did they rest satisfied with empty panegyrics; they immediately quitted their different places of retreat, assembled forces, animated their vassals and partisans to take arms, and to seize this opportunity of re-establishing the public liberty on its ancient foundation. Being openly assisted by the French ambassador at Rome, and secretly encoura ged by the pope, who bore no good will to the house of Medici, they entered the Florentine dominions with a considerable body of men. But the persons who had elected Cosmo possessed not only the means of supporting his government, but abilities to employ them in the most proper manner. They levied, with the greatest expedition, a good number of troops; they endeavoured by every art to gain the citizens of greatest authority, and to render the administration of the young prince agreeable to the people. Above all, they courted the emperor's protection, as the only firm foundation of Cosmo's dignity and power. Charles, knowing the propensity of the Florentines to the friendship of France, and how much all the partisans of a republican government detested him as the oppressor of their liberties, saw it to be greatly for his interest to prevent the re-establishment of the ancient constitution in Florence. For this reason, he not only acknowledged Cosmo as head of the Florentine state, and conferred on him all the titles of honour with which Alexander had been dignified, but engaged to defend him to the utmost; and as a pledge of this, ordered the commanders of such of his troops as were stationed on the frontiers of Tuscany to support him against all aggressors. By their aid, Cosmo obtained an easy victory over the exiles, whose troops he surprised in the night-time, and took most of the chiefs prisoners; an event which broke all their measures, and fully established his own authority. But though he was extremely desirous of the additional honour of marrying the emperor's daughter, the widow of his predecessor, Charles, secure already of his attachment, chose Lettere di Principi, tom. iii, p, 52. rather to gratify the pope, by bestowing her on his ne- BOOK phew '. VI. 1538. tween VIII. be During the war between the emperor and Francis, an The friendevent had happened which abated, in some degree, the hip be warmth and cordiality of friendship which had long sub-Francis and sisted between the latter and the king of England. Henry James V. of Scotland, an enterprising young prince, ha-gins to ving heard of the emperor's intention to invade Provence, abate. was so fond of shewing that he did not yield to any of his ancestors in the sincerity of his attachment to the French crown, and so eager to distinguish himself by some military exploit, that he levied a body of troops, with an intention of leading them in person to the assistance of the king of France. Though some unfortunate accidents prevented his carrying any troops into France, nothing could divert him from going thither in person. Immediately upon his landing, he hastened to Provence, but had been detained so long in his voyage, that he came too late to have any share in the military operations, and met the king on his return, after the retreat of the imperialists. But Francis was so greatly pleased with his zeal, and no less with his manners and conversation, that he could not refuse him his daughter Magdalen, whom he demanded in marrige. It mortified Henry extremely Jan. 1, to see a prince, of whom he was immoderately jealous, form an alliance from which he derived such an accession of reputation as well as security 5. He could not, however, with decency, oppose Francis's bestowing his daughter upon a monarch descended from a race of princes, the most ancient and faithful allies of the French crown. But when James, upon the sudden death of Magdalen, demanded, as his second wife, Mary of Guise, he warmly solicited Francis to deny his suit, and, in order to disappoint him, asked that lady in marriage for himself. When Francis preferred the Scottish king's Jovii Hist. c. xcviii, p. 218, &c. Belcarii Comment. 1. xxii, p. 696. Istoria de sui Tempi di Giov. Bat. Adriani. Ven. 1587, p. 10. Hist. of Scotland, vol. i, p. 51. 1537. VI. 1558. Henry. BOOK sincere courtship to his artful and malevolent proposal, he discovered much dissatisfaction. The pacification agreed upon at Nice, and the familiar interview of the two rivals at Aigues-mortes, filled Henry's mind with new suspicions, as if Francis had altogether renounced his friendship, for the sake of new connections with the emThe empe- peror. Charles, thoroughly acquainted with the temper For courts of the English king, and watchful to observe ail the shiftings and caprices of his passions, thought this a favourable opportunity of renewing his negociations with him, which had been long broken off. By the death of Queen Catharine, whose interest the emperor could not, with decency, have abandoned, the chief cause of their discord was removed; so that, without touching upon the delicate question of her divorce, he might now take what measures he thought most effectual for regaining Henry's good will. For this purpose, he began with proposing several marriage-treaties to the king. He offered his niece, a daughter of the king of Denmark, to Henry himself; he demanded the princess Mary for one of the princes of Portugal, and was even willing to receive her as the king's illegitimate daughter. Though none of these projected alliances ever took place, or perhaps were ever seriously intended, they occasioned such frequent intercourse between the courts, and so many reciprocal professions of civility and esteem, as considerably abated the edge of Henry's rancour against the emperor, and paved the way for that union between them which afterwards proved so disadvantageous to the French king. The ambitious schemes in which the emperor had been formation. engaged, and the wars he had been carrying on for some years, proved, as usual, extremely favourable to the progress of the reformation in Germany. While Charles was absent upon his African expedition, or intent on his projects against France, his chief object in Germany was to prevent the dissensions about religion from disturbing the public tranquillity, by granting such indulgence to Progress of the re Mem. de Ribier, t. i, 496. BOOK VI. 1538. intrigues the protestant princes as might induce them to concur with his measures, or at least hinder them from taking part with his rival. For this reason, he was careful to secure to the protestants the possession of all the advantages which they had gained by the articles of pacification at Nuremberg, in the year one thousand five hundred and thirty-two; and, except some slight trouble from the proceedings of the imperial chamber, they met with nothing to disturb them in the exercise of their religion, or to interrupt the successful zeal with which they propagated their opinions. Meanwhile, the pope conti- Negocia nued his negociations for convoking a general council; tions and and though the protestants had expressed great dissatis- with refaction with his intention to fix upon Mantua as the pa general place of meeting, he adhered obstinately to his choice, council. issued a bull on the second of June one thousand five hundred and thirty-six, appointing it to assemble in that city on the twenty-third of May the year following: he nominated three cardinals to preside in his name; enjoined all Christian princes to countenance it by their authority, and invited the prelates of every nation to attend in person. This summons of a council, an assembly which, from its nature and intention, demanded quiet times, as well as pacific dispositions, at the very juncture when the emperor was on his march towards France, and ready to involve a great part of Europe in the confusions of war, appeared to every person extremely unseasonable. It was intimated, however, to all the different courts by nuncios dispatched of purpose. With an intention to gratify the Germans, the emperor, during his residence in Rome, had warmly solicited the pope to call a council; but being, at the same time, willing to try every art in order to persuade Paul to depart from the neutrality which he preserved between him and Francis, he sent Heldo, his vice-chancellor, into Germany, along with a nuncio dispatched thither, instructing him to second all Du Mont Corps Diplom. tom. iv, part ii, p. 138. Pallavic. Hist. Conc. Trid. 113. VI. Feb. 25. 1537. BOOK the nuncio's representations, and to enforce them with the whole weight of the imperial authority. The protestants gave them audience at Smalkalde, where they had assembled in a body in order to receive them. But, after weighing all their arguments, they unanimously refused to acknowledge a council summoned in the name and by the authority of the pope alone; in which he assumed the sole right of presiding; which was to be held in a city not only far distant from Germany, but subject to a prince who was a stranger to them, and closely connected with the court of Rome, and to which their divines could not repair with safety, especially after their doctrines had been stigmatised in the very bull of convocation with the name of heresy. These, and many other objections against the council, which appeared to them unanswerable, they enumerated in a large manifesto, which they published in vindication of their conduct1. Against this the court of Rome exclaimed as a flagrant proof of their obstinacy and presumption, and the pope still persisted in his resolution to hold the council at the time and in the place appointed. But some unexpected difficulties being started by the duke of Mantua, both about the right of jurisdiction over the persons who resorted to the council, and the security of his capital amidst such a concourse of strangers, the pope, after Oct. 8, fruitless endeavours to adjust these, first prorogued the 1538. council for some months, and afterwards, transferring the place of meeting to Vicenza in the Venetian territories, Sleidan, 1. xii, 123, &c. Seckend. Com. lib. iïi, p. 143, &c. |