Pavia – 3

Charles, however, had already begun to form schemes in his own mind which little suited such external appearances.

Continuing Battle of Pavia,
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Previously in Battle of Pavia.

Time: 1525
Place: Pavia, Italy

Charles, however, had already begun to form schemes in his own mind which little suited such external appearances. Ambition, not generosity, was the ruling passion in his mind; and the victory at Pavia opened such new and unbounded prospects of gratifying it as allured him with irresistible force. But it being no easy matter to execute the vast designs which he meditated, he thought it necessary, while proper measures were taking for that purpose, to affect the greatest moderation, hoping under that veil to conceal his real intentions from the other princes of Europe.

Meanwhile France was filled with consternation. The King himself had early transmitted an account of the rout at Pavia in a letter to his mother, delivered by Pennalosa, which contained only these words: “Madam, all is lost except our honor.” The officers who made their escape, when they arrived from Italy, brought such a melancholy detail of particulars as made all ranks of men sensibly feel the greatness and extent of the calamity. France, without its sovereign, without money in her treasury, without an army and without generals to command it and encompassed on all sides by a victorious and active enemy, seemed to be on the very brink of destruction. But on that occasion the great abilities of Louise, the regent, saved the kingdom which the violence of her passions had more than once exposed to the greatest danger. Instead of giving herself up to such lamentations as were natural to a woman so remarkable for her maternal tenderness, she discovered all the foresight and exerted all the activity of a consummate politician. She assembled the nobles at Lyons and animated them, by her example no less than by her words, with such zeal in defense of their country as its present situation required. She collected the remains of the army which had served in Italy, ransomed the prisoners, paid the arrears and put them in a condition to take the field. She levied new troops, provided for the security of the frontiers and raised sums sufficient for defraying these extraordinary expenses. Her chief care, however, was to appease the resentment or to gain the friendship of the King of England; and from that quarter the first ray of comfort broke in upon the French.

Though Henry, in entering into alliances with Charles or Francis, seldom followed any regular or concerted plan of policy but was influenced chiefly by the caprice of temporary passions, such occurrences often happened as recalled his attention toward that equal balance of power which it was necessary to keep between the two contending potentates, the preservation of which he always boasted to be his peculiar office. He had expected that his union with the Emperor might afford him an opportunity of recovering some part of those territories in France which had belonged to his ancestors and for the sake of such an acquisition he did not scruple to give his assistance toward raising Charles to a considerable preëminence above Francis. He had never dreamed, however, of any event so decisive and so fatal as the victory at Pavia, which seemed not only to have broken but to have annihilated, the power of one of the rivals; so that the prospect of the sudden and entire revolution which this would occasion in the political system filled him with the most disquieting apprehensions. He saw all Europe in danger of being overrun by an ambitious prince, to whose power there now remained no counterpoise; and though he himself might at first be admitted, in quality of an ally, to some share in the spoils of the captive monarch, it was easy to discern that with regard to the manner of making the partition, as well as his security for keeping possession of what should be allotted him, he must absolutely depend upon the will of a confederate, to whose forces his own bore no proportion.

He was sensible that if Charles were permitted to add any considerable part of France to the vast dominions of which he was already master, his neighborhood would be much more formidable to England than that of the ancient French kings; while at the same time the proper balance on the Continent, to which England owed both its safety and importance, would be entirely lost. Concern for the situation of the unhappy monarch cooperated with these political considerations; his gallant behavior in the battle of Pavia had excited a high degree of admiration, which never fails of augmenting sympathy; and Henry, naturally susceptible of generous sentiments, was fond of appearing as the deliverer of a vanquished enemy from a state of captivity. The passions of the English minister seconded the inclinations of the monarch. Wolsey, who had not forgotten the disappointment of his hopes in two successive conclaves, which he imputed chiefly to the Emperor, thought this a proper opportunity of taking revenge; and, Louise courting the friendship of England with such flattering submissions as were no less agreeable to the King than to the Cardinal, Henry gave her secret assurances that he would not lend his aid toward oppressing France in its present helpless state and obliged her to promise that she would not consent to dismember the kingdom even in order to procure her son’s liberty.

During these transactions, Charles, whose pretensions to moderation and disinterestedness were soon forgotten, deliberated, with the utmost solicitude, how he might derive the greatest advantages from the misfortunes of his adversary. Some of his counsellors advised him to treat Francis with the magnanimity that became a victorious prince and, instead of taking advantage of his situation to impose rigorous conditions, to dismiss him on such equal terms as would bind him forever to his interest by the ties of gratitude and affection, more forcible as well as more permanent than any which could be formed by extorted oaths and involuntary stipulations.

Continued.

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