History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic, vol 3 | Page 8

they looked to the immediate junction of Gonsalvo with King Frederic, in order that their combined strength might overpower the enemy before he had gained a footing in the kingdom. Great was their astonishment, when the scales dropped from their eyes, and they beheld the movements of Spain in perfect accordance with those of France, and directed to crush their common victim between them. They could scarcely credit, says Guicciardini, that Louis the Twelfth could be so blind as to reject the proffered vassalage and substantial sovereignty of Naples, in order to share it with so artful and dangerous a rival as Ferdinand. [27]
The unfortunate Frederic, who had been advised for some time past of the unfriendly dispositions of the Spanish government, [28] saw no refuge from the dark tempest mustering against him on the opposite quarters of his kingdom. He collected such troops as he could, however, in order to make battle with the nearest enemy, before he should cross the threshold. On the 28th of June, the French army resumed its march. Before quitting Rome, a brawl arose between some French soldiers and Spaniards resident in the capital; each party asserting the paramount right of its own sovereign to the crown of Naples. From words they soon came to blows, and many lives were lost before the fray could be quelled; a melancholy augury for the permanence of the concord so unrighteously established between the two governments. [29]
On the 8th of July, the French crossed the Neapolitan frontier. Frederic, who had taken post at St. Germano, found himself so weak, that he was compelled to give way on its approach, and retreat on his capital. The invaders went forward, occupying one place after another with little resistance till they came before Capua, where they received a temporary check. During a parley for the surrender of that place, they burst into the town, and, giving free scope to their fiendish passions, butchered seven thousand citizens in the streets, and perpetrated outrages worse than death on their defenceless wives and daughters. It was on this occasion that Alexander the Sixth's son, the infamous Caesar Borgia, selected forty of the most beautiful from the principal ladies of the place, and sent them back to Rome to swell the complement of his seraglio. The dreadful doom of Capua intimidated further resistance, but inspired such detestation of the French throughout the country, as proved of infinite prejudice to their cause in their subsequent struggle with the Spaniards. [30]
King Frederic, shocked at bringing such calamities on his subjects, resigned his capital without a blow in its defence, and, retreating to the isle of Ischia, soon after embraced the counsel of the French admiral Ravenstein, to accept a safe-conduct into France, and throw himself on the generosity of Louis the Twelfth. The latter received him courteously, and assigned him the duchy of Anjou with an ample revenue for his maintenance, which, to the credit of the French king, was continued after he had lost all hope of recovering the crown of Naples. [31] With this show of magnanimity, however, he kept a jealous eye on his royal guest; under pretence of paying him the greatest respect, he placed a guard over his person, and thus detained him in a sort of honorable captivity to the day of his death, which occurred soon after, in 1504.
Frederic was the last of the illegitimate branch of Aragon, who held the Neapolitan sceptre; a line of princes, who, whatever might be their characters in other respects, accorded that munificent patronage to letters which sheds a ray of glory over the roughest and most turbulent reign. It might have been expected, that an amiable and accomplished prince, like Frederic, would have done still more towards the moral development of his people, by healing the animosities which had so long festered in their bosoms. His gentle character, however, was ill suited to the evil times on which he had fallen; and it is not improbable, that he found greater contentment in the calm and cultivated retirement of his latter years, sweetened by the sympathies of friendship which adversity had proved, [32] than when placed on the dazzling heights which attract the admiration and envy of mankind. [33]
Early in March, Gonsalvo of Cordova had received his first official intelligence of the partition treaty, and of his own appointment to the post of lieutenant-general of Calabria and Apulia. He felt natural regret at being called to act against a prince, whose character he esteemed, and with whom he had once been placed in the most intimate and friendly relations. In the true spirit of chivalry, he returned to Frederic, before taking up arms against him, the duchy of St. Angel and the other large domains, with which that monarch had requited his services