XVI. for his age and station, corrupted and perverted as СНАР. both had become.16 He began immediately his plans for a real emendation of the offensive abuses of the hierarchy," and he was on the bed of death three weeks after his appointment. 18 Many of his contemporaries ascribed his premature fate to his virtues, and to poison.19 But as he was an ailing man, it seems more candid and true, to ascribe his unexpected decease to the increasing malady of a weakened constitution." 16 Atanagi, the next day, writing from Rome, calls him 'un principe cosi sacro, cosi buono, et cosi da ogne parti perfetto.' Lett. Prin. v. 3. p. 165. The archbishop of Salerno thus disclosed his feelings to his friend, the prelate of Fesole: I could not believe that St. Croce could be made the pope. I deemed it a thing impossible, because all his manners, and the path in which he walked, seemed to me to be the contrary to that by which the papacy is obtained.' Lett. Prin. p. 166. This was he who said that he did not see how it was possible for a pope to be saved. Godw. Ann. 316. The archbishop of Salerno's letter implies nearly as much. The cardinal Tournon, on 20th April, informed the connetable of it, with the addition, It is a very long time since the see has been filled with a man of greater worth.' He calls it 'a good and holy election.' p. 150. 17 Lett. Rib. v. 2. p. 607. Lett. Prin. v. 3. p. 163. The archbishop letter strongly expresses the pope's intentions, di rinovatione e de reforma,' and that all hope of this from human hands had been taken away by his death.' p. 167. Resolved not to pervert his sacred office, like former pontiffs, to the aggrandisement of his family, he wrote immediately to his brother, desiring that neither he nor any of his relations would come to Rome. 18 Rib. 609. On 22d day of his pontificate. ib. Lett. Prin. 165-167. 19 By this, Heaven has shewn us that our iniquities are not yet complete. So that up to May 1555, all the corruptions complained of in the church were continuing, in the opinion of this great prelate, who died at Trent in 1563. p. 168. 20 Atanagi's account the day after his death is, 'Yesterday morning, at the fourteenth hour, such a syncope came on, that he could not speak. The catarrh having fallen on him, or, as they say, lagoccia, the physicians thought he was sleeping, and that his repose was good, and therefore let him be so above an hour; but when they after that strove to wake him, they found him immoveable, and deprived of sensation. In this state he survived, always inghiottendo il catarro, till half past seven, when he expired.' Lett. Prin. 3. p. 165. In his preceding epistle, of 20th April, to the bishop of Urbino, we see the anterior symptoms of his illness, eleven days after his election: His Beatitude could not this BOOK II. Mary exerted herself to have Pole now raised to the coveted see; 21 but Paul IV. was chosen to succeed him, and forming some excellent resolutions,23 adopted the most certain way of never executing them, by intermingling immediately with politics. 24 morning distribute in the chapel, from a little cold which last evening came upon him with some fever, so that this morning he had a vein opened. May heaven preserve him! He is not of a strong complexion, but weak, and more from infirmities than age, as he has not passed his fifty-fourth year. And taking now so much fatigue as he does, because he will know and do every thing, it is not surprising that this little disturbance shall have come to him.' Lett. Prin. p. 163. So Avanson reported on 22 April to the king of France: He is a little indisposed, and was bled yesterday,' p. 607; and on 4 May, he fell into a malady which his physicians could not understand, for when they thought that he was cured and reposing, it was in a sleep which they call 'sur-bec,' produced by a great abundance of catarrh, so that he was deprived of speech ten hours before he died.' 2 Rib. 609. The lamentations on his loss are general, in all the correspondence that remains to us. 21 Her original letter, of 30th May 1555, to her ministers at Calais, directing them to urge the French court for its interest in her behalf, is in the British Museum, MS. Titus, B. 2. p. 113. On the same day the connetable ordered Noailles to assure Pole of his support. Noaill. v.4. p. 301. And on the 15th, Gardiner strongly urged his nomination. ib. 315. Pole was at first unwilling to go to Rome on the occasion (ib. p. 265); but Gardiner afterwards intimated that he was inclined to take the journey. p. 267. The Italians thought that his absence would hurt his interest (p. 271); but a fever which attacked him in April, perhaps prevented him. ib. He did not credit the sincerity of the French promises, but believed they meant to promote Ferrara. p. 304. As this cardinal was the king's uncle, it was a natural suspicion. 22 He was card. Theatin, and dean of the college. Avanson on 4th May thought the choice would fall on him, but notices the debility of his person and mind, from his age, already in decrepitude.' Lett. Rib. p. 610. On 23d May, card. Armagnac announced to the king, To-day Paul IV.is chosen;" with the more favorable addition, 'in age, learning, and holy life, he yields in nothing to Marcellus, but that he is older. I have always found him very affectionate to your crown.' ib. 612. 23 On 28th Aug. Lausac's dispatch from Rome was, 'The pope has ordered me to tell his majesty, that he would do all in his power to discharge his office well, and especially in the reformation of the church, the punishment and correction of its abuses; and to discharge the office of an universal father, and to appease the quarrel between the contending princes without using arms. But it seemed as if the devil would counteract him in this good intention, for his subjects had been excited against him, and he had sufficient argument, from all sides, of the ill-will of the emperor and his ministers to him.' Lett. Rib. 615. 21 The Pope added. 'He could not but be in great suspicion, and He began in a few months to form injurious ideas of the emperor, and to meditate on the means of dispossessing him of his Italian dominions.25 He made seven new cardinals.26 But his warlike schemes were baffled by a truce for five years, after varying but never discontinued negotiations," being agreed upon between England, France, and the Imperial Sovereign, which Henry II. took some pains to explain, and apologise for, to his surprised and offended ally the Grand Signor, who was thus suddenly deserted by the power whose policy he had aided and confided in.29 It was preceded by a league between Henry and the duke of Ferrara.30 In the next year, Henry II. disgraced himself by desiring had therefore been constrained to arm himself; and yet he knew his force to be too feeble to resist if he had not confidence in heaven and in your majesty. He wished the king was delivered from this Turkish fleet, and instead of it, that Venice would join to put Italy in safety and liberty.' ib. 616. 25 The pope's nuncio in Spain has written to him that he must regain the favor of the emperor, or he would resent it; but the pontiff answered, that he would declare that the Imperialists had been trying to poison him. He hopes to be so strongly allied with your majesty, as to free Italy very soon from the emperor's tyranny, and to see one of your children king of Naples, and the other duke of Milan.' Lett. Av. 1 Oct. Rib. 619. 26 Rib. 621. 27 They occupy the largest portion of the 5th volume of Noailles. 25 It was dated 5th February 1556. Rib. p. 625. The king describes it as requiring neither party to restore their acquisitions; that it comprised all his allies, and was most honorable to himself. Noailles, 5, p. 297. On 21st August, the too celebrated duke of Alva addressed to the pope his justification of the emperor's military measures. In this he makes an accusing charge on the pontiff: Your holiness, from the assumption of your pontificate, has oppressed, pursued, and ill treated, by imprisonment and by seizure of their property, the servants of his majesty, and has since been urging with importunity the princes of Christendom to enter into an offensive league with you.' 2 Rib. p. 653. See the king's long letter to his ambassador, of 13th Nov. 1556. Rib. 660-3. 30 On 12th Jan. 1556, the king apprised his ambassador of it: By this time the league is made between the pope and me, comprising my XVI. BOOK II. and attempting to introduce the inquisition into France, in compliance with the expressed wishes of the pope." His states had the manly spirit to resist and prevent the nefarious project,32 to his avowed vexation, but to the great honor and happiness of his country. He dishonored himself by planning a disguised substitute for it, which he could surreptitiously establish; thus falsifying the promises and the hopes which some features of his mind had excited in superficial observers.34 The competition of Pole may have left a sting of jealousy in the pontiff's mind; but whatever was the secret cause, one of his first measures was, to annul "In his private dispatch to Selva, of 13th Feb. 1557, he says, 'Seeing the heresies and false doctrines which are shooting up in my kingdom, I had already determined, according to the persuasion and advice which the cardinal Caraffa, when abroad, gave me on the part of our holy father, to introduce here the inquisition as the true means to extirpate the root of such errors, and to punish and correct those who begin them, and their imitators.' Rib. 677. 32 But some difficulties occur about it. The states of my kingdom will not receive nor approve of the said inquisition, alleging the trouble, divisions, and other inconveniences, which it would bring with it.' ib. 33 He adds, "It has seemed to me best to provide for another way, and to ask the pope for his brief to such of the cardinals and great churchmen here who are known and approved relations of our faith, to act like the Inquisition, under the authority of the Apostolic see, and with the invocation of the secular arm.' ib. He adds, 'I will employ myself vivement, as one who desires nothing in this world so much as to see my people clean from such a dangerous pest and vermin as these heresies are.' ib. 677. This letter makes us recollect that our English ambassadors thought his face looked grim, tho his manners were mild. See note 10. p. 469. 34 Palliano, on 29th October 1554, wrote from Paris, The king has an intrepid and unwearied mind, turned wholly upon glory. His subjects adore him, and go with alacrity to put their lives at his disposal. You may expect something from him that will transcend Alexander.' Lett. Prin. p. 158. He states the usual revenue of France to have then been eight millions of gold; and the extraordinary, whatever the king chose. ib. 157. He was more justly estimated by spirits of congenial bigotry with his own. And of these, Davila, the celebrated historian, seems to be one; for he states Henry's determination to exterminate the Protestants, in language as strong as any of that devoted class needed 35 XVI. the donations of the English church lands; and he СНАР. two years afterwards expressed his intention to revoke Pole's legantine authority, which occasioned Philip and Mary to solicit very earnestly that he would abandon such a purpose." The pope persisted; and summoned him to Rome. The English parliament was then influenced to interfere on the cardinal's behalf." But Pole had ventured to remonstrate with his papal chief, for entering into a war with Philip, and Paul created Francisca Peyto a new cardinal, and appointed him to be his English legate." The queen, indignant that her favorite was displaced, ordered the messenger's papers to be seized, and himself and the new hat forbidden to land.40 The 6 38 to use, and apparently with as much gout' as if it had been a subject of gastromanie instead of human butchery. He says of this Henry II. of France, He did all that he could to eradicate the seeds [of the Huguenot religion.] Ce qu'il sçeut bien temoigner, quand, avec un rigeur inexorable, il voulut que sans remission aucune, en condamnant a perdre la vie tous ceux, qui seroient accuses et convaincus de suivre ces nouveautez.' He adds, 'It is to be believed that by force of bleedings they would at last have put out of the bowels of France all this peccant humor, if supervening accidents had not interrupted the course of this resolution.' Hist. Guerres Civiles, 1. 1. p. 30. Yet Henry II. in this extirpating fury was but the pipe and puppet of his papal directors. He only sought to execute their determined plans and resolutely pursued system. 35 His official paper on this point is dated Prid. Id. July 1555. 6 B. 4. 36 Their imploring letter, dated 21st May 1557, is in Strype's Eccl. Mem. app. v. 3. p. 475, 6. Some of the nobility also addressed to the pontiff a similar request. ib. 480-2. The English ambassador at Rome was also instructed to remonstrate; and in his dispatch of 15th May 1557, he stated, that he could only obtain from the pope an assurance, that if the queen wrote to him for the continuance of the legate, he would appoint him accordingly. Burnet, Ref. v. 4. p. 439. Their petition is in Strype, p. 476-480. From Pole's letter to Muzzarelli, we find that some personal differences were existing between him and the pontiff, before the latter attained his dignity. Ep. Poli. v. 4. p. 91. 36 Ep. Po. i. v. 5. p. 20, 2. On 20th June 1557. Ep. Poli. 5. p. 444. |