1500

and his rich and extensive provinces, which were inferior to few monarchies in Europe, fell to his daughter Mary. Louis XI., in order to add these fiefs to the crown, sought the hand of the Burgundian heiress for his son Charles VIII. But the impolitic rapacity with which he seized Burgundy and part of Picardy, as fiefs which had lapsed to the crown through the want of an heir, offended the princess and her people, and she married Maximilian, Archduke of Austria and King of the Romans, the son of the Emperor Frederick III., by which the Netherlands fell under the dominion of the empire. The princess, however, was accidentally killed soon after; her infant daughter, Margaret, was espoused to the Dauphin; and the provinces which Louis had seized were ceded to the crown as her dowry. France thus became a great and powerful state; all the ancient fiefdoms except Brittany were united to the crown; the English had been expelled from all their conquests except Calais; the royal authority had been raised to such a height as enabled the prince to maintain law and crder; a considerable military force was kept up, and the finances were able to support it. All these advantages had been secured by the craft and policy of Louis XI., who, dying when his son was but young, left the regency in the hands of his daughter Anne (called the Lady of Beaujeu, because she had married Peter, Lord of Beaujeu), a woman whose spirit and capacity were sufficient to maintain the authority and supremacy which her brother had established. It was she who now formed the project of annexing Brittany to the

crown.

Anne, the elder daughter of Francis, Duke of Brittany, was the heiress of that duchy, and her hand and patrimony were sought by many suitors; by the Archduke Maximilian; the Duke of Orleans, the presumptive heir to the French crown, who was opposed to the regency of the Lady of Beaujeu; and others. Each of these suitors had a dangerous rival in Charles VIII., King of France, who, though he was prevented from marrying Anne by his previous contract with the daughter of Maximilian, was yet determined, (that is, his sister was) to seize upon the duchy on the death of the duke. Orleans having escaped to Brittany, after an unsuccessful revolt against the regent, war was declared, and both Charles and Francis sought the aid of Henry, who on this pretext procured large and frequent grants from his parliament. For many Brittany years before his accession, Henry had been protected in the France. Breton court, and when, through the intrigues of Richard III., he was expelled from the duchy, he had found a safe asylum in France;

to

CHAP. I.

The

hence he was equally indebted to both parties. But the sympathies of his subjects were in favour of Brittany, and many of them, seeing that he would never send the aid which had been granted by parliament, passed over in bands to help the Bretons as private volunteers. The progress of French conquest was soon arrested by the alliance of Henry, Maximilian, and Ferdinand of Spain, each of whom, by working on the fears of Charles, sought to promote his own interests. Maximilian hoped to obtain Brittany and the duchess (the duke being now dead); Ferdinand thought to procure Rousillon; while Henry tried to extort from Anne repayment of his expenses (for he had sent to her aid 6,000 archers), and from Charles a present in reward of his forbearance. French King outwitted all his opponents by marrying the duchess, though she had in the meantime been united to Maximilian by proxy, and by thus annexing Brittany to the royal domains. This led to a renewal of the war, during which Henry made a tardy effort to restore the balance of power by invading France, and laying siege to Boulogne, 1492. The position of affairs in Europe was most favourable to his enterprise; Maximilian courted his alliance; while Charles was engrossed by his designs against Naples. But war was not Henry's object; he agreed to the treaty of Estaples, impelled thereto by the appearance of Perkin Warbeck, and obtained from the French king £149,000 on condition of his return to England (November, 1492).

12. The French Invasion of Naples. The conclusion of this Condition treaty gave Charles leisure to turn his attention to Italy, of Italy. which at that period was the general mark of conquest, and therefore the central point of European politics. It was now in the Augustan age of arts and knowledge, and for more than a century had formed a world by itself in politics and refinement. The chief members of its states-system were, the duchy of Milan and the republic of Venice in the north; the republic of Florence and the States of the Church in the centre; and the kingdom of Naples in the south. Milan, which comprehended Parma, Placentia, and Genoa, was in the hands of the family of Sforza, who held the duchy under the Emperor; Florence had been for a century under the dominion of the Medici; and Naples was subject to a collateral branch of the house of Arragon, without, however, the appendage of Sicily, which was attached to Arragon itself. Charles VIII. claimed the rights of this collateral branch, the second house of Anjou. Those rights, founded on the adoption of Louis I. of Anjou (the great-grandfather of Margaret of Anjou, Queen of Henry VI.)

claim upon

CHAP. I..

French by Joan I., Queen of Naples, had never been acknowledged Naples. by the people, or confirmed by possession. For one hundred and ten years the dukes of Anjou, (Louis I., Louis II., Louis III, and René,) had made frequent but unsuccessful attempts to mount the throne; at last the brother and daughter of René, Charles of Maine and Margaret of Anjou, either ceded or sold those rights to Louis XI., whose son Charles, as soon as he became of age, determined on asserting them.

In August, 1494, he entered Italy and easily subdued Naples. Ferdinand II., the King, fled to Ischia, and both Rome and Florence opened their gates to the conqueror. But during the progress of his expedition, negotiations were set on foot for the formation of a league, whose object should be the expulsion of the foreigners from Italy. Venice was the moving power of this alliance; the Pope, and even Ludovico Sforza, the usurper of Milan, who had invited the French into the peninsula, and had facilitated their conquest by opening the fortresses of Genoa to them, joined it. Ferdinand of Spain, Maximilian the Emperor, and Henry VII., were well inclined to it, and overtures were made also to the Turks, the hereditary foes of Christendom. The result was, that Charles was obliged to evacuate Naples and fight his way home; and Ferdinand II. was restored to his throne (1495).* This attempt, unsuccessful as it proved, was not without its consequences to Europe. Italy became a fair mark for plans of conquest; a spirit of intrigue was raised, and more efficient than all, men's passions were awakened, for Charles VIII. was bent on vengeance. He did not, however, live to exact that vengeance, as he died suddenly (August, 1498).

13. Henry's Negociations with Spain. Spain had now reached the highest point in her fortunes, and could boast of brighter prospects than any other country in Europe. The union of Arragon, with its dependencies-Sicily and Sardinia-to Castile, by the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella (1469), rendered the united monarchy a formidable state, because both those princes possessed great capacity, and employed their time in enterprises the most advantageous to their combined dominions. The conquest of Granada from the Moors was undertaken, and the Christian authority established in every province of the peninsula; while the discovery of a new world seemed to open boundless hopes of splendour, wealth, and honour. Henry VII. had always. cultivated with particular solicitude the alliance of Ferdinand;

Heeren, 17-18; Sismondi's Italian Republics, 283-289.

1509

and there was indeed a remarkable similarity of character between them. Both were full of craft, intrigue, and design; and though there was, in consequence, only a slender foundation for confidence and amity when their interests interfered, there never occurred an occasion which excited their mutual jealousy.

Marriage of

Catherine of Arragon,

In 1501 (Nov. 12th) their friendship was cemented, by the completion of the marriage between Arthur, Prince of Wales, sixteen years of age, and Catherine, the fourth daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, eighteen years of age. On the death of Arthur, only a few months after, Henry, to retain the dowry (200,000 crowns) and the alliance, obliged his second son, Henry, to contract marriage with the widowed princess. The young prince was only twelve years of age, and he made all the opposition he could to the match; but the King persisted, the Pope granted a dispensation, as the parties were within the prohibited degrees, and the contract was made (1502).

Marriage of

daughter

In the same year another marriage was celebrated, which was in the next age equally productive of great events. Henry This was the union of Margaret, Henry's eldest daughter, Margaret. with James IV., of Scotland. In the following year Elizabeth, the Queen, died, and two years afterwards (1505) Isabella, of Castile. These events led to a renewal of Henry's negotiations with Spain, in the midst of which he terminated his reign.

14. Transactions with Philip, Archduke of Austria. The death of Queen Isabella considerably affected the position of Ferdinand. The kingdom of Castile, which belonged to that princess, fell into the possession of her daughter Joan, whose husband, Philip, Archduke of Austria, and the son of Maximilian, at once assumed the title of King of Castile. Ferdinand did all he could to prevent the separation of the two monarchies; but he had made himself very unpopular by his exactions and impositions, and the states of Castile showed evident resolutions of preferring the title of Philip and Joan. In order to take advantage of these favourable dispositions, the Archduke Philip and his wife embarked in the Netherlands for Spain (1506); but they were driven by stress of weather into Weymouth harbour. When Henry heard of it, he invited them to Windsor, where he detained them for three months, and he did not allow them to depart till they had caused to be given up to him Edmund de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, nephew to Edward IV., and younger brother of John, Earl of Lincoln, slain at the battle of Stoke. Some years before this, Suffolk had committed manslaughter, but was pardoned by the King, yet under such