Part 20 (1/2)

[Footnote 639: _Ibid._, iv., 5179.]

[Footnote 640: _Ibid._, iv., 4680-84.]

[Footnote 641: _L. and P._, iv., 4900.]

[Footnote 642: _Ibid._, iv., 5447.]

[Footnote 643: _Sp. Cal._, iii., 875.]

[Footnote 644: _L. and P._, iv., 5209.]

[Footnote 645: _Sp. Cal._, iii., 890.]

[Footnote 646: _Ibid._, iv., 72.]

That nuncio had gone to Barcelona to negotiate an alliance between the Pope and the Emperor; and the success of his mission completed Clement's conversion. The revocation was only delayed, thought Charles's representative at Rome, to secure better terms for the Pope.[647] On 21st June, the French commander, St. Pol, was utterly defeated at Landriano; ”not a vestige of the army is left,” (p. 226) reported Casale.[648] A few days later the Treaty of Barcelona between Clement and Charles was signed.[649] Clement's nephew was to marry the Emperor's natural daughter; the Medici tyranny was to be re-established in Florence; Ravenna, Cervia and other towns were to be restored to the Pope; His Holiness was to crown Charles with the imperial crown, and to absolve from ecclesiastical censures all those who were present at, or consented to, the sack of Rome. It was, in effect, a family compact; and part of it was the quas.h.i.+ng of the legates' proceedings against the Emperor's aunt, with whom the Pope was now to be allied by family ties. ”We found out secretly,” write the English envoys at Rome, on the 16th of July, ”that the Pope signed the revocation yesterday morning, as it would have been dishonourable to have signed it after the publication of the new treaty with the Emperor, which will be published here on Sunday.”[650] Clement knew that his motives would not bear scrutiny, and he tried to avoid public odium by a characteristic subterfuge. Catherine could hope for no justice in England, Henry could expect no justice at Rome. Political expediency would dictate a verdict in Henry's favour in England; political expediency would dictate a verdict for Catherine at Rome. Henry's amba.s.sadors were instructed to appeal from Clement to the ”true Vicar of Christ,” but where was the true Vicar of Christ to be found on (p. 227) earth?[651] There was no higher tribunal. It was intolerable that English suits should be decided by the chances and changes of French or Habsburg influence in Italy, by the hopes and the fears of an Italian prince for the safety of his temporal power. The natural and inevitable result was the separation of England from Rome.

[Footnote 647: _Ibid._, iv., 154.]

[Footnote 648: _L. and P._, iv., 5705, 5767; _cf.

Sp. Cal._, iv., 150.]

[Footnote 649: _L. and P._, iv., 5779; _Sp. Cal._, iv., 117, 161.]

[Footnote 650: _L. and P._, iv., 5780; _Sp. Cal._, iv., 156. Another detail was the excommunication of Zapolya, the rival of the Habsburgs in Hungary--a step which Henry VIII. denounced as ”letting the Turk into Hungary” (_L. and P._, v., 274).]

[Footnote 651: _L. and P._, iv., 5650, 5715.]

CHAPTER IX. (p. 228)

THE CARDINAL'S FALL.[652]

[Footnote 652: See, besides the doc.u.ments cited, Busch, _Der Sturz des Cardinals Wolsey_ (Hist.

Taschenbuch, VI., ix., 39-114).]

The loss of their spiritual jurisdiction in England was part of the price paid by the Popes for their temporal possessions in Italy. The papal domains were either too great or too small. If the Pope was to rely on his temporal power, it should have been extensive enough to protect him from the dictation and resentment of secular princes; and from this point of view there was no little justification for the aims of Julius II. Had he succeeded in driving the barbarians across the Alps or into the sea, he and his successors might in safety have judged the world, and the breach with Henry might never have taken place. If the Pope was to rely on his spiritual weapons, there was no need of temporal states at all. In their existing extent and position, they were simply the heel of Achilles, the vulnerable spot, through which secular foes might wound the Vicar of Christ. France threatened him from the north and Spain from the south; he was ever between the upper and the nether mill-stone. Italy was the c.o.c.kpit of Europe in the sixteenth century, and the eyes of the Popes were perpetually bent on the worldly fray, seeking to save or extend their dominions.

Through the Pope's temporal power, France and Spain exerted their (p. 229) pressure. He could only defend himself by playing off one against the other, and in this game his spiritual powers were his only effective pieces. More and more the spiritual authority, with which he was entrusted, was made to serve political ends. Temporal princes were branded as ”sons of iniquity and children of perdition,” not because their beliefs or their morals were worse than other men's, but because they stood in the way of the family ambitions of various popes. Their frequent use and abuse brought ecclesiastical censures into public contempt, and princes soon ceased to be frightened with false fires.

James IV., when excommunicated, said he would appeal to Prester John, and that he would side with any council against the Pope, even if it contained only three bishops.[653] The Vicar of Christ was lost in the petty Italian prince. _Corruptio optimi pessima_. The lower dragged the higher nature down. If the Papal Court was distinguished from the courts of other Italian sovereigns, it was not by exceptional purity.

”In this Court as in others,” wrote Silvester de Giglis from Rome, ”nothing can be effected without gifts.”[654] The election of Leo X.

was said to be free from bribery; a cardinal himself was amazed, and described the event as _Phoenix et rara avis_.[655] If poison was not a frequent weapon at Rome, popes and cardinals at least believed it to be. Alexander VI. was said to have been poisoned; one cardinal was accused of poisoning his fellow-cardinal, Bainbridge; and others were charged with an attempt on the life of Leo X.[656] In 1517, Pace (p. 230) described the state of affairs at Rome as _plane monstra, omni dedecore et infamia plena; omnis fides, omnis honestas, una c.u.m religione, a mundo abvola.s.se videntur_.[657] Ten years later, the Emperor himself declared that the sack of Rome was the just judgment of G.o.d, and one of his amba.s.sadors said that the Pope ought to be deprived of his temporal states, as they had been at the bottom of all the dissensions.[658] Clement himself claimed to have been the originator of that war which brought upon him so terrible and so just a punishment.

[Footnote 653: _L. and P._, i., 3838, 3876.]

[Footnote 654: _Ibid._, ii., 3781; _cf._, i., 4283, ”all here have regard only to their own honour and profit”.]

[Footnote 655: _Ibid._, ii., 2362.]