Kitabı oku: «The Rise and Fall of Renaissance France», sayfa 7
The conquest of Milan
On becoming king, Louis XII acquired the Angevin claim to Naples. He also regained the county of Asti which he had ceded to Charles VIII in 1496; but he was mainly interested in the duchy of Milan, to which he had a personal claim dating back to the marriage of his grandfather Louis to Valentina, daughter of Giangaleazzo Visconti, duke of Milan. The house of Sforza now ruled Milan and Louis XII, as duc d’Orléans, had tried on several occasions to make good his claim.
Milan was among the richest, most powerful states in Italy. It had a flourishing agriculture and its arms industry enjoyed a reputation equalled only by that of Germany. Strategically, the duchy was well situated: in the north it controlled the mountain passes leading to the rich cities of south Germany; in the east its influence extended to the middle Po valley; and in the south it exercised a semi-protectorate over Genoa, giving it an outlet to the Mediterranean and access to Genoese banking facilities. For all these reasons, Milan was the envy of its neighbours. The Swiss wanted to annex the area near Lake Como controlling access to the Alpine passes; and Venice, having seized Brescia and Bergamo, was not averse to a further westward expansion of her terra firma.
In seeking to make good his claim to Milan, Louis needed allies in Italy. He won over Pope Alexander VI by conniving at the creation of a new principality in the Romagna for Cesare Borgia, at the expense of lesser Italian states. From his own resources Louis gave Cesare the duchy of Valentinois, as we have seen, and also a pension and the hand of Charlotte d’Albret. He secured the neutrality of Venice by agreeing to her annexation of Cremona. Success also smiled on his diplomatic efforts outside Italy. Henry VII of England, who needed to consolidate his position at home, was easily persuaded to renew the Treaty of Etaples. Ferdinand of Aragon was glad to see the French king concerning himself with Milan rather than Naples. Philip the Fair, who ruled the Netherlands, took the unusual step in July 1499 of doing homage to Louis for the fiefs of Flanders, Artois and Charolais. The Swiss allowed him to raise troops in the cantons in return for a perpetual pension and an annual subsidy. As for Philibert duke of Savoy, he granted the king free passage through his territories in return for an annual pension of 22,000 livres payable after the conquest of Lombardy and a monthly payment of 3000 gold écus during the campaign. Within Milan itself, Lodovico Sforza was seen by many as a usurper. He claimed that he had assumed the dukedom in 1494 by popular invitation, but was widely suspected of having poisoned his predecessor. Unlike the king of France, he could count on little outside support.
While Louis’s diplomats paved the way for a new French invasion of Italy, he reorganized his army. Some companies were disbanded and new ones formed. In the spring of 1499 he recruited infantry, mainly in Switzerland: eventually he built up an army of more than 6000 horse and 17,000 foot. After coming to Lyon on 10 July 1499, Louis inspected his troops but decided not lead them himself. His council apparently thought it would be beneath the dignity of a king of France to measure himself against a mere Sforza, but perhaps more important was the tradition that the king should not leave France as long as he had no direct male heir to succeed him. Command of the army was accordingly entrusted to three captains: Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, Stuart d’Aubigny (soon to be replaced by Charles de Chaumont) and Louis de Ligny.
The vanguard entered the Milanese on 18 July, on the same day as the artillery and the rest of the cavalry left Lyon. A fortnight later the whole army regrouped in the Lombard plain. Sforza played for time by offering Louis the Milanese succession. His proposal, however, was rejected, and the French penetrated the Milanese from Asti. Their savage sacking of two small towns, Rocca d’Arezzo and Annona, was calculated to spread terror across the duchy. At Valenza they employed a different tactic. Three captured Italian captains were set free without a ransom being exacted, an act of royal clemency which encouraged other towns to surrender. Alessandria, however, after resisting a three-day siege, suffered terribly at the hands of the Swiss. Meanwhile, Genoa rallied to Louis, the Venetians marched on Lodi and a number of Lombard towns rebelled. On 2 September, Sforza fled to the imperial court. The citizens of Milan, anxious to avoid a sack, capitulated soon afterwards. Amidst popular rejoicing, the arms of Sforza were replaced by those of King Louis.
On 6 October, Louis made his entry into ‘his city of Milan’ for the first time. He passed under a triumphal arch bearing the inscription: ‘Louis king of the Franks, duke of Milan’. Representatives of various Italian states came to congratulate him. Louis spent barely two months in the Milanese during which he tried to win the hearts of the people by severely punishing his troops for any excesses. He also abolished some old hunting laws, which were resented by the local nobility. While important families that had been persecuted by the Sforzas were given back their privileges and property, favours were showered on Sforza’s followers in the hope of winning them over. But Louis showed less concern for humble folk. He reduced direct taxation but raised indirect taxes. He also distributed offices, lands and lordships to captains who had distinguished themselves in the recent campaign.
With men of trust occupying key posts in the duchy and a sizeable number of garrisons planted in various towns, Louis felt able to return home. But no sooner had he left Milan than his troops began to misbehave. The Milanese soon regretted Sforza’s rule and when he invaded in January 1500 he was acclaimed almost everywhere as a liberator. On 25 January the people of Milan threw out the French (except for a garrison in the castle), forcing them to withdraw to Novara, but Sforza obliged them to go further still. Early in March a new French army commanded by La Trémoïlle invaded Italy and advanced on Novara, where Sforza lay in wait. A battle seemed imminent, but his Swiss soldiers refused to fight their compatriots on the French side. La Trémoïlle allowed them to return to Switzerland. Sforza tried to conceal himself among them, but was recognized, taken to France and imprisoned at Loches, where he died a few years later.
Georges d’Amboise, meanwhile, reorganized the administration of Milan. He pardoned the citizens in the king’s name and reduced the fine they had been asked to pay. A new French-style government was set up comprising two governors – one civil, one military – working alongside a senate with a Franco-Italian membership, its functions similar to those of a parlement in France. In May 1500 he handed over the government of Milan to his nephew, Chaumont d’Amboise.
The reconquest of Naples
Louis next turned his attention to Naples, where many of his courtiers had lordships they hoped to recover. He revived the idea, first mooted under Charles VIII, of taking the king of Aragon into partnership. In the secret Treaty of Granada (11 November 1500) the two monarchs agreed to conquer Naples jointly and then divide it between them. Louis was to get Naples, Campania, Gaeta, the Terra di Lavoro, the Abruzzi and the province of Campobasso along with the titles of king of Naples and of Jerusalem; Ferdinand was to get Apulia and Calabria and the titles of king of Sicily and duke of Calabria and Apulia. However, for some unknown reason, two provinces – Basilicata and Capitanata – were overlooked in the treaty.
In the spring of 1501, Louis raised a new army and placed it under the command of Stuart d’Aubigny. After a general muster at Parma on 25 May, the army crossed the Appenines. Meanwhile, Ferdinand sent an army under Gonzalo da Cordoba to establish a foothold in Calabria and along the coast of Apulia. Early in July, the French invaded the kingdom of Naples using the same terror tactics as in the Milanese. Any town offering resistance, however slight, was brutally sacked. The worst massacre was at Capua where all the defenders were put to the sword and the entire population – estimated at 8000 – was wiped out. The streets flowed with blood as the French and Swiss raped, looted and burned. Against such barbarity Federigo III of Naples offered no resistance. On 4 August the French entered Naples. Federigo, who threw himself on their mercy, was better treated than Sforza had been. He was allowed to travel to France in regal style and given a pension and the county of Maine, spending his last years peacefully in the Loire valley.
While planting garrisons in the kingdom of Naples, d’Aubigny sent La Palice to occupy the Abruzzi and the provinces of Capitanata and Basilicata. The period between August 1501 and June 1502 was marked by the greatest expansion of French power in Italy. Louis XII’s Italian dominions, including Milan and Asti, covered an area of 75,000 square kilometres. No king of France had ever owned as much territory since the start of the Capetian dynasty in AD 887; none was to have as much again before 1789. Realizing the economic potential of his new dominions, Louis took steps to exploit them. Early in August 1501 he appointed Louis d’Armagnac, duc de Nemours, as viceroy in Naples. Nemours, however, was a mediocrity incapable of standing up to his Spanish rival, Gonzalo da Cordoba.
The Spaniards had carefully avoided collaborating with the French in the conquest of Naples. Working strictly for themselves they had occupied the territories – the two Calabrias and Apulia – given to them by the Treaty of Granada. Soon, however, squabbles developed between the allies. A major difficulty concerned the two provinces that had been overlooked by the treaty. After the French had occupied them, Gonzalo claimed them for Aragon. In the spring of 1502 he entered Capitanata and expelled the French from several forts. Following the breakdown of talks between Nemours and Gonsalo, on 9 June the Spaniards captured Tripalda. There followed months, even years, of desultory warfare without, it seems, any overall strategy. Each captain did more or less as he thought best. Certain engagements caught the imagination of chroniclers. One was the famous duel between the French knight Bayard and the Spanish captain Alonso de Sotomayor, which ended in the latter’s death. Another was the epic encounter between French and Spanish knights – eleven on each side – which was watched by a thousand people from the walls of Trani.
Louis XII returned to Italy in the summer of 1502. His presence raised the morale of his troops. They invaded Apulia in July and soon afterwards Calabria. By the end of the summer the Spaniards held only a few towns along the Adriatic coast, including Barletta, where Gonzalo had his headquarters. Though Nemours disposed of larger forces, he allowed them to succumb to disease, hunger and desertion. As his army dwindled in size, the Spaniards received reinforcements by sea. Gonzalo was not only a brave soldier but a brilliant tactician. His military reforms led to the creation of the tercio in the sixteenth century. Abandoning the use of light cavalry, he relied mainly on infantry and provided it with better protection than in the past. The old companies which were too small for modern warfare were grouped into larger coronelias, each supported by cavalry and artillery.
In April 1503, Gonzalo launched an offensive. He defeated d’Aubigny at Seminara on 21 April and a week later crushed Nemours at Cerignola. The duke was killed and the bulk of his army had to retreat to the Capua region where it awaited reinforcements. A relief army under La Trémoïlle arrived in Rome just as a new pope was being elected and remained there for three months, supposedly to protect the conclave. Meanwhile, the French position in the south crumbled away. In mid-July, Gonzalo entered Naples effortlessly. He failed, however, to capture Gaeta where the two French armies joined forces at the end of the summer. During the harsh winter that followed both sides suffered hardships. Eventually, Gonzalo offered the French generous surrender terms which they accepted, much to Louis XII’s dismay. He ordered Chaumont d’Amboise to detain troops returning from southern Italy who had served him ‘so badly’, and rounded on his own fiscal officials, accusing them of not paying the army. About twenty were tried and two at least were executed. The disaster in southern Italy, however, was irreversible. On 31 March 1504, Louis and Ferdinand signed a truce of three years.
The succession problem
By marrying Anne of Brittany, Louis XII had hoped to produce a son. So far, however, the queen had borne him only a daughter whom the Salic law debarred from the throne. The king’s nearest male heir was his second cousin, François d’Angoulême, who in 1500 was six years old. He was being brought up at Amboise by his mother, Louise of Savoy. Both were closely supervised by Pierre de Gié, a marshal of France of Breton origin. Being firmly committed to Brittany’s union with France, Gié hoped to see it maintained by a marriage between the king’s daughter Claude and François. But Anne was determined to protect her duchy’s independence and, for this reason, favoured an alternative match between Claude and Charles of Ghent, the infant son of Archduke Philip the Fair and grandson of the Emperor Maximilian. Finding himself caught in the crossfire between Anne and Gié, Louis pursued contradictory policies. Whether he did so out of weakness or duplicity is not easy to unravel.
On 30 April 1501 the king signed a secret declaration nullifying in advance any marriage between his daughter and another than François. Meanwhile, the idea of marrying Claude to Charles of Ghent was strongly canvassed by Anne with the backing of Georges d’Amboise. Claude’s dowry was to comprise Milan, Asti and Naples, the duchies of Burgundy and Brittany and the county of Blois. Had this marriage taken place, France would have been dismembered. That Louis XII should have entertained such a possibility is difficult to understand. He may have agreed to Anne’s proposal simply in order to extort the investiture of Milan from the emperor. He may also have felt covered by the secret declaration made in April 1501. Be that as it may, the betrothal of Claude and Charles was celebrated in August 1501, and Philip the Fair and his wife, Juana of Castile, visited France in November and met their prospective daughter-in-law. As for Maximilian, he promised to confer Milan’s investiture on Louis, but only verbally and within the secrecy of his own chamber.
Early in 1504, as Louis fell seriously ill, Gié persuaded him to confirm his declaration of April 1501. He also ordered a strict watch to be kept on all river traffic and roads leading to Brittany, so as to prevent Anne from returning there with her daughter in the event of Louis’s death. The king, however, recovered, and Gié came under fire from both Anne and Louise of Savoy. The latter’s servant, Pierre de Pontbriant, brought damaging charges to the king, which were subsequently used to prepare Gié’s indictment. He was accused inter alia of ordering the queen’s detention and of alienating her from Louise. In July a royal commission was appointed to investigate the charges.
Maximilian, in the meantime, drew closer to Louis. On 22 September the Treaty of Blois was concluded. It consisted of three separate agreements. The first was an alliance between Maximilian, Philip the Fair and Louis XII which Ferdinand of Aragon was conditionally invited to join. Louis renounced his claim to Milan in return for an indemnity of 900,000 florins, and Maximilian promised to give him the investiture of Milan within three months. The second agreement was a league against Venice which involved Pope Julius II. The third revived the projected marriage between Claude de France and Charles of Ghent. If Louis died without a direct male heir, the couple were to get Milan, Genoa, Brittany, Asti, Blois, Burgundy, Auxonne, the Auxerrois, the Mâconnais, and Bar-sur-Seine! On 7 April 1505, Maximilian conferred the investiture of Milan on Louis and his male descendants. However, the accord between the two rulers was upset in November by the death of Isabella of Castile. She bequeathed her kingdom to her husband, Ferdinand of Aragon, thereby setting aside the rights of her daughter Juana. Philip the Fair, taking umbrage, assumed the title of king of Castile. He also accused Louis XII of betrayal, a development which naturally threatened the marriage recently arranged between his son and Claude. Another setback for Anne was the trial of Marshal Gié. He appeared before the Grand conseil in October 1504 and was relentlessly interrogated. The magistrates, impressed by his testimony, refused the queen’s demand for an additional enquiry to be held in Brittany. Once all the evidence had been gathered, the prosecuting counsel called for the death sentence to be passed on Gié, whom he accused of lèse-majesté. However, on 30 December, the marshal was set free, his case being adjourned till April.
In April 1505, Louis XII made his will. He ordered his daughter’s marriage to François d’Angoulême as soon as she was old enough, notwithstanding the earlier agreement with Charles of Ghent. He also forbade her to leave the kingdom in the meantime for any reason and set up a council of regency which included a number of royal servants capable of standing up to the queen. These arrangements infuriated Anne, and when the king had a relapse she again demonstrated her ducal independence by withdrawing to Brittany for five months. At the same time she brought pressure to bear on Gié’s trial. On 14 March it was transferred to the Parlement of Toulouse, a body noted for its severity. Anne employed an army of barristers to press her case against the marshal and sought the backing of jurists from as far afield as Italy. Her efforts, however, proved unavailing. Although Gié was found guilty of various offences, the sentence passed on him on 9 February 1506 was surprisingly mild. He lost the governorship of François d’Angoulême, his captaincies of the châteaux of Angers and Amboise and his company of a hundred lances. He was also suspended as marshal for five years and banished from court for the same length of time. Though he was refused a royal pardon, Gié was allowed to retire to his château at Le Verger, where he died in 1513.
The queen’s absence in Brittany gave Louis a chance to secure his position. In May he formally announced his daughter’s forthcoming marriage to François d’Angoulême whom he instructed to join him at Plessis-lez-Tours. The captains of all the kingdom’s fortresses were made to swear an oath to obey the king’s will when the time came. Before the marriage could take place, however, the Treaty of Blois had to be repudiated. It contained a penalty clause whereby Burgundy, Milan and Asti were to be forfeited to Charles if his marriage to Claude were broken off by Louis, Anne or Claude herself. Louis got round the difficulty by putting the responsibility for his breach of faith on the shoulders of his subjects. He called an Assembly of Notables consisting of representatives from the parlements and towns, which met at Plessis-lez-Tours in May 1506. Through their spokesman Thomas Bricot, a doctor of the University of Paris, the delegates implored the king, whom they addressed as ‘Father of the people’, to gratify them by marrying his daughter to François d’Angoulême, who, being ‘wholly French’ (tout français), was most acceptable to them. Simulating surprise, the king requested time for reflection and to consult the princes of the blood. A few days later, the chancellor signified Louis’s willingness to concede his subjects’ request. He asked them to promise in return to see that the marriage took place and to recognize François as king should Louis die without male issue. On 21 May, Claude and François were formally betrothed; Louis had averted the damage that the kingdom would have suffered if the Treaty of Blois had been implemented.
On 3 August 1508, François d’Angoulême left Amboise to settle permanently at court. At fourteen he was old enough for kingship, but could not yet be sure of the throne. In April 1510 the queen was again pregnant, but on 25 October she gave birth to another daughter, called Renée. Anne did produce a son in 1512, but he died almost at birth. The king, it seems, now abandoned hope of perpetuating his line. François, now known as the Dauphin, was admitted to the king’s council and made captain of a hundred lances.
