It

of reform were visible. Charles V. had vied with Francis I. for influence by profuse liberalities, but soon discovered how useless were his efforts. Though the cardinals were children of those unscrupulous times, and accepted the favours bestowed upon them, were accommodating in business, and endeavoured by their good offices to promote the requests and claims of foreign princes, they knew on great occasions, and in a conclave especially, how to preserve their independence. Sovereigns were thus deceived in their expectations. was especially after the election of Pope Caraffa that Charles V., who had requested his exclusion, became somewhat cold in his relations with the Sacred College. His son followed his example. For ten years he suppressed the pensions which had been granted to cardinals. The kings of France did the same, so that the fountain of princely pensions had become singularly dry. Later, it is true, Philip reverted to the old ways; but the fact that the great majority of foreign cardinals were his own subjects, and dependent upon him, sufficiently explains his power, which was immense 2 in the Sacred College.

1 In 1565 Giacomo Soranzo writes: "One may say that there no longer exists any difference between cardinals of the Emperor, of France, or of Spain, for with the cessation of the donations, which were the secret of these cardinals' dependence, has also ceased the dependence of the latter. Many of them, no doubt, being indebted to these foreign princes for bishoprics or other ecclesiastical donations, must have some consideration for them, but this is much less the case now-a-days than formerly. Princes have found out besides how small is the political influence of which the Popes now dispose, and therefore care less for the result of the elections, and still less to give money for the sake of attaching cardinals to their cause.'

2 Paolo Tiepolo, who as a Venetian is not impartial in regard to Philip II., complains of the means employed by that sovereign to influence the Sacred

CHAP. II.] INFLUENCE OF FOREIGN PRINCES.

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If Olivarés abused that influence on many occasions, the King, instead of sanctioning the zeal of his ambassador, hesitated to press too heavily upon his purpled vassals; not, however, because he had become indifferent to what took place at the Vatican, for until the last hour of his life he took the liveliest interest in all matters concerning the Holy See, of which he believed. himself to be the supreme and most powerful protector on earth. In his opinion the Church and the crown of Spain had become one.1 To influence the election of the Popes seemed to Philip a natural consequence of his holy mission, and a duty rather than a right. But how and within what limits was he to accomplish this end? Such was the question which he often put to himself. Doubts and scruples, even remorse, sometimes troubled his soul, and made him on several occasions seek for enlightenment in the advice of theologians whom he had assembled together for the purpose.

Henry III. also could influence the coming Conclave, but the French party was not numerous, and it was politically divided. Some of its members, under Cardinal d'Este, were royalists; others, under the fiery Cardinal of Sens, were followers of the League. It was doubtful whether they would arrive in time, notwithstanding the College, rel. 1576. Olivarès, on the contrary, in a memorable despatch to Philip II., exclaims against the ingratitude of Spanish and other cardinals, who are in receipt of the King's favours and pensions. He suggests some means of punishment, and of bringing them back to a due deference to the wishes of the Spanish crown.-Arch. Simancas, April 19, 1590, leg. 956.

1 An Austrian writer, M. Guidely, has published on this matter some information picked up in the archives of Simancas. See Rudolf und seine Zeit (Prague, 1863); also his report to the Imperial Academy at Vienna, 1861.

pressing recommendations of Cardinal d'Este to Henry III. 'to make them get upon a horse, and arrive in as much haste as possible, as the Spaniards were making great efforts to elect the Pope before the arrival of the French cardinals.'1

The Emperor Rodolph, as we have pointed out, paid little attention to Roman affairs. With regard to all matters connected with the Peninsula, he had abandoned, not without a certain amount of secret jealousy, to the Spanish branch of his house the direction of affairs, and with it the influence and profit to be derived from his intervention.

Next to the high diplomatic element came one, which, though less powerful, was not less active, and could in the stead of more material means supply a thorough knowledge of men and things at Rome, with the additional advantage of the proximity of their courts to that of Rome. This element was that of the official and unofficial agents of the several Italian princes, excepting, as regards the election of a sovereign pontiff, those of the most powerful State of the peninsula, the Republic of Venice,2 which did not pretend to interfere in electoral proceedings. During an interregnum its ambassadors, who were always very well informed, continued to observe and report upon what they heard, but were on their guard; and its cardinals, though not ceasing to be animated in the Conclave with those patriotic feelings which characterised 1 Cardinal d'Este to Henry III., 1585.

2 This important and curious fact, inasmuch as it behoves us to examine the Venetian politics of that day, is confirmed by the diplomatic correspondence of the Republican envoys.

CHAP. II.] POSITION OF THE ITALIAN PRINCES. 151

every Venetian, behaved as princes of the Church and not as political agents of their country. The exquisite instinct, the perfect acquaintance with affairs, the practical good sense of the Venetians, added to the material impossibility of getting up a sufficiently numerous Venetian faction-in short, the proverbial wisdom which presided over the acts of the Republic, explained her abstention.

Of the other Italian princes, each endeavoured to protect his small local interests in the Conclave, and these were of vital importance to them. Even the Duke of Urbino kept up intimate relations with one or two cardinals, gave pensions to some Roman prelates, to servants of the Vatican, to obliging subalterns, whose influence, though invisible, was not the less real everywhere, and nowhere so much as in Rome.

Next to Venice, the Prince of Savoy was the one in Italy to occupy himself least with the pontifical elections. Young Charles Emmanuel was about to marry the Infanta, daughter of Philip II., thus to become the vassal of Spain for some time, and to find in Madrid the support which he wanted in Rome. His affairs were, however, well protected by Cardinal Alessandrino, a nephew of Pius V., who, notwithstanding his mediocrity, was justly looked upon as one of the most influential members of the Sacred College.

This was not the case with the Grand-Duke of Tuscany, for whom the Vatican constituted the centre of the world. Befriended by the Pope, he felt himself protected against the rancour of Spain, whose designs upon Sienna, which he had once possessed, he always dreaded. In Henry III. he found a help against

not only the Duke of Savoy, but especially against that terrible rival, the Duke of Parma, whom he suspected of aspiring to a future kingdom of Lombardy.1 The Emperor's protection was likewise of some importance to him; but without the efficacious friendship of the Pope, whose territory touched his own from Orbitello to Ferrara, or with a Pope hostile to him, he could exercise no influence whatever. The Dukes of Savoy and Parma, aided by Spain, and the Duke of Ferrara, intimately allied with France, would become the most important sovereigns in the north and in the west of Italy, according to the preponderance of one or other of these great Powers, and he, the Grand-Duke, would find even his territory threatened with invasion.

These considerations influenced the policy of the Court of Florence, justified the particular attention bestowed by it upon the affairs of Rome, and explained, without justifying them, the intrigues which it incessantly carried on there, and at no time so much as during the sittings of a Conclave. The result was that no one was so well informed as Francis of Tuscany of all the intimate details of the Vatican, into which his agents penetrated by a thousand ways, the echoes of which reached him by the daily correspondence of his cardinal brother, or of the Abbé Babbi, his brother's private secretary, or of Monsignor Alberti, his envoy, or of Monsignor Gerini, and, during the pontificate of Sixtus V., of Monsignor Sangaletto, secret chamberlain to that Pope. Into the higher spheres of Roman politics, however, the Venetian ambassadors had a better in1 Card. de' Medici to the Grand-Duke Francis. Rome, April 13, 1585.