Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/384

358 358 CONQUEST OF NAVARRE. I'ART II. than of good faith. ^^ The allies loudly inveighed against the treachery of their confederate, who had so unscrupulously sacrificed the common interest, by relieving France from the powerful diversion he was engaged to make on her western borders. It is no justification of wrong, that similar wrongs have been committed by others ; but those who commit them (and there was not one of the allies, who could escape the imputation, amid the political profligacy of the times,) certainly forfeit the privi- lege to complain. ^^ 21 Francesco Vettori, the Floren- tine ambassador at the papal court, writes to Machiavelli, that he lay awake two hours that night specu- lating on the real motives of the Catholic king in making this truce, which, regarded simply as a mat- ter of policy, he condemns in toto. He accompanies this with various predictions respecting the conse- quences likely to result from it. These consequences never occur- red, however; and the failure of his predictions may be received as the best refutation of his argu- ments. Machiavelli, Opere, Lett. Famigl. Aprile 21, 1513. 22 Guicciardini, Istoria, torn. vi. lib. 11, pp.81, 82. — Machiavelli, Opere, ubi supra. — Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 538. On the 5th of April a treaty was concluded at Mechlin, in the names of Ferdinand, the king of England, the emperor, and the pope. (Ry- mer, Fcedera, torn. xiii. pp. 354- 358.) The Castilian envoy, Don Luis Carroz, was not present at Mechlin, but it was ratified and solemnly sworn to by him, on be- half of his sovereign, in London, April 18th. (Ibid., tom. xiii. p. 363.) IJy this treaty, Spain agreed to attack France in Guienne, while the other powers were to cooperate by a descent on other quarters. (See also Dumont, Corps Diplo- matique, tom. iv. part. 1, no. 79.) This was in direct contradiction of the treaty signed only five days be- fore at Orthes, and, if made with the privity of King Ferdinand, must be allowed to be a gratuitous display of perfidy, not easily match- ed in that age. As such, of course, it is stigmatized by the French his- torians, that is, the later ones, for I find no comment on it in contem- porary writers. (See Rapin, His- tory of England, translated by Tin- dal, (London, 1785-9.) vol. ii. pp. 93, 94. Sismondi, Hist, des Fran^ais, tom. xv. p. 626.) Fer- dinand, when applied to by Henry VHL to ratify the acts of his min- ister, in the following summer, re- fused, on the ground that the lat- ter had transcended his powers. (Herbert. Life of Henry VHL, p. 29.) The Spanish writers are silent. His assertion derives some probability from the tenor of one of the articles, which provides, that, in case he refuses to confirm the treaty, it shall still be binding be- tween England and the emperor; language which, as it anticipates, may seem to authorize, such a con- tingency. Public treaties have, for obvious