Morone’s Conspiracy and the League of Cognac

Abstract

The Italians were always to claim that if Charles V had observed the agreements made in 1525 general peace would have come to Italy, that general peace which was to escape the emperor for another five years. Certainly those were right who asserted that the imperialists never intended to observe the agreements in question. When Lannoy wrote to the emperor to inform him of the arrangements he had made in Italy he advised the emperor never to ratify the treaties, and Charles acted on this advice. In the following months when he wrote to his lieutenants in Italy he did not speak of peace but of punishment and chastisement, particularly of the fickle pope, of the proud and obstinate Venetian republic, and of francophile Florence. Lannoy made no move to urge the duke of Ferrara to surrender Reggio and Rubiera as agreed; and he left his troops quartered in the Church State. Clement put the worst possible construction on the behaviour of Lannoy and Pescara, for spies had already told him of the contempt in which the Italians were held at the imperial court. He knew that those servants of the emperor in Italy with whom he had but recently signed an agreement were writing to Spain urging Charles V to give papal Modena to the duke of Ferrara, to restore the exiled family of the Bentivoglii to their former ruling position in the papal city of Bologna, and to take over direct rule of Florence, Siena and Lucca.¹

… although the enemy spread abroad hopes of peace — yet so great is their desire to destroy Italy and successfully establish the Monarchy that, forgetting more important matters, while they attempt to lull our suspicions with gentle words, they are on the other hand making every possible effort to effect the opposite.

Guicciardini