| Notes |
- Francis, preparing to make war on his rival after Charles's
election as emperor, attempts first to secure an important ally on his
western flank - England's Henry VIII, the third in this trio of
autocratic young rulers born within a few years of each other. If
Francis is to march safely against Charles, he cannot in his absence
risk Henry pressing his family's ancient claim to the throne of
France, or even extending the territory round England's last remaining
French possession, the pale of Calais.
Francis therefore invites Henry in 1520 to the spectacularly lavish
meeting which becomes known as the Field of Cloth of Gold.
The conviviality of the Field of Cloth of Gold fails to deliver an
English alliance (Henry immediately moves on to a less sumptuous but
more fruitful meeting with Charles V in Kent, where each agrees to
make no pact with Francis for at least two years). In 1521 Francis
moves against Spanish land in the Pyrenees, beginning years of
intermittent warfare.
In 1522 an imperial army drives the French out of Milan. Three
years later Francis marches into Italy to reclaim his territory, with
disastrous consequences. The French are heavily defeated at Pavia, in
1525, and Francis himself is taken prisoner. Soon he is in a fortress
in Madrid, negotiating with Charles under duress.
After six months Francis secures his release from Madrid by giving
up his claims to Flanders, Artois and Tournai in the Netherlands, to
Milan, Genoa and Naples in Italy, and to the duchy of Burgundy. But he
has little intention of keeping his word. Within two months of his
return to France, in 1526, he has put in place a pact, the League of
Cognac, allying himself with Venice and a new pope, Clement VII.
This time it is the pope who soon finds himself a prisoner. An
imperial army, campaigning in Italy and containing large numbers of
unpaid German mercenaries, marches in 1527 on the holy city of Rome.
Rome is sacked, looted and ravaged with the violence customary on
such occasions. Rich citizens are seized for ransom; there are stories
of nuns offered for sale on the streets. The pope manages to reach the
security of the Castel Sant'Angelo where he shelters, a prisoner in
all but name, until the imperial army is at last withdrawn from the
city.
These violent events prompt the treaty of Cambrai, signed in 1529
and known as the 'ladies' peace' because its terms are negotiated
between Francis's mother and one of Charles's aunts. It confirms the
concessions made by Francis in Madrid, except that now Charles
renounces his claim to the original duchy of Burgundy (only a small
part of his Burgundian inheritance).
While coping with French hostility, Charles has other major
concerns not shared by his rival - aggression from the Turks (on the
empire's eastern frontier, and in the Mediterranean), and the
Protestant unrest which is creating turmoil in Germany.
In 1529 (the year of the treaty between Charles and Francis) the
Turks besiege Vienna and the pirate Barbarossa, working in alliance
with the Turkish sultan, secures himself a base in Algiers. In 1530
Charles finds time to have himself formally crowned emperor by the
pope in Bologna. Then he hurries north to negotiate with the
Protestants at Augsburg. In 1531 Protestant princes form the League of
Schmalkalden in opposition to Charles.
In these circumstances there is every reason for the two leading
European monarchs, both Roman Catholic, to stand together. But Francis
cannot accept the defeat implicit in the treaty of Cambrai. He now
shocks contemporary opinion by negotiating with Protestants and even
Muslims for an alliance against the Habsburg empire.
Francis goes to war twice more against Charles, in 1536-8 and
1542-4. The fate of Nice in 1543 suggests very well the bitter and
improbable results of this royal rivalry. The Muslim ally of Francis
in the siege of Nice (in the duchy of Savoy, which is part of the
empire) is Barbarossa. The famous pirate, now a Turkish admiral,
carries off 2500 Christians into captivity.
Although the loser in the long struggle with Charles V, Francis I
leaves his mark on France in many ways. As in England and Spain at the
same period, royal authority is strengthened during his reign with an
increasingly centralized administration. And the royal splendour is
reflected in art and architecture. Francis is the monarch, more than
any other, who brings the Renaissance to France.
Leonardo da Vinci is the greatest artist attracted to the court of
Francis I, but he is only one of many. And these artists adorn
buildings which are now palaces, rather than royal castles or hunting
lodges.
The centre of French court life is Fontainebleau, a royal hunting
lodge almost entirely rebuilt by Francis I from 1527. Here he brings
the Italian artists Rosso Fiorentino (in 1530) and Primaticcio (in
1532), who together establish a French style of mannerist painting
known as the school of Fontainebleau. They are joined in 1540 by the
goldsmith and sculptor Benvenuto Cellini, whose famous golden salt
cellar is made at Fontainebleau.
Francis has earlier rebuilt Chambord, from 1519 - in name a castle
on the Loire, in style a palace. In 1546 he begins to transform
Paris's old royal castle, the Louvre, into yet another palace. France
is later the home of absolute monarchy. In Francis I it has a
foretaste of the theme.
In the last few years of the reign of Francis I the persecution of
Protestants within Catholic France grows more pronounced. The
religious clash first becomes a prominent issue in France with the
so-called 'affair of the placards' in 1534, when radical Protestants
indulge in an unwise and intemperate gesture.
During the night of October 17 the streets of Paris and other towns
are secretly plastered with posters mocking the sacrament of the mass.
One is even found the next morning on the door of the bedroom in which
Francis I is sleeping at Amboise.
Over the next few months there is an energetic rounding up of
Protestants. Twenty-three are burnt at the stake before politics
dampens religious fervour. Francis needs the friendship of German
Lutheran princes.
In the 1540s there is a return to religious severity. It is
prompted partly by the publication in 1541 of Calvin's French version
of his Latin Institutes, in which he sums up his Protestant theology.
His book is burnt in 1544, and the martyrdom of Protestants resumes -
though not as yet in dramatic numbers. In 1555 Jean Crespin records
their suffering in his Book of Martyrs, the equivalent of Foxe's
influential volume in England.
The greatest outrage of the 1540s, the massacre of the Waldenses,
cannot be blamed directly on Francis or on government policy. Local
officials in Provence deliberately mislead the king in order to
justify the persecution. The Waldenses, a medieval sect attracted by
the ideals of reform, adopt a creed close to that of Calvin. In 1545
their villages are burnt and some 3000 men, women and children are
massacred.
Religious policy becomes more rigid during the reign of Francis's
son, Henry II. A special court (the chambre ardente, 'burning
chamber') is set up in Paris in 1547 for the trying of heretics. The
French Reformation is about to acquire its uniquely intense and
political character.
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1517 - 1572 (55 years)