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VIII.

1547.

The rigor

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BOOK tion now remaining in arms, but the elector and landgrave, to whom the emperor, having from the beginning marked them out as victims of his vengeance, was at no pains to offer terms of reconciliation. Nor did he grant those who tions imposed by submitted to him a generous and unconditional pardon. the empe- Conscious of his own superiority, he treated them both with haughtiness and rigour. All the princes, in person, and the cities, by their deputies, were compelled to implore mercy in the humble posture of supplicants. As the emperor laboured under great difficulties from the want of money, he imposed heavy fines upon them, which he levied with most rapacious exactness. The duke of Wurtemberg paid three hundred thousand crowns; the city of Augsburg an hundred and fifty thousand; Ulm an hundred thousand; Frankfort eighty thousand; Memmingen fifty thousand; and the rest in proportion to their abilities, or their different degrees of guilt. They were obliged, besides, to renounce the league of Smalkalde; to furnish assistance, if required, towards executing the imperial ban against the elector and landgrave; to give up their artillery and warlike stores to the emperor; to admit garrisons into their principal cities and places of strength; and, in this disarmed and dependent situation, to expect the final award which the emperor should think proper to pronounce when the war came to an issuet. But amidst the great variety of articles dictated by Charles on this occasion, he, in conformity to his original plan, took care that nothing relating to religion should be inserted; and to such a degree were the confederates humbled, or overawed, that, forgetting the zeal which had so long animated them, they were solicitous only about their own safety, without venturing to insist on a point, the mention of which they saw the emperor avoiding with so much industry. The inhabitants of Memmingen alone made some feeble efforts to procure a promise of protection in the exercise of their religion, but were checked so severely by

Sleid. 411, &c. Thuan. lib. iv, p. 125. Mem. de Ribier, tom. i.

the imperial ministers, that they instantly fell from their ROOK demand.

VIII.

The elector of Cologne, whom, notwithstanding the 1547. sentence of excommunication issued against him by the pope, Charles had hitherto allowed to remain in possession of the archiepiscopal see, being now required by the emperor to submit to the censures of the church, this virtuous and disinterested prelate, unwilling to expose his subjects to the miseries of war on his own account, voluntarily resigned that high dignity. With a moderation be- Jan. 25. coming his age and character, he chose to enjoy truth, together with the exercise of his religion, in the retirement of a private life, rather than to disturb society by engaging in a doubtful and violent struggle in order to retain his office".

Saxony,

posses

sion of it.

During these transactions, the elector of Saxony reached The elector the frontiers of his country unmolested. As Maurice could turns to assemble no force equal to the army which accompanied nd recov him, he, in a short time, not only recovered possession of his own territories, but overran Misnia, and stripped his rival of all that belonged to him, except Dresden and Leipsic, which, being towns of some strength, could not be suddenly reduced. Maurice, obliged to quit the field, and to shut himself up in his capital, dispatched courier after courier to the emperor, representing his dangerous situation, and soliciting him, with the most earnest importunity, to march immediately to his relief. But Charles, busy at that time in prescribing terms to such members of the league as were daily returning to their allegiance, thought it sufficient to detach Albert, marquis of Brandenburg Anspach, with three thousand men to his assistance. Albert, though an enterprising and active officer, was unexpectedly surprised by the elector, who killed many of his troops, dispersed the remainder, and took him prisoner. Maurice continued as much exposed as formerly; and if his enemy had known how to improve the oppor

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1547.

The empe

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tunity which presented itself, his ruin must have been immediate and unavoidable But the elector, no less slow and dilatory when invested with the sole command than he had been formerly when joined in authority with a partner, never gave any proof of military activity but in this enterprise against Albert. Instead of marching directly towards Maurice, whom the defeat of his ally had greatly alarmed, he inconsiderately listened to overtures of accommodation, which his artful antagonist proposed with no other intention than to amuse him, and to slacken the vigour of his operations.

Such, indeed, was the posture of the emperor's affairs, that he could not march instantly to the relief of his ally. Soon after the separation of the confederate army, he, in elector and order to ease himself of the burden of maintaining a superlandgrave. fluous number of troops, had dismissed the count of Buren

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with his Flemings, imagining that the Spaniards and Germans, together with the papal forces, would be fully sufficient to crush any degree of vigour that yet remained among the members of the league. But Paul, growing wise too late, began now to discern the imprudence of that measure, from which the more sagacious Venetians had endeavoured in vain to dissuade him. The rapid progress of the imperial arms, and the ease with which they had broken a combination that appeared no less firm than powerful, opened his eyes at length, and made him not only forget all the advantages which he had expected from such a complete triumph over heresy, but placed, in the strongest light, his own impolitie conduct, in having con. tributed towards acquiring for Charles such an immense increase of power, as would enable him. after oppressing the liberties of Germany, to give law with absolute authority to all the states of Italy. The moment that he perceived his error he endeavoured to correct it. Without giving the emperor any warning of his intention, he ordered l'arnese his grandson to return instantly to Italy with all the troops under his command, and at the same y Avila, 83, 6. Mem. de Ribier, tom. i, 592.

VIII.

1547.

time recalled the license which he had granted Charles, BOOK of appropriating to his own use a large share of the church lands in Spain. He was not destitute of pretences to justify this abrupt desertion of his ally. The term of six months, during which the stipulations in their treaty were to continue in force, was now expired; the league, in opposition to which their alliance had been framed, seemed to be entirely dissipated; Charles, in all his negociations with the princes and cities which had submitted to his will, had neither consulted the pope, nor had allotted him any part of the conquests which he had made, nor had allowed him any share in the vast contributions which he had raised. He had not even made any provision for the sup pression of heresy, or the re-establishment of the Catholic religion, which were Paul's chief inducements to bestow the treasures of the church so liberally in carrying on the These colours, however specious, did not conceal from the emperor that secret jealousy which was the true motive of the pope's conduct. But as Paul's orders, with regard to the march of his troops, were no less peremptory than unexpected, it was impossible to prevent their retreat. Charles exclaimed loudly against his treachery, in abandoning him so unseasonably, while he was prosecuting a war undertaken in obedience to the papal injunctions, and from which, if successful, so much honour and advantage would redound to the church. To complaints he added threats and expostulations; but Paul remained inflexible; his troops continued their march towards the ecclesiastical state; and, in an elaborate memorial, intended as an apology for his conduct, he discovered new and more manifest symptoms of alienation from the emperor, together with a deep-rooted dread of his power. Charles, weakened by the withdrawing of so great a body from his army, which was already much diminished by the number of garrisons that he had been obliged to throw into the towns which had capitulated, found it necessary to recruit

F. Paul, 208. Pallavic. par. ii, p. 5. Thuan. 126.

VIIL

BOOK his forces by new levies, before he could venture to march in person towards Saxony.

1547

A conspi

racy to

overturn

the govern ment of Genoa.

The fame and splendour of his success could not have failed of attracting such multitudes of soldiers into his service, from all the extensive territories now subject to his authority, as must have soon put him in a condition of taking the field against the elector; but the sudden and violent eruption of a conspiracy at Genoa, as well as the great revolutions which that event, extremely mysterious in its first appearances, seemed to portend, obliged him to avoid entangling himself in new operations in Germany, until he had fully discovered its source and tendency. The form of government which had been established in Genoa, at the time when Andrew Doria restored liberty to his country, though calculated to obliterate the memory of former dissensions, and received at first with eager approbation, did not, after a trial of near twenty years, give universal satisfaction to those turbulent and factious republicans. As the entire administration of affairs was now lodged in a certain number of noble The object families, many, envying them that pre-eminence, wished of the con- for the restitution of a populur government, to which

spiratorɛ.

they had been accustomed, and though all reverenced the disinterested virtue of Doria, and admired his talents, not a few were jealous of that ascendant which he had acquired in the councils of the commonwealth. His age, however, his moderation, and his love of liberty, afforded ample security to his countrymen that he would not abuse his power, nor stain the close of his days by attempting to overturn that fabric which it had been the labour and pride of his life to erect. But the authority and influence which in his hands were innocent, they easily saw would prove destructive, if usurped by any citizen of greater ambition or less virtue. A citizen of this dangerous. character had actually formed such pretensions, and with some prospect of success. Giannetino Doria, whom his grand-uncle Andrew destined to be the heir of his private fortune, aimed likewise at being his successor in power.

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