THE SACK OF ROME. (Guicciardini's History of Italy.) 1527. On the 5th of May, the Constable de Bourbon encamped in the fields near Rome, and haughtily sent a herald to the Pope to demand free passage through the city, that he might lead his army into the kingdom of Naples. Resolved to conquer or die, having indeed no other resource, he next day at dawn began a violent assault on the Borgo, on the side of the mountains, and of the church of San Spirito. A thick fog that had risen during the night covered the advance of the troops. At the very commencement of the attack, Bourbon, seeing that the Germans did not act with sufficient spirit, went to lead them on, and was killed on the spot by an arquebus bullet. But this mischance, far from cooling the courage of the soldiers, served only to animate them the more, and after having fought furiously for two hours, they at last penetrated into the Borgo. As it is always very difficult to storm towns without cannon, they lost about a thousand men in the assault. Their courage was aided not only by the feebleness of the defences, but also by the bad behaviour of the defenders; a plain proof of the difference between troops used to war and a mob of fighters hastily brought together. Nevertheless, a body of the youth of Rome, led by the town officers, fought bravely under the banners of the Roman people; but the great number of Ghibellines and of partisans of the Colonnas who were mingled with them, prevented a vigorous resistance being made, for these did not indeed desire the Imperialists to make themselves masters of Rome, but did not fear it much, hoping that the enemy might be induced to favour their own party. The Imperialists had no sooner secured a passage for themselves, than every one fled into the town, leaving the suburbs at the mercy of the victors. The Pope, who was awaiting the result of the assault in the Vatican, when he learned that the Borgo had been taken, fled at once into the castle of St. Angelo with several of the cardinals. It was a question whether he should remain there, or, passing through the town with his light horse, should withdraw to a place of safety; but he was destined to be an illustrious example that the sovereign pontiffs are liable to misfortune as well as the rest of men, although it is not easy to destroy the reverence inspired by the majesty of their rank. Bérard of Padua came from the imperial army to inform him of the death of the Duke de Bourbon; he told him that the soldiers, in consternation at this loss, were very ready to make terms. Clement at once sent to their commanders, and while he let a favourable opportunity of escape be lost, he ceased to take measures for the defence of the town. Without meeting any resistance, the Imperialists soon got possession of the Transtevère, and at five o'clock in the afternoon made their way into Rome by the bridge of Sixtus. With the exception of the Ghibellines and of some cardinals known for their attachment to the emperor, and who, therefore, flattered themselves that they would be treated with more favour than the others, all the inhabitants were in flight, and confusion reigned everywhere, as is always the case in such scenes. Then the soldiery spread tumultuously throughout the town and pillaged on all hands, without distinction of friend or foe, and without any regard to the dignity of the prelates; the very churches, the mon | asteries, the most celebrated relics and sacred things, were not protected from the avarice of the soldiers. In fact, it is impossible to describe or even to imagine the desolation of this city, which seemed destined to pass in turn from the highest pitch of grandeur to the most frightful calamities; this was the second time that it saw itself abandoned to the martial fury, and it was nine hundred and eighty years ago that the Goths had so ruthlessly plundered it. The booty was immense, by the prodigious quantity of riches and rarities accumulated for so long in the palaces of the great and the shops of the merchants, and by the number and the rank of the prisoners, from whom very large ransoms were demanded. But the height of misfortune was that the soldiers, and especially the Germans whose hatred of the Roman Church rendered them more furious, took several prelates, and after having dressed them in their ceremonial robes, mounted them on asses, and, in this unworthy plight, presented them as a laughing-stock to all the city. Many persons perished amid tortures, or were so cruelly ill-used that they died at the end of some days after having paid their ransom. About four thousand men were killed in the attack, or in the wild rage of pillage. All the palaces of the cardinals and of the other nobles were plundered, except certain ones where the merchants had stored their goods, and which were spared in consideration of large sums of money. It hap-| bishops, who had not expected to be insulted by their own countrymen, were seized and treated as harshly as the rest. pened, indeed, that several persons who had thus compounded with the Spaniards, were pillaged by the Germans, or were obliged also to buy them off with more money. The Marchioness of Mantua paid fifty thousand ducats to guarantee her mansion against the greed of the soldiery; this sum was furnished to her by the merchants who had taken refuge with her, and the story was that her son, Don Ferdinand, had the fifth part of it. The Cardinal de Sienne, always, like his ancestors, a friend to the emperor, was made prisoner by the Germans, who also sacked his palace, though the cardinal had arranged with the Spaniards to be spared this misfortune; bareheaded and loaded with blows, they conducted him to the Borgo, and he only got out of their hands by giving them five thousand ducats. The Cardinals de la Minerve and Ponant suffered almost the same treatment. They paid their ransom to the Germans, but that did not prevent them from being both led ignominiously through the town by these madmen. The Spanish and German cardinals and Everywhere might be seen persons being tormented with the utmost barbarity, to extort money from them, or to make them disclose where their property was hid. All the objects of devotion and the relics with which the churches were filled, were trodden under foot, after having been despoiled of their ornaments; and to these acts of sacrilege the German barbarity added blasphemies and outrages beyond number. What was of least value, and what the soldiers had not thought it worth while to touch, was pillaged by the peasants from the estates of the Colonnas who came to Rome when all was over. Cardinal Colonna, who arrived the day after the taking of the city, rescued several ladies who had sought refuge in his palace. It was said that the booty of the soldiers, in gold and silver and precious stones, was worth more than a million of ducats, and that the amount of the ransoms went far beyond this sum. THE ANABAPTISTS OF GERMANY. (Robertson.) A.D. 1525. SOON after Luther's appearance, the rashness or ignorance of some of his disciples led them to publish tenets no less absurd than pernicious, which being proposed to men extremely illiterate, but fond of novelty, and at a time when their minds were occupied chiefly with religious speculations, gained too easy credit and authority among them. To these causes must be imputed the extravagances of Muncer, in the year 1525, as well as the rapid progress which his opinions made among the peasants; but though the insurrection excited by that fanatic was soon suppressed, several of his followers lurked in different places, and endeavoured privately to propagate his opinions. In those provinces of Upper Germany which had already been so cruelly wasted by their enthusiastic rage, the magistrates watched their motions with such severe attention, that many of them found it necessary to retire into other countries; some were punished, others driven into exile, and their errors were entirely rooted out. But in the Netherlands and Westphalia, where the pernicious tendency of their opinions was more unknown, and guarded against with less care, they got admittance into several towns, and spread the infection of their principles. The most remarkable of their religious tenets related to the sacrament of baptism, which, as they contended, ought to be administered only to persons grown up to years of understanding, and should be performed not by sprinkling them with water, but by dipping them in it for this reason they condemned the baptism of infants; and rebaptizing all whom they admitted into their society, the sect came to be distinguished by the name of Anabaptists. To this peculiar notion concerning baptism, which has the appearance of being founded on the practice of the Church in the apostolic age, and contains nothing inconsistent with the peace and order of human society, they added other principles of a most enthusiastic as well as dangerous nature. They main-spiration, and a confident and tained that, among Christians who had the precepts of the gospel to direct, and the spirit of God to guide them, the office of magistracy was not only unnecessary, but an unlawful encroachment on their spiritual liberty; that the distinctions occasioned by birth, or rank, or wealth, being contrary to the spirit of the gospel, which considers all men as equal, should be entirely abolished; that all Christians, throwing their possessions into one common stock, should live together in that state of equality which becomes members of the same family; that as neither the laws of nature, nor the precepts of the New Testament, had imposed any restraints upon men with regard to the number of wives which they might marry, they should use that liberty which God himself had granted to the patriarchs. Such opinions, propagated and maintained with enthusiastic zeal and boldness, were not long without producing the violent effects natural to them. Two anabaptist prophets, John Matthias, a baker of Haerlem, and John Boccold, or Beükels, a journeyman tailor of Leyden, possessed with the rage of making proselytes, fixed their residence at Munster, an imperial city in Westphalia, of the first rank, under the sovereignty of its bishop, but governed by its own senate and consuls. As neither of these fanatics wanted the talents requisite in desperate enterprises great resolution, the appearance of sanctity, bold pretensions to in plausible manner of discoursingthey soon gained many converts. Among these were Rothman, who had first preached the protestant doctrine in Munster, and Cnipperdoling, a citizen of good birth and considerable eminence. Imboldened by the countenance of such disciples, they openly taught their opinions; and not satisfied with that liberty, they made several attempts, though without success, to become masters of the town, in order to get their tenets established by public authority. At last, having secretly called in their associates from the neighbouring country, they suddenly took possession of the arsenal and senate-house in the night-time, and running through the streets with drawn swords, and horrible howlings, cried out alternately, "Repent, and be baptized;" and "Depart, ye ungodly." The senators, the canons, the nobility, together with the more sober citizens, whether papists or pro testants, terrified at their threats and outcries, fled in confusion, and left the city under the dominion of a frantic multitude, consisting chiefly of strangers. Nothing now remaining to overawe or control them, they set about modelling the government according to their own wild ideas; and though at first they showed so much reverence for the ancient constitution, as to elect senators of their own sect, and to appoint Chipperdoling and another proselyte consuls, this was nothing more than form; for all |