tions of Louis XII. of France. nand, who confined him in a Spanish prison for three years. He made his escape therefrom, and perished in one of the civil wars of Navarre. Indignant at the ill-faith of King Ferdinand of Spain and his Great ExpediCaptain, Louis XII. of France hastily fitted out three expeditions— one against Naples and two against Spain. The expedition against Naples was delayed by the ambitious designs of Cardinal d' Amboise, until all its efforts were rendered futile by the lateness of the season. The valley of Garigliano had been converted into a noisome swamp by heavy rains. Hundreds of French soldiers died of malaria; but the Spanish army under Gonsalvo de Cordova, better posted and more thoroughly fed and equipped, was able to profit by the misfortunes of the French. The battle of Garigliano, December 29, 1503, in which the French were utterly routed, completed the conquest of Naples by the Spaniards. The two French expeditions against Spain met with no better success, and the deposed and captive King Frederick of Naples and Sicily negotiated a treaty of peace between France and Spain. Battle or ano. Death or of Spain. Ferdi The good Queen Isabella of Spain died in 1504, overwhelmed with grief for the losses of her family, and especially for the insanity of her daughter Joanna, the wife of Philip of Austria. King Ferdinand became regent of Castile, in his daughter's absence, though he caused Philip and Joanna to be proclaimed sovereigns of Castile. Encouraged by a party among the Castilian nobles opposed to Ferdinand, Philip wrote a discourteous letter to his father-in-law, demanding that he retire into his own kingdom of Aragon. Ferdinand replied by inviting Philip to Spain; but he sought revenge by entering into a close alliance Joanna. with Louis XII. of France, and marrying Germaine de Foix, the French king's niece, who received the French claims upon the Kingdom of Naples as her dowry. nand, Philip and Philip's Treaty with Henry VII. of England Death. Philip and Joanna sailed for Spain early in 1506; but their Netherland fleet was dispersed by a storm, and they were obliged to take refuge in an English port. Henry VII. of England took advantage of their misfortune to extort a commercial treaty from Philip, favoring England at the expense of the Netherlands, and promising the close alliance of their families by two marriages, which, however, never occurred. After being detained in England several months Philip and Joanna Philip's were allowed to proceed to Spain, where they received the allegiance of the Castilian Cortes. Ferdinand resigned all authority in Castile, retaining only the West Indian revenues and the grand-masterships of the three military orders, which Isabella's will secured to him, and sailed with his new queen for Italy. Before he arrived at Naples he was informed of Philip's sudden death. But Ferdinand was willing to have his absence regretted by the ungrateful Spaniards, who were overwhelmed with confusion and alarm by the unexpected event. Ferdi Ferdi nand's Action Joanna's Her Son nand proceeded to regulate the affairs of his Neapolitan kingdom at leisure, and did not return to Spain until the summer of 1507. The unfortunate Joanna's mental malady was aggravated by excesInsanity. sive grief for her husband's sudden death. She submitted herself entirely to her father's control, and never consented to take any part in public affairs during the remaining forty-seven years of her life. Her son Charles remained in the Netherlands, under the guardianship of his paternal grandfather, the German Emperor Maximilian I. Maximilian's daughter Margaret, who was then a widow for the second time, was appointed regent for the Netherlands. Her skillful diplomacy led to the League of Cambray, which she negotiated with the Cardinal d' Amboise, the great French prime minister, and which was signed in the cathedral of Cambray, December 10, 1508; thus uniting King Ferdinand of Spain, King Louis XII. of France, the Emperor Maximilian I. and Pope Julius II. in a coalition against the powerful Venetian Republic. League of against Claims of The wealth and power of Venice, which had recently been confirmed and Pope by the capture of several Greek islands from the Ottoman Turks, exJulius II. cited the fears and the jealousy of her neighbors. Louis XII. of France, as Duke of Milan, desired to reclaim several Lombard towns which had been secured to Venice by treaty during his wars with Ludovico Sforza. Pope Julius II. insisted upon the grants of Pepin the Little and Charlemagne, securing Rimini, Faenza and some other towns to the dominion of St. Peter. Claims of Ferdi nand of Spain and Others. Perfidy of nand. Ferdinand of Spain desired the possession of Brindisi and other maritime cities which his cousin and predecessor, King Frederick of Naples, had pledged to Venice as security for the expenses of the Venetian Republic in his cause. Padua, Vicenza and Verona were claimed as belonging to the Germano-Roman Empire by ancient right. Roveredo, Treviso and Friuli were claimed as belonging to the Austrian House of Hapsburg. The Duke of Savoy, as lineal descendant of Guy of Lusignan, the King of Jerusalem before the Third Crusade, claimed the isle of Cyprus, which had been bequeathed to Venice by Catharine Cornaro, the widow of the last reigning sovereign of the island. The King of Hungary desired to reannex the lands which Venice had conquered in Dalmatia and Slavonia. Florence was induced to join the League of Cambray by an act of the basest perfidy on the part of Kings Ferdinand of Spain and Louis XII. of France. Ever since the expedition of Charles VIII. of France into Italy, Pisa, which had previously been the unwilling subject of Florence, had been bravely struggling for independence. Maximilian I., as Emperor, and therefore as nominal sovereign of Italy, had been implored to espouse the cause of Pisa; but his movements were delayed so long that "succor for Pisa" had become a proverb and a by-word in Germany. The Kings of France and Spain now agreed to put a garrison in Pisa, which would be readily received as friendly, but which should be instructed to open the gates of the city to the Florentine army at an appointed time. Louis XII. was to receive one hundred thousand ducats, and Ferdinand fifty thousand, for this act of royal treachery. The troops of Florence entered the half-starved city of Pisa, June 8, 1509, and, by a liberal distribution of food, exhibited greater generosity than their allies. Floren tine Оссираtion of Pisa. of the The League of Cambray was the first great European coalition since Hypocrisy the Crusades; and it laid the foundation of public law by raising the League of question whether ancient and hereditary right, the faith of treaties or Cambray. general considerations of the common good shall have precedence in controlling the affairs of nations. The text of the treaty is strongly tinged with the hypocrisy of the time; as it declares the principal object of the alliance to be a war against the Ottoman Turks, and that, as a preliminary to such a war, it was necessary to put an end to the rapine, the losses and the injuries caused by the insatiable cupidity and the thirst for domination which were characteristic of the Venetian Republic. Venice was really the strongest barrier of Europe against the Turks, and was best able by her maritime power to oppose them in the seat of their dominion. Pope Julius II. began hostilities by a decree of excommunication against the Venetians, expressed in the bitterest terms of reproach. Louis XII. was the first to take the field; and, by a victory which he won over the Venetians at Agnadello in 1509, he gained more than had been assigned to him by the Treaty of Cambray, as he was able to send the keys of Verona, Vicenza and Padua to the Emperor Maximilian I. Battle of Agnadello. Venice Frees Her encies. Reduced to desperate straits by the number and strength of their enemies, the Venetians adopted the masterly plan of freeing all their Italian dependencies, thus throwing upon the subject cities the burden Dependof their own defense, and narrowing the frontiers of the Venetian Republic to the islands at the head of the Adriatic which had been the Republic's original territories. They also surrendered to Ferdinand of Spain the towns which he had demanded in Apulia, and made dutiful professions of submission to the Emperor and the Pope. Оссираtion and Defense of The barbarities which the French and the Germans committed Venetian aroused the peasantry of all North-eastern Italy to espouse the cause of Venice. A Venetian force retook and garrisoned Padua. Maximilian I. besieged that town with an army of forty thousand men, but was finally forced to retire and to disband his army, after which the Venetians recovered many cities. Padua. Pope Julius II. and the French. Julius II., Ferdinand and the Ferrara. Pope Julius II. had now gained all that he desired for the territories of the Church, and he turned his attention to the expulsion of the French from Italy. He relieved Venice from the interdict, and concluded an alliance with the Swiss Republic, which had quarreled with the King of France, and which now agreed to furnish more than six thousand of their best halberdiers to the Pope's service. The Pope propitiated the King of Spain by the feudal investiture of the Kingdom of Naples, and commuted the tribute formerly received Duke of from that realm into an annual offering of a white horse and an aid of three hundred lances in case of an actual invasion of the States of the Church. The Duke of Ferrara had incurred the Pope's wrath by yielding in everything to the counsels of the King of France, and the ambassadors of France and Ferrara were at once dismissed from the papal court. French and German Vicenza. The allied French and German armies were still prosecuting hostilities in Northern Italy in the most cruel manner. Vicenza had speedily Cruelty at returned to its alliance with Venice after the repulse of the Emperor Maximilian's army at Padua, and was now exposed to the vengeance of the Germans. All its inhabitants who were able to do so removed their families and their property to Padua, but the remainder took refuge with the peasantry in a vast cavern in the mountains near the city. The French soldiery filled the entrance to the cave with light wood, to which they set fire, thus smothering all who were in the cave, six thousand in number. Pope and His Swiss Allies. Just when the two fortified towns of Porto Legnano and Monselice Julius II. had yielded to the allied French and German armies, the scale was turned against the Germans by the Pope's declaration of war against the Duke of Ferrara, and by a simultaneous attack by his Roman and Swiss forces upon Genoa and Milan. The Venetians promptly took advantage of the changed situation, and recovered Vicenza and many other towns; but the papal officers failed to excite a revolt in Genoa against the French; and the Swiss who had entered the plain of Lombardy found themselves entrapped among the many rivers and harassed by the movements of their foes, and were thus obliged to retreat hastily to their own country. Pope Julius II., Louis XII. and Maximil ian I. After the death of the Cardinal d' Amboise the French clergy assembled at Lyons and called upon Pope Julius II. to lay down weapons so inconsistent with his spiritual dignity and to submit his complaints to a general council of the Church. A new treaty signed at Blois between King Louis XII. of France and the Emperor Maximilian I. provided for the sending of French troops into the field. Pope Julius II. was enraged by these movements of his enemies, and pushed his warlike operations with increased vigor. He was almost Siege and of and Mirandola taken prisoner by the French at Bologna, while prostrated by a danger ous illness; but he contrived to occupy their general by negotiations until a Venetian army, including a detachment of Turkish cavalry, arrived. The fiery old pontiff laid siege to the fortresses of Concordia and Mirandola amid the snows of a most rigorous winter. Encased in by Pope armor, his white hair covered by a steel helmet, he appeared on horse- Julius II. back among his troops, sharing all their hardships and perils, and encouraging them with promises of rich plunder. When the fortress finally surrendered, he entered by a ladder at the breach which his guns had effected, being too impatient to wait for the opening of the gates. In a congress which the Emperor Maximilian I. had opened at Bologna the warlike Pope made an unsuccessful effort to detach the Emperor from his alliance with the King of France, and the haughty demeanor of the imperial secretary rendered peace impossible. Being seized with a panic the Pope fled from Bologna; and the French pursued his army, and captured its great standard, twenty-six cannon and an enormous quantity of baggage. The Bolognese received back the Bentivoglios, their former masters, and destroyed the bronze statue of Pope Julius II., which was regarded as one of Michael Angelo's greatest works. A new coalition, called the Holy League, was now formed against the French by Pope Julius II., King Ferdinand of Spain and the Venetian Republic; while King Henry VIII. of England and the Emperor Maximilian I. were secret parties to the alliance, but did not openly avow their designs until the interests of each could be best secured. The King of England was promised the duchy of Guienne, along with the title of "Most Christian King," which were to be taken from the King. of France. The Emperor Maximilian's romantic mind was now occupied with an unusually visionary scheme. The Pope's illness had inspired the Emperor with the idea of taking holy orders and becoming the successor of Julius II. in the Chair of St. Peter, assuming in advance the title of Pontifex Maximus, which the Popes had inherited from the Cæsars. Pope Julius II. united in his person the genius of a military commander with the ambition of a temporal sovereign; while Louis XII. of France was holding ecclesiastical councils, and the Emperor Maximilian I. in his old age commenced sighing for the dignity of a Pope and the life of a saint. Louis XII., the object of the jealousy of Julius II., was the only one who scrupled to fight against the Pope, and voluntarily relinquished advantages which he had acquired, rather than to do injury to Christ's Vicar on earth; while Henry VIII. of England, who afterward destroyed the papal supremacy in his own realm, was on this occasion won to the Pope's side by the artful flatteries of Julius II. Flight of Julius II. from Bologna. Holy League against Louis XII. of France. Julius II., ian I. and |