F R A 
rt tiding the ftorm, retired with his treafures to In.fprtick ; 
and Louis, informed of the fuccefs of his arms, battened 
acrofs the Alps, clad in Ids ducal robes j and during three 
months that lie remained in his new dominions, lie em¬ 
ployed himfelf in recalling tliofe that had been banilhed 
by Sforza, in remitting a fourth of the imports, in efta- 
blithing a court of juftice, and in artiduoufly endeavouring 
to ingratiate himfelf with the citizens of .Milan. 
From the reduction of the Milanefe, Louis, in 1501, 
afpired to the conquert of Naples ; and he .agreed to di¬ 
vide that kingdom with Ferdinand of Arragon. By the 
treaty concluded between the two princes, Naples and the 
northern half of the kingdom were afligned to Louis, 
while tlie provinces of Apulia and Calabria were allotted 
to Ferdinand. The fuccefs of the confederates exceeded 
their mort fanguine expectations. Frederic, equally pu- 
fiHammons with his predecertbrs, renounced all preten¬ 
tions to royalty, and fought a tranfient flielter on the rock 
of Ifchia. Abandoned by his own fubjedts, and betrayed 
by Ferdinand of Arragon, with whom he had concluded 
a treaty of alliance, he determined to prefer an open and 
generous enemy to a perfidious friend. He demanded a 
palfport into France, and threw himfelf on the well-known 
lenity of Louis : from the generous liberality of that mo¬ 
narch he obtained anafylumin the duchy of Anjou, with 
an annual penfion of thirty thoufand crowns. 
The intervals of tranquillity from his Italian wars were 
diligently employed by Louis in promoting the internal 
regulations of his country. The ftates-general of Tours 
had represented to the late king the ncceffity of a council 
to decide in judicial appeals, and to enforce the admini- 
rtration of juftice. The meafure had been approved by 
Charles VIII. but it received its legal fanftion in the 
reign of Louis XII. By an edict, the king’s council was 
eredted into a court, which obtained the name of th t great 
council , which appears to have been the origin of the privy 
council. It confiited of twenty members, and the chancellor 
of France was the prefident. The parliament of Paris 
conceived no improper jealoufy of this inftitution; which, 
though at firft confined to caufes pleaded in the common 
courts of juftice, was foon authorized by the king to de¬ 
termine on matters which had been agitated before the 
parliament, and was confiaered as a dernier appeal from 
the tribunal of the latter. 
In the reduction of Naples we have beheld Louis and 
Ferdinand aCting with perfect cordiality ; but Scarcely 
had they achieved that conquert, before they turned 
their arms againft each, other. The Spaniards firft in¬ 
fringed the peace by aCts of open hoftility; but Louis 
having commanded his troops to repel force by force, his 
general the duke of Nemours took the field, and pufhed 
his advantages over the Spaniards to fuch a length, that 
Confalvo de Cordova, the Spanifh general,-was obliged 
to retire into the city of Barletta, where the want of am¬ 
munition and money had nearly compelled him to fur- 
render. An indigent and mutinous army was-more likely 
to fecond, than oppofe, the operations of the French ; but 
at the moment that the hand of Louis was ftretched out 
to gralp the entire kingdom of Naples, he was perfuaded 
to liften to an accommodation, and loft an opportunity 
which it was never afterwards in his power to regain. 
The event of the Italian war ended in a confederacy 
againft the king of France, of a molt ferions and alarm¬ 
ing magnitude. The pope was to enter Dauphine; the 
emperor Maximilian to invade Champagne; Henry VIII. 
of England, Picardy ; and Ferdinand king of Arragon, 
Guienne and Languedoc. But Leo X. the liberal patron 
of the arts and fciences, was foon fatiated with the perils 
of war.. The emperor, indigent and fickle, fought only 
to fupply his profulion by.the fubfidies of his allies; and 
Ferdinand of Spain employed his forces in wrefting from 
John d’Albert the kingdom of Navarre ; while Henry VIII. 
young, ardent, and anxious of military renown, landed at 
C dais, and formed the liege of Terouane. To ihe relief 
Vol. VII. No. 461. 
N C E. G 97 
o-f that place Louis himfelf advanced as far as Amiens ; 
but the cavalry of France, in endeavouring to cover a 
convoy for the town, was attacked by the Englifh with 
fingular imperuolity. Though the French conlifted prin¬ 
cipally of gejitlemen, who had behaved with the greateft. 
gallantry in the wars of Ftaly, they were 0:1 the fight of 
the enemy feized with an unaccountable panic; and from 
the precipitation with which they fled, the rout of that 
day obtained the name of the battle of the Jpurs\ yet Henry, 
inftead of ptirfuing the fugitives, returned to the fiege ot 
Terouane, which he foon forced to capitulate. 
Henry next engaged in the fiege of Tournay, which lie 
alfo captured ; while Louis, finding his fituation every 
day more embarrafled, had recotirfe to negociation. His 
ally the king of Scotland, whom he had formerly excited 
to invade England, had perifhed, with his principal no¬ 
bility, on the difafterous field of Flodden ; and France, 
he was confcious, could only be laved by diifolving the 
confederacy of her enemies. By the language of policy 
he difarmed the refentment of pope Leo X. and he allured 
Ferdinand and Maximilian, to bis interefts, by the propo- 
fal of bellowing his fecond daughter on one of their com¬ 
mon grandfons ; and the death of his confort, Anne of 
Brittany, which happened in 1514, allowed him to nego- 
ciate a treaty of marriage for himfelf,. with Mary tlie 
princefs royal of England. Henry readily lifiened to the 
propofal, and Louis, with tranfport, prepared for the 
nuptials, though advanced to the age of fifty-three, and 
the princefs Mary only fixteen. The articles were fpeedily 
adjufted; Louis agreed that Tournay Ihould remain in 
the hands of the Englifh ; that Richard de la Pole, an 
exile in France, who endeavoured to revive the preten¬ 
tions of the houle of York, Ihould he banifhed to Metz, 
there to live on a penfion afligned him by Louis ; that 
Henry Ihould receive the payment of a million of crowns, 
being the arrears due by treaty to his father and himfelf; 
and that the princefs royal of England Ihould bring four 
hundred thoufand crowns as her portion, and enjoy as 
large a jointure as any queen of France, not excepting the 
late, who was heirefs of Brittany. 
In confequence of this treaty, Mary was fent over to 
France with a fplendid retinue, and her marriage with 
Louis was celebrated at Abbeville, in 1515. An alliance 
which had been fuggefted by political views, was ftrongly 
cemented by the charms of his new queen ; and the king 
of France, thus fecure on the fide of England, began to 
meditate future expeditions againft Italy; hut his defigns 
were broken by deatli ; he had been frequently heard to 
repeat, that, “ Love is the king of young, but the tyrant 
of old, men;” and he was now condemned to experience 
the truth of that maxim. His conftitution, previoufiy 
fliaken, was but too foon exhaufted by his affeftion for 
Mary, with whofe beauty, grace, and numerous accom- 
plifhments, lie was enchanted. Three months only after 
his nuptials, he was feized with a fever and dyfentery at 
the palace of the Tournelles in Paris, and breathed his 
laft in the feventeenth year of his reign, and the fifty- 
fourth, of h.is age, A.D. 1515. 
The character of Louis XII. is diftinguiflied by a fupe- 
rior integrity, feldom to be found in princes; and though 
fometimes the dupe of his goodnefs of heart, and of the 
treachery of his neighbours, yet lie well delerved the ex¬ 
alted appellation cf The Father of his People. In him ex¬ 
pired the elder branch of the houle of. Orleans; and the 
feeptre of France was transferred to the younger branch 
of that family. 
Francis I. who afeended the vacant throne, was the 
fon of Charles count d’Angouleftue by Louifa of Savoy ; 
he had efpoufed Claude the daughter of the late monarch 
by Anne of Brittany; and on his acceflion, lie had hilt 
juft completed his twentieth year. Formed with the 
mien of a hero, he excelled in the exerciies of a martial 
age ; eloquent in debate, and undaunted in aft ion, cour¬ 
teous in his manners, ana bounteous in his difpolitioo, 
8 P his 
