Although it might gall his
pride to admit that his enemy was formidable, Charles was too wise a man,
too experienced a warrior to underrate his foe. He repaired the
fortifications of Naples and Sicily at great cost: he wrote letters to the
Pope, to Andrea Doria, to the Viceroys of Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia, to
the Marquis de Vasto, and Antonio de Leyva to collect all the arms and
munitions necessary for the attack on Barbarossa. He sent orders to Don
Luis Hurtado de Mendoza, Marquis de Mondejar, Captain-General of the
Kingdom of Granada, to collect money and to have men ready in the ports of
Andalusia. He gave orders for eight thousand German soldiers to hold
themselves in readiness; these were to be joined by the veterans of Coron
and Naples, which body counted four thousand more; in Italy he also raised
another eight thousand men. All this was done under the seal of secrecy,
which the Emperor most peremptorily ordered was to be observed.
But news travelled in the first half of the sixteenth century, although
newspapers, war correspondents, and telegraphs were not; when all the
feudatories of the greatest king in Christendom were busy it was impossible
for the matter to remain hidden. Even had it been within the range of
possibility to conceal what was going on there was one circumstance which
would have rendered all effort to this end nugatory. Charles had invited
Francis of France to join in this holy war against the scourge of
Christendom: not only did Francis refuse to join, but he had the incredible
baseness to betray the scheme to Barbarossa.
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