Henri II: His Court and Times Read Online Free PDF Page A

and the King is taken prisoner
    T HE reign of François I had opened in a blaze of
glory. The temptation to embark upon those
Italian enterprises for which France had paid so
dearly during the two previous reigns proved too strong for
the restless ambition of the new King, and, undeterred by the
sad experiences of his predecessors, he at once resolved upon
the recovery of the Milanese, the inheritance of which he
claimed through his great-grandmother, Valentina Visconti,
daughter of Gian Galeazzo, Duke of Milan. In order to
dissolve the Holy League which had driven Louis XII from
Italy and secure himself against external attack, he renewed
with Henry VIII the treaty concluded by Louis XII in 1514,
won over the Republic of Genoa, which commanded the
communications between Milan and the sea, secured the
co-operation of the Venetians, and negotiated with his future
redoubtable rival the young Charles of Austria, sovereign of
the Netherlands, a treaty of alliance, in which he promised
him his sister-in-law Renée de France, younger daughter of
the late King, in marriage, and engaged to assist him, when
the time arrived, to secure the vast heritage of his two grandfathers, the Emperor Maximilian and Ferdinand the Catholic.
    These negotiations completed, he assembled at Lyons a
composite army of Gascons, French, and
landsknechts
, the
strength of which is variously estimated at from 20,000 to
40,000 men, though the lesser total is probably nearer the
mark, and placed himself at its head. In great alarm, Leo X,
Maximilian Sforza, Duke of Milan, and the Spaniards renewed
their former alliance, and the Swiss mercenaries of Maximilian
promptly occupied the Alpine passes from Mont-Cenis to
Mont-Genèvre. But François, guided by friendly peasants,
succeeded in leading his army over the mountains by a pass
to the south of Mont-Genèvre which had hitherto been deemed
impracticable; and his great victory over the Swiss at
Marignano (September 13-14, 1515) was speedily followed
by the surrender of Milan.
    After despatching Maximilian Sforza to Paris, where he
lived in a kind of honourable captivity until his death in 1530, 01 François, with the object of securing his position in Italy,
entered into negotiations with the Pope and the Swiss. With
the latter he made a treaty which subsequently took the form
of a perpetual peace and was destined to endure as long as
the French monarchy. With Leo X, with whom he had
several interviews at Bologna, he concluded, in February 1516,
a "Concordat," which swept away that great charter of Gallican
liberties the Pragmatic Sanction, 02 by recognising the superiority of the Holy See over all ecclesiastical councils, and
restoring to it the
annates
and other rich sources of revenue,
while giving the King of France the right of nominating to
practically all vacant benefices. The
Parlement
of Paris and
the University subsequently protested vehemently against this
cynical bargain, which deprived the Gallican Church both of
its wealth and its independence; but the only result of their
remonstrances was that François ordered the imprisonment ofseveral members of the University and took away from the
Parlement
all cognisance of ecclesiastical affairs.
    Having disbanded the greater part of his victorious army
and left the remainder, under the command of the Connétable
de Bourbon, to occupy the newly-conquered territory, the
King returned to France. On January 23, Ferdinand V had
died, leaving the crowns of Spain and Naples to Charles of
Austria. The latter, whose accession was encountering grave
difficulties, seemed disposed towards peace and even an
alliance with France; and in the following August a treaty
was signed at Noyon, whereby Charles was pledged to
marriage with the infant French princess, Louise, or, in the
event of her death, to a younger sister yet unborn, or, failing
such a birth, to Louis XII's second daughter, Renée, and to accept by way of
dowry the rights of the Kings of France to the Crown