f the
Emperor in his childhood. These two ladies occupied adjoining houses
in the town of Cambrai, and held consultations at any hour in the
narrow passage between the two dwellings. The peace, finally drawn up
in August 1529, was very shameful to Francis I, since he agreed to
desert all his partisans in Italy and the Netherlands. He had
purchased his own freedom by the treaty of Madrid in 1526.

In 1530, the Emperor, who had made a separate treaty with the Italian
states, received the crown of Lombardy and crown of the Holy Roman
Empire from {69} the hands of the Pope at Bologna. On this occasion he
was invested with a mantle studded with jewels and some ancient
sandals. Ill-health and increasing melancholy clouded his delight in
these honours. His aquiline features and dark colouring had formerly
given him some claim to beauty, but now the heavy "Hapsburg" jaw began
to show the settled obstinacy of a narrow nature. The iron crown of
Italy weighed on him heavily, for he was stricken by remorse that he
had disregarded the entreaties of the Pope for the rescue of the
Knights of St John, whose settlement of Rhodes had been attacked by the
Turkish infidels. He gave them Malta in order that he might appease
his conscience. Religion claimed much of his attention after the long
conflict with France was ended.

Heresy was spreading in Germany, where Luther gained a vast number of
adherents. Charles issued an edict against the monk, but there was
national resistance for him to face as a consequence. In 1530 he
renewed the Edict of Worms and was opposed by a League of Protestant
princes, who applied for help from England, France, and Denmark against
the oppressive Emperor. He would have set himself to crush them if his
dominions had not been menaced by Soliman the Magnificent, a Turkish
Sultan with an immense army. He was obliged to secure the co-operation
of the Protestants against the Turks that he might drive the latter
from his eastern frontier.

Italians, Flemings, Hungarians, Bohemians, and Burgundians fought side
by side with the German troops and drove the invader back to his own
territory. When this danger was averted, France suddenly attacked
Savoy, and the Emperor found that he must postpone his struggle with
the Lutherans. A joint invasion of {70} France by Charles V and Henry
VIII of England forced Francis to conclude humiliating peace at Crespy
1544. Three years later the death of the French King