408 
SPAIN. 
The captivity of Francis filled all Europe with alarm. 
Almost the whole French army was cut off; Milan was im¬ 
mediately abandoned; and in a few weeks not a Frenchman 
was left in Italy. 
Henry VIII., though he had not entered into the war 
against France from any concerted political views, had al¬ 
ways retained some imperfect idea of that balance of power 
which it was necessary to maintain between Charles and 
Francis; and the preservation of which he boasted to be his 
peculiar office. Influenced by this motive, together with the 
glory of raising a fallen enemy, he listened to the flattering 
submissions of Louisa ; entered into a defensive alliance with 
her as regent of France, and engaged to use his best offices 
in order to procure the deliverance of her son from a state of 
captivity. 
A treaty was, soon after, concluded at Madrid, in conse¬ 
quence of which Francis obtained his liberty. The chief 
article in this treaty was, that Burgundy should be restored to 
Charles as the rightful inheritance of his ancestors, and that 
Francis’s two eldest sons should be immediately delivered up 
as hostages for the performance of the conditions stipulated. 
The exchange of the captive monarch for his children was 
made on the borders between France and Spain. The mo¬ 
ment that Francis entered his own dominions, he mounted a 
Turkish horse, and putting it to its speed, waved his hand, 
and cried aloud several times, “ I am yet a king! I am yet 
a king!” 
Francis never meant to execute the treaty of Madrid; he 
had even left a protest in the hands of notaries before he 
signed it, that his consent should be considered as an in¬ 
voluntary deed, and be deemed null and void. Accordingly, 
as soon as he arrived in France, he assembled the states of 
Burgundy, who protested against the article relative to their 
province ; and Francis coldly replied to the imperial am¬ 
bassadors, who urged the immediate execution of the treaty, 
that he would religiously perform the articles relative to him¬ 
self, but in those affecting the French monarchy, he must be 
directed by the sense of the nation. He made the highest 
acknowledgements to the king of England for his friendly 
interposition, and offered to be entirely guided by his coun¬ 
sels. Charles and his ministers saw that they were over¬ 
reached in those very arts of negociation in which they so 
much excelled, while the Italian states observed with pleasure, 
that Francis was resolved not to execute a treaty which they 
considered as dangerous to the liberties of Europe. Cle¬ 
ment absolved him from the oath which he had taken at 
Madrid; and the kings of France and England, the pope, 
the Swiss, the Venetians, the Florentines and the duke of 
Milan, entered into an alliance, to which they gave the 
name of the Ho/j/ League, because his Holiness was at 
the head of it, in order to oblige the emperor to deliver up 
Francis’s two sons on the payment of a reasonable ran¬ 
som, and to re-establish Sforza in the quiet possession of the 
Milanese. 
In consequence of this league, the confederate army took 
the field, and Italy once more became the scene of war. But 
Francis, who it was thought would have infused spirit and 
vigour into the whole body, had gone through such a scene 
of distress, that he was become diffident of himself, distrustful 
of his fortune, and desirous of tranquillity. He flattered 
himself, that the dread alone of such a confederacy would 
induce Charles to listen to what was equitable, and therefore 
neglected to send due reinforcements to his allies in Italy. 
Meantime the duke of Bourbon, who commanded the Im¬ 
perialists, had made himself master of the whole Milanese, of 
which the emperor had promised him the investiture; and 
his troops beginning to mutiny for want of pay, he led them 
to Rome, and promised to enrich them with the spoils of that 
city. He was as good as his word : for though he himself 
was slain in planting a scaling ladder against the walls, his 
soldiers, rather enraged than discouraged by his death, 
mounted to the assault with the utmost ardour, and, entering 
the city sword in hand, plundered it for several days; and 
never did Rome in any age suffer so many calamities, 
not even from the Barbarians, by whom she was often sub¬ 
dued, the Huns, Vandals or Goths, as now from the subjects 
of a Christian and Catholic monarch. 
Henry and Francis, alarmed at the progress of the imperial 
arms, changed, by a new treaty, the scene of the projected 
war from the Netherlands to Italy, and resolved to take the 
most vigorous measures for restoring the pope to liberty. 
Henry, however, contributed only money. A French army 
entered Italy, under the command of Marshal Lautrec; Cle¬ 
ment obtained his freedom ; and war was for a time carried 
on by the confederates with success; but the death of Lau¬ 
trec, and the revolt of Andrew Doria, a Genoese admiral in 
the service of France, entirely changed the face of affairs. 
The French army was utterly ruined; and Francis, discou¬ 
raged and almost exhausted by so many unsuccessful enter¬ 
prises, began to think of peace, and of obtaining the release 
of his sons by concessions, not by the terror of his arms. 
At the same time Charles, notwithstanding the advantages 
he had gained, had many reasons to wish for an accommo¬ 
dation. Sultan Solyman having overrun Hungary, .was 
ready to break in upon the Austrian territories with the whole 
force of the East; and the progress of the Reformation in 
Germany threatened the tranquillity of the empire. In con¬ 
sequence of this situation of aftairs, Francis agreed to pay 
two millions of crowns as the ransom of his two sons, to 
resign the sovereignty of Flanders and Artois, and to forego 
all his Italian claims; and Charles ceased to demand the 
restitution of Burgundy. 
All the steps of this negociation had been communicated 
to the king of England; and Henry was, on that occasion, 
so generous to his friend and ally Francis, that he sent him 
an acquittal of near six hundred thousand crowns, in order 
to enable him to fulfil his agreement with Charles. 
After having received the imperial crown from the hands 
of the pope at Bologna, Charles proceeded on his journey to 
Germany, where his presence was become highly necessary; 
for although the conduct and valour of his brother Ferdi¬ 
nand, on whom he had conferred the hereditary dominions 
of the house of Austria, and who had been elected king of 
Hungary, had obliged Solyman to retire with infamy and 
loss, his return was to be feared, and the disorders of religion 
were daily increasing. 
Charles having exerted himself as much as he could against 
the reformers, undertook his first expedition against the pi¬ 
ratical states of Africa. Barbary, or that part of the African 
continent lying along the coast of the Mediterranean sea, 
was then nearly in the same condition which it is at present. 
Morocco, Algiers, and Tunis, were its principal states; 
and the two last were nests of pirates. Barbarossa, a famous 
corsair, had succeeded his brother in the kingdom of Al¬ 
giers, which he had formerly assisted him to usurp. He 
regulated with much prudence the interior police of his 
kingdom, carried on his piracies with great vigour, and 
extended his conquests on the continent of Africa; but per¬ 
ceiving that the natives submitted to his government with 
impatience, and fearing that his continual depredations 
would one day draw upon him a general combination of the 
Christian powers, he put his dominions under the protection 
of the grand seignior. Solyman, flattered by such an act of 
submission, and charmed with the boldness of the man, 
offered him the command of the Turkish fleet. Proud of 
this distinction, Barbarossa repaired to Constantinople, and 
made use of his influence with the sultan to extend his own 
dominion. Partly by force, partly by treachery, he usurped 
the kingdom of Tunis; and being now possessed of greater 
power, he carried on his depredations against the Christian 
states with more destructive violence than ever. 
Daily complaints of the piracies and ravages committed 
by the galleys of Barbarossa, were brought to the emperor 
by his subjects, both in Spain and Italy; and all Christen¬ 
dom seemed to look up to him, as its greatest and most for¬ 
tunate prince, for relief from this new and odious species 
of oppression. At the same time Muley-Hassan, the exiled 
king of Tunis, finding none of the African princes able or 
willing to support him in recovering his throne, applied to 
Charles for assistance against the usurper. Equally desirous 
of 
