A King In Captivity


Two great rivals were on the thrones of France and Spain,--Francis I., who

came to power in France in 1515, and Charles I., who became king of Spain

in 1516. In 1519 they were rivals for the imperial power in Germany.

Charles gained the German throne, being afterwards known as the emperor

Charles V., and during the remainder of their reigns these rival monarchs

were frequently at war. A league was formed against the French king by<
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Charles V., Henry VIII. of England, and Pope Leo X., as a result of which

the French were driven from the territory of Milan, in Italy. In 1524 they

were defeated at the battle of Sesia, the famous Chevalier Bayard here

falling with a mortal wound; and in 1525 they met with a more disastrous

defeat at the battle of Pavia, whose result is said to have caused Francis

to write to his mother, "Madame, tout est perdu fors l'honneur" ("All is

lost but honor").



The reason for these words may be briefly given. Francis was besieging

Pavia, with hopes of a speedy surrender, when the forces of Charles

marched to its relief. The most experienced French generals advised the

king to retire, but he refused. He had said he would take Pavia or perish

in the attempt, and a romantic notion of honor held him fast. The result

was ruinous, as may be expected where sentiment outweighs prudence.

Strongly as the French were intrenched, they were broken and put to rout,

and soon there was no resistance except where the king obstinately

continued to fight.



Wounded in several places, and thrown from his horse, which was killed

under him, Francis defended himself on foot with heroic valor, while the

group of brave officers who sought to save his life, one after another,

lost their own. At length, exhausted with his efforts, and barely able to

wield his sword, the king was left almost alone, exposed to the fierce

assault of some Spanish soldiers, who were enraged by his obstinacy and

ignorant of his rank.



At this moment a French gentleman named Pomperant, who had entered the

service of Spain, recognized the struggling king and hurried to his aid,

helping to keep off the assailants, and begging him to surrender to the

Duke of Bourbon, who was close at hand. Great as was the peril, Francis

indignantly refused to surrender to a rebel and traitor, as he held

Bourbon to be, and calling to Lannoy, a general in the imperial army who

was also near by, he gave up his sword to him. Lannoy, recognizing his

prisoner, received the sword with a show of the deepest respect, and

handed the king his own in return, saying,--



"It does not become so great a monarch to remain disarmed in the presence

of one of the emperor's subjects."



The lack of prudence in Francis had proved serious not only to himself,

but to his troops, ten thousand of whom fell, among them many

distinguished nobles who preferred death to dishonor. Numbers of high rank

were taken prisoners, among them the king of Navarre. In two weeks not a

Frenchman remained in Italy. The gains from years of war had vanished in a

single battle.



The tidings of the captivity of the French king filled France with

consternation and Spain with delight, while to all Europe it was an event

of the deepest concern, for all the nations felt the danger that might

arise from the ambition of the powerful emperor of Spain and Germany.

Henry VIII. requested that Francis should be delivered to him, as an ally

of Spain, though knowing well that such a demand would not gain a moment's

consideration. As for Italy, it was in terror lest it should be overrun by

the imperial armies.



Francis, whom Lannoy held with great respect, but with the utmost care to

prevent an escape, hoped much from the generosity of Charles, whose

disposition he judged from his own. But Charles proposed to weaken his

enemy and refused to set him free unless he would renounce all claims upon

Italy, yield the provinces of Provence and Dauphine to form a kingdom for

the Constable Bourbon, and give up Burgundy to Germany. On hearing these

severe conditions, Francis, in a transport of rage, drew his dagger,

exclaiming,--



"It were better that a king should die thus!"



A by-stander arrested the thrust; but, though Francis soon regained his

composure, he declared that he would remain a prisoner for life rather

than purchase liberty at such a price to his country.



Thinking that these conditions came from the Spanish council, and not from

Charles himself, Francis now became anxious to visit the emperor in Spain,

hoping to soften him in a personal interview. He even furnished the

galleys for that purpose, Charles at that time being too poor to fit out a

squadron, and soon the spectacle was seen of a captive monarch sailing in

his own ships past his own dominions, of which he had a distant and

sorrowful view, to a land in which he was to suffer the indignities of

prison life.



Landing at Barcelona, Francis was taken to Madrid and lodged in the

alcazar, under the most vigilant guard. He soon found that he had been far

too hasty in trusting to the generosity of his captor. Charles, on

learning of his captivity, had made a politic show of sympathy and

feeling, but on getting his rival fully into his hands manifested a plain

intention of forcing upon him the hardest bargain possible. Instead of

treating his prisoner with the courtesy due from one monarch to another,

he seemed to seek by rigorous usage to force from him a great ransom.



The captive king was confined in an old castle, under a keeper of such

formal austerity of manners as added to the disgust of the high-spirited

French monarch. The only exercise allowed him was to ride on a mule,

surrounded by armed guards on horseback. Though Francis pressingly

solicited an interview, Charles suffered several weeks to pass before

going near him. These indignities made so deep an impression on the

prisoner that his natural lightness of temper deserted him, and after a

period of deep depression he fell into a dangerous fever, in which he

bitterly complained of the harshness with which he had been treated, and

said that the emperor would now have the satisfaction of having his

captive die on his hands.



The physicians at length despaired of his life, and informed Charles that

they saw no hope of his recovery unless he was granted the interview he so

deeply desired. This news put the emperor into a quandary. If Francis

should die, all the advantage gained from the battle of Pavia would be

lost. And there were clouds in the sky elsewhere. Henry VIII. had

concluded a treaty of alliance with Queen Louise, regent of France, and

engaged to use all his efforts for the release of the king. In Italy a

dangerous conspiracy had been detected. There was danger of a general

European confederacy against him unless he should come to some speedy

agreement with the captive king.



Charles, moved by these various considerations, at length visited Francis,

and, with a show of respect and affection, gave him such promises of

speedy release and princely treatment as greatly cheered the sad heart of

the captive. The interview was short; Francis was too ill to bear a long

one; but its effect was excellent, and the sick man at once began to

recover, soon regaining his former health. Hope had proved a medicine far

superior to all the drugs of the doctors.



But the obdurate captor had said more than he meant. Francis was kept as

closely confined as ever. And insult was added to indignity by the

emperor's reception of the Constable Bourbon, a traitorous subject of

France, whom Charles received with the highest honors which a monarch

could show his noblest visitor, and whom he made his general-in-chief in

Italy. This act had a most serious result, which may here be briefly

described. In 1527 Bourbon made an assault on Rome, with an army largely

composed of Lutherans from Germany, and took it by assault, he being

killed on the walls. There followed a sack of the great city which had not

been surpassed in brutality by the Vandals themselves, and for months Rome

lay in the hands of a barbarous soldiery, who plundered and destroyed

without stint or mercy.



What Charles mainly insisted upon and Francis most indignantly refused was

the cession of Burgundy to the German empire. He was willing to yield on

all other points, but bitterly refused to dismember his kingdom. He would

yield all claim to territory in Italy and the Netherlands, would pay a

large sum in ransom, and would make other concessions, but Burgundy was

part of France, and Burgundy he would not give up.



In the end Francis, in deep despair, took steps towards resigning his

crown to his son, the dauphin. A plot for his escape was also formed,

which filled Charles with the fear that a second effort might succeed. In

dread that, through seeking too much, he might lose all, he finally agreed

upon a compromise in regard to Burgundy, Francis consenting to yield it,

but not until after he was set at liberty. The treaty included many other

articles, most of them severe and rigorous, while Francis agreed to leave

his sons, the dauphin and the Duke of Orleans, in the emperor's hands as

hostages for the fulfilment of the treaty. This treaty was signed at

Madrid, January 14, 1526. By it Charles believed that he had effectually

humbled his rival, and weakened him so that he could never regain any

great power. In this the statesmen of the day did not agree with him, as

they were not ready to believe that the king of France would live up to

conditions of such severity, forced from him under constraint.






FRANCIS I. REFUSING THE DEMANDS OF THE EMPEROR.





The treaty signed, the two monarchs seemed to become at once the best of

friends. They often appeared together in public; they had long conferences

in private; they travelled in the same litter and joined in the same

amusements; the highest confidence and affection seemed to exist between

them. Yet this love was all a false show,--Francis still distrusted the

emperor, and Charles still had him watched like a prisoner.



In about a month the ratification of the treaty was brought from France,

and Francis set out from Madrid with the first true emotions of joy which

he had felt for a year. He was escorted by a body of horse under Alarcon,

who, when the frontiers of France were reached, guarded him as

scrupulously as ever. On arriving at the banks of the Andaye River, which

there separated the two kingdoms, Lautrec appeared on the opposite bank,

with a guard of horse equal to that of Alarcon. An empty bark was moored

in mid-stream. The cavalry drew up in order on each bank. Lannoy, with

eight gentlemen and the king, put off in a boat from the Spanish side of

the stream. Lautrec did the same from the French side, bringing with him

the dauphin and the Duke of Orleans. The two parties met in the empty

vessel, where in a moment the exchange was made, Francis embracing his

sons and then handing them over as hostages. Leaping into Lautrec's boat,

he was quickly on the soil of France.



Mounting a Barbary horse which awaited him, the freed captive waved his

hand triumphantly over his head, shouted joyfully several times, "I am yet

a king!" and galloped away at full speed for Bayonne. He had been held in

captivity for a year and twenty-two days.



Our tale of the captivity of the king ends here, but the consequences of

that captivity must be told. A league was immediately afterwards formed

against Charles, named the Holy League, from the Pope being at its head.

The nobles of Burgundy refused to be handed over to the imperial realm,

and an assembly called by Francis absolved him from his oath to keep the

treaty of Madrid. Francis, bewailing his lack of power to do what he had

promised in regard to Burgundy, offered to pay the emperor two millions of

crowns instead. In short, Charles had overreached himself through his

stringency to a captive rival, and lost all through his eagerness to

obtain too much.



Ten years afterwards the relations between the two monarchs were in a

measure reversed. A rebellion had broken out in Flanders which needed the

immediate presence of Charles, and, for reasons satisfactory to himself,

he wished to go through France. His counsellors at Madrid looked upon such

a movement as fatally rash; but Charles persisted, feeling that he knew

the character of Francis better than they. The French king was ready

enough to grant the permission asked, and looked upon the occasion as an

opportunity to show his rival how kings should deal with their royal

neighbors.



Charles was received with an ostentatious welcome, each town entertaining

him with all the magnificence it could display. He was presented with the

keys of the gates, the prisoners were set at liberty, and he was shown all

the honor due to the sovereign of the country itself. The emperor, though

impatient to continue his journey, remained six days in Paris, where all

things possible were done to render his visit a pleasant one. Had Francis

listened to the advice of some of his ministers, he would have seized and

held prisoner the incautious monarch who had so long kept him in

captivity. But the confidence of the emperor was not misplaced; no

consideration could induce the high-minded French king to violate his

plighted word, or make him believe that Charles would fail to carry out

certain promises he had made. He forgot for the time how he had dealt with

his own compacts, but Charles remembered, and was no sooner out of France

than all his promises faded from his mind, and Francis learned that he was

not the only king who could enter into engagements which he had no

intention to fulfil.



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