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Its refusal was conveyed to the king at Amboise by two parlementaires, who had to face his wrath. There would be only one king in France, he declared, and no Senate as in Venice. He threatened to make the parlement ‘trot after him like the Grand conseil’ and accused it of neglecting its judicial duties. When the envoys asked for permission to delay their departure until local floods had subsided, they were told that if they had not left by morning they would be thrown into a deep pit and left there for six months. On 6 March 1518 the king again demanded registration of the Concordat. He was said to be planning to set up a rival parlement at Orléans. The threat achieved its purpose and on 22 March the parlement finally gave way: the Concordat was registered, albeit with the addition of a phrase indicating duress. At the same time, the parlement secretly declared that it would continue to apply the Pragmatic Sanction in ecclesiastical disputes.

      No sooner had the parlement capitulated than the University of Paris began to agitate, fearing that its graduates would lose the privileged position given to them by the Pragmatic Sanction in respect of collation to ecclesiastical benefices. The university suspended its lectures, forbade anyone to print the Concordat, and appealed to a future General Council. A memorandum denouncing the Concordat was circulated to preachers for use in their Lenten sermons. Placards to the same effect were put up in colleges and public places. Francis ordered the parlement to intervene; otherwise, he threatened to apply the severest measures. A few days later he appointed a special commission to enquire into the disorders. College principals were ordered to restrain their students. On 25 April the university was forbidden to meddle in state affairs under pain of loss of its privileges and banishment from the kingdom.

      It is commonly assumed that the main purpose of the Concordat was to increase the king’s control of the Gallican church and that, having won the battle of Marignano, he had imposed his terms on Leo X. Both assumptions, however, are questionable. The crown, as we have seen, already had extensive control of the church before 1516. After 1438 the church was governed in theory by the Pragmatic Sanction, which allowed chapters the right to elect bishops and abbots; but the monarchy often determined the outcome of elections. By 1515 royal control of the ecclesiastical hierarchy was an accepted fact. This was acknowledged by the president of the parlement in March 1515, when he begged Francis to appoint worthy men of sufficient years to administer sees and religious houses.

      Marignano did not give Francis mastery of Italy. He remained vulnerable in the north, nor could he impose terms on the pope. The king needed Leo not merely to safeguard his own gains in north Italy but also to acquire territory farther south. In February 1516, on learning of the death of Ferdinand of Aragon, Francis ‘decided to try to recover the kingdom of Naples’. To achieve this, however, he needed the pope’s help. As temporal ruler of the States of the Church, Leo controlled the overland route south; as suzerain of Naples, he alone could grant its investiture. So Francis decided to satisfy the long-standing papal demand for the annulment of the Pragmatic Sanction, even though this meant offending his subjects. It was primarily to win papal support for his Italian policy that he signed the Concordat.

      As a political move, the Concordat was a failure. After supporting the king of France, Leo X ditched him in 1521. Yet Francis was never tempted to revoke the Concordat. As long as he hoped to re-establish his rule in Italy he tried to remain on good terms with the Holy See. As an ecclesiastical settlement, the Concordat was a bargain struck by the king and the papacy at the expense of the Gallican liberties. It restored papal authority in France while legalizing and enlarging royal control of church appointments. Yet the king was not given unlimited control: the pope retained the right of instituting royal nominees and of setting aside any whose qualifications fell short of the canonical requirements. Some churches were also allowed to continue electing their superiors. In practice, however, the Concordat was not strictly applied: the king imposed his candidates on churches claiming the privilege of election, and in June 1531 he obtained from the pope the annulment of this privilege, except in respect of religious houses. Francis also sometimes ignored canonical requirements. Very occasionally the pope refused to institute a royal nominee, but this was exceptional. In general the Concordat strengthened royal control of the Gallican church.

       Naples and Navarre

      On 23 January, after Francis had returned to the south of France, Ferdinand of Aragon died leaving his kingdom to his grandson Charles. This upset the balance of power in Europe, for Charles already ruled the Netherlands and Franche-Comté. By gaining the kingdoms of Castile, Aragon and Naples, he became France’s most powerful neighbour. What is more, Francis had an interest in Naples and Navarre, two of the territories now acquired by Charles. Having inherited the Angevin claim to Naples, he ordered the archives of Provence to be searched for documentary proof of his title. Part of the small Pyrenean kingdom of Navarre had been seized by Ferdinand from its king, Jean d’Albret, in 1512 and had since been absorbed into Castile. Jean looked to the king of France for redress. As duke of Burgundy, Charles had implicitly recognized Jean’s claim to Navarre, but he was unlikely to do so in his new role of Spanish monarch. He was equally unlikely to give up Naples.

      For a time, however, trouble between Francis and Charles was contained. For Charles, who was in the Netherlands at the time, still had to take possession of his Spanish realm, where, as a Fleming by birth, he could expect opposition. He needed assurance that France would not invade the Netherlands during his absence in Spain. On 13 August, therefore, he and Francis signed the Treaty of Noyon. Charles was promised the hand of Louise, Francis’s infant daughter, and Naples was to be part of her dowry. Pending the marriage, Charles was to pay Francis an annual tribute for Naples of 100,000 gold écus thereby implicitly recognizing the French claim to that kingdom. He also promised to compensate Jean d’Albret’s widow, Catherine de Foix, for the loss of Spanish Navarre.

       The ‘Perpetual’ Peace of Fribourg (29 November 1516)

      In Austria, meanwhile, Cardinal Schiner had been urging the Emperor Maximilian to invade Milan and restore the Sforzas to power. The emperor could count on the support of some Swiss and of Henry VIII, whose jealousy had been aroused by the French victory at Marignano. Early in March 1516, Maximilian invaded north Italy. He reached the outskirts of Milan, but two days later he suddenly decamped, leaving his troops in the lurch. His ignominious flight enabled Francis to come to terms with the Swiss. On 29 November the so-called ‘Perpetual Peace of Fribourg’ was signed. Francis agreed to pay a war indemnity of 700,000 écus to the cantons. He also promised them 300,000 écus for the castles of Lugano and Locarno and fortresses in the Valtelline, and an annual subsidy of 2000 écus to each canton. The Swiss, for their part, promised not to serve anyone against France. Although less than a complete alliance, the treaty gave Francis the right to hire Swiss mercenaries in the future. The peace was called ‘perpetual’ because it was never formally broken. Swiss troops still guarded the king of France during the French Revolution.

      On 11 March 1517, Francis, Maximilian and Charles of Spain signed the Treaty of Cambrai in which they agreed to assist each other if attacked and to join a crusade. Christendom needed to unite against the westward expansion of the Turks. Under Mehmet II they had captured Constantinople, penetrated deep into the Balkans and expelled the Venetians from Euboea. Now, under Selim the Grim, they were advancing once more: after overrunning Syria in August 1516, they invaded Egypt early in 1517. ‘It is time’, Leo X declared, ‘that we woke from sleep lest we be put to the sword unawares.’ In March 1518 he proclaimed a five-year truce among Christian powers and sent nuncios to the courts of Europe to gather support for a crusade, but they were more interested in problems nearer home than in the Balkans or eastern Mediterranean.

      In September 1517, Charles arrived in Spain with an entourage of Flemings and took control of his kingdom. The Treaty of Noyon had become an embarrassment to him: he could not afford to pay the Neapolitan tribute and seemed disinclined to honour his pledge regarding Navarre. Yet Charles continued to assure Francis of his good intentions. In May 1519 a conference was held at Montpellier to sort out differences between the two monarchs, but it soon became a slanging match over the question of Navarre and collapsed altogether following the death of Boisy, who had led the French delegation.

      

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