nisters were to amass money, and bring every one under the lash of their authority.

But while Henry was enriching himself with the spoils of his oppressed people, he did not neglect the political interests of the nation. Philip, archduke of Austria, and his wife Joan, heiress of Castile, being thrown upon the English coast on their passage to Spain, Henry enter

A. D. 1505. tained them with a magnificence suitable to his dignity, and at an expence by no means agreeable to his temper. But notwithstanding so much seeming cordiality, interest in this, as in all other things, was the only rule of his conduct. He resolved to draw some advantage from the involuntary visit paid him by his royal guests; and while he seemed only intent on displaying his hospitality, and in furnishing the means of amusement, he concluded a treaty of commerce highly beneficial to England".

Henry's views did not terminate here: from the interests of the nation he turned them to his own. Edmund de la Pole, earl of Suffolk, nephew to Edward. IV. and brother to the earl of Lincoln, slain at the battle of Stoke, had retired to Flanders in disgust. The king did not neglect the present opportunity of complaining to the archduke of the reception which Suffolk had met with in his dominions. "I really "thought," replied Philip, "that your greatness and feli

city had set you far above apprehensions from any person "of so little consequence: but to give you satisfaction, I "shall banish him my state." "I expect that you will carry

your complaisance farther," said Henry. "I desire to have "Suffolk put into my hands, where alone I can depend on "his submission and obedience."-" That measure," observed Philip, "will reflect dishonour upon you, as well "as myself. You will be thought to have used me as a "prisoner."--" Then," replied Henry, "the matter is "settled: I will take upon me that dishonour; and so your

11. Rymer, vol. xiii.

"honour

"honour is safe." Philip found himself under the necessity of complying; but he first exacted a promise from Henry, that he would spare Suffolk's life12.

Henry survived these transactions about two years, but nothing memorable occurs in the remaining part of his reign. His declining health made him turn his thoughts towards that future state of existence, which the severities of his government had rendered a very dismal prospect to him. In order to allay the terrors under which he laboured, he endeavoured to procure a reconciliation with Heaven by distributing alms, and founding religious houses. Remorse even seized him at times for the abuse of his authority by Empson and Dudley, though not to such a degree as to make him stop the rapacious hand of those oppressors, until death, by its nearer approaches, appalled him with new terrors; and then he ordered, by a general clause in his will, that restitution should be made to all those whom he had injured12. He died of a consumption, at his favourite palace of Richmond, in A. D. 1509. the fifty-second year of his age, and the twentythird of his reign; which was, on the whole, fortunate for his people at home, and honourable abroad.

Henry VII. was a prince of great talents, both civil and military. He put an end to the civil wars with which the English nation had long been harrassed: he maintained the most perfect order in the state; he repressed the exorbitant power of the barons: and he indirectly increased the consequence of the commons, by enabling the nobility to break their ancient entails; as the prodigal were thereby encouraged to dissipate their fortunes and dismember their estates, which became the property of men who had acquired money by trade or industry. And while he possessed the friendship of some foreign princes, he commanded the respect of all. Hence his son Henry VIII. as we shall afterward have occasion to see, became the arbiter of Europe. In the mean time

12. Bacon, ubi sup. 13. Ibid. Hollingshed. Polyd. Virg

we

we must take a view of transactions in which England had no share, and which introduced the most important æra, in the history of Modern Europe.

LETTER LIII.

A GENERAL VIEW OF THE CONTINENT OF EUROPE, FROM THE INVASION OF ITALY BY CHARLES VIII. in 1494, TILL THE LEAGUE OF CAMBRAY in 1508.

I HAVE hitherto, my dear Philip, generally given you a separate history of all the principal European states; because each state depended chiefly on itself and was in a great measure distinct from every other in its political interests. But that method will, in future, often be impracticable, by reason of the new system of policy which was adopted about the beginning of the sixteenth century, and in consequence of which a union of interests became necessary in order to form a balance of power. This system took its rise from the political state of Europe at that time, and was perfected by the Italian wars, which commenced with the expedition of Charles VIII. in support of his claim to

A. D. 1494.

the kingdom of Naples.

This prince having married the heiress of Britanny, as I have already had occasion to observe, and purchased peace from the only powers able to molest him, the emperor of Germany, and the kings of England and Spain, set out on his favourite project, the conquest of Naples. To that kingdom he had pretensions as heir to the house of Anjou.

The army with which Charles undertook this great enterprize did not exceed twenty thousand men ; yet with these he was able to over-run all Italy. The Italians, who had utterly lost the use of arms, and who amid continual wars, had become every day more unwarlike, were astonished to

meet

meet an enemy, that made the field of battle not a pompous tournament but a scene of blood: they were terrified at the aspect of real war, and shrunk on its approach. The impetuosity of the French valour appeared to them irresistible. Pope Alexander VI. of infamous memory, the Venetians, and Ludovico Sforza, surnamed the Moor, duke of Milan, who had invited Charles into Italy, alarmed at his progress, which was equally unwished and unexpected, endeavoured to throw obstacles in his way almost as soon as he had crossed the Alps.

All opposition however was in vain. Charles entered in triumph the city of Florence, where the family of Medicis still held the chief authority. He delivered Sienna and Pisa from the Tuscan yoke : he prescribed such terms to the Florentines as his circumstances rendered necessary, and their situation obliged them to comply with: he marched to Rome, where Alexander VI. had ineffectually intrigued against him; and he took possession of that city as a conqueror. The pope had taken refuge in the castle of St. Angelo; but no sooner did he see the French cannon pointed against its feeble ramparts, than he offered to capitulate; and it cost him only a cardinal's hat to make his peace with the king. The president Brissonet, who from a lawyer was become an archbishop, persuaded Charles to this accommodation. In reward of his services he obtained the purple'. The king's confessor was likewise in the secret; and Charles, whose interest it was to have deposed the pope, forgave him, and afterwards repented of his lenity.

No pontiff surely ever more deserved the indignation of a Christian prince. He and the Venetians had applied to the Turkish emperor, Bajazet II. son and successor of Mahomet II. to assist them in driving the French monarch out of Italy. It is also asserted, that the pope had sent one Bozzo

1. Georgii Florii, de Bel. Ital. Phil. de Com, liv. vii. chap. xii.

in quality of nuncio to the court of Constantinople, and that the alliance between his holiness and the sultan was purchased by one of those inhuman crimes, which are not committed without horror, even within the walls of the seraglio.

Alexander VI. by an extraordinary chain of events, had at that time in his possession the person of Zizim, brother to Bajazet II. The manner in which this unfortunate prince fell into the hands of the pope, was as follows:

Zizim, who was adored by the Turks, had disputed the empire with Bajazet, and was defeated. Fortune prevailed over the prayers of the people: and this unhappy son of Mahomet II. the terror of the Christian name, had recourse in his distress to the knights of Rhodes, now the knights of Malta. They at first received him, as a prince to whom they were bound to afford protection by the laws of hospitality, and who might one day be of use to them in their wars against the infidels; but they soon afterward treated him as a prisoner, and Bajazet agreed to pay them forty thousand sequins annually, on condition that they should not suffer Zizim to return into Turkey. The knights conveyed him to one of their commanderies at Poitou, in France; and Charles VIII.received at the same time, an ambassador from Bajazet II. and a nuncio from pope Innocent VIII. Alexander's predecessor, relative to this valuable captive. The sultan claimed him as his subject, and the pope wanted to have possession of his person, as a pledge for the safety of Italy against the attempts of the Turks. Charles sent him to the pope. The pontiff received him with all the splendour and magnificence which the sovereign of Rome could shew to the brother of the sovereign of Constantinople; and Paul Jovius says, that Alexander VI. sold Zizim's life in a treaty which he negociated with Bajazet. But be that as it may, the king of France, full of his vast projects, and certain of the conquest of Naples, now wanted to become formidable to the sultan, by having the person of this unfortunate prince