MAXIMILIAN I.
From 1500 to 1519.
Base Treachery of the Swiss Soldiers.--Perfidy of Ferdinand of
Arragon.--Appeals by Superstition.--Coalition with Spain.--The League of
Cambray.--Infamy of the Pope.--The Kings's Apology.--Failure of the
Plot.--Germany Aroused.--Confidence of Maximilian.--Longings for the
Pontifical Chair.--Maximilian Bribed.--Leo X.--Dawning Prosperity.--
Matrimonial Projects.--Commencement of the War of Reformation.--Sickness
of Maximilian.--His Last Directions.--His Death.--The Standard by which
his Character is to be Judged.
Louis XII., stung by the disgrace of his speedy expulsion from Milan,
immediately raised another army of five thousand horse and fifteen
thousand foot to recover his lost plunder. He also sent to Switzerland
to hire troops, and without difficulty engaged ten thousand men to meet,
on the plains of Milan, the six thousand of their brethren whom Ludovico
had hired, to hew each other to pieces for the miserable pittance of a
few pennies a day. But Louis XII. was as great in diplomacy as in war.
He sent secret emissaries to the Swiss in the camp of Ludovico, offering
them larger wages if they would abandon the service of Ludovico and
return home. They promptly closed the bargain, unfurled the banner of
mutiny, and informed the Duke of Milan that they could not, in
conscience, fight against their own brethren. The duke was in despair.
He plead even with tears that they would not abandon him. All was in
vain. They not only commenced their march home, but basely betrayed the
duke to the French. He was taken prisoner by Louis, carried to France
and for five years was kept in rigorous confinement in the strong
fortresses of the kingdom. Afterward, through the intercession of
Maximilian, he was allowed a little more freedom. He was, however, kept
in captivity until he died in the year 1510. Ludovico merits no
commiseration. He was as perfidious and unprincipled as any of his
assailants could be.
The reconquest of Milan by Louis, and the capture of Ludovico, alarmed
Maximilian and roused him to new efforts. He again summoned the States
of the empire and implored their coöperation to resist the aggressions
of France. But he was as unsuccessful as in his previous endeavors.
Louis watched anxiously the movements of the German diet, and finding
that he had nothing to fear from the troops of the empire, having
secured the investiture of Milan, prepared for the invasion of Naples.
The venal pope was easily bought over. Even Ferdinand, the King of
Arragon, was induced to loan his connivance to a plan for robbing a near
relative of his crown, by the promise of sharing in the spoil. A treaty
of partition was entered into by the two robber kings, by which
Ferdinand of Arragon was to receive Calabria and Apulia, and the King of
France the remaining States of the Neapolitan kingdom. The pope was
confidentially informed of this secret plot, which was arranged at
Grenada, and promised the plunderers his benediction, in consideration
of the abundant reward promised to him.
The doom of the King of Naples was now sealed. All unconscious that his
own relative, Ferdinand of Arragon, was conspiring against him, he
appealed to Ferdinand for aid against the King of France. The perfidious
king considered this as quite a providential interposition in his favor.
He affected great zeal for the King of Naples, sent a powerful army into
his kingdom, and stationed his troops in the important fortresses. The
infamous fraud was now accomplished. Frederic of Naples, to his dismay,
found that he had been placing his empire in the hands of his enemies
instead of friends; at the same time the troops of Louis arrived at
Rome, where they were cordially received; and the pope immediately, on
the 25th of June, 1501, issued a bull deposing Frederic from his
kingdom, and, by virtue of that spiritual authority which he derived
from the Apostle Peter, invested Louis and Ferdinand with the dominions
of Frederic. Few men are more to be commiserated than a crownless king.
Frederic, in his despair, threw himself upon the clemency of Louis. He
was taken to France and was there fed and clothed by the royal bounty.
Maximilian impatiently watched the events from his home in Austria, and
burned with the desire to take a more active part in these stirring
scenes. Despairing, however, to rouse the German States to any effectual
intervention in the affairs of southern Europe, he now endeavored to
rouse the enthusiasm of the German nobles against the Turks. In this, by
appealing to superstition, he was somewhat successful. He addressed the
following circular letter to the German States:
"A stone, weighing two hundred pounds, recently fell from heaven, near
the army under my command in Upper Alsace, and I caused it, as a fatal
warning from God to men, to be hung up in the neighboring church of
Encisheim. In vain I myself explained to all Christian kings the
signification of this mysterious stone. The Almighty punished the
neglect of this warning with a dreadful scourge, from which thousands
have suffered death, or pains worse than death. But since this
punishment of the abominable sins of men has produced no effect, God has
imprinted in a miraculous manner the sign of the cross, and the
instruments of our Lord's passion in dark and bloody colors, on the
bodies and garments of thousands. The appearance of these signs in
Germany, in particular, does not indeed denote that the Germans have
been peculiarly distinguished in guilt, but rather that they should set
the example to the rest of the world, by being the first to undertake a
crusade against the infidels."
For a time Maximilian seemed quite encouraged, for quite a wave of
religious enthusiasm seemed to roll over Europe. All the energies of the
pope were apparently enlisted, and he raised, through all the domains of
the Church, large sums of money for the holy enterprise of driving the
invading infidels out of Europe. England and France both proffered their
co-operation, and England, opening her inexhaustible purse, presented a
subsidy of ten thousand pounds. The German nobles rallied in large
numbers under the banner of the cross. But disappointment seemed to be
the doom of the emperor. The King of France sent no aid. The pope,
iniquitously squandered all the money he had raised upon his infamous,
dissolute son, Cæsar Borgia. And the emperor himself was drawn into a
war with Bavaria, to settle the right of succession between two rival
claimants. The settlement of the question devolved upon Maximilian as
emperor, and his dignity was involved in securing respect for his
decision. Thus the whole gorgeous plan of a war against the Turks, such
as Europe had never beheld, vanished into thin air, and Maximilian was
found at the head of fourteen thousand infantry, and twelve thousand
horse, engaged in a quarrel in the heart of Germany. In this war
Maximilian was successful, and he rewarded himself by annexing to
Austria several small provinces, the sum total of which quite enlarged
his small domains.
By this time the kings of France and Spain were fiercely fighting over
their conquest of Naples and Sicily, each striving to grasp the lion's
share. Maximilian thought his interests would be promoted by aiding the
Spaniards, and he accordingly sent three thousand men to Trieste, where
they embarked, and sailing down the Adriatic, united with the Spanish
troops. The French were driven out of Italy. There then ensued, for
several years, wars and intrigues in which France, Spain, Italy and
Austria were involved; all alike selfish and grasping. Armies were ever
moving to and fro, and the people of Europe, by the victories of kings
and nobles, were kept in a condition of misery. No one seemed ever to
think of their rights or their happiness.
Various circumstances had exasperated Maximilian very much against the
Venetians. All the powers of Europe were then ready to combine against
any other power whatever, if there was a chance of obtaining any share
in the division of the plunder. Maximilian found no difficulty in
secretly forming one of the most formidable leagues history had then
recorded, the celebrated league of Cambray. No sympathy need be wasted
upon the Venetians, the victims of this coalition, for they had rendered
themselves universally detestable by their arrogance, rapacity, perfidy
and pride. France joined the coalition, and, in view of her power, was
to receive a lion's share of the prey--the provinces of Brescia,
Bergamo, Cremona, and the Ghiradadda. The King of Arragon was to send
ships and troops, and receive his pay in the maritime towns on the
shores of the Adriatic. The pope, Julius II., the most grasping,
perfidious and selfish of them all, demanded Ravenna, Cervia, Faenza,
Rimini, Immola and Cesena. His exorbitant claims were assented to, as it
was infinitely important that the piratic expedition should be
sanctioned by the blessing of the Church. Maximilian was to receive, in
addition to some territories which Venice had wrested from him,
Roveredo, Verona, Padua, Vicenza, Trevigi, and the Friuli. As Maximilian
was bound by a truce with Venice, and as in those days of chivalry some
little regard was to be paid to one's word of honor, Maximilian was only
to march at the summons of the pope, which no true son of the Church,
under any circumstances, was at liberty to disobey. Sundry other minor
dukes and princes were engaged in the plot, who were also to receive a
proportionate share of the spoil.
After these arrangements were all completed, the holy father, with
characteristic infamy, made private overtures to the Venetians,
revealing to them the whole plot, and offering to withdraw from the
confederacy and thwart all its plans, if Venice would pay more as the
reward of perfidy than Rome could hope to acquire by force of arms. The
haughty republic rejected the infamous proposal, and prepared for a
desperate defense.
All the powers of the confederacy were now collecting their troops. But
Maximilian was dependent upon the German diet for his ability to fulfill
his part of the contract. He assembled the diet at Worms on the 21st of
April, 1509, presented to them the plan of the league, and solicited
their support. The diet refused to cooperate, and hardly affecting even
the forms of respect, couched its refusal in terms of stinging rebuke.
"We are tired," they said, "of these innumerable calls for troops and
money. We can not support the burden of these frequent diets, involving
the expense of long journeys, and we are weary of expeditions and wars.
If the emperor enters into treaties with France and the pope without
consulting us, it is his concern and not ours, and we are not bound to
aid him to fulfill his agreement. And even if we were to vote the
succors which are now asked of us, we should only be involved in
embarrassment and disgrace, as we have been by the previous enterprises
of the emperor."
Such, in brief, was the response of the diet. It drew from the emperor a
long defense of his conduct, which he called an "Apology," and which is
considered one of the most curious and characteristic documents of those
days. He made no attempt to conceal his vexation, but assailed them in
strong language of reproach.
"I have concluded a treaty with my allies," he wrote, "in conformity to
the dictates of conscience and duty, and for the honor, glory and
happiness of the empire and of Christendom. The negotiation could not be
postponed, and if I had convoked a diet to demand the advice of the
States, the treaty would never have been concluded. I was under the
necessity of concealing the project of the combined powers, that we
might fall on the Venetians at once and unexpectedly, which could not
have been effected in the midst of public deliberations and endless
discussions; and I have, I trust, clearly proved, both in my public and
my private communications, the advantage which is likely to result from
this union. If the aids hitherto granted by diets have produced nothing
but disgrace and dishonor, I am not to blame, but the States who acted
so scandalously in granting their succors with so much reluctance and
delay. As for myself, I have, on the contrary, exposed my treasure, my
countries, my subjects and my life, while the generality of the German
States have remained in dishonorable tranquillity at home. I have more
reason to complain of you than you of me; for you have constantly
refused me your approbation and assistance; and even when you have
granted succors, you have rendered them fruitless by the scantiness and
tardiness of your supplies, and compelled me to dissipate my own
revenues, and injure my own subjects."
Of course these bitter recriminations accomplished nothing in changing
the action of the diet, and Maximilian was thrown upon the Austrian
States alone for supplies. Louis of France, at the head of seventeen
thousand troops, crossed the Alps. The pope fulminated a bull of
excommunication against the Venetians, and sent an army of ten thousand
men. The Duke of Ferrara and the Marquis of Mantua sent their
contingents. Maximilian, by great exertions, sent a few battalions
through the mountains of the Tyrol, and was preparing to follow with
stronger forces. Province after province fell before the resistless
invaders, and Venice would have fallen irretrievably had not the
conquerors began to quarrel among themselves. The pope, in secret
treaty, was endeavoring to secure his private interests, regardless of
the interests of the allies. Louis, from some pique, withdrew his
forces, and abandoned Maximilian in the hour of peril, and the emperor,
shackled by want of money, and having but a feeble force, was quite
unable to make progress alone against the Venetian troops.
It does not seem to be the will of Providence that the plots of
unprincipled men, even against men as bad as themselves, should be more
than transiently prosperous. Maximilian, thus again utterly thwarted in
one of his most magnificent plans, covered with disgrace, and irritated
almost beyond endurance, after attempting in vain to negotiate a truce
with the Venetians, was compelled to retreat across the Alps, inveighing
bitterly against the perfidious refusal to fulfill a perfidious
agreement.
The holy father, Julius II., outwitted all his accomplices. He secured
from Venice very valuable accessions of territory, and then, recalling
his ecclesiastical denunciations, united with Venice to drive the
_barbarians_, as he affectionately called his French and German allies,
out of Italy. Maximilian returned to Austria as in a funeral march,
ventured to summon another diet, told them how shamefully he had been
treated by France, Venice and the pope, and again implored them to do
something to help him. Perseverance is surely the most efficient of
virtues. Incredible as it may seem, the emperor now obtained some little
success. The diet, indignant at the conduct of the pope, and alarmed at
so formidable a union as that between the papal States and Venice, voted
a succor of six thousand infantry and eighteen hundred horse. This
encouraged the emperor, and forgetting his quarrel with Louis XII. of
France, in the stronger passion of personal aggrandizement which
influenced him, he entered into another alliance with Louis against the
pope and Venice, and then made a still stronger and a religious appeal
to Germany for aid. A certain class of politicians in all countries and
in all ages, have occasionally expressed great solicitude for the
reputation of religion.
"The power and government of the pope," the emperor proclaimed, "which
ought to be an example to the faithful, present, on the contrary,
nothing but trouble and disorder. The enormous sums daily extorted from
Germany, are perverted to the purposes of luxury or worldly views,
instead of being employed for the service of God, or against the
infidels. As Emperor of Germany, as advocate and protector of the
Christian Church, it is my duty to examine into such irregularities, and
exert all my efforts for the glory of God and the advantage of the
empire; and as there is an evident necessity to reëstablish due order
and decency, both in the ecclesiastical and temporal state, I have
resolved to call a general council, without which nothing permanent can
be effected."
It is said that Maximilian was now so confident of success, that he had
decided to divide Italy between himself and France. He was to take
Venice and the States of the Church, and France was to have the rest.
Pope Julius was to be deposed, and to be succeeded by Pope Maximilian.
The following letter from Maximilian to his daughter, reveals his
ambitious views at the time. It is dated the 18th of September, 1511.
"To-morrow I shall send the Bishop of Guzk to the pope at Rome, to
conclude an agreement with him that I may be appointed his coadjutor,
and on his death succeed to the papacy, and become a priest, and
afterwards a saint, that you may be bound to worship me, of which I
shall be very proud. I have written on this subject to the King of
Arragon, intreating him to favor my undertaking, and he has promised me
his assistance, provided I resign my imperial crown to my grandson
Charles, which I am very ready to do. The people and nobles of Rome have
offered to support me against the French and Spanish party. They can
muster twenty thousand combatants, and have sent me word that they are
inclined to favor my scheme of being pope, and will not consent to have
either a Frenchman, a Spaniard or a Venetian.
"I have already began to sound the cardinals, and, for that purpose, two
or three hundred thousand ducats would be of great service to me, as
their partiality to me is very great. The King of Arragon has ordered
his ambassadors to assure me that he will command the Spanish cardinals
to favor my pretensions to the papacy. I intreat you to keep this matter
secret for the present, though I am afraid it will soon be known, for it
is impossible to carry on a business secretly for which it is necessary
to gain over so many persons, and to have so much money. Adieu. Written
with the hand of your dear father Maximilian, future pope. The pope's
fever has increased, and he can not live long."
It is painful to follow out the windings of intrigue and the labyrinths
of guile, where selfishness seemed to actuate every heart, and where all
alike seem destitute of any principle of Christian integrity. Bad as the
world is now, and selfish as political aspirants are now, humanity has
made immense progress since that dark age of superstition, fraud and
violence. After many victories and many defeats, after innumerable
fluctuations of guile, Maximilian accepted a bribe, and withdrew his
forces, and the King of France was summoned home by the invasion of his
own territories by the King of Arragon and Henry VIII. of England, who,
for a suitable consideration, had been induced to join Venice and the
pope. At the end of this long campaign of diplomacy, perfidy and blood,
in which misery had rioted through ten thousand cottages, whose
inhabitants the warriors regarded no more than the occupants of the
ant-hills they trampled beneath their feet, it was found that no one had
gained any thing but toil and disappointment.
On the 21st of February, 1513, Pope Julius II. died, and the cardinals,
rejecting all the overtures of the emperor, elected John of Medici pope,
who assumed the name of Leo X. The new pontiff was but thirty-six years
of age, a man of brilliant talents, and devoted to the pursuit of
letters. Inspired by boundless ambition, he wished to signalize his
reign by the magnificence of his court and the grandeur of his
achievements.
Thus far nothing but disaster seemed to attend the enterprises of
Maximilian; but now the tide suddenly turned and rolled in upon him
billows of prosperity. It will be remembered that Maximilian married,
for his first wife, Mary, the daughter of the Duke of Burgundy. Their
son Philip married Joanna, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, whose
marriage, uniting the kingdoms of Castile and Arragon, created the
splendid kingdom of Spain. Philip died young, leaving a son, Charles,
and Joanna, an insane wife, to watch his grave through weary years of
woe. Upon the death of Ferdinand, in January, 1516, Charles, the
grandson of Maximilian, became undisputed heir to the whole monarchy of
Spain; then, perhaps, the grandest power in Europe, including Naples,
Sicily and Navarre. This magnificent inheritance, coming so directly
into the family, and into the line of succession, invested Maximilian
and the house of Austria with new dignity.
It was now an object of intense solicitude with Maximilian, to secure
the reversion of the crowns of Hungary and Bohemia, which were both upon
the brow of Ladislaus, to his own family. With this object in view, and
to render assurance doubly sure, he succeeded in negotiating a marriage
between two children of Ladislaus, a son and a daughter, and two of his
own grand-children. This was a far pleasanter mode of acquiring
territory and family aggrandizement than by the sword. In celebration of
the betrothals, Ladislaus and his brother Sigismond, King of Poland,
visited Vienna, where Ladislaus was so delighted with the magnificent
hospitality of his reception, that he even urged upon the emperor, who
was then a widower, fifty-eight years of age, that he should marry
another of his daughters, though she had but attained her thirteenth
year. The emperor declined the honor, jocularly remarking--
"There is no method more pleasant to kill an old man, than to marry him
to a young bride."
The German empire was then divided into ten districts, or circles, as
they were then called, each of which was responsible for the maintenance
of peace among its own members. These districts were, Austria, Burgundy,
the Upper Rhine, the Lower Rhine, Franconia, Bavaria, Suabia,
Westphalia, Upper Saxony and Lower Saxony. The affairs of each district
were to be regulated by a court of a few nobles, called a diet. The
emperor devoted especial attention to the improvement of his own estate
of Austria, which he subdivided into two districts, and these into still
smaller districts. Over all, for the settlement of all important points
of dispute, he established a tribunal called the Aulic Council, which
subsequently exerted a powerful influence over the affairs of Austria.
One more final effort Maximilian made to rouse Germany to combine to
drive the Turks out of Europe. Though the benighted masses looked up
with much reverence to the pontiff, the princes and the nobles regarded
him only as a _power_, wielding, in addition to the military arm, the
potent energies of superstition. A diet was convened. The pope's legate
appeared, and sustained the eloquent appeal of the emperor with the
paternal commands of the holy father. But the press was now becoming a
power in Europe, diffusing intelligence and giving freedom to thought
and expression. The diet, after listening patiently to the arguments of
the emperor and the requests of the pontiff, dryly replied--
"We think that Christianity has more to fear from the pope than from the
Turks. Much as we may dread the ravages of the infidel, they can hardly
drain Christendom more effectually than it is now drained by the
exactions of the Church."
It was at Augsburg in July, 1518, that the diet ventured thus boldly to
speak. This was one year after Luther had nailed upon the church door in
Wittemberg, his ninety-five propositions, which had roused all Germany
to scrutinize the abominable corruptions of the papal church. This bold
language of the diet, influenced by the still bolder language of the
intrepid monk, alarmed Leo X., and on the 7th of August he issued his
summons commanding Luther to repair to Rome to answer for heresy.
Maximilian, who had been foiled in his own attempt to attain the chair
of St. Peter, who had seen so much of the infamous career of Julius and
Alexander, as to lose all his reverence for the sacred character of the
popes, and who regarded Leo X. merely as a successful rival who had
thwarted his own plans, espoused, with cautious development, but with
true interest, the cause of the reformer. And now came the great war of
the Reformation, agitating Germany in every quarter, and rousing the
lethargic intellect of the nations as nothing else could rouse it.
Maximilian, with characteristic fickleness, or rather, with
characteristic pliancy before every breeze of self-interest, was now on
the one side, now on the other, and now, nobody knew where, until his
career was terminated by sudden and fatal sickness.
The emperor was at Innspruck, all overwhelmed with his cares and his
plans of ambition, when he was seized with a slight fever. Hoping to be
benefited by a change of air, he set out to travel by slow stages to one
of his castles among the mountains of Upper Austria. The disease,
however, rapidly increased, and it was soon evident that death was
approaching. The peculiarities of his character were never more
strikingly developed than in these last solemn hours. Being told by his
physicians that he had not long to live and that he must now prepare for
the final judgment, he calmly replied, "I have long ago made that
preparation. Had I not done so, it would be too late now."
For four years he had been conscious of declining health, and had always
carried with him, wherever he traveled, an oaken coffin, with his shroud
and other requisites for his funeral. With very minute directions he
settled all his worldly affairs, and gave the most particular
instructions respecting his funeral. Changing his linen, he strictly
enjoined that his shirt should not be removed after his death, for his
fastidious modesty was shocked by the idea of the exposure of his body,
even after the soul had taken its flight.
He ordered his hair, after his death, to be cut off, all his teeth to be
extracted, pounded to powder and publicly burned in the chapel of his
palace. For one day his remains were to be exposed to the public, as a
lesson of mortality. They were then to be placed in a sack filled with
quicklime. The sack was to be enveloped in folds of silk and satin, and
then placed in the oaken coffin which had been so long awaiting his
remains. The coffin was then to be deposited under the altar of the
chapel of his palace at Neustadt, in such a position that the
officiating priest should ever trample over his head and heart. The king
expressed the hope that this humiliation of his body would, in some
degree, be accepted by the Deity in atonement for the sins of his soul.
How universal the instinct that sin needs an atonement!
Having finished these directions the emperor observed that some of his
attendants were in tears. "Do you weep," said he, "because you see a
mortal die? Such tears become women rather than men." The emperor was
now dying. As the ecclesiastics repeated the prayers of the Church, the
emperor gave the responses until his voice failed, and then continued to
give tokens of recognition and of faith, by making the sign of the
cross. At three o'clock in the morning of the 11th of January, 1519, the
Emperor Maximilian breathed his last. He was then in the sixtieth year
of his age.
Maximilian is justly considered one of the most renowned of the
descendants of Rhodolph of Hapsburg. It is saying but little for his
moral integrity, to affirm that he was one of the best of the rulers of
his age. According to his ideas of religion, he was a religious man.
According to his ideas of honesty and of honor, he was both an honest
and an honorable man. According to his idea of what is called _moral
conduct_, he was irreproachable, being addicted to no _ungenteel_ vices,
or any sins which would be condemned by his associates. His ambition was
not to secure for himself ease or luxury, but to extend his imperial
power, and to aggrandize his family. For these objects he passed his
life, ever tossed upon the billows of toil and trouble. In industry and
perseverance, he has rarely been surpassed.
Notwithstanding the innumerable interruptions and cares attendant upon
his station, he still found time, one can hardly imagine when, to become
a proficient in all the learning of the day. He wrote and spoke four
languages readily, Latin, French, German and Italian. Few men have
possessed more persuasive powers of eloquence. All the arts and sciences
he warmly patronized, and men of letters of every class found in him a
protector. But history must truthfully declare that there was no perfidy
of which he would not be guilty, and no meanness to which he would not
stoop, if he could only extend his hereditary domains and add to his
family renown.