IX. 1547. BOOK commodation, on such terms as he could obtain. In the meantime, Charles waited with impatience the issue of a distemper, which was to decide whether he must relinquish all other schemes, in order to prepare for resisting a combination of the greater part of Europe against him, or whether he might proceed to invade Saxony without interruption or fear of danger. Death of Francis, and reflec. tions on his charac ter and valship with Charies. The good fortune so remarkably propitious to his family, that some historians have called it the Star of the House of Austria, did not desert him on this occasion. Francis died at Rambouillet, on the last day of March, in the fifty-third year of his age, and the thirty-third of his reign. During twenty-eight years of that time, an avowed rivalship subsisted between him and the emperor, which involved not only their own dominions, but the greater part of Europe, in wars, which were prosecuted with more violent animosity, and drawn out to a greater length, than had been known in any former period. Many circumstances contributed to this. Their animosity was founded in opposition of interest, heightened by personal emulation, and exasperated not only by mutual injuries, but by reciprocal insults. At the same time, whatever advantage one seemed to possess towards gaining the ascendant, was wonderfully balanced by some favourable circumstance peculiar to the other. The emperor's dominions were of greater extent; the French king's lay more compact: Francis governed his kingdom with absolute power; that of Charles was limited, but he supplied the want of authority by address: the troops of the former were more impetuous and enterprising; those of the latter better disciplined, and more patient of fatigue. The talents and abilities of the two monarchs were as different as the advantages which they possessed, and contributed no less to prolong the contest between them. Francis took his resolutions suddenly, prosecuted them at first with warmth, and pushed them into execution with a most adventurous courage; but being destitute of the perseverance necessary to surmount difficulties, he often abandon ed his designs, or relaxed the vigour of pursuit, from impatience, and sometimes from levity. Charles deliberated long, and determined with coolness; but having once fixed his plan, he adhered to it with inflexible obstinacy; and neither danger nor discouragement could turn him aside from the execution of it. The success of their enterprises was suitable to the diversity of their characters, and was uniformly influenced by it. Francis, by his im petuous activity, often disconcerted the emperor's best laid schemes; Charles, by a more calm but steady prosecution of his designs, checked the rapidity of his rival's career, and baffled or repulsed his most vigorous efforts. The former, at the opening of a war or of a campaign, broke in upon his enemy with the violence of a torrent, and carried all before him; the latter, waiting until he saw the force of his rival begin to abate, recovered in the end not only all that he had lost, but made new acquisitions. Few of the French monarch's attempts towards conquest, whatever promising aspect they might wear at first, were conducted to an happy issue; many of the emperor's enterprises, even after they appeared desperate and impracticable, terminated in the most prosperous manner. Francis was dazzled with the splendour of an undertaking; Charles was allured by the prospect of its turning to his advantage. The degree, however, of their comparative merit and reputation has not been fixed either by a strict scrutiny into their abilities for government, or by an impartial consideration of the greatness and success of their undertakings; and Francis is one of those monarchs who occupies a higher rank in the temple of Fame, than either his talents or performances entitle him to hold. This pre-eminence he owed to many different circumstances. The superiority which Charles acquired by the victory of Pavia, and which from that period he preserved through the remainder of his reign, was so manifest, that Francis's struggle against his exorbitant and growing dominion was viewed by most of the other powers, not only with the BOOK IX. 1547 IX. 1547. BOOK partiality which naturally arises for those who gallantly maintain an unequal contest, but with the favour due to one who was resisting a common enemy, and endeavouring to set bounds to a monarch equally formidable to them all. The characters of princes, too, especially among their contemporaries, depend not only upon their talents for government, but upon their qualities as men. Francis, notwithstanding the many errors conspicuous in his foreign policy and domestic administration, was nevertheless humane, beneficent, generous. He possessed dignity without pride; affability free from meanness; and courtesy exempt from deceit. All who had access to him, and no man of merit was ever denied that privilege, respected and loved him. Captivated with his personal qualities, his subjects forgot his defects as a monarch, and admiring him as the most accomplished and amiable gentleman in his dominions, they hardly murmured at acts of mal-administration, which, in a prince of less engaging dispositions, would have been deemed unpardonable. This admiration, however, must have been temporary only, and would have died away with the courtiers who bestowed it; the illusion arising from his private virtues must have ceased, and posterity would have judged of his public conduct with its usual impartiality; but another circumstance prevented this, and his name hath been transmitted to posterity with increasing reputation. Science and the arts had, at that time, made little progress in France. They were just beginning to advance beyond the limits of Italy, where they had revived, and which had hitherto been their only seat. Francis took them immediately under his protection, and vied with Leo himself in the zeal and munificence with which he encouraged them. He invited learned men to his court, he conversed with them familiarly, he employed them in business, he raised them to offices of dignity, and honoured them with his confidence. That order of men, not more prone to complain when denied the respect to which they conceive themselves entitled, than apt to be pleased when treated with the distinction which they consider as their due, thought they could not exceed in gratitude to such a benefactor, and strained their invention, and employed all their ingenuity in panegyric. Succeeding authors, warmed with their descriptions of Francis's bounty, adopted their encomiums, and even added to them. The appellation of father of letters bestowed upon Francis, hath rendered his memory sacred among historians; and they seemed to have regarded it as a sort of impiety to uncover his infirmities, or to point out his defects. Thus Francis, notwithstanding his inferior abilities, and want of success, hath more than equalled the fame of Charles. The good qualities which he possessed as a man, have entitled him to greater admiration and praise than have been bestowed upon the extensive genius and fortunate arts of a more capable, but less amiable rival. BOCK IX. 434 Francis's By his death a considerable change was made in the Effects of state of Europe. Charles, grown old in the arts of go-death. vernment and command, had now to contend only with younger monarchs, who could not be regarded as worthy to enter the lists with him who had stood so many encounters with Henry VIII. and Francis I., and come off with honour in all those different struggles. By this event, he was eased of all disquietude, and was happy to find that he might begin with safety those operations against the elector of Saxony which he had hitherto been obliged to suspend. He know the abilities of Henry II. who had just mounted the throne of France, to be greatly inferior to those of his father, and foresaw that he would be so much occupied for some time in displacing the late king's ministers, whom he hated, and in gratifying the ambitious demands of his own favourites, that he had nothing to dread, either from his personal efforts, or from any confederacy which this unexperienced prince could form... marches But as it was uncertain how long such an interval of Charles's security might continue, Charles determined instantly to agst the improve it; and as soon as he heard of Francis's demise, elector of Sasuny. XI. 1547. BOOK he began his march from Egra, on the borders of Bohemia. But the departure of the papal troops, together April 13. with the retreat of the Flemings, had so much diminishhis army, that sixteen thousand men were all he could assemble. With this inconsiderable body he set out on an expedition, the event of which was to decide what degree of authority he should possess from that period in Germany but as this little army consisted chiefly of the veteran Spanish and Italian bands, he did not, in trusting to them, commit much to the decision of chance; and even with so small a force he had reason to entertain the most sanguine hopes of success. The elector had levied an army greatly superior in number; but neither the experience and discipline of his troops, nor the abilities of his officers, were to be compared with those of the emperor. The elector, besides, had already been guilty of an error which deprived him of all the advantage which he might have derived from his superiority in number, and was alone sufficient to have occasioned his ruin. Instead of keeping his forces united, he detached one great. body towards the frontiers of Bohemia, in order to facilitate his junction with the malecontents of that kingdom, and cantoned a considerable part of what remained in different places of Saxony, where he expected the emperor would make the first impression, vainly imagining that open towns, with small garrisons, might be rendered tenable against an enemy. Progress of his arms. The emperor entered the southern frontier of Saxony, and attacked Altorf upon the Elster. The impropriety of the measure which the elector had taken was immediately seen, the troops posted in that town surrendering without resistance; and those in all the other places between that and the Elbe either imitated their example or fled as the imperialists approached. Charles, that they might not recover from the panic with which they seemed to be struck, advanced without losing a moment. . The elector, who had fixed his head quarters at Meissen, continued in his wonted state of fluctuation and uncertain |
