Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  A fourth time he besieged her in Solunto, but she was not without friends, and they sent word to Cabrera that he must cease to persecute her, and they appeared in arms to enforce their message. One day, when the count was examining the trenches with which he had surrounded the castle, he was suddenly surrounded and taken by the queen’s friends, and before long he found himself a close prisoner in the strong castle of Motta Santa Anastasia, which had been built by Count Roger in old times. He was locked up in a disused rain-water cistern, and he was no sooner installed than the rain, which fell heavily at that season, was turned in upon him. The guards pretended not to hear his cries, the water rose from his ankles to his knees, and from his knees to his waist, till his prison pallet was floating beside him in the dark; then at last the water was turned off, and the wretched Cabrera was dragged out and transferred to a noisome den of vermin in a high part of the castle. There he was constantly attended by a soldier, whom he attempted to win over, and to whom a thousand pieces of gold were actually paid by the count’s friends. But the soldier had kept his master well informed, and when the count was allowed to escape, as he thought, by climbing down a strong rope hung from his window, he dropped into a net which had been previously arranged to catch him, and in which he remained exposed to the view and contemptuous jests of the whole garrison. He must have been glad that the beautiful Blanche of Navarre could not see him in such an undignified situation. When his enemies were weary of mocking him, he was taken back to his prison, and kept there until the election of Ferdinand the Just.

  This event took place in the year 1412, and put an end at once to the dissensions that distracted Sicily and to the claims of the other six aspirants to the throne. It put an end also to the independence of the Sicilian kingdom, and henceforth the latter was ruled by viceroys until modern times, excepting during the short reign of Victor Amadeus of Savoy.

  It was soon to be united with that of Naples, for Ferdinand’s son, Alfonso the Magnanimous, claimed and held the inheritance left him by adoption by Queen Joan the Second, the last of the Angevins; and though at his death the kingdoms were divided between his son and his brother, they were before long to be permanently united under Ferdinand the Catholic, Alfonso’s nephew.

  Old Aprile says that when Sicily was united with Castile she was one of the fairest jewels set in the crown of Spain, and that the union was the special work of Divine Providence. With Ferdinand’s conquest of the Moors and of Granada we have nothing to do, but the date of his final victory is that of a serious outbreak against the Jews in Sicily. As usual, the Hebrews were accused of having caught and crucified a Christian child on Good Friday; and the chronicle, to which those who please may lend credence, asserts that the deed was discovered because the body was thrown into a well of which the water was stained with blood, and that, by a miracle, the water rose suddenly and deluged the streets with a red stream. The natural consequence was a massacre of the Jews, and their synagogue was converted into a church. This was neither the first nor last time that such persecution took place in Sicily.

  It was at this time that Charles the Eighth conceived the idea of seizing the kingdom of Naples, and his incessant wars in Italy, in which Gonzalvo de Cordova, who led the Spanish armies, earned the surname of the Great Captain, led directly to the treaty of Granada made in 1500 between King Ferdinand and Lewis the Twelfth of France, Charles’s successor. By that agreement the two sovereigns allied themselves in order to take the kingdom of Naples from Frederick the Fourth, who was King Ferdinand’s first cousin once removed. Ferdinand’s chief ground for this act of spoliation was that the unfortunate King Frederick of Naples had invoked the help of the Turks against his enemies. It was agreed, therefore, that Ferdinand, who was already king of Sicily, should have Apulia and Calabria, and that Lewis the Twelfth should take Naples with its royal title, the latter being readily confirmed by Pope Alexander the Sixth, the too famous Borgia Pope. Gonzalvo de Cordova was at that time the vassal of King Frederick, and in order to escape the charge of treason he immediately renounced the territory of Monte Sant’ Angelo in the kingdom of Naples. The success of the joint armies of Gonzalvo and the Duke of Nemours was all that either could desire, but it was impossible that their respective sovereigns should long remain in accord, and the captains soon quarrelled about the boundaries of the conquered provinces. The French having occupied Melfi, Gonzalvo de Cordova retorted by seizing places already taken for King Lewis, and he established himself in Barletta, and soon inflicted a defeat upon his enemies, taking prisoner the Duke of Nemours’ colleague. It was at this time, in the year 1503, that the famous encounter took place known in history as the Sfida di Barletta, in which, on the thirteenth of February, thirteen Italian knights fought as many Frenchmen in tournament in the sight of both armies, and beat them.

  The celebrated fight was brought about in the following manner. The account I give is taken from Zurita’s ‘Annals of Aragon,’ and seems to be as accurate as any. It chanced that in a skirmish near Barletta a number of the French were taken prisoners, and among them was a certain knight, called de la Motte; and while he was captive, he began to boast that the French were better men than the Italians, whereupon a great discussion arose, and the Italian knights went to Gonzalvo de Cordova, begging him that they might have a chance of defending their national honour, which they considered that de la Motte had assailed. The result was that thirteen Italian knights, chief of whom was Ettore Fieramosca of Capua, met an equal number of French champions, on the understanding that each vanquished knight should pay one hundred ducats for his liberty, and lose his horse and arms. The Duke of Nemours could not or would not give surety that the lists should be undisturbed, but Gonzalvo replied that he would protect them, and marched out all his army, horse and foot, to a place •five miles from Barletta and encamped there, between Andria and Corato. A monument marks the spot to‑day. For the Italians, Prospero Colonna appeared as second; the French chose for theirs the most honourable knight of any age, the famous Bayard; the judges marked out the ground, and the tournament began. It was a windy day and the gale was in the Italians’ favour, as the parties rode at each other, first at a foot pace and then at a trot. Zurita says that they hardly broke into a canter as they met; nevertheless, all the lances were broken on both sides, but most of the French knights dropped the stumps of theirs. Not a horse was killed, not a knight was thrown, and they at once attacked each other with short arms, some using their axes, and some their swords, as they pleased. The French defended themselves stoutly, but the Italians fought so valiantly and with such perfect agreement among themselves, that in the space of one hour — not six, as some have said, — the French were driven across the line and therefore forced to surrender. One of their knights lay dead on the field, and one was severely wounded, but only one of the Italians was slightly hurt. The French champions were led back to Barletta by their victors with huge rejoicings, and the thirteen Italians supped at Gonzalvo de Cordova’s own table.

  The moral effect of such a victory was great, and the success was followed shortly by a more substantial one in the great battle of Cerignola, where the Duke of Nemours died of his wounds; and in the following year the last of the French were driven to take shelter in Gaeta, which more than once, and even in 1860, was the last refuge of those who had held Naples. The unfortunate King Frederick died of grief, and Ferdinand the Catholic was master of all southern Italy.

  The early death of his only son had been regarded as a calamity by almost all civilized nations; but, if the young prince had lived, the greatest of all Spanish monarchs, Charles the Fifth, would never have reigned. He was Ferdinand’s grandson by Joan the Mad, whose handsome husband, the heir of the Empire, died at the age of twenty-eight from drinking too much iced water after a game at ball, an excess to which Aprile gives the name of intemperance. The infant Charles, therefore, became the heir of the Empire as well as of Spain, the Low Countries, Southern Italy, and Sicily, besides all that had been discovered of America,
and he was by far the greatest sovereign in the world. I may appropriately close this brief sketch of the southern successions by giving some account of the monarch whose strong hand has left its indelible impress upon Sicily and the mainland.

  Charles was six years old when his father died, and his mother, it is said, was so distracted by her grief that she never recovered, but buried herself in the convent of Tordesillas, entirely shutting herself off from all human intercourse; and there she lived to old age, and died when the great emperor was in his fifty-sixth year. He was sixteen at the death of his grandfather Ferdinand, and his vast dominions were practically governed and held for him by the inexorable regent, Cardinal Ximenes, during the few months the latter still had to live; before long the young king stood alone and fought his own battles.

  Some idea of the unsafe condition of Italy during that time may be formed from the fact that, in 1516, Pope Leo the Tenth was very nearly carried off a prisoner by Barbary pirates while spending a few days at Civita Lavinia, near Albano. The famous pirate Barbarossa, whom the Italian peasants still confound with the Emperor Frederick the First, was master of the seas and made raids upon the southern coast at his pleasure. Deserted villages, still standing in a maze of thorns and creepers, bear witness to his deeds, while the strong beacon towers built all round the coast, each in sight of the next, show what Charles the Fifth did to ward off such attacks. When he came to the throne, Italy was distracted by wars within and threatened by whole fleets of corsairs; the young Francis the First of France, mad with ambition and self-esteem, had inwardly resolved to take the south for himself, and Henry the Eighth of England was ready for any quarrel, with the Holy See, with France, or with the Empire, while his minister Wolsey laboured to keep the peace. There was room for a great king in such times, and Charles the Fifth won the battle of Mühlberg and reached the climax of his career after a reign of thirty-one years, in the very year in which Francis the First and Henry the Eighth breathed their last. He began life with a conception of his duties as emperor and his rights as king which belonged to the middle ages rather than to the Renascence; he considered that, while the seat of the Empire was in Germany, the reason for its existence lay in Italy, and that, as the arbiter and defender of the Christian faith, he must hold the position and wield the sceptre which had been Charlemagne’s. The vastness of his possessions was a foundation upon which he had some right to build great hopes of such a universal monarchy. He was but twenty years of age when he was crowned emperor at Aix,º and he chose for his motto the words ‘Plus oultre,’ which may be interpreted to men that he began life with the intention of extending his dominions, his power, and his influence until the end. The principal adversary whom he found in his way was Francis the First, whose personal courage led him to believe that he could accomplish anything, while his unsuspicious vanity made him fancy that all men were his friends who were not his open enemies. Francis was sure of the support of Pope Leo the Tenth and of Henry the Eighth; the former, says the modern French historian, M. H. Gaillard, joined forces with the imperial army, united Parma and Piacenza with the States of the Church, and died of his joy over the achievement. Henry the Eighth lent Francis nothing but the offer of an arbitration, and in the following year allied himself with the emperor in an attack upon Picardy and Guyenne. To make matters worse, Charles, the Constable of Bourbon, betrayed Francis and treated with Henry the Eighth to divide France with the latter. The plot was betrayed to the king, but his position was already most desperate, and, though he repulsed the English in Picardy, and their vanguard only •eleven leagues from Paris, and although he repelled the attack of the Spaniards in Navarre, he was obliged to retreat on the Italian side of his dominions with the loss of the incomparable Chevalier Bayard, and was unable to check the constable’s career. The latter renewed and strengthened his relations with Henry the Eighth, and besieged Marseilles, whence he was driven with difficulty by the emperor’s general, the Marquis of Pescara, the husband of the celebrated Vittoria Colonna; but it was impossible to keep the imperial army together in the face of the hostile population, and Francis again penetrated into Italy to renew his efforts at conquest. Charles the Fifth, however, was not so easily beaten; the remnants of his army took possession of Pavia and other strong places, while his captains reorganized their men. In the decisive and famous battle of Pavia the reckless young king was completely defeated and taken prisoner, and was carried away to a memorable captivity in Madrid, where Charles at first refused to see him, and shut him up in a dismal prison, in which there was but one window. The position hitherto occupied by France in European politics was gone, but the emperor had not yet won Italy. The French, in alliance with the Venetians under the command of Andrea Doria, commanded the Mediterranean, and the new pope, Clement the Seventh, taking the side of France, let loose upon Italy the ‘Black Bands’ of Giovanni de’ Medici. But the emperor was always slow in his movements, and after his liberation from Madrid Francis was less ardent for fight. The situation, which might have lasted a long time, was unexpectedly changed by the temerity of the constable. With no hope of a reconciliation with Francis, and well knowing that he could not expect a crown from Charles the Fifth, he resolved to carve out a kingdom for himself, allied himself with the Lutheran captain, Froudsberg, and after seizing Milan marched southwards upon Rome. He was killed in the assault upon the city, but his troops avenged his death in the fearful sack of Rome, of which the whole blame was afterwards laid upon Charles the Fifth. Roused at last, the emperor put forth all his strength. Before long the French were completely driven out of Italy, Charles the Fifth was crowned at Bologna by the Pope who had lately been his enemy, and the latter was rewarded by the reëstablishment of his kindred, the Medici, in Florence. The emperor now turned against the Turks in a war which was dignified by the name of a crusade, a Spanish army landed at Goletta, and Tunis opened its gates after a month’s siege. Francis naturally took advantage of this war to renew his attack upon Italy, and easily took possession of Piedmont; furthermore, he announced his intention of conquering Flanders. By the treaty of Cambrai he had lost the suzerainty of the latter province, but he now had the assurance to summon ‘Charles of Austria, his vassal,’ to appear before him in Parliament, and on the emperor’s non-appearance solemnly confiscated his territories for treason.

  The conquest of Tunis had produced few results; Barbarossa and his pirate squadrons were still the terror of the Mediterranean, and Francis did not hesitate to ally himself with an infidel corsair in the hope of at last gaining some permanent advantage against the emperor. At the same time Francis had some success in Italy. Henry the Eighth, however, and the Protestant princes of Europe allied themselves with Charles against a fellow-sovereign who had called Moslems to his aid. Henry the Eighth besieged Boulogne and Montreuil, the emperor found himself marched across France, and the end was a treaty which the French king might look upon as a reconciliation, but which finally established the supremacy of Charles. Henry had taken Boulogne, for which he demanded a large ransom; Francis was forced to sign a treaty, or reconciliation, with him also, and died soon afterwards, worn out by the fatigues, emotions, and disappointments of his unhappy career.

  This, in a few words and so far as the possession of Italy is concerned, is the history of the memorable struggle between Charles the Fifth and Francis the First which contributed so large an element to the general disturbance of Europe at that time. Throughout it all, we see the great emperor, always calm and self-reliant, delaying rather than hesitating, and always examining his own policy beforehand with cool judgment, never surprised, never at a loss, never swerving from his original conception of the Holy Roman Empire, moderate in victory, patient under defeat, and in almost every way the model that a strong sovereign should imitate. He found the south distracted by parties, riddled by conspiracies, and disturbed by popular revolutions. When he came to the throne Naples and Sicily were looked upon by more than one sovereign of Europe as a possible prey, to be fought for on the mere c
hance of a conquest. When he died they were the possessions of the house of Austria, and they remained so even when the succession to the crown of Spain became an object of contention on the failure of the direct line in 1700, and when thirty years later the Bourbons of Spain drove out their Austrian cousins. It is as impossible to imagine Sicily without Charles the Fifth, as it is to think of it without King Roger, and in the present condition of the country the monuments of the Austrian far outnumber those left by the Norman. From thousands of churches, castles, and palaces all over the country the huge stone shield that bears the quartered arms of Spain and Austria, with the imperial eagle, proclaims the lordship of Charles’s successors; and there is perhaps not in all Sicily one church that is not the last resting-place of some great Spanish noble. From Charles’s time the architecture of the south lost all its independence and originality, and the art of the Renascence, after overspreading the nobler works of the Norman and the Saracen, brought in its train the barbaric horrors of the late ‘Barocco.’ The exquisite church in which Peter of Aragon was elected by the Sicilian barons was lined with gaudy panels of coloured marbles, plastered with hideous scrolls, and adorned with obese cherubs that are not indecent only because they are impossible. The noble cathedral was degraded by the superimposition of an Italian dome, as inappropriate to its architecture as a Chinese pagoda upon Mount Sinai, and few other buildings of beauty escaped the triumphant and destroying march of corrupted taste. It is only in very recent times that some individuals have tried to reconstruct on a smaller scale the dwellings of the Saracen-Norman times, and the result is so pleasing as to make one wish that the Italians of the mainland would follow the example set by Sicilians, instead of constantly inventing new shapes of terror.