CHAP. suffered, and expired at Rome about a month after he had been made captive. VIII. Benedict the Eleventh, the successor of Boniface, seemed a temperate and a wise man. He was most willing to recal and reverse all that was exorbitant in the demands and extravagant in the assertions of his predecessor; he could not but vindicate his memory and resent his death. He soon abandoned the decree of excommunication against Philip and those who adhered to him. The cardinals Colonna were restored to their property and rights; but towards Nogaret Pope Benedict remained even more inexorable than Boniface, and maintained the excommunication against him. And as Nogaret knew how to interest the king in his favour, French animosity continued as lively as that directed against his predecessor. Philip put the Pope's amity to the proof, by requesting him to abet the plan of Charles of Valois to secure Constantinople, and to preach a crusade as well as grant the clerical contribu- . tion necessary for its support. Benedict rather evaded than refused, and was soon after carried off, it was alleged, by poison. Philip saw thus terminated the papal quarrel, which he had evidently at first regarded as fraught with extreme danger; although determined to defend the rights of his crown, he did not shrink from the consequences. The struggle of the Emperor against papal pretensions of the same kind, and sustained by popes of a similar temper as Boniface, had proved fatal to more than one imperial dynasty. But the truth was, that Germany wanted that unity and nationality, which would have enabled it to resist as one body the pretensions of Rome. The French possessed these, and Philip might have overcome the arrogance and encroachments of Pope Boniface without recurring to the violence of past ages. A century previous, indeed, the exploit of Nogaret of Anagni would have afforded a triumph to the Popedom, instead of prompting Philip, as his successes did, to a scheme for confiscating the papal power to his own profit. Delivered from the menacing hostility of Rome, Philip had leisure to turn his mind and efforts towards Flanders. During the year 1303 he had sought to keep the Flemings at bay by bodies of Lombard and Tuscan infantry, whom his Florentine banker persuaded him to hire, and by Amadeus the Fifth, Duke of Savoy, who brought soldiers of that country to his aid. Although the long lances and more perfect armour of these troops gave them some advantage over the Flemings, the latter took and burnt Therouanne, overran Artois, and laid siege to Tournay. Amadeus of Savoy, unable to overcome the Flemings by arms, recommended Philip to do so by treaty. And the king accordingly concluded a pacification, one condition of which was that the Count of Flanders should be released from prison to negotiate terms of fresh accommodation. The Flemings received their aged count with respect; but he brought no terms which they were willing to accept; and he returned, as he had pledged his word, to captivity at Compiegne, where he soon after died. For the campaign of the following year Philip, in lieu of Italian infantry, took sixteen Genoese galleys into his pay, commanded by Rainier de Grimaldi. This admiral passed through the straits of Gibraltar, and assailed the maritime towns and shipping of Flanders. Guy of Namur mustered to oppose them a fleet of greater numbers; but the Genoese, accustomed to naval warfare, defeated the Flemings, and took Guy of Namur prisoner. Philip, at the same time, assembled a large army at Tournay, and marched to Mons la Puelle, near Lille, where the Flemings to the number of 70,000 were encamped within a circumvallation of cars and chariots. There was no Robert of Artois on this occasion to precipitate a rash onslaught. And by Philip's order the southern light troops harassed the Flemings all day CHAP. VIII. CHAP. with arrows and missiles, allowing them no repose. Towards the evening many of the French withdrew to refresh themselves and take off their armour: the king himself was of this number; the Flemings, perceiving this slackness, and divining the cause, poured forth from their encampment in three divisions, which at first drove all before them, and reached as far as the king's tent, then in full preparation for supper. The monarch himself, without armour or helmet, was fortunately not recognised; his secretary, De Boville, and two Parisians of the name of Gentien, whom Philip had always about his person, were slain before his eyes. The king withdrew, but it was to arm, mount on horseback, and cry out to his followers to stand their ground. He himself, says Villani, "one of the strongest and best made men of his time," fought valiantly until his brother Charles and most of the barons, recovering from the first panic, came to his rescue, and the Flemings were finally repulsed and put to the rout. William of Juliers fell on the side of the Flemings; the son of the Duke of Burgundy and many others on that of the French. Philip immediately laid siege to Lille, deeming the Flemings totally discomfited. They had, however, rallied, obtained reinforcements at Bruges and at Ghent, and in three weeks appeared to the number of 50,000 before the king's camp at Lille, crying for battle. Philip called a council, and observed that "even a victory would be dearly purchased over a party so desperate." The Duke of Brabant and the Count of Savoy therefore undertook to negotiate with the Flemings, and Philip consented to grant them fair terms. He recognised their independent rights, agreed to liberate Robert, eldest son of Guido Count of Flanders, as well as all those in captivity. He granted Robert and his son the fiefs which belonged to him in France, especially that of Nevers, and promised to give him investiture of the county of Flanders. The Flemings, on their side, consented to pay 200,000 livres, and to leave the King of France in possession of the three towns of Lille, Douai, and Bethune, that part of Flanders in which French was spoken. It was thus, at least, that the French interpreted the treaty, whilst the Flemings afterwards alleged that French Flanders was merely a pledge for the payment of the money, not an alienation to the crown of France. During the last eight or nine months of this war the cardinals were assembled at Perugia for the purpose of electing a successor to Benedict the Eleventh. So balanced and inveterate were the parties which divided the conclave, that an election seemed hopeless. The King of France had so completely succeeded to the old position of the emperor in Italy, that the Ghibellines adhered to him. He was represented in the conclave by the Cardinal del Prato, and in Rome by the Colonna. Gaetano, a nephew of Pope Boniface, was the chief of the Sacerdotal party. Finding it impossible to fix upon the same person for the future Pope, they agreed that the Italians or Sacerdotals should name three French prelates, and of these their antagonists should select one, to be declared Pontiff. The bishops in the South of France had most of them rallied to Boniface, and the cardinals thought it advisable to name three of the Gascon prelates, all inimical to Philip. Of the three the partisans of France in the conclave fixed upon Bertrand de Goth, Archbishop of Bordeaux. He had been a special enemy of Charles of Valois and of the French court; but, says Villani, "was known to be a Gascon greedy of honours and riches, and most likely to come to terms with Philip of France." A messenger was despatched to the king at Paris, which reached him in eleven days from Perugia. Philip hastened southwards, summoning the archbishop to meet him at St. Jean d'Angelys. After hearing mass together, the CHAP. VIII. VIII. CHAP. king informed the prelate that he could make him Pope on six conditions,-which were, that he should reconcile the king to the Church, take off the excommunication of his followers, grant the tax of the clergy for five years, condemn the memory of Bonifice, restore the Colonnas, and appoint certain other cardinals in the French interest. The sixth condition Philip reserved, and it was agreed that he should not mention it for the present. But to this, as well as the five other demands, Bertrand swore assent on the Holy Sacrament. Some historians deny the meeting, but not the accord; upon which Bertrand was duly elected Pope, and was consecrated in the church of St. Just at Lyons in the presence of Philip. The Italians, on learning this, exclaimed that the Papacy had been transported beyond the Alps. Clement the Fifth, as the new Pope was called, raised on the occasion a number of French and Gascon prelates to the cardinalate, thus giving them the advantage in all future elections. After residing some years at Bordeaux and at Poictiers, where the king retained him almost captive, Clement the Fifth fixed his residence at Avignon, a city which the Popes had acquired as part of the spoil of Raymond of Toulouse. Here the Papacy lingered for three quarters of a century; and here, divorced from Italy, subservient to the Court of France and its own pleasures, Petrarch found the Pontifical Court, and portrayed it with strokes as indelible and colours as dark as those which Dante employed in the preceding age. It is difficult to account for the inveteracy with which Philip and his legists pursued the memory of Boniface. That they should have spared no efforts, and listened to no scruples in overthrowing the living pontiff, can be understood; but what great advantage or satisfaction was to be derived from compelling Pope Clement the Fifth to fling disgrace on the memory of his predecessor, does not appear. This was one of the |