scribed correctly what he saw in passing through Italy, Clement had good cause for anxiety. "The Swabians and Spaniards," he wrote, "had committed horrible atrocities. They had burnt houses to the value of two hundred million ducats, with all the churches, images, and priests that fell into their hands. They had compelled the priests and monks to violate the nuns. Even where they were received without opposition they had burned the place; they had not spared the boys, and they had carried off the girls; and whenever they found the Sacrament of the Church they had thrown it into a river or into the vilest place they could find. If God did not punish such cruelty and wickedness, men would infer that He did not trouble Himself about the affairs of this world."[1]
The news from Italy gave a fresh impulse to Wolsey's policy and the Anglo-French Alliance, which was pushed forward in spite of popular disapproval. The Emperor, unable to pay, and therefore unable to control, his troops, became himself alarmed. He found himself pressed into a course which was stimulating the German revolt against the Papacy, and he professed himself anxious to end the war. Inigo de Mendoza, the Bishop of Burgos, was despatched to Paris to negotiate for a general pacification. From Paris he was to proceed to London to assure Henry of the Emperor's inalienable friendship, and above all things to gain over Wolsey by the means which experience had shown to be the nearest way to Wolsey's heart. The great Cardinal was already Charles's pensionary, but the pension was several years in arrear. Mendoza was to tell him not only that the
- ↑ Giberto, Bishop of Verona, to Wolsey, Feb. 10, 1527.—Calendar Foreign and Domestic, April 26, 1527, vol. iv. p. 1386.
