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The Rise and Fall of Renaissance France. R. Knecht J.
Читать онлайн.Название The Rise and Fall of Renaissance France
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isbn 9780007393381
Автор произведения R. Knecht J.
Издательство HarperCollins
Perhaps the most important task facing the regent was to maintain the king’s authority. Some people believed that the regency should be exercised by the king’s nearest adult male kinsman and an attempt was apparently made to put the duc de Vendôme in Louise’s place, but he refused to act in a way likely to divide the kingdom. In March 1525 the parlement assured Louise of its support, but it was keen to reverse the trend towards a more absolute, less consultative, monarchy.
On 23 March the parlement set up a commission to draw up remonstrances for presentation to the regent. Normally, remonstrances were concerned with a particular piece of legislation, but the commissioners chose to examine a wide range of royal policies. They saw the hand of God in the misfortunes that had befallen the kingdom. Penitence and prayer were needed to put matters right, but also measures to root out heresy. Here the parlement was tilting at Marguerite d’Angoulême’s protection of the Cercle de Meaux and at royal interference with the Berquin trial. The parlement also called for the annulment of the Concordat with the Holy See and for a return to the Pragmatic Sanction. It objected to the government’s use of évocations whereby lawsuits were referred to the Grand conseil, which was under the king’s immediate influence. Another area of concern was the fiscal administration. The parlement believed that fiscal officials were thieves and that public money was being wasted. It deplored alienations of the royal demesne regardless of the ‘fundamental law’ that forbade the practice.
When the regent received the remonstrances on 10 April she described them as ‘to the honour of God, exaltation of the faith, and very useful and necessary to the good of the king and commonwealth’. She explained that the Concordat could be revoked only by the king, but promised to satisfy the parlement’s other demands. However, Louise never again spoke about the remonstrances, and only in respect of heresy did she go some way towards meeting the parlement’s wishes. Recent disturbances at Meaux had alarmed the parlement. Bishop Briçonnet was ordered to set up a tribunal comprising two parlementaires and two theologians to try heresy cases. Its competence, which was at first limited to his diocese, was soon extended to include all dioceses within the parlement’s ressort or area of jurisdiction, in effect removing heresy cases from the episcopal courts which had traditionally judged them. The parlement also wanted the new court to try bishops suspected of heresy, but this required papal consent. On 29 April, Louise asked Clement VII for the necessary rescript, which he duly conceded. As the new judges thus exercised papal jurisdiction, they became known as the juges délégués (delegated judges). An appeals procedure was set up from them to the parlement, which consequently achieved overall control of heresy cases.
The parlement took advantage of the king’s absence to launch an attack on religious dissenters. In February 1526 heresy was defined so broadly as to take in even the smallest deviation from religious orthodoxy. The censorship of books was tightened up, printers and booksellers being forbidden to publish or stock religious works in French. The parlement was particularly anxious to seize copies of Lefèvre d’Etaples’ Epitres et évangiles des cinquante et deux dimanches which had been published anonymously. However, books were not the only victims of the persecution. The juges délégués were asked to prosecute Lefèvre, Caroli, Mazurier and Roussel. This attack on the Cercle de Meaux prompted Francis’s only known intervention in the domestic affairs of his kingdom during his captivity. In November 1525 he ordered the parlement to suspend proceedings against Lefèvre, Caroli and Roussel, holding them to be innocent victims of persecution by the ‘Sorbonne’. But the parlement stuck to its guns: on 29 November the juges délégués were instructed by the court to press on with their activities regardless. Lefèvre and Caroli fled to Strassburg, while Mazurier recanted. As for Briçonnet, he decided to fall into line with orthodoxy. Another victim was Berquin, who was rearrested in January 1526, found guilty of heresy and sent to the parlement to be sentenced, but the court desisted when it learned that Francis was about to come home.
A serious bone of contention between the regent and the parlement was the Concordat. On 24 February 1525, Etienne Poncher, archbishop of Sens and abbot of Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire, died. In response to a request from Chancellor Duprat, who had recently taken holy orders, Louise appointed him to both benefices. However, both Sens and Saint-Benoît were exempt from the Concordat’s provisions and the chapters proceeded to elect their superiors: Jean de Salazar at Sens and François Poncher (Etienne’s nephew) at Saint-Benoît. Duprat promptly appealed to the papacy which quashed the elections; the chapters appealed to the parlement. A protracted legal struggle ensued which was inflamed when Duprat sent an armed force to occupy Saint-Benoît, and the parlement tried to dislodge it. The regent evoked both lawsuits to the Grand conseil which consequently found itself in dispute with the parlement. On 24 June the two courts were ordered to hand over the lawsuits to a special commission appointed by Louise. At the same time she sent troops to Paris, presumably to force the parlement’s compliance.
The quarrel was given a dangerous new twist in July, when the parlement mounted an attack on Duprat, whom it had never forgiven for his part in securing the Concordat. He was summoned to Paris to answer certain charges, but the regent would not let him go. She asked for an explanation of the parlement’s conduct and kept its representatives waiting several weeks before granting them an audience. Her procrastination paid off. The parlement dropped its attack on the chancellor and agreed not to judge the affairs of Sens and Saint-Benoît if the Grand conseil would do likewise. This satisfied Louise, who allowed matters to rest there until her son’s return.
The Treaty of Madrid (January 1526)
Foreign policy was the most successful aspect of Louise of Savoy’s regency. While negotiating with Charles V for her son’s freedom, she worked to break up the Anglo-imperial alliance and stirred up trouble for the emperor in Italy and elsewhere. His terms for the release of Francis were anything but generous. The king was to give up Burgundy and all other territories owned by Charles the Bold in 1477; also Thérouanne and Hesdin. Bourbon’s property was to be restored; an independent kingdom, including Provence, was to be created for him; and his accomplices were to be pardoned. Henry VIII’s French claims were to be satisfied and Francis was to settle an indemnity owed by the emperor to Henry. The prince of Orange, whom the French had taken prisoner, was to be released and his principality restored. Peace was to be sealed by a marriage between Charles’s niece Mary and the Dauphin. Finally, the king’s release was to be conditional on the peace treaty being ratified by the French estates and parlements.
When these terms were laid before Francis in April 1525, he refused to discuss them, and referred the imperial envoy Beaurain to Louise. She appointed François de Tournon, archbishop of Embrun, as ambassador. His instructions stated that no part of France was to be ceded to the emperor. Tournon was soon joined in Spain by Jean de Selve. Both men saw Charles V in Toledo on 17 July, when he refused ever to accept a ransom for Francis. Burgundy was the main stumbling-block in the negotiations. On 16 August, Francis made a secret declaration to the effect that he would never cede the duchy of his own free will, and that if he were compelled to do so his action would be null and void.
Louise, meanwhile, set about destroying the Anglo-imperial alliance. The English government, fearing a separate peace between Francis and Charles, resumed secret negotiations with the regent which Pavia had interrupted. On 30 August the Treaty of the More was signed, restoring peace between England and France and drawing them together in a defensive alliance. Henry VIII undertook to use his influence with Charles to obtain Francis’s release. Francis, for his part, promised to pay Henry two million écus in annual instalments of 100,000 écus. Maritime disputes between the two countries were to be settled. The Scots were to stop armed raids across the border and Albany was banned from Scotland during James V’s minority. France agreed to indemnify Louis XII’s widow Mary, now duchess of Suffolk, for losses she had incurred during the war. Because Francis was not free to ratify the treaty, the English demanded special guarantees in the form of registration by four parlements and two provincial estates as well as financial pledges from nine major towns, including Paris, and eight noblemen. Louise asked the parties concerned to signify their