originator of the offers made to Pescara. The veil of secrecy still covers both Pescara's action—Guicciardini characterised it as eterna infamia—and his early death, which occurred on March 30, 1525. The Emperor freely expressed his opinion of the Pope's faithlessness (September 17, 1526). On May 22, 1526, Clement concluded the Holy League of Cognac with Francis, who had returned to France at the beginning of March, his captivity over. This brought on open war with the Emperor, the attack on Rome by the Colonna (September 20), the plundering of the Borgo, the march of the Imperial troops against Rome under the command of Bourbon, the storming of the part of the city named after Leo in which Bourbon fell (May 6, 1527), the flight of the Pope to the Castle of St Angelo, and finally the storming of Rome and the sack which followed it; cruel and revolting to all Christian feeling, it remains to this day a memory of terror for all Italians. No Guiscard appeared this time, as in the days of Gregory VII, to save the beleaguered Pope. On June 5, 1527, he was forced to capitulate, yield the fortress and give himself up to the mercy of the Emperor. When a prisoner and deprived of all his means, Clement bade Cellini melt down his tiara, a symbol of his own position; for the whole temporal power of the Papacy lay at the feet of the Emperor, who could abolish it if he chose. We know that this policy was suggested to him: we know also that Charles had serious thoughts of utilising the position of the Pope for an ecclesiastical reformation, and forcing him to summon the General Council, which all sides demanded. But France and England declared they would recognise no Council until the Pope was set free again, and the Spanish clergy also petitioned for the release of the Head of the Church. Once more the Imperial troops returned to Rome from their summer quarters, and in September, 1527, the city was once more sacked. Veyre arrived as the Emperor's agent to offer Clement freedom on condition of neutrality, a general peace, and the promotion of reform by means of a Council. The agreement was signed on November 26; but on December 8 the Pope escaped to Orvieto, whence on June 1, 1528, he removed to Viterbo. The war proved disastrous for France; Lautrec's defeats, his death by plague (August 15), the terrible state of Italy, which was now but one vast battlefield strewn with corpses, induced Clement at last to side with the Emperor. On October 8, 1528, he returned horror-stricken to half-burnt, starving Rome. Harried by the plague, her population diminished by one-half; her importance for the literary and artistic life of humanity had been for ever marred by the awful events of the year 1527. Those of her artists and learned men who had not fled were maltreated and robbed during the Sack: those that were left were beggars and had to seek their bread elsewhere. Erasmus wrote to Sadoleto (October 1, 1528) that not the city, but the world had perished, and that the present sufferings of Rome were more cruel than those brought on her by the Goths and the Gauls. From Carpentras in 1529 Sadoleto wrote
