³⁰⁴ It commences with these words: “Consuererunt Romiani Pontiiicis,” and contains twenty-four paragraphs.
Paul III. had destined for his grandson, Octavius Farnese, the States of Parma and Placentia: Charles V. who intended to unite them to the duchy of Milan, was threatened with the heaviest censures. Afterwards the pontiff wished for Parma for the Holy See, and they say, died of grief when he learned that Octavios was on the point of obtaining this duchy.
Julius III. by agreement with the emperor, refused the investiture to Farnese; but the king of France, Henry II. protected the duke, and sent him troops. At this news Julius excommunicated the king of France, and threatened to place the kingdom under interdict. Henry was not terrified; he forbade his subjects from taking money to Rome, or addressing themselves to others than the usual prelates in ecclesiastical matters. This firmness softened the holy father, who even laboured to reconcile the emperor with the king of France.
After Marcellus II. who reigned but twenty-one days, John Peter Caraffa, was elected pope, who took the name of Paul VI.:
“Although he was se− “venty nine years old,” says Muratori, “his head “was an epitome of Mount Vesuvius near which he “was born. Overbearing, passionate, cruel, inflex− “ible, his zeal for religion, was without prudence, “and without bounds. His savage look, his eyes “hollow, but sparkling and inflamed, presaged a “a severe and sullen government. Paul neverthe− “less began with acts of clemency and liberality “which seemed to belie the apprhensions which “his character had inspired: he so lavished “favors and courtesies, that the Romans erected “a statue to him in the capitol. But his natural tem− “per soon returned, burst the banks, and verified the “most unfortunate forebodings.”
Family interests made him the enemy of Spain: he not only persecuted the Sforzi, the Columnas, and other Roman families attached to this power, but he entered into a league with France to deprive the Spaniards of the kingdom of Naples. The cardinal of Lorain and his brother, the duke of Guise, led Henry II. into this league in spite of the constable, Montmorenci. But the cardinal Pole, minister of Mary, Queen of England, and wife of Philip the Spaniard, had the address to make the French monarch sign a truce of five years with the court of Madrid. Paul is enraged; his nephew, the cardinal Caraffa, comes to France to complain of the treaty they have presumed to make with Spain, without the knowledge of the Court of Rome. The duke of Alba, viceroy of Naples is dessous of lulling this quarrel; he sends a delegate to the pope, whom the pope imprisons. This outrage compels the viceroy to take arms; he makes himself master in a short time of a great part of the ecclesiastical state. Alarmed at the progress of the duke of Alba, the court of France sends an army of twelve thousand men against him, commanded by the duke of Guise. But, in the mean time the French lose the battle of Saint Quentin: to repair this loss, they are obliged to recall Guise and his troops, and the pope is compelled to negotiate with the viceroy.