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FRA Swiss army at Marignano, two miles distant from Milan, and after an obstinate conflict, which lasted two days, defeated them with the loss of twelve thousand men. The victors took possession of Milan, and shortly after Francis entered into a treaty of alliance with the Swiss. In the following year Francis concluded at Noyon a treaty of confederacy and mutual defence with Charles, king of Castile (afterwards Charles V.), by which the French monarch engaged to give his eldest daughter, an infant of a year old, in marriage to Charles, and to make over to him, as the dowry of the princess, all his claims upon the kingdom of Naples. The Emperor Maximilian was soon after constrained to join the treaty with these two sovereigns, and thus put an end to the bloody and tedious war which had been occasioned by the league of Cambray, and secured a few years of undisturbed tranquillity to Europe. On the death of Maximilian in 1519, Francis entered the lists as a competitor with Charles for the imperial crown. He was deeply mortified by his failure, and from this time the two princes became irreconcilable rivals. Their first difference arose out of the refusal of Charles to do justice to the heirs of Jean d'Albret, the dispossessed king of Navarre. Soon after, Robert de la Mark, lord of Bouillon, quarrelled with the emperor, and having thrown himself on the protection of Francis, levied troops in France with the connivance of the king, declared war against Charles, and ravaged Luxembourg. The emperor in turn sent an army under the count of Nassau to chastise De la Mark; not contented with seizing the territories of the refractory vassal, Nassau passed the frontiers of France, took Mousson, and besieged Mezières. This important fortress, however, was gallantly defended by the famous Chevalier Bayard, and the imperialists were at length compelled to raise the siege with disgrace and loss. Francis, at the head of a powerful army, retook Mousson, and entering Flanders, captured several unimportant places, and, but for an excess of caution, might have destroyed the whole imperial army. An abortive attempt at mediation was made in a congress at Calais by Henry VIII. of England, who, though he had in the previous year held an interview with Francis on the famous "Field of the Cloth of Gold," and pretended great friendship for the French king, yet now, through the management of Wolsey, was decidedly favourable to his rival. Charles was well aware of the strong leanings of Henry and his prime minister, and insisted upon terms so unreasonable that they were at once rejected with disdain. A treaty against France was soon after concluded between Charles and Henry. A similar league had previously been formed between the emperor and the pope, for the expulsion of the French from Italy. A powerful army under Prospero Colonna, a skilful and experienced general, invaded the Milanese, which was bravely defended by Marshal Lautrec, governor of the duchy; but being deserted by his Swiss auxiliaries, and left without money or reinforcements, through the treachery and rapacity of Louisa of Savoy, the mother of Francis, Lautrec was driven out of the country. Parma and Placentia were united to the states of the church, and the French were deprived at once of nearly the whole of their conquests in Lombardy. These disasters were followed by the defeat of a powerful army of French and Swiss at Bicocco, May, 1522, and by the loss of Genoa, which was captured by Colonna almost without opposition or bloodshed. To add to the misfortunes of Francis at this juncture, Henry VIII. declared war against him, 29th May, 1522, and sent an army under the earl of Surrey to invade France. In the following year the league against Francis was strengthened by the accession of the republic of Venice, hitherto friendly to France, and of the new pope, Adrian of Utrecht, so that the French king was left without a single ally to resist the attacks of his numerous and formidable adversaries, while his own powerful subject, the Constable Bourbon, provoked beyond endurance by the shameful treatment he had received from the queen-mother, at this critical moment deserted to the enemy. Francis, undismayed by these disasters, persevered in the plan which he had formed of sending an army into the Milanese under Admiral Bonnivet, a brave but incapable general, who passed the Ticino in spite of the efforts of the veteran Colonna, but utterly failed in the object of his expedition. Meanwhile an English army marched into Picardy, and the imperial forces invaded Burgundy and Guienne. The French general, however, with a comparatively small body of men, kept them in check, and ultimately forced them to retire with disgrace. In the spring of 1524 the French were compelled to abandon the Milanese, and in their retreat into their own country were totally defeated on the banks of the Sessia by the imperialists, under the Constable Bourbon and the marquis de Pescara. The imperial forces crossed the Alps, entered Provence, and laid siege to Marseilles, but were compelled to retreat by the masterly dispositions of Francis and the valour of the citizens. Elated with this success, the French king rashly resolved to carry the war into Italy, and crossing Mount Cenis, took possession of Milan. But instead of following up his advantage by pursuing the retreating and disheartened enemy, he laid siege to Pavia, which was gallantly defended by Antonio de Leyva. Time was thus afforded to the imperialist generals to reorganize their forces, and at the head of a powerful and well-disciplined army, they attacked and utterly defeated the French on the 24th of February, 1525. Ten thousand men were left on the field, including Bonnivet and many other noblemen of the highest distinction, and Francis himself was taken prisoner by Lannoy, vice-king of Naples. The story that he announced the result of the battle to his mother, in a letter containing only the words, "All is lost except our honour," has been proved to be incorrect. The terms which Charles proposed as the price of the liberation of his prisoner, were so exorbitant that Francis exclaimed in a transport of indignation that it were better to die than to accede to them. The emperor ultimately consented to abate somewhat of the rigour of his first demands, and concluded a treaty, 13th January, 1526, by which he agreed to restore Francis to liberty on condition that he should cede Burgundy to him; resign all his pretensions to Italy, the Low Countries, and Artois; restore their lands and honours to the constable and his adherents; marry the emperor's sister, the queen dowager of Portugal; and deliver his eldest and second sons as hostages for the fulfilment of these stipulations, pledging at the same time his oath and honour for their observance.

Francis, however, had no intention of complying with these conditions. Before signing the treaty, he was guilty of the dishonesty of making a secret but formal protest against its validity. On regaining his own dominions, 18th March, he at once gave unequivocal indications of his intention to evade the fulfilment of the treaty of Madrid. Pope Clement absolved him from his oath, and a league was entered into between the French king, the Venetians, the pope, and Henry VIII. for their mutual defence against the emperor. The reduction of the castle of Milan, the capture and sack of Rome by the constable, and the imprisonment and cruel treatment of Clement speedily followed. War was declared against the emperor, both by France and England. Charles accused his rival of perjury, and Francis returned a message of defiance and a challenge to single combat. The French troops under Lautrec gained several advantages in the Milanese, and sat down before Naples; but in the end they were attacked by disease, reduced to a miserable remnant, and compelled to surrender to the prince of Orange at Aversa. Andrea Doria, disgusted by the affronts which he had received from Francis and his ministers, abandoned the French alliance and joined the emperor. The French army in the Milanese, under the count of St. Pol, was defeated and destroyed by Antonio de Leyva. All parties were now wearied of this destructive and unprofitable war, and at length, through the intervention of Margaret of Austria and Louisa of Savoy, the treaty of Cambray was concluded, August 5, 1529, by which Charles relinquished his claims on Burgundy, and Francis renounced his pretensions to Italy and Flanders, and agreed to pay two million crowns as the ransom of his sons. He made no stipulation for his allies, the Venetians, the Florentines, and the duke of Ferrara, whom he abandoned in a body to his rival—an act as impolitic as it was treacherous, and which lost him the general confidence of Europe.

The subsequent conduct of Francis was not calculated to remove this unfavourable impression regarding his honesty and veracity. At the very time of ratifying the disadvantageous treaty of Cambray, he took a secret protest against several of its articles, and watched for an opportunity of violating it with safety. He endeavoured to gain over the pope by marrying Clement's niece, Catherine de Medici, to his second son, afterwards Henry II. He formed an alliance with the protestant princes of Germany, and encouraged them in their resistance to the emperor, and in 1535, during the absence of Charles in Africa, he revived his pretensions to the Milanese, and marched with an army into Italy, ostensibly for the purpose of chastising Sforza, duke of Milan, who had put to death his