Chapter 18: The Man in the Serpent’s Mouth
Chapter 18
The Man in the Serpent’s Mouth
“... Cardinal Rohan [said] to me that the Italians did not understand war, I replied that the French did not understand politics... ”
Niccolò Machiavelli, the Prince 1513
Young Knight in a Landscape by Vittore Carpaccio, 1510. Widely believed to be a portrait of Francesco Maria della Rovere, 3rd Duke of Urbino, Carpaccio's painting depicts a young knight about to unsheathe his sword on a field containing several allusions to good and evil. Italy in the 1520s would become emblazoned with battles between Valois and Habsburg armies - each side seeking to establish themselves as the paramount hegemon on the peninsula.
The Man in the Serpent’s Mouth
“... Cardinal Rohan [said] to me that the Italians did not understand war, I replied that the French did not understand politics... ”
Niccolò Machiavelli, the Prince 1513
Young Knight in a Landscape by Vittore Carpaccio, 1510. Widely believed to be a portrait of Francesco Maria della Rovere, 3rd Duke of Urbino, Carpaccio's painting depicts a young knight about to unsheathe his sword on a field containing several allusions to good and evil. Italy in the 1520s would become emblazoned with battles between Valois and Habsburg armies - each side seeking to establish themselves as the paramount hegemon on the peninsula.
When Albert Jepsen Ravnsberg and Ove Bille entered Brussels on the 15th of August they found a city cowering under martial law. The initial French advance in the Netherlands might have been checked, but an imperial counter offensive under the Count of Nassau had petered out after a few indecisive forays into Picardie. Instead, the main theatre of war had moved south, across the Pyrenees and onto the fertile plains of the Po Valley.
Early attempts at dislodging the French from Italy had already been undertaken. In June 1521 Genovese exiles under the command of Antoniotto and Girolamo Adorno had launched an attack against their native city, supported by Papal and Spaniard galleys. However, the French client doge, Ottaviano Fregoso, had managed to repel them - inflicting heavy casualties on the Adorno forces. Similar attempts in Lombardy also resulted in failure and Odet de Foix, Viscount of Lautrec remained entrenched in Milan.
By August, however, Prospero Colonna had amassed a sizeable army consisting of Papal, Florentine and Imperial troops. An attempt at laying siege to Parma was abandoned after it was reported that the Duke of Ferrara might try to capture the Duchy of Modena. As Lautrec simultaneously led a French army down from Milan, Colonna was forced to detach a sizeable portion of his Papal troops to counter the Ferraran threat[1].
On the first of October, Colonna had consolidated his forces and led an offensive across the Po River. At the head of 20.000 infantry and 1500 lancers, the allied army vastly outnumbered Lautrec’s 8000 infantry and 1200 lancers - a motley band of French and Venetian soldiers. After a month of idleness and inconsequential skirmishes, the commander of the Spanish infantry, Fernando d'Ávalos, marquis of Pescara, finally convinced Colonna to attack. As the the allied army rushed on Milan, the Milanese rose in rebellion, trapping the French garrison within the castello. Without a secure base of operations, the French retreated towards Brescia, setting up winter quarters within Venetian territory. Shortly afterwards, the city of Milan was liberated and Francesco II Sforza (living in exile in Germany) was proclaimed as duke, his lieutenant Girolamo Morone receiving the populace’s acclamation in the duke’s name.
However, the sudden death of pope Leo X on December 1st completely robbed the allies of the initiative. With Leo’s passing, the Florentine troops departed the imperial camp and the Medici coffers, which had by and large bankrolled Colonna’s army, were shut. Only when the conclave finally announced Adrian Boyes as papabile on the 9th of January 1522 did things start to stir. The lull in hostilities had enabled Alfonso I d’Este of Ferrara time to recover most of the Duchy of Modena from Papal control while Lautrec had been sent 16.000 Swiss mercenaries as reinforcements. Furthermore, the lieutenant-general of Dauphiné, Pierre Terrail seigneur de Bayard, had crossed into Italy at the head of 500 gendarmes[2]. As March turned to April, Lautrec felt strengthened enough to leave the Terra Ferma behind and march to the relief of the French garrison in Milan. Unfortunately, Sforza had by then come down from Trent at the head of 6000 Landsknechts led Georg von Frundsberg and, acting in concert with Colonna’s army, successfully prevented the Valois host from taking the city[3].
Italy in 1522.
Withdrawing towards Pavia, Lautrec hoped to cross the river Ticino and reach the safety of Novara, recently captured by a French corps under the command of his brother, Thomas de Foix, seigneur de Lescun. The Swiss troops, conversely, demanded that Lautrec attack Colonna who had brought his army out from Milan. Pierre Terrail immediately intervened, realising that attacking the imperial position would result in a bloodbath, and successfully convinced the Swiss to march on Novara, promising that their services would be richly rewarded[4].
Colonna, for his part, had been bombarded by commands from the emperor, who was deeply annoyed of the lack of action. Indeed, Charles bitterly complained that his commanders preferred to squander his money instead of engaging the enemy. Consequently, the imperial general broke camp and followed Lautrec towards Novara. Catching the French on the banks of the Ticino, Colonna decided to press the slim advantage of surprise he had gained and deployed his 18.000 strong force for battle.
As the sun rose on the 3rd of May, the Imperial batteries opened fire. Advancing in tight formation under the cover of the barrage, Colonna’s Landsknechts engaged their Swiss rivals who had arrayed themselves on the outskirts of the French camp. However, their approach was covered by the fortified Valois artillery which wreaked havoc on their lines. Once the two sides became locked in combat, the Imperial troops were furthermore scourged by rolling volleys of hand-gun fire from the French arquebusier companies within the camp’s stockade. However, Pescara’s Spanish infantry had circumvented Lescun’s position to the North and was making good progress at breaking down the stockade, paving the way for the allied cavalry under Sforza to sweep the camp clean. Seeing this, the Seigneur de Bayard rushed his dismounted gendarmes from the reserve and threw the Imperials back, the nobles doing so “... for their pleasure and to acquire honour.[5]” Meanwhile, the Swiss battle squares under the command of Anne de Montmorency went on the offensive: forcing Frundsberg’s Landsknechts to withdraw.
By noon, the Imperial attack had been completely repulsed. Colonna’s attempts at persuading his men to attack a second time failed and, consequently, he decided to withdraw back towards Milan. The French greeted the imperial retreat with jeers and cannon fire, however, their victory had been dearly bought. 3000 men had perished during the battle, and despite the French defensive advantage, casualties had been almost evenly distributed between the two sides. As a result, Odet de Foix only left a small garrison behind at Novara before crossing into Piemonte.
The Battle on the Ticino had thus been a tactical French victory, but strategically the result can best be described as a draw. Lautrenc’s Swiss companies were bitterly disappointed at the meagre pay they received and marched home to their cantons almost to a man. Similarly, Colonna’s army soon disbanded for lack of funds, although he managed to seize the Milanese castello before his main strength evaporated[6]. The Duchy of Milan had thus more or less been liberated, but the French remained entrenched in Genoa and Piemonte, offering them an easy pathway back to the Padan Plain once their strength had been regained.
Charles V received the news of Colonna’s conquest of Milan at Windsor castle, where he had sojourned alongside Henry VIII. Despite the modest scope of imperial success in Milan, Henry eagerly signed the treaty of the League of Windsor with Charles on the 19th of June 1522[7]. Although the treaty obliged both sides to attack France at the earliest possible moment, Henry had demanded Charles’ acceptance of an English attack on Scotland before the Tudor armies could be committed to a continental invasion.
For eight years, John Stewart, duke of Albany, had presided over a pro-French regency in Edinburgh, ruling as Governor and Protector of the Realm in the name of Alexander IV.
In London, Albany’s enemies had rallied around the court of the deposed James V and his mother Margaret Tudor at the Scotland Yard[8]. Margaret’s husband, the Earl of Angus, had escaped imprisonment some years previous and was now strutting around the English capital to the great annoyance of Henry VIII, who continued to derisively call him “... a young witless fool.” Thus, when the formal declaration of war was handed to the French ambassador on the 20th of June[9] England also found itself at war with Scotland. Undoubtedly, Henry sought to utilize France’s exposed position to strike a final nail in the coffin of the Auld Alliance by setting up his nephew James as a puppet king in Edinburgh. Consequently, Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk, was sent North to command the Tudor offensive into the Lowlands. From England, Charles V sailed to Spain where he arrived on the 16th of July alongside a force of German mercenaries. Taking up residence at Valladolid, the emperor proceed to exact harsh justice on the defeated Comunero rebels.
Margaret of Austria painted by Bernard van Orley, ca. 1518. In the absence of her nephew Charles V, it fell to Margaret to address the pleas of Christian II’s emissaries in her capacity as Viceroy of the Netherlands.
These events taken into account, one can forgive Margaret of Austria if she did not treat the pleas of Albert Jepsen Ravnsberg and Ove Bille with extreme urgency. The Danish commissioners’’ request that imperial troops be dispatched to aid Christian II was rather bluntly denied, but Margaret promised to send imperial envoys to the duke of Mecklenburg and the Prince-elector of Brandenburg, requesting that they send all available aid to the king of Denmark. Furthermore, Sigismund von Herberstein[10] was commanded to accompany the Danish ambassadors North as a special representative of Charles V. Von Herberstein would be under strict orders to bring the Wendish Hansa to heel. If they did not cease aiding the enemies of the King of Denmark, then the full force of the Imperial Ban (Reichsacht) would be levied upon them. In other words, Charles’ promise to Frederick I that the Empire’s just and terrible wrath and punishment would strike him if he rose against his nephew would be extorted on the free cities around the Elbe and Weser estuaries[11].
The Duke of Holstein had, however, not been idle. As early as 1518, he had entered into an alliance with Francis I as a way to counterbalance Christian II’s imperial connections[12]. By 1522, Ducal envoys had arrived in Paris and were lobbying for subsidies and armaments to aid in their master in the overthrow of Christian II. Francis was not wholly adversed to the proposal of opening a second front against the Habsburg alliance in the north, but as his attention was centred on Italy, negotiations moved along quite slowly. Gradually, Francis came round to the idea that Frederick’s army could be sent to Scotland in support of the Duke of Albany once Christian II had been dealt with. After securing Scotland, the Franco-Scottish-Holstenian force would then march south, depose Henry VIII and pave the way for the installment of Richard de la Pole on the English throne [13].
Realising that they had achieved all that could be achieved, Ravnsberg and Bille left Brussels by the middle of September. Accompanied by von Herberstein and an entourage of German and Dutch knights, the Danish ambassadors rode overland towards Hamburg, hoping to re-open the Elbe crossing as a levying ground for fresh mercenary companies.
However, the city refused to recognize Herberstein’s commision: claiming that they would only obey an imperial command sent directly from the emperor. Margaret of Austria was, they proclaimed, just a deputy of the emperor, with no authority to pronounce a ban on any polity within the Holy Roman Empire. This feint was undoubtedly meant to buy the Ducal coalition enough time to seek some kind of decisive engagement in the field. Promising the councilors that he would remember their answer, Herberstein and the the Dano-Imperial party instead travelled to Schwerin where they were met by Hans Mikkelsen, who “with tears of joy upon his face” told them of Søren Norby’s relief of Nyborg. It was time for the king to finally go on the offensive.
Footnotes
[1]Besides Colonna detaching a good portion of his forces to counter the Este threat to Modena, this is all OTL. Originally, the allied commander did send some of his troops off to protect against Ferra. ITTL, the contingent is somewhat larger.
[2]Bayard was indeed lieutenant-general of Dauphiné, but in OTL he was busy defending northern France. ITTL, he is sent into Italy a bit earlier.
[3]More or less what happened in OTL.
[4]In OTL, Lautrec also wanted to retreat towards Novara and await the arrival of another French army under Francis I. However, his Swiss mercenaries demanded a decisive battle and against his better judgement, Lautrec conceded. This led to the disastrous Battle of La Bicocca where the French army battered itself senseless against an entrenched imperial force.
[5]OTL quote about the French attack at the battle of La Bicocca.
[6]In OTL, Colonna’s army disbanded for lack of funds after taking Genoa in the aftermath of La Bicocca.
[7]Same as in OTL.
[8]See Chapter 3 for a run down of the Scottish succession crisis after the Battle of Flodden.
[9]In OTL, England declared war on France on the 26th of May. ITTL, events in Italy delay the declaration of war to the day after the signing of the Treaty of Windsor.
[10]Sigismund von Herberstein was a renowned Imperial diplomat. In OTL, he was tasked with travelling to Denmark to persuade Christian II to renounce Dyveke.
[11]See Chapter 11.
[12]Frederick’s independent diplomacy with Francis I is an overlooked but highly intriguing subject. In 1523 there were even plans about a joint Holstenian-French invasion of England, which Frederick reneged on because of his ongoing feud with Christian II.
[13]This is OTL.
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