Chapter XXII: Book THE EIGHTH (11)

[121] Molinet (ii. 403) also asserts that Buckingham was implicated in the murder of the princes; but there is no evidence to be found in support of the statement, which rests probably on the fact that the duke was a prominent supporter of Richard’s usurpation, and was therefore likely to have been concerned in the assassination of his nephews.

[122] The Earl of Richmond, afterwards Henry VII.

[123] Richmond was considered as representing the line of Lancaster by right of his mother, Margaret Beaufort, who was daughter of a Duke of Somerset, and a great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt.

[124] Henry left Harfleur on the 1st of August, 1485, with an army of about 2,000 men, and landed at Milford Haven on the 7th of August. He met with little opposition in Wales, and at Shrewsbury he was joined by Sir Gilbert Talbot and all his vassals. Marching onwards, through the midland counties, he came up with his rival at Bosworth, in Leicestershire, on the 22nd of August. Henry was at the head of 6,000 men, and Richard had an army of above double the number. But during the action Lord Stanley joined Henry with 7,000 men, and decided the battle in his favour.

[125] By letters dated on the 23rd of May, 1462, the King of Arragon pledged the counties of Roussillon and Cerdagne to Louis XI. for the sum of 300,000 golden crowns, on condition that Louis should supply him with a sufficient number of troops to reduce Catalonia, and to carry on the war in Arragon and Valencia. These counties were restored to Castile by the Treaty of Barcelona, signed on the 19th of January, 1493.—PRESCOTT’S _Ferdinand and Isabella_, vol. ii. p. 249.

[126] James III. See note, Vol. I. p. 398.

[127] John II., son of Alphonso V., King of Portugal. He succeeded to the throne in 1481, and died on the 25th of October, 1495. It was to him that Columbus first submitted the theory on which he had founded his belief in the existence of a western route; but the foolish monarch refused his patronage to the adventure.

[128] Navarre was then divided by two opposing factions; that of Queen Catherine, the niece of Louis XI., and that of the Viscount of Narbonne, who wished to gain possession of the crown. It is to the former of these parties, doubtless, that Commines alludes.

[129] Among other things, he tried _aurum potabile_, and paid dearly for it, though it does not seem to have done him much good.

[130] Sixtus IV. died on the 13th of August, 1484. See note, p. 25.

[131] Nor was this the full extent of the Pope’s benevolence. He sent two briefs to Francis de Paulo, ordering him to pray for the restoration of the King’s health, under penalty of excommunication in case of refusal.—RAYNALDUS, xix. 29.

[132] The supposition of Commines is correct: the King did not dare to ask, in the first instance, to be entrusted with the phial itself. “Dear and well-beloved,” he wrote to the Abbot of St. Rémy at Rheims, on the 17th of April, 1483, “we should much wish, if it were possible, to have a _little drop_ from the Holy Ampulla; wherefore we pray you to consult and inquire whether a little could be taken from the phial in which it is contained, without sin or danger.” This humble and modest request having been refused, Louis XI. had recourse to the authority of the Pope, from whom he obtained the desired permission. Three commissioners, the Bishop of Seez, the Governor of Auvergne, and the Lord de la Heuze, were sent to fetch the Holy Ampulla from Rheims. It was escorted into Paris, on the 31st of July, 1483, with great pomp; and on the following day it was taken to the King.

[133] Notre Dame de Clery, a pretty little town on the left bank of the Loire, nine miles from Orleans.

[134] Bajazet II., son of Mahomet II., succeeded his father in 1481; and was dethroned and died in 1512.

[135] The name of this ambassador was Hussein.—HAMMER, iii. 361.

[136] Djem, or Zizim, brother of Bajazet II., on hearing of his father’s death, resolved to make a vigorous effort for the empire; but finding that his forces were far inferior to those of his brother, he applied to the Knights Hospitallers at Rhodes for assistance, who resolved to concede his demands, and sent a squadron to escort him to Rhodes, where he was received with all the honours due to a powerful sovereign. Bajazet, in great alarm, hastened to negotiate a treaty with the Order; the Knights, however, dared not violate the laws of hospitality by giving up Zizim; but the Grand Master concluded a secret compact with the Sultan, in which, for the annual pension of 45,000 ducats, he engaged to detain the prince a prisoner. The subsequent fate of the unfortunate captive was truly calamitous. He was held in durance for a long time in France, constantly mocked with false hopes, until Pope Innocent VIII. bribed the Grand Master D’Aubusson with a cardinal’s hat to resign to him the guardianship of his profitable prisoner. In 1489 Zizim was removed to Rome, where he was tormented by frequent proposals to change his religion, all of which he peremptorily rejected. When Alexander Borgia ascended the papal throne, he sent an embassy to the Sultan, demanding the continuation of the pension for the custody of Zizim, and offering also to put him to death for 300,000 ducats, paid in one sum. Before an answer could arrive from Constantinople, the Pope was forced to resign his prisoner to Charles VIII., King of France; but Borgia soon procured the death of the unfortunate prince by poison. After ten years’ captivity among Christians, he was murdered in 1495.

[137] Louis XI. was nearly seventeen years old at the time of the Praguerie, having been born in July, 1423.

[138] The Praguerie (so called in allusion to the Hussite wars in Bohemia) was a rebellion of the nobles against Charles VII., in consequence of his having established a regular army, in order to drive the marauding free-companies out of the kingdom. The vigorous measures taken by Charles to suppress this insurrection put an end to the war in less than six months.

[139] See Book I. Chaps. 2-14. of these Memoirs.

[140] The marriage of the Dauphin to the Princess Margaret of Flanders.

[141] Monday, the 25th of August, 1483. The King died on Saturday, the 30th of August.

[142] William, Lord of Rochefort. See Vol. I. p. 16.

[143] Stephen de Vesc, knight, belonged to a noble family of Lower Dauphiny. He was one of the chamberlains of Charles VII., who appointed him Seneschal of Beaucaire and Nismes, on the 3rd of March, 1490. He afterwards became President of the Chamber of Accounts; and was dignified with the baton of Constable of France on the King’s entrance into Naples. He died on the 6th of October, 1501.

[144] M. de Barante (x. 82.) says this divine was Jean de Rely, doctor in theology, and canon of Paris. Gabriel Naudé asserts, on the contrary, that his name was Philippe, and that he was a monk of the Abbey of St. Martin.

[145] See note, Vol. I. p. 16.

[146] See Book IV. Chap. 12. The constable’s trial lasted from the 27th of November, 1475, to the 19th of December following. His sentence was read to him in these terms:—“You have been long in the custody of the King, and you have been diligently interrogated with regard to the extreme offences you have committed. The sentence of the Court of Parliament against you is, that you be publicly beheaded and put to death to-day on the Grève, opposite the Hotel de Ville.” At these words the constable cried aloud and said: “My God! what news! this is a hard sentence!”—MOLINET, i. 183.

[147] Francis of Orleans, Count of Longueville and Dunois, was born in 1447; married Agnes of Savoy; was appointed Governor of Dauphiny by Charles VIII. in 1483, and Grand Chamberlain of France in 1485; and died on the 25th of November 1491. He was a son of the celebrated Bastard of Orleans, so distinguished in the wars against the English in the time of Joan of Arc.

[148] Pierre Versé, appointed to the bishopric of Amiens, on the 16th of August, 1482.

[149] The same, or nearly the same story is told of Tiberius, who demanded of a soothsayer, Thrasullus, if he knew the day of his own death, and received for answer, it would take place just three days before that of the emperor. On this reply, instead of being thrown over the rocks into the sea, as had been the tyrant’s first intention, he was taken great care of for the rest of his life.—TACITI _Annales_, vi. 21.

[150] Guillaume de Haraucourt. See Vol. I. p. 165.

[151] Jean de Bruges, Lord of Avelghem and Espières, and afterwards Lord of La Gruthuse, and Prince of Steenhuys, in Flanders. He was knighted by Duke Maximilian of Austria, on the 7th of August, 1479, just before the battle of Guinegatte, in which he was taken prisoner. Louis XI. afterwards appointed him one of his chamberlains, and married him to Renée de Bueil, daughter of the Count of Sancerre. In 1484, Charles VIII. appointed him Seneschal of Anjou; in 1498 he was made Grand Master of the crossbow-men of France; and in 1491 he was raised to the office of Captain of the Louvre. He died on the 8th of August, 1512. In regard to his father, see note, Vol. I. p. 193.

[152] Louis de Halewin, Lord of Piennes, having been made prisoner by the French, some time after the siege of Neuss, entered the service of Louis XI., who appointed him Captain of Montlhery in 1480. In 1486 Charles VIII. gave him the government of Bethune; and in 1512 Louis XII. appointed him Governor and Lieutenant-General of Picardy. He died in 1518.

[153] The Lord of Vergy was made prisoner in 1477. See note, Vol. I. p. 362.

[154] The Lord of Richebourg, brother of the Constable of St. Paul, was made prisoner in 1475. See Vol. I. pp. 245-249.

[155] Pierre de Roquebertin, Knight, Councillor and Chamberlain of Louis XI., Governor of Roussillon and Cerdagne, and Lord of Sommières.

[156] Sir Walter Scott’s description of the Royal Castle of Plessis is sufficiently accurate to deserve insertion. “There were three external walls, battlemented and turreted from space to space, and at each angle; the second enclosure rising higher than the first, and being built so as to command the exterior defence, in case it was won by the enemy; and being again, in the same manner, itself commanded by the third and innermost barrier. Around the external wall was sunk a ditch of about twenty feet in depth, supplied with water by a dam-head on the River Cher, or rather on one of its tributary branches. In front of the second enclosure there ran another fosse, and a third of the same unusual dimensions was led between the second and the innermost enclosure. The verge, both of the outer and inner circuit of this triple moat, was strongly fenced with palisades of iron, serving the purpose of what are called _chevaux-de-frise_ in modern fortification; the top of each pale being divided into a cluster of sharp spikes, which seemed to render any attempt to climb over an act of self-destruction.

“From within the innermost enclosure arose the castle itself, containing buildings of different periods, crowded around, and united with the ancient and grim-looking donjon-keep, which was older than any of them, and which rose like a black Ethiopian giant, high into the air, while the absence of any windows larger than shot-holes, irregularly disposed for defence, gave the spectator the same unpleasant feeling which we experience on looking at a blind man. The other buildings seemed scarcely better adapted for the purposes of comfort, for the windows opened to an inner and enclosed courtyard; so that the whole external front looked much more like that of a prison than a palace.

“This formidable place had but one entrance; at least none could be seen along the spacious front, except where in the centre of the first and outward boundary arose two strong towers, the usual defences of a gateway, with their ordinary accompaniments, portcullis and drawbridge. Similar entrance towers were visible on the second and third bounding wall; but not on the same line with those on the outward circuit, because the passage did not cut right through the whole three enclosures at the same point, but, on the contrary, those who entered had to proceed nearly thirty yards betwixt the first and second wall, exposed, if their purpose were hostile, to missiles from both; and again, when the second boundary was passed, they must make a similar digression from the straight line, in order to attain the portal of the third and innermost enclosure; so that, before gaining the outer court, which ran along the front of the building, two narrow and dangerous defiles were to be traversed under a flanking fire of artillery, and three gates, defended in the strongest manner known to the age, were to be successively forced.

“The environs of the castle, except the single winding path by which the portal might be safely approached, were surrounded with every species of hidden pitfall, snare, and gin, to entrap the wretch who should venture thither without a guide; and upon the walls were constructed certain cradles of iron, called _sparrow-nests_, from which the sentinels, who were regularly posted there, could, without being exposed to any risk, take deliberate aim at any who should attempt to enter without the proper signal or pass-word of the day.”

[157] These directions will be found in Dupont, iii. 339-344. Master Colin of Amiens is therein directed to represent the king “on his knees on a cushion, with his dog beside him, his hat in his clasped hands, his sword by his side, and his horn hanging behind his shoulders. Let him be dressed in a hunting suit, with boots on his feet; and withal the handsomest countenance you can make him, young and smooth; with his nose rather long and turned-up a little, as you know; and do not make him bald.” This effigy was to be made of molten copper, and gilt with ducat gold; and the sum to be paid for it was a thousand gold crowns.

[158] This son’s name was Joachim. He was born on Tuesday, the 17th of July, 1459, at the Castle of Genappes; and he died on the 29th of November in the same year.

[159] Margaret, daughter of James I., King of Scotland. She was married to the Dauphin on the 24th of June, 1436; and died on the 16th of August, 1444. Her lot in France was singularly wretched, as she was treated by her husband with marked contempt and dislike. The story of her adventure with Alain Chartier is well known. Finding the famous poet asleep in a saloon of the palace, she stooped down and kissed him, observing to her ladies, who were somewhat astonished at her proceeding, that she did not kiss the man, but the mouth which had uttered so many fine things.

[160] In the year 1446. See Vol. I. p. 60.

[161] Charlotte, daughter of Louis, Duke of Savoy, was married to the Dauphin in March, 1451; and died on the 1st of December, 1483.

[162] The Duke of Burgundy granted the Dauphin a monthly pension of 2000 francs; to the Dauphiness he allowed 1000 gold crowns per month; to the Lord of Montauban, 500 crowns; to the Marshal of Dauphiny, a similar sum; and to others according to their degree.

[163] John, Bastard of Armagnac, was created Count of Comminges and Marshal of France in 1461, and died in 1473.

[164] See Vol. I. p. 19.

[165] He once borrowed thirty crowns from the Lord de Sassenage, to whom he gave the following receipt: “We, Louis, eldest son of the King of France, Dauphin of Viennois, confess that we owe to James, Lord of Sassenage, the sum of thirty crowns for a black horse, which he has handed over and delivered, by our order, to Henry Guerin, to whom we have given it: which sum of thirty crowns we promise to pay him before Christmas next. In witness whereof we have signed these presents.” The Dauphiness, on her accession to the throne of France, was obliged to borrow the palfreys of the Countess of Charolais for her journey.—DUPONT, ii. 275.

[166] He remained there only five years.

[167] On learning the reception given to Louis by the Duke of Burgundy, Charles VII. said: “Our brother Philip has taken home a fox who will eat his chickens.”

[168] Chastellain (129.) reports this speech of Louis XI. on his accession to the crown: “Only yesterday I held myself to be the poorest son of a king that ever was, and one who, from my infancy to the present day, have had nought but suffering and tribulation, poverty, anguish, and want; and, what is more, expulsion from my inheritance, and loss of my father’s love, so as to be obliged, my wife and myself, to live by borrowing and begging, without a foot of land, a house to cover us, or a penny in our pockets, except by the goodness and charity of my good uncle, who has maintained me thus for the space of five years.”

[169] The exact age of Louis XI. at the time of his death was sixty years, one month, and twenty-seven days.

[170] In the year 1462.

[171] See Vol. I. p. 48.

[172] Richard Neville, Earl of Westmoreland and Salisbury.

[173] Margaret of Anjou, daughter of René, King of Naples and Sicily. She was born on the 23rd of March, 1429; married to King Henry VI. in 1444; and died on the 25th of August, 1482.

[174] The first battle was fought in 1455, and the last in 1471. See Vol. I. p. 181.

[175] See Vol. I. p. 273.

[176] This is the third explanation given by Commines of the cause of Edward’s death. At Vol. I. p. 394, he says he died of _melancholy_, and at p. 62. of this volume he ascribes his decease to a _catarrh_. Apoplexy is the most probable explanation of the event.

[177] Matthias I., surnamed Corvinus, was the son of John Hunniades, and was proclaimed King of Hungary in 1458, at the age of sixteen years. He reigned for thirty-two years with considerable reputation, to which his patronage of learned men, who repaid his munificence with very profuse eulogies, did not a little contribute. He died in 1490.

[178] Mahomet II., son of Amurath II., was proclaimed Sultan in 1451, and died in 1481. He is usually distinguished by European historians by the title of Mahomet the Great, first Emperor of the Turks. His reign was signalised by the capture of Constantinople, and the fall of the Byzantine empire.

[179] John Hunniades, Voyvode of Transylvania, was Regent of Hungary during the minority of King Ladislaus. This hero stood in the breach for twelve years against the Turkish power, frequently defeated, but unconquered in defeat. “If the renown of Hunniades,” says Mr. Hallam, “may seem exaggerated by the partiality of writers who lived under the reign of his son, it is confirmed by more unequivocal evidence, by the dread and hatred of the Turks, whose children were taught obedience by threatening them with his name, and by the deference of a jealous aristocracy to a man of no distinguished birth.” Hunniades was a Wallachian, of a small family. His last and most splendid service was the relief of Belgrade. That strong city was besieged by Mahomet II., three years after the fall of Constantinople; its capture would have laid open all Hungary. A tumultuary army, chiefly collected by the preaching of a friar, was entrusted to Hunniades. He penetrated into the city, and having repulsed the Turks in a fortunate sally, wherein Mahomet was wounded, had the honour of compelling him to raise the siege in confusion. The relief of Belgrade was more important in its effects than in its immediate circumstances: it revived the spirits of Europe, which had been appalled by the unceasing victories of the infidels. Mahomet himself seemed to acknowledge the importance of the blow, and seldom afterwards attacked the Hungarians. Hunniades died in 1456, soon after this achievement.

[180] Ladislaus V., King of Hungary, was the posthumous son of Albert, Duke of Austria, who acquired the crown of Hungary for his progeny by marrying Elizabeth, daughter of the Emperor Sigismund. Ladislaus was born on the 22nd of February, 1440; became king on the 13th of February, 1453; and died on the 23rd of November, 1457.

[181] Ladislaus, the eldest son of John Hunniades, was beheaded on the 8th of March, 1456, for having assassinated the Count of Cillei during the preceding year.

[182] Madelaine of France, daughter of King Charles VII., was born on the 1st of December, 1443, and betrothed to the King of Hungary in 1457. In 1461 she married Gaston de Foix, Prince of Viane; and she died in 1486.

[183] As might have been expected, from his having no personal knowledge of Hungarian affairs, Commines falls into many inaccuracies about Matthias Corvinus, who was forty-eight years old when he died, in the year 1490. His election to the kingdom is to be ascribed far less to any intrigues of his mother than to the aversion felt by the Hungarian nobles to the character and Austrian connections of the Emperor Frederic II., the other candidate for the crown.

[184] Amurath II. succeeded his father Mahomet I. in 1421, and died in 1451.

[185] The siege of Constantinople began on the 6th of April, 1453, and the city was taken on the 29th of May following.—See GIBBON’S _Roman Empire_, chap. 68.

[186] Constantine Palæologus XIV., surnamed Dragases, was born in February, 1403, and succeeded to his father’s throne in November, 1448. He fought bravely in defence of his capital, and when he found resistance unavailing, “he folded around him the imperial mantle, and remembered the name which he represented in the dignity of heroic death.”

[187] The empire of Trebizond was overthrown by Mahomet in 1461.

[188] The Venetian settlements of Modon and Coron in the Morea were surrendered to the Turks in the year 1500.

[189] Caramania, a province of Asiatic Turkey, on the south of Anatolia. Its emirs were formerly powerful princes; but Mahomet II. greatly weakened them in 1440, and his son Bajazet incorporated their dominions with the Turkish empire in 1488.

[190] Charles VIII. set out from Grenoble, on his journey into Italy, on the 29th of August, 1494. He had previously resided for four months at Vienne, and left that city for Grenoble on the 23rd of August, as is stated in the text.

[191] Guillaume Briçonnet was the son of Jean Briçonnet, Lord of Varennes, Secretary to the King, and Receiver-General of the Finances. He at first embraced his father’s profession, and was appointed General of the Finances in Languedoc by Louis XI. In 1490 he was installed in the bishopric of St. Malo, and created Chief Superintendent of the Finances. In 1495 he received a cardinal’s hat; in 1497 he was translated to the archbishopric of Rheims, and performed the ceremony of consecrating Louis XII.; and he died at Narbonne, of which he was archbishop, in 1514.

[192] By letters patent, issued at Lyons on the 30th of April, 1494, Charles VIII. authorises Master Pierre de Lignac to receive and distribute at Milan a sum of 20,000 ducats “for the payment of the troops we are raising in that neighbourhood to serve in our army for the conquest of our kingdom of Naples.” This money was borrowed from the bank of Paul Sauli at Genoa, as is proved by a receipt in the writing of Pierre de Lignac, which still exists, and is printed in DUPONT, ii. 292.

[193] Charles VIII. was born on the 30th of June, 1470, and consecrated at Rheims on the 30th of May, 1484.

[194] René II. See note, Vol. I. p. 242.

[195] Dated December 10, 1481. See LENGLET, iii. 334.

[196] Of the three sisters of the Duke of Lorraine, two only were living in 1484; namely, Yolande, who married the Landgrave of Hesse in 1496; and Margaret, who married René, Duke of Alençon, in 1488. As the Duke of Bourbon did not lose his second wife, Catherine of Armagnac, until March, 1487, he must, if Commines be right, have formed the project of a matrimonial alliance with the Duke of Lorraine during her lifetime.

[197] By letters patent, dated on the 7th of August, 1486. King Charles VIII. appointed the Duke of Lorraine his Grand Chamberlain, “with all the perquisites and pre-eminence attaching to the office.”

[198] This pension was to become due on and after the 1st of October, 1483.

[199] The Lord of Argenton was included in the List of Councillors of the King, drawn up immediately after the death of Louis XI. He was also one of the fifteen persons suggested to the States-General as most worthy to constitute the council of the young King.—MASSELIN, 123.

[200] She did not obtain the title of Duchess of Bourbon until after the death of her brother-in-law, John II., which occurred on the 1st of April, 1488.

[201] Charles I., King of Naples, was the son of Louis VIII. of France. He married Beatrice, Countess of Provence and Forcalquier, and died on the 7th of January, 1295. He was invested with the kingdom of Sicily by Pope Clement IV., who charged him to conquer it, which he did, after a severe struggle with Manfred and Conradin, the legitimate possessors of the crown. But his reign was of short duration: the Sicilian Vespers overthrew his tyranny in 1282, and separated the kingdom of Sicily from that of Naples.

[202] Charles II., son of Charles I., King of Sicily, was a prisoner in the hands of the Sicilians at the period of his father’s death in 1285. He was set at liberty in 1288, in pursuance of a treaty by which he acknowledged the separation and independence of the two crowns of Naples and Sicily; but Pope Nicholas IV., by whose influence the treaty was made, broke it, released Charles from his oath, and authorised him to begin the war anew. This war, which lasted twenty-four years, occupied without lustre the whole reign of Charles II. He died on the 5th of May, 1309.

[203] Louis Malet, Lord of Graville, and one of the king’s chamberlains, was appointed Admiral of France in 1486, and resigned that post in favour of his son-in-law, Charles d’Amboise, Lord of Chaumont, in 1508. He died on the 30th of October, 1516, aged seventy-eight years.

[204] The Duke of Lorraine made a written promise to the Duke and Duchess of Bourbon, dated at Bar, on the 29th of September, 1484, that he would support the young king.

[205] Louis d’Orleans, son of Charles, Duke of Orleans, and Mary of Cleves, succeeded to the throne of France in 1498, under the title of Louis XII. He was born on the 27th of June, 1462; crowned on the 27th of May, 1498; and died on the 1st of January, 1514. He was the chief opponent to the Duchess of Bourbon’s claim to the Regency, during the minority of Charles VIII.

[206] This revolt broke out on the 25th of October, 1485.—SISMONDI, xi. 265.

[207] See note, Vol. I. p. 313.

[208] Gian Battista Cibo, Cardinal of Melfi, was elected Pope on the 29th of August, 1484, and assumed the title of Innocent VIII. At the time of his elevation to the supremacy he was about fifty-five years of age, and had several natural children. He was quite as corrupt as his predecessor, Sixtus IV., but endued with far less talent and energy. He married his son, Franceschetto Cibo, to a daughter of Lorenzo de’ Medici; and this alliance afterwards procured to his posterity the duchy of Massa-Carrara. In 1489 he gave a cardinal’s hat to Giovanni de’ Medici, afterwards Leo X. By venality in the distribution of justice, by monopoly, and by the ignorance and carelessness of his administration, he brought Rome into a state of poverty and humiliation previously unexampled. He died on the 25th of July, 1492, the most despised, but not the most detested, of the Popes who had yet filled the chair of St. Peter.

[209] Giuliano della Rovere, Cardinal of St. Peter ad Vincula, and Bishop of Avignon, was elected Pope on the 1st of November, 1503, under the title of Julius II. Although violent and irascible, he had a strong sense of his duty as a pontiff and as an Italian. He was determined on preserving the States of the Church intact for his successors. He rejected all nepotism, all aggrandisement of his family; and would have accused himself of unpardonable weakness if he had suffered others to usurp what he refused to give his family. With these motives, he made his tiara a helmet and his crosier a sword. After having driven the French out of Italy, and restored the Medici at Florence, he died of an inflammatory disease on the 21st of February, 1513. See his life in RANKE’S _History of the Popes_, in BOHN’S _Standard Library_.

[210] Peace was concluded on the 11th of August, 1486.

[211] In contempt of his plighted word, Ferdinand ordered the arrest of the Princes of Altamura and Bisignano, and of several other gentlemen, who were immediately put to death, and their bodies sewn up in sacks, and thrown into the sea.—SISMONDI, xi. 278.

[212] Antonio de Sanseverino, Count of Marsico and Prince of Salerno, was Grand Admiral of Naples in 1477, and died in 1497.

[213] Girolamo de Sanseverino, Count of Tricario and Prince of Bisignano, was Grand Chamberlain to Ferdinand I. King of Naples. He was treacherously murdered by order of his sovereign in 1487.

[214] Gian Galeazzo Sforza succeeded to the dukedom of Milan on the assassination of his father, and died in 1494, at the age of twenty-five. He was succeeded by his uncle Ludovic the Moor, who was probably the cause of his death.

[215] Gian Galeazzo Visconti became Lord of Milan in 1378, on the death of his father Galeazzo. In 1395 he obtained from the Emperor Wenceslaus a diploma creating him Duke of Milan; and by a subsequent imperial diploma the boundaries of his duchy were defined, and made to include twenty-five towns, from Verona and Vicenza on the east to Alessandria and Tortona on the west. In 1402 he was only waiting for the surrender of Florence to declare himself King of Italy, when he died suddenly of the plague.

[216] Galeazzo Maria Sforza, son of the eminent Francesco Sforza, succeeded his father as Duke of Milan in 1466. Ten years afterwards, on the 26th December, 1476, he was assassinated in a solemn procession, and in his ducal robes, as he was entering the Church of St. Stefano.

[217] Bona of Savoy assumed the regency of the dukedom on the death of her husband.

[218] Cecco or Francesco Simoneta was a native of Calabria, whose integrity and activity had recommended him to the patronage of Duke Francesco Sforza. He afterwards became prime minister of Duke Galeazzo Maria. On the 11th of September, 1479, he was arrested and conveyed to the Castle of Pavia, where he was beheaded on the 30th of October, 1480. He was brother to Giovanni Simoneta, whose elegant Latin history of the life of Francesco Sforza is one of the best records of the transactions of that period.

[219] These were Sforza, Duke of Bari, Ludovic the Moor, Ottaviano, and Ascanio. Ottaviano soon after perished in attempting to cross the river Adde.

[220] Ludovico Maria Sforza, surnamed the Moor, was the second son of Francesco Sforza. He became Duke of Milan on the death of his nephew Gian Galeazzo Sforza, in 1494; and he died on the 16th of June, 1508.

[221] Roberto di Sanseverino, Count of Cajazzo, and Lieutenant-general of the armies of Italy.

[222] Antonio Tassini, a Ferrarese, Chamberlain to Galeazzo Maria, Duke of Milan.

[223] Gian Galeazzo, mentioned in a previous note; and Hermes, who, after his brother’s death, went to reside in Germany.

[224] They were conveyed to this castle in November, 1480, after the banishment of Antonio Tassini.

[225] Gian Francesco Pallavicini, one of the young duke’s lieutenants.

[226] Filippo Eustachio of Pavia, who was created a knight by the young Duke of Milan on Christmas-day in the year 1480.

[227] The young duke was declared of full age on the 7th of October, 1480; and the duchess left Milan on the 2nd of November following.—SISMONDI, xi. 174.

[228] He was declared a rebel on the 27th of January, 1482; and in the month of March following, the Venetians appointed him their Lieutenant-general.

[229] Galeazzo di Sanseverino married Bianca, a natural daughter of Ludovico Sforza. He was killed in the battle of Pavia, in February, 1524.

[230] Gian Francesco di Sanseverino, Count of Cajazzo, died on the 7th of September, 1502. He and his brother entered the service of the Duke of Milan in 1483.

[231] This was probably written in 1497.

[232] Instead of Sanseverino we should here read Sforza; for Roberto di Sanseverino’s mother was Lisa Attendolo, a natural daughter of Muzio Attendolo, the father of Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan. See note, Vol. I. p. 52.

[233] Isabella, daughter of Alphonso II., King of Naples. She died in 1524.

[234] Ludovico Terzago, a secretary and relative of Ludovico Sforza, was sent by him to Pavia, where he was long kept a prisoner, and eventually starved to death, according to popular rumour.—CORIO p. 880.

[235] A plot against Ludovic was to have broken out on the 7th of December, 1485; among the conspirators were two brothers of Captain Eustachio.—CORIO p. 866.

[236] The duchy of Milan was then a fief of the empire.

[237] Beatrice d’Este was married to Ludovico Sforza on the 18th of January, 1491; and died on the 2nd of January, 1497. She was the daughter of Hercules d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, who succeeded his brother Borso in 1471.

[238] By a treaty dated on the 7th of August, 1484.—SISMONDI, xi. 243.

[239] Rovigo, the chief town of the Polesina, surrendered to the Venetians on the 17th of August, 1482.

[240] Badia, a small town to the west of Rovigo, and near the right bank of the Adige.

[241] Pope Sixtus IV.

[242] The arrival of Charles VIII. in Italy, and his early successes, so terrified Alphonso, that he abdicated the crown in favour of his son.

[243] Carlo Balbiano, Count of Belgioioso.

[244] Galeazzo Visconti was one of those Milanese nobles who nominated Ludovic the Moor, Duke of Milan, in 1494, to the prejudice of Francesco Sforza.

[245] In 1478 the Genoese revolted from Milan, proclaimed their independence, and elected Baptista Fregosi as their doge; but in 1487 they were again reduced to subjection to the dukes of Milan.

[246] Perron de Bachi, son of Berthol de Bachi, one of the equerries of Louis, King of Naples.

[247] This treaty was dated at Senlis, on the 23rd of May, 1493. It is printed at the end of this chapter.

[248] At Frankfort, on the 22nd of July, 1489.

[249] Margaret was then thirteen years old.

[250] Anne, Duchess of Bretagne, was born on the 26th of January, 1476; in 1490 she was married by proxy to the Archduke Maximilian; but, preferring Charles VIII., she was married to him on the 6th of December, 1491; she became a widow in April, 1497, and on the 8th of January following she married Louis XII., her deceased husband’s successor on the throne of France. She died on the 9th of January, 1574.

[251] It is evident, from contemporary documents, that the emperor was really making preparations for war with the King of France on account of this twofold insult to his family.—See DUPONT, iii. 360.

[252] Arras was taken by the Burgundians on the 5th of November, 1492. They had recovered St. Omer on the 11th of February, 1488.—MOLINET, iii. 447.

[253] These sons were Charles Orlando, born on the 10th of October, 1492, and died on the 6th of December, 1495; Charles, born on the 8th of September, 1496, and died on the 2nd of October following; and Francis, who lived only a few days.—ANSELME, i. 125.

[254] John, Infante of Castille, died on the 4th of October, 1497. See note, Vol. I. p. 394.

[255] Bianca Maria, widow of Philibert I., Duke of Savoy, after twelve years’ widowhood, married the King of the Romans on the 16th of March, 1494, and died on the 31st of December, 1510.

[256] Muzio Attendolo, surnamed Sforza, was born at Cotignola, in Romagna, on the 28th of May, 1369. At first distinguished for prodigious strength of body and undaunted bravery, he soon became equally distinguished in military tactics, and was one of the greatest condottieri of the fourteenth century. He died on the 4th of January, 1424.

[257] Bianca Maria Visconti married Francesco Sforza on the 28th of October, 1441, and died on the 23rd of October, 1469, it is believed of poison.

[258] Stephen de Vesc and Briçonnet.

[259] The Emperor Bajazet II.

[260] The treaty of peace concluded in 1478 between the Sublime Porte, Ferdinand of Arragon, and the King of Hungary, enabled Mahomet II. to concentrate all his forces against the Venetians. The republic in vain attempted to enter into negociations. Mahomet, certain of the success of his arms, refused to treat unless Scutari were surrendered to him, and, without waiting for any answer to this proposition, marched into Albania. On the 8th of June, 1478, he laid siege to Scutari; and on the 26th of January, 1479, the town and its territory were ceded to him by the Venetians. This Scutari must not be confounded with the suburb of Constantinople, which bears the same name: it is a large town, the capital of a pashalic in Northern Albania.

[261] The title of the Venetians to the kingdom of Cyprus rested on the following grounds. Catharine Cornaro, the sister of Marco Cornaro, a Venetian gentleman, had married Jacopo de Lusignan, King of Cyprus, on condition that the republic of Venice should adopt her as a daughter. Two years after his marriage, on the 6th of June, 1473, the King of Cyprus died, leaving his widow pregnant of a son, who died in infancy. The Venetians thus became guardians of the kingdom, and soon rendered themselves odious to the Cypriotes, who made several attempts to shake off their yoke, but in vain. In consequence of these revolts and of a report that the queen was about to contract a new marriage, the Venetians resolved to take full possession of Cyprus: they accordingly declared that, by the decease of the heir to the crown, the queen had inherited the rights of her son, and that the republic in its turn would succeed to the rights of the queen, as she was a daughter of St. Mark. This decision was conveyed to Catherine, with orders that she should come at once to Venice, and deliver up the reins of government into the hands of the Venetians. She obeyed; and on the 26th of February, 1489, the standard of St. Mark floated over the palace of Famagosta and all the fortresses of the island.—SISMONDI, x. 398.

[262] In return for certain assistance which they promised him, Ferdinand II. made over the towns of Otranto, Brindisi, Trani, Monopoli, and Puglinano to the Venetians.—SISMONDI, xii. 386.

[263] He was twenty-four years old at this time.—See note, p. 94.

[264] Roderic Borgia, a native of Valencia in Spain, was elected Pope under the title of Alexander VI., on the 11th of August, 1492, and died on the 18th of August, 1502. He was a monster of profligacy and wickedness, and has been well called by Roscoe “the scourge of Christendom, and the opprobrium of the human race.”

[265] Asti, a city of Piedmont, about twenty-six miles east of Turin. Charles VIII. arrived there on Tuesday, the 9th of September, 1494. Suza is also a Piedmontese town, at the junction of the two routes across the Alps by Mont Cenis and Geneva.

[266] The king reached Turin on the 5th of September.

[267] Bianca de Montferrat married Charles I. Duke of Savoy, in 1485; became a widow on the 13th of March, 1489; and died on the 31st of March, 1509.

[268] William VI., Marquis of Montferrat, succeeded his brother, John IV., in 1464, and died on the 28th of February, 1483.

[269] Casale, a city of Piedmont, on the right bank of the Po, thirty-eight miles east of Turin.

[270] Mary, daughter of Stephen, despot of Servia, married Boniface IV., Marquis of Montferrat, on the 17th of October, 1485; became a widow in 1493; and died in 1495.—See _infrà_, Book VIII. Chap. xvi.

[271] Virgilio Orsini, Count of Tagliacozzo, Lord of Bracciano, and constable of the kingdom of Naples.

[272] Niccolo Orsini, Count of Nola and Pitigliano.

[273] Gian Giacopo Trivulzio, surnamed the Great, Marquis of Vigevano and Duke of Musocci. He was afterwards created a marshal of France.

[274] Beraut Stuart, Lord of Aubigny, and a Knight of the Order of St. Michael, was one of the numerous gentlemen of Scottish descent then in the service of the King of France. Charles VIII. subsequently created him Count of Arci, Marquis of Squilazzo, and constable of the kingdom of Naples. He died in 1504.

[275] Obietto de Fieschi, who died at Verceil on the 25th of August, 1497.—FEDERICI, 78.

[276] La Spezzia, a maritime town in the Sardinian dominions, at the head of the Bay of Spezzia, in the Gulf of Genoa. Rapalo, another Sardinian seaport, fifteen miles east of Genoa.

[277] Antoine de Bessey, Baron of Trichastel, and Bailiff of Dijon.

[278] Giovanni Ludovico de Fieschi, brother of Obietto.

[279] Giovanni Adorni, brother of Agostino, at that time Governor of Genoa.—GUICCIARDINI, i. 164.

[280] Giovanni Fregosi, natural son of Cardinal Paolo Fregosi.

[281] Paolo Fregosi, Archbishop of Genoa, filled the office of doge of that city several times between the years 1462 and 1488; he was created a cardinal by Pope Sixtus IV. in 1480, and died on the 2nd of March, 1498.

[282] Gentile Becchi, the tutor of the sons of Cosmo de Medici, was appointed Bishop of Arezzo on the 21st of October, 1473, and died in 1497.

[283] Piero Soderini was appointed Gonfalonier of Florence in 1502, and died on the 13th of June, 1522.

[284] Thomas Portinari was agent to Lorenzo de Medici at Bruges, where he kept a bank.—SISMONDI, xi. 80. He is often mentioned in Rymer as having money transactions with Edward IV.

[285] See Book VI. Chap. iv. The allusion here is manifestly to the conspiracy of the Pazzi.

[286] Pietro de Gino Capponi, created Gonfalonier of Florence in 1493.—GAMURRINI, ii. 471.

[287] The treaty was made in March, 1480.—SISMONDI, xi. 185.

[288] The Emperor Bajazet.

[289] As the descendant of Louis, Duke of Orleans, who had married Valentina, daughter of Gian Galeazzo, Duke of Milan, during the reign of Charles VI.

[290] Charles VIII. entered Pavia on the 14th of October, 1494.

[291] The king arrived in Piacenza on the 18th of October.

[292] The Duke of Milan died on the 22nd of October.

[293] Forli, the chief town of the Legazione di Forli, a province of the Papal States.

[294] Catherine Sforza, equally celebrated for her courage and her beauty. See Notes, Book VI. Chap. iv.

[295] Mordano, in the county of Imola, all the inhabitants of which were put to the sword.—SISMONDI, xii. 163.

[296] Cesena, a pretty town in the province of Forli, near the foot of the Apennines.

[297] The Guelphs and the Ghibellines were two factions that began in Italy in the reign of the Emperor Frederic II. The former espoused the pope’s interest, and the latter that of the emperor.

[298] On the 9th of November, 1494.

[299] In 1399.

[300] The Florentines became masters of Pisa on the 9th of October, 1406.

[301] The Venetians conquered Padua on the 17th of November, 1405.

[302] Jean Rabot, knight, Lord of Uppi, and a man of great influence with Charles VIII.

[303] In 1496.

[304] The king remained six days in Pisa, and entered Florence on the 17th of November, 1494.

[305] Giacopo de Nerli, gonfalonier of one of the city companies.—SISMONDI, xii. 147.

[306] Paolo Orsini, Marquis of Tripalda, and Lord of Lomentana; he was strangled, by order of Cæsar Borgia, on the 18th of January, 1503. His sister, Clarissa Orsini, was the mother of Pietro de’ Medici.

[307] Paolo Antonio Soderini, born in 1448, was appointed one of the Council of Ten in 1494, and Gonfalonier of Justice in 1497. He was afterwards sent as ambassador to Venice, with Giambattista Ridolfi as his colleague.

[308] Cosmo de Medici had greatly encouraged and assisted his friend Francesco Sforza in subjugating Milan and its territory, saying “it was far better to have a powerful friend for one’s neighbour than a formidable foe.”—See MACHIAVELLI’S _History of Florence_, p. 284.

[309] The unicorn’s horn was highly valued in the middle ages, because it was believed to possess the power of detecting poison in meat and drink. Cuvier is of opinion that the animal whose horn was supposed to be endowed with this precious quality was the _Oryx_, or Egyptian antelope, which is remarkable for its long, straight, and tapering horns.

[310] This treaty was published in the Cathedral of Florence during the celebration of mass on the 26th of November, 1494. It was at one time very near being broken off; for Charles at first insisted on conditions disgraceful to the Florentines, which his secretary read as his ultimatum. But the gonfalonier Pietro Capponi suddenly snatched the paper from the secretary’s hand, and, tearing it up, exclaimed, “Well, if it be thus, sound your trumpets, and we will ring our bells!” This energetic movement daunted the French king, who at once abated his pretensions, and peace was concluded.—SISMONDI, xii. 168.

[311] Charles VIII. entered Siena on the 2nd of December, and reached Viterbo on the 10th of the same month.

[312] Charles, Count of Auguillara, a natural son of Virgilio Orsini.

[313] Cardinal Julian della Rovere surrendered Ostia to the Papal troops on the 23rd of April, 1494, and fled into France.—SISMONDI, xii. 116.

[314] Ascanio Sforza, born on the 3rd of March, 1445, was appointed Bishop of Pavia in 1479, and elected cardinal on the 6th of March, 1484. Having taken an active part in the election of Alexander VI. to the Popedom, he was appointed vice-chancellor by that pontiff; and he died at Rome on the 28th of March, 1505.

[315] The families of Luz and Grammont were celebrated in Navarre for their long-continued rivalry. The Houcs and Caballans were two factions which arose in the Netherlands about the middle of the fourteenth century.

[316] The Colonne became enemies to the French in 1495.

[317] Louis de Villeneuve, Lord of Serenon, and Marquis of Trans, in Provence.

[318] Louis de Luxembourg, Prince of Altramura, Duke of Andria and Venusia, Count of Ligny, and Governor of Picardy; afterwards Lord High Chamberlain to Louis XII.

[319] Yves, Baron of Alegre, and captain of the hundred gentlemen of the king’s household.

[320] Prospero Colonna, Duke of Traetta, and Count of Fondi; Fabrizio Colonna, Duke of Pagliano and Tagliacozzo, Constable of Naples, and cousin-german to Prospero; Giovanni Colonna, brother of Prospero, created a cardinal on the 15th of May, 1480.—IMHOFF, 218, 219, 222.

[321] Genzano, a town in the Papal States.—SISMONDI, xii. 182.

[322] Louis II., Lord of La Tremouille, Viscount of Thouars, and Prince of Talmont, surnamed the _Chevalier sans reproche_; created Governor of Burgundy and Admiral of Guienne in 1502; and killed in the battle of Pavia, on the 24th of February, 1524. The estates of this nobleman had been conferred on Commines by Louis XI., and a full account of the law-suits which arose from this gift will be found in the “Life of Commines,” prefixed to the first volume of this edition of his Memoirs.

[323] Jean de Ganay, Lord of Persan, appointed Fourth President of the Parliament of Paris in 1490, First President in 1505, and Chancellor of France in 1507. He died at Blois in 1512.—ANSELME, vi. 442.

[324] Denis Bidault, notary and secretary of the king, was appointed Receiver-General of the Finances in 1481, and President-Clerk of the Chamber of Accounts in Paris in 1495. He died on the 18th of June, 1506.

[325] Rodolph, son of Ludovic III., Duke of Mantua; born in 1451, and killed in the battle of Fornovo, on the 6th of July, 1495.

[326] Galeotto Pic de la Mirandola, brother-in-law of Rodolph of Mantua.

[327] Gasparo, surnamed Fracasso de Sanseverino, son of Robert Count of Cajazzo.

[328] Nepi, or Nepete, a small town about twenty-six miles from Rome.

[329] Charles VIII entered Rome on the 31st of December, 1494.

[330] Marino de Marzano, Prince of Rossano, and Duke of Sessa, who had married Eleanor, a natural daughter of Alphonso I, King of Naples, sided with John, Duke of Anjou, in 1459, against his brother-in-law, Ferdinand I, whom the Duke of Anjou was striving to deprive of the crown of Naples. He was declared a rebel in 1460, but made his peace in 1462, on condition that his son should marry Ferdinand’s daughter. Regardless of his oath, however, Ferdinand imprisoned Marino in the castle of Naples in 1464; and after twenty-two years’ captivity he was put to a violent death in 1486.

[331] Giambattista de Marzano, son of the preceding, was born in 1459, and betrothed to Beatrice, the daughter of Ferdinand I., in 1462; but Ferdinand broke off the match, and married his daughter to Matthias, King of Hungary. In 1464 Marzano was sent to join his father in prison, and remained a captive until the arrival of Charles VIII. at Naples in 1495, when he was liberated by Ferdinand II.

[332] Pietro Giovanni Paolo Cantelini, Duke of Sora, and Count of Popoli, was one of the barons who revolted from Ferdinand in favour of the Duke of Anjou, and was forced to surrender when the duke abandoned his pretensions to the kingdom of Naples. According to some authorities, he succeeded in making his escape, and baffling the vengeance of Ferdinand.

[333] Jacopo Piccinino, a celebrated condottiere, served the Duke of Anjou against Ferdinand, who afterwards appeared to have forgotten the offence, for he gave him the command of the armies of his kingdom, and the principality of Sulmona, and other estates. After his marriage to Drusiana, a natural daughter of Francesco Sforza, Ferdinand invited Piccinino to return to Naples, which he did, in the capacity of an ambassador from the Duke of Milan. Ferdinand entertained him nobly for twenty-seven days, at the end of which he ordered him to be arrested, thrown into a dungeon, and put to death.—SISMONDI, x. 267.

[334] _Bracceschi_, the partisans of Braccio de Montone, a celebrated condottiere captain, long the rival in renown of Sforza Attendolo.

[335] Niccolo Piccinino was the favourite pupil of Braccio, and succeeded to the command of his party at his death.

[336] Ferdinand I. died in 1494; Alphonso II. in 1495; and Ferdinand II. in 1496. See previous notes.

[337] Alphonso V., surnamed the Wise, King of Arragon, who inherited the throne of Naples from Queen Joanna in 1420, and left it to his bastard son.

[338] Lenglet says it was a book written by St. Cotade, Bishop of Tarentum.

[339] Camillo Pandone, Viceroy of Apulia daring the reign of Ferdinand II.; killed in an encounter with the French in 1495.

[340] On the 25th of January, 1494.

[341] Joanna, daughter of John II., King of Arragon, was married to Ferdinand I., King of Naples, in 1476, and died on the 9th of January, 1517.

[342] Mazzara, a large town on the sea-coast, in the province of Trapani.—GUAZZO, 80.

[343] He was crowned King of Naples in 1495. He reigned but six or seven years before he was dethroned; after which he retired into France, where he died.

[344] San Germano, fifteen miles from the frontier of Naples.

[345] The Garigliano.

[346] Raimond Perauld, a native of Surgères in Saintonge, became successively Bishop of Saintes, and Bishop of Gurce, in Germany; he was made a cardinal by Pope Alexander VI. in 1494, and died at Viterbo on the 5th of November, 1505.—AUBERY, ii. 629.

[347] Jean de Vilhères, Bishop of Lombez, and Abbot of St. Denis, was created a cardinal in 1493, and died on the 6th of August, 1499.—DESCAUSSET, 145.

[348] Federigo de Sanseverino, fourth son of Robert Count of Cajazzo, was made a cardinal in 1489, and died on the 7th of August, 1516.—AUBERY, ii. 600.

[349] Giambattista Savelli, a noble Roman, was made a cardinal on the 15th of May, 1480, and died on the 18th of September, 1498.—AUBERY, ii. 518.

[350] Dated on the 15th of January, 1495.

[351] Zizim. See note, p. 67. of this volume.