Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/32

6 II. Spanish court ITALIAN WARS. PART long practised, was transported into France, where he lingered out the remainder of his dajs in doleful captivity. He had first called the harbarians into Italy, and it was a righteous retribution which made him their earliest victim.^ Marmofihe By the couquest of Milan, France now took her place among the Italian powers. A preponderating weight was thus thrown into the scale, which dis- turbed the ancient political balance, and which, if the projects on Naples should be realized, would wholly annihilate it. These consequences, to which the Italian states seemed strangely insensible, had long been foreseen by the sagacious eye of Ferdi- nand the Catholic, who watched the movements of his powerful neighbour with the deepest anxiety. He had endeavoured, before the invasion of Milan, to awaken the different governments in Italy to a sense of their danger, and to stir them up to some efficient combination against it.^ Both he and the queen had beheld with disquietude the increasing ^ Guicciardini, Istoria, lib. 4, pp. dices, which clouded the optics of 250-252." — M^moires de La Trt- his countrymen, saw with deep re- moille, chap. 19., apud Petitot, gret their coalition with France, Collection de Memoires, torn. xiv. the fatal consequences of which he — Buonaccorsi, Diario de' Succes- predicted in a letter to a friend in fi piulmportanti, (Fiorenza, 1568,) Venice, the former minister at pp. 20-29. the Spanish court. " The king of 4 Zurita, Hist, del Rey Hernan- France," says he, " after he has do, torn. i. lib. 3, cap. 31. dined with the duke of Milan, will Martyr, in a letter written soon come and sup with you." (Epist. after Sforza's recovery of his capi- 207.) Daru, on the authority of tal, says that the Spanish sove- Burchard, refers this remarkable reigns " could not conceal their joy prediction, which time so fully veri- at the event, such was their jeal- fled, to Sforza, on his quitting his ousy of France." (Opus Epist., capital. (Hist, de Venise, torn. iii. epist. 213.) The same sagacious p. 326, 2d cd.) Martyr's letter, writer, the distance of whose resi- however, is dated some months dence from Italy removed him from previously to that event, those political factions and prcju-