By Rev. D. M. MACDONALD, Portree.
HISTORY sometimes repeats itself, and in view of the situation in which the Pope finds himself now it may happen that the Vatican will suffer damage and the prestige of the Papacy will be greatly lowered if Rome is sacked and the Pope kept in bondage as happened in the year 1527. Then an army composed of Germans and Spaniards took possession of Rome and the latter showed as little respect for their head as the Germans. Being Roman Catholics they would be expected to revere the Pope and obey him. It was exactly otherwise. They took the lead with the Neapolitans in plundering the city which shows that they had little regard for their priest taught religion. The Pope endeavoured to get Charles the Fifth to destroy Luther and Protestantism but his wicked plans were upset and recoiled on his own head. He was attacked by his own spiritual children and almost ruined. The Most High foiled his plots against the Reformers and protected them from the treachery and malignity of both Pope and Emperor. The following extract from Dr. Merle D’ Aubingnés’s, History of the Reformation, gives a description of the sack of Rome in the year above mentioned:— “Then began the famous “Sack of Rome:” The papacy had for centuries put Christendom in the press. Prebends, annates, jubilees, pilgrimages, ecclesiastical graces,—she had money of them all. These greedy troops, that for months had lived in wretchedness, determined to make her disgorge. No one was spared, the imperial not more than the ultramontane party, the Ghibellines not more than the Guelfs. Churches, palaces, convents, private houses, basilicas, banks, tombs,—everything was pillaged even to the golden ring that the corpse of Julius II. still wore on its finger. The Spaniards displayed the greatest skill, scenting out and discovering treasures in the most mysterious hiding places; but the Neapolitans were the most outrageous. “On every side were heard,” says, Guicciardini, ‘the piteous shrieks of the Roman women and of the nuns whom the soldiers dragged away by companies to satisfy their lust.’ At first the Germans found a certain pleasure in making the papists feel the weight of their swords. But ere long, happy at procuring victuals and drink, they were more pacific than their allies. It was upon those things which the Romans call ‘holy’ that the anger of the Lutherans was especially discharged. They took away the chalices, the pyxes, the silver remonstrances and clothed their servants and camp boys with the sacerdotal garments. The campofiore was changed into an immense gambling-house. The soldiers brought thither golden vessels and bags full of crowns, staked them upon one throw of the dice, and after losing them went in search of others. A certain Simon Baptista, who had foretold the sack of the city had been thrown into prison by the Pope; the Germans liberated him and made him drink with them. But like Jeremiah he prophesied against all, ‘Rob, plunder,’ said he to his liberators; ‘you shall however give back all, the money of the soldiers and the gold of the priests will follow the same road.’ Nothing pleased the Germans more than to mock the papal court. ‘Many prelates,’ says Guicciardini, ‘were paraded on asses through all the city of Rome.’ After this procession the bishops paid their ransom; but they fell into the hands of the Spaniards, who made them pay it a second time.
One day a lansquenet named Guillaume de Sainte Belle put on the Pope’s robes, and placed the triple crown upon his head; others gathered round him adorning themselves with the red hats and long robes of the cardinals: and going in procession upon asses through the streets of the city, they all arrived at last before the castle of St. Angelo, to which Clement VII. had retired. Here the soldier-cardinals alighted, and lifting up the front of their robes kissed the feet of the pretended pontiff. The latter drank to the health of Clement VII., the cardinals kneeling did the same, and exclaimed that henceforward they would be pious popes and good cardinals, careful not to excite wars as their predecessors had done. They then formed a conclave and the pope having announced to his consistory, that it was his intention to resign the papacy, all hands were immediately raised for the election, and they cried out “Luther is pope! Luther is pope!” Never had pontiff been proclaimed with such perfect unanimity. Such were the humours of the Germans.
The Spaniards did not let the Romans off so easily. Clement VII. had called them “Moors,” and had published a plenary indulgence for whoever should kill any of them. Nothing, therefore, could restrain their fury. These faithful Papists put the prelates to death in the midst of horrible cruelties, destined to extort their treasures from them; they spared neither rank, sex nor age. It was not until the sack had lasted ten days, and a booty of ten millions of golden crown had been collected, and from five to eight thousand victims had perished, that quiet began to be in some degree restored. Thus did the pontifical city decline in the midst of a long and cruel pillage, and that splendour with which Rome from the beginning of the sixteenth century had filled the world faded in a few hours. Nothing could preserve this haughty capital from chastisement; not even the prayers of its enemies. “I would not have Rome burnt,” Luther had exclaimed; “it would be a monstrous deed.” The fears of Melanchthon were still keener; “I tremble for the libraries,” said he: “we know how hateful books are to Mars.” But in despite of these wishes of the reformers, the city of Leo X. fell under the Judgment of God.
Clement VII. besieged in the castle of Saint Angelo and fearful that the enemy would blow his asylum into the air with their mines, at last capitulated. He renounced every alliance against Charles the Fifth, and bound himself to remain a prisoner until he had paid the army four hundred thousand ducats.
The evangelical Christians gazed with astonishment on this judgment of the Lord. “Such,” said they, “is the empire of Jesus Christ, that the Emperor pursuing Luther on behalf of the pope, is constrained to ruin the pope instead of Luther. All things minister unto the Lord, and turn against His adversaries.” The papacy survived the shock but it is steadily losing ground and will in due time be supplanted by the glorious Gospel of Christ that saves all who accept it.