The stories of many of these figures make for great reading. Alexander Dumas, for instance, drew on the history of this era for his Three Musketeers series.
Wonderful books, often turned into pretty decent movies. Well worth your time. The 16th and 17th centuries were a time of tremendously rapid change. Change is always difficult, especially when changes come too quickly.
The Thirty Years' War is one example of the kind of conflicts one might have in trying to cope with too-rapid change. But it wasn't just the Holy Roman Empire that had problems.
Virtually all countries in Europe struggled in one way or another in trying to cope with the changes coming about in the 16th and 17th centuries.
France, for instance, had the same kinds of problems as the rest of Europe: political, social and economic tension made worse by religious division. Even competent rulers and officials had trouble governing France at this time. Like the rest of Europe, France had to deal with rapid inflation and falling real wages brought on by the influx of New World gold.
Also, France had a special problem with taxation. The French kings relied on tax farmers who put in their own pockets any "extra" money collected. The Secretaries of State led the departments of the navy, army foreign affairs etc. The so-called Sovereign Courts had an important role in government.
The Parlement de Paris had a long history and claimed to be the oldest formal expression of royal will. It recognised the king and chancellor as being superior — but nobody else. It was always at odds with the Royal Council. A strong monarch could control the Parlement de Paris but a minor supported by a regent rarely could.
Could the Parlement de Paris reject a royal edict? It could temporarily but not indefinitely. The king could hold a lit-de-justice. The Venetians are defeated at Agnadello in , after which Julius and the Habsburgs appropriate much of Venice's mainland territory.
With this achieved, the pope moves on to his second objective. He organizes the Holy League of Again there is a single enemy, but this time it is France.
Venice, recently humbled, is enrolled with Spain and the Habsburgs on the papal side; and there is useful support from the Swiss , now considered Europe's most formidable fighters. In a joint army of papal, Spanish and Venetian forces weakens the French in a battle near Ravenna, after which the Swiss are able to sweep through Lombardy and drive the intruders from Milan. At this stage Venice and France are the clear losers.
But this has only been round one. In the next bout, the contest becomes much more clearly a clash between Spain and France - and in particular a personal rivalry between two young kings. Francis inherits the throne of France in A new mood of youth and enthusiasm enters France with the accession in of the year-old Francis I.
The centre of a glamorous young group of courtiers, he is a cousin of the previous king, Louis XII , and is married to Louis' daughter. In a spirit of adventure, Francis takes up his father-in-law's ailing and expensive cause in northern Italy. In the summer of he rides south to recover Milan from the forces of the Holy League.
In a two-day battle at Marignano in September, the French defeat the ranks of Swiss infantry - mercenaries, fighting in the pope's cause, whose pikes and halberds have previously seemed invincible.
French artilllery plays its part in the victory at Marignano, but the French cavalry also cuts a dash - with the young king prominent in person. In a mood of medieval chivalry, Francis is knighted on the battlefield by a famous French warrior, Pierre de Bayard, the brave victor in many past encounters and known in his own lifetime as the chevalier sans peur et sans reproche 'knight without fear or reproach'.
The rapid capture of Milan, in the first year of his reign, makes Francis the most glamorous monarch in Europe. Leo X, the Medici pope who was funding the defeated Swiss mercenaries, entertains the victor of Marignano in lavish style at his papal court in Bologna.
Francis, liking what he sees of the Italian Renaissance the pope offers him a madonna by Raphael , determines to enjoy these splendours. He invites Italian artists to France, including even the aged Leonardo da Vinci.
By the spring of Italy's most versatile genius has moved to Amboise, where a rocky fortress has recently been adapted as a royal residence. Leonardo lives the last two years of his life with the title 'first painter and engineer and architect' of the French king.
But in the year of Leonardo's death, , there is a serious challenge to the status now enjoyed by Francis as the premier monarch of Europe. Charles, the even younger head of the Habsburg dynasty, emerges as a rival.
Charles succeeds in to the throne of Spain and in - on the death of his grandfather Maximilian I - to all the Habsburg territories including Burgundy. The result is that he rules much of the land to the immediate south and north of France. There is every chance that Charles now aged nineteen will also be elected to his grandfather's crown as German king and Holy Roman emperor - an office which has been held by the Habsburgs since If that happens, north Italy and Germany will also owe allegiance to this powerful young ruler.
Alarmed at the prospect of France being encircled, the French king, Francis, decides to contest the imperial election. There is perhaps little chance of a French king being elected to rule an empire which in its origin included France but which has not done so for centuries.
But Charles is taking no risks. He clinches the election by dispensing vast sums in bribes borrowing the money from the Fuggers , to their great advantage and his lasting inconvenience. He is elected in June and crowned as German king at Aachen in This is the first encounter in a rivalry between Charles and Francis which comes to dominate the politics of western Europe. It involves a large measure of personal animosity. Francis, preparing to make war on his rival after Charles's election as emperor, attempts first to secure an important ally on his western flank - England's Henry VIII , the third in this trio of autocratic young rulers born within a few years of each other.
If Francis is to march safely against Charles, he cannot in his absence risk Henry pressing his family's ancient claim to the throne of France, or even extending the territory round England's last remaining French possession, the pale of Calais. Francis therefore invites Henry in to the spectacularly lavish meeting which becomes known as the Field of Cloth of Gold. The conviviality of the Field of Cloth of Gold fails to deliver an English alliance Henry immediately moves on to a less sumptuous but more fruitful meeting with Charles V in Kent, where each agrees to make no pact with Francis for at least two years.
In Francis moves against Spanish land in the Pyrenees, beginning years of intermittent warfare. In an imperial army drives the French out of Milan. Three years later Francis marches into Italy to reclaim his territory, with disastrous consequences.
The French are heavily defeated at Pavia , in , and Francis himself is taken prisoner. Soon he is in a fortress in Madrid, negotiating with Charles under duress. But he has little intention of keeping his word. Within two months of his return to France, in , he has put in place a pact, the League of Cognac, allying himself with Venice and a new pope, Clement VII. This time it is the pope who soon finds himself a prisoner.
An imperial army, campaigning in Italy and containing large numbers of unpaid German mercenaries, marches in on the holy city of Rome. Rome is sacked, looted and ravaged with the violence customary on such occasions. Rich citizens are seized for ransom; there are stories of nuns offered for sale on the streets.
The pope manages to reach the security of the Castel Sant'Angelo where he shelters, a prisoner in all but name, until the imperial army is at last withdrawn from the city.
These violent events prompt the treaty of Cambrai, signed in and known as the 'ladies' peace' because its terms are negotiated between Francis's mother and one of Charles's aunts.
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