FullReads

Despite the strength and intrepid valor of the king, his danger was increasing minute by minute, when the Lord of Pomperant, one of Bourbon’s intimate friends, pressed up through the mass and recognized the warrior who stood like a wounded lion at bay amid a pack of wolves.

“Back! back!” he cried, springing forward, and beating off the soldiers with his sword. “Leave this man to me.”

Pressing to the king’s side, he still beat back his foes, saying to him,–

“Yield, my liege! You stand alone. If you fight longer, I cannot answer for your life. Look! there is no hope for you. The Duke of Bourbon is not far off. Let me send for him to receive your sword.”

The visor of the king hid the look with which he must have received these words. But from the helmet’s iron depths came in hollow tones the reply of Francis of France to this appeal.

“No,” he cried, sternly, “rather would I die the death than pledge my faith to Bourbon the traitor! Where is the Viceroy of Naples?”

Lannoy, the viceroy, was in a distant part of the field. Some time was lost in finding and bringing him to the spot. At length he arrived, and fell upon one knee before Francis, who presented him his sword. Lannoy took it with a show of the profoundest respect, and immediately gave him another in its place. The battle was over, and the king of France was a prisoner in the hands of his rebellious subject, the Duke of Bourbon. The wheel of fate had strangely turned.

The captive king had shown himself a poor general, but an heroic soldier. His victors viewed him with admiration for his prowess. When he sat at table, after having his wounds, which were slight, dressed, Bourbon approached him respectfully and handed him a dinner napkin. Francis took it, but with the most distant and curt politeness. The next day an interview took place between Bourbon and the king, in reference to the position of the latter as captive. In this Francis displayed the same frigidity of manner as before, while he was all cordiality with Pescara, Bourbon’s fellow in command. The two leaders claimed Francis as their own captive, but Lannoy, to whom he had surrendered, had him embarked for Naples, and instead of taking him there, sent him directly to Spain, where he was delivered up to Charles V. Thus ended this episode in the life of the Constable de Bourbon.

We have still another, and the closing, scene to present in the life of this great soldier and traitor. It is of no less interest than those that have gone before. Historically it is of far deeper interest, for it was attended with a destruction of inestimable material that has rarely been excelled. The world is the poorer that Bourbon lived.

In Spain he had been treated with consideration by the emperor, but with disdain by many of the lords, who despised him as a traitor. Charles V. asked the Marquis de Villena to give quarters in his palace to the duke.

“I can refuse the emperor nothing,” he replied; “but as soon as the traitor is out of my house I shall set it on fire with my own hand. No man of honor could live in it again.”

Despite this feeling, the military record of Bourbon could not be set aside. He was the greatest general of his time, and, recognizing this, Charles again placed him in command of his armies in Italy. On going there, Bourbon found that there was nothing that could be called an army. Everything was in disorder and the imperial cause almost at an end. In this state of affairs, Bourbon became filled with hopes of great conquests and high fame for himself. Filled with the spirit of adventure, and finding the Spanish army devoted to him, he added to it some fifteen thousand of German lanzknechts, most of them Lutherans.