On June 1 Francesco Pandolfini, Florentine ambassador in Naples, told his government what had happened.
On Monday [May 26], Valentino requested an interview with the grand captain to discuss his still uncertain affairs. He had already prepared the artillery and had ordered wines, bread, and other things necessary for the expedition. In the evening he had his interview, lasting two hours, and was dismissed. Accompanying him was Niugno del Campo, castellan of the Castel Nuovo, and when the duke turned to descend, Niugno stopped him, saying "Signore, your way lies here," and took him into a room in the Torre dell'Oro. It was a beautiful and an honorable room but on Tuesday morning they transferred him to another tower and placed him in a room which was also very beautiful but was very strong with the windows protected by iron. It is called the "oven," and various important people have been imprisoned there at one time or another. He is there now, with two of his servants. The grand captain refuses to talk with him.
I have not found a single man in the city who does not praise the deed—truly, it is pleasing to all.
A Florentine diplomat was, as usual, very well informed and a later, Spanish source confirmed the main details of Pandolfini's story—with one dramatic addition: Cesare's cry of despair when he learned that he had been outwitted. "When the duke heard this he gave a great cry saying 'Santa Maria, I am betrayed. With me only has my Lord Gonzalo dealt cruelly: to all other but me he has shown mercy.' "86
Committed to the distasteful task, Gonzalo now acted openly on the pope's behalf to assuage Julius's justified suspicions that the Spaniards in Naples had given shelter to his most dangerous enemy. The fortress in Forli still obstinately held out under its Borgia Spanish commandant, Gonzalo de Mirafonte, and papal forces had proved inadequate to dislodge him. De Cordoba, acting now as viceroy, threatened Mirafonte with the confiscation of his Spanish estates if he did not at once give up the castle. Faced with this extreme penalty and knowing Cesare was now effectively removed from the Italian field of action, Mirafonte surrendered. But he did it proudly, marching out under the Borgia standard, the last captain ever to do so, and was saluted by all Italy as a brave man and most loyal soldier. Thus, Cesare lost his last foothold in Italy; and ten days later he was sent in a galley to Spain, landing in Valencia whence his great-uncle, Alonso de Borja, had departed seventy-two years earlier to found the Borgia fortunes in Italy.
In October 1504 Lucrezia in Ferrara heard the first news of how her brother was faring in Spain. "The duke of Valentinois's situation does not seem as desperate as is feared. He is shut up with a page in the castle of Seville which, though austere, is immense. He has been given eight servants. The duke's steward, Requesnez, writes that he has spoken to the king about his release. His Majesty said that he did not order his imprisonment but only his transfer to Spain, following certain accusations brought against him by Gonzalo."87 Superficially, Cesare's imprisonment seemed a formality and probably brief, but almost immediately after that encouraging report came other, more sinister news. "A letter from Spain contradicts what has been reported concerning the release of Valentinois. He is more closely guarded than he was before, for it was discovered that he had attempted an escape." He had, in fact, not only sought escape but had nearly murdered his jailer.
The "castle of Seville" of the Ferrarese ambassador's report was the castle of Chinchilla, a massive structure on a crag some seven hundred feet above the small town of the same name. Ferdinand's leniency, arising from his uncertainty over what to do with his prisoner, had given Cesare a considerable amount of freedom in the castle, and he habitually spent hours on the open balcony of one of the towers. Don Guzman, the castellan, sometimes joined him there, engaging in somewhat embarrassed conversation. The day of the near-murder, Cesare affected an interest in identifying the sites visible from the tower, and Guzman unsuspectingly approached the battlements while they were talking. Cesare grabbed him around the waist, lifted him and attempted to hurl him over the battlements. But Guzman, strong and agile, twisting in Cesare's grasp, wrestled him to the floor. Cesare rose, grinning, and held out his hand, pretending that he had only been engaged in a test of strength. Guzman backed away and immediately complained to Ferdinand. As a result, Cesare was transferred from Chinchilla to the immensely strong palace- fortress of Medina del Campo, the favorite residence of Ferdinand and Isabella. Oddly enough, he was still allowed considerable freedom of movement; one of the reports from Spain stated that "he amuses himself on his balcony by watching the falcons in flight," and the local nobility were allowed remarkably free access to him. One of them, the count of Benevente, succumbed to the famous Borgia charm and became Cesare's devoted friend, arranging supplies of delicacies for him and keeping him in contact with the outside world.
Ferdinand was embarrassed by the presence of his prisoner. His wife Isabella might have had a personal motive in destroying Cesare Borgia; what Ferdinand wanted was to ensure that Borgia did not cause trouble between Spain and the papacy. Throughout, there had been a vagueness regarding Cesare's ultimate destination once in Spanish hands. Ferdinand, personally, would have been only too glad to have seen Cesare shipped off to France or even left in Italy. Isabella had been the one pursuing the vendetta on behalf of Cesare's ex-sister-in-law, Maria Enriquez, the duchess of Gandia. But four months after Cesare arrived in Spain, the great-hearted queen died. Even had he desired, Ferdinand now would not have had time to pursue a family quarrel, for the hard-won unity of Spain was on the brink of dissolution. Isabella's heiress in Castile was the unfortunate girl known as Juana the Mad, and Juana's husband, the duke of Burgundy, was making fantastic claims. Ferdinand also deeply suspected the loyalty of Gonzalo in Italy. Theoretically, Gonzalo was the viceroy of Their Catholic Majesties; in practice, his loyalty had been toward Isabella. It seems, and probably was, mean-minded of Ferdinand to impugn the honor of a man who had devoted his life to the service of his king and queen. But Ferdinand may have hadjustification. In distant England, King Henry VIII had dropped a word in the ear of the Spanish ambassador there. "If I were in Ferdinand's place I would sift the matter to the bottom. I must tell you that the great captain once made an offer of his service to me, but although I was at that time not on the best of terms with King Ferdinand, I did not choose to give him encouragement."88 Henry's motive in passing on this snippet of information at this time was suspect, but it did not necessarily affect the truth of the story. Ferdinand concluded he should go personally to Naples and it occurred to him that having a soldier of Cesare Borgia's status in his entourage would be useful if Gonzalo de Cordoba was, in fact, planning to make himself king of Naples. Tentative overtures were therefore made between the king and the prisoner in Medina del Campo, directed toward the possibility that Cesare Borgia might, himself, become Ferdinand's generalissimo in Italy.
But fate, which had already dealt Cesare two heavy blows through a coincidence of time, now struck him a third through the coincidence of space. The castle of Medina del Campo was in Castile, now under the control, not of Ferdinand, but of his daughter Juana. The sanity of the new queen of Castile was, even now, balanced on a razor's edge, and there is no rational answer to why she took up the vendetta against Cesare Borgia. She may have wanted to copy her admired and feared mother; her husband may have pushed her into it on the general grounds of causing Ferdinand as much trouble as possible. On the same day that Ferdinand expressed the wish that the prisoner be released, Cesare was indicted on a charge concerning "the death of the duke of Gandia, his brother, and of Alfonso of Bisceglie, his brother-in-law, with the intention of inflicting on him the punishment of death for these two crimes." Ferdinand was informed that Cesare's case was now sub judice and, accordingly, he sailed for Italy on September 4, 1506, leaving Cesare in the hands of his daughter and son-in-law. Cesare determined to make his escape—and did, six weeks later.
That news struck Italians as a calamity or triumph, according to the hearer's partisanship. Julius was frankly alarmed; Florence and Venice immediately looked to the protection
of their frontiers. Both pope and republics were convinced that this incredible man would reappear among them and recreate that which they had now almost totally destroyed. In the Romagna there was open rejoicing, and even in Ferrara the less discreet, or the less fearful, congratulated Lucrezia. Details of the escape entered folklore and made the rounds long after Cesare's death. In the verses of sincere but third-rate poets, the escape inevitably became an heroic tale. A version of it tells how Cesare, "a man expert in many things," prevails upon his guard to bring him gunpowder in a loaf and fire in a reed. With their aid he blows down a section of the wall, swims across the sea to safety, and finds horses waiting which his wife had sent.
The folklore tale was wrong in almost every possible detail, not least that remarkable swim from a castle situated in the heart of Spain. But captured was the essence of an extraordinary story. The prime mover in the escape was the count of Benevente, but the actual details were probably Cesare's, depending as they did on secrecy and conspiracy rather than upon the naked force which Benevente favored. The plan was simple enough. Cesare was lodged in the upper chamber of the big tower called Homenaje; all that was required was a long rope—and the courage to descend it. Benevente sneaked the rope to Cesare by means of a certain Garcia de Mangone, a personal servant of the castellan; it was never established whether Garcia undertook his perilous, ultimately fatal, task through bribery or his admiration for Cesare. The night of October 25, Garcia secured the rope to one of the battlements and began his descent. In the dark it was not until he reached the bottom of the rope that he discovered it was many feet too short. He could not climb back up, for Cesare, hearing sounds that indicated pursuit, had hurriedly begun his own descent. Garcia let go, fell, and broke both his legs. Meanwhile, at the top of the tower the castellan's son had discovered the rope and began to jerk it from side to side, so that Cesare's grip was broken and he, too, fell. Benevente's men were waiting for him at the bottom and, discovering that Cesare, too, had broken bones, hoisted him on horseback and secured him as best they could. Garcia de Mangone was left to his fate, a swift one. He was executed the next day.
What happened to Cesare thereafter was the subject of a searching inquiry ordered in the name of Queen Juana. Cesare apparently hid in one of Benevente's villas for at least a month while his wounds healed. A witness described seeing him in the area late in November, still with his hands bandaged, probably a result of rope burns. At the end of November Cesare began the most hazardous journey of his life —escaping from Spain through a countryside swarming with enemies. In disguise he traveled north to the coast with only two companions. The next that the world heard of him was in the form of an official letter sent out in the queen's name to the governors of all cities in the north of Spain.
The duke of Valentinois, a prisoner by my command in the fortress of Medina del Campo, has escaped. I am informed that he reached the city of Santander, where he was arrested by the alcalde, but that the latter released him upon receiving gifts from the duke. I wish you to inform us of everything concerning him, and to take possession of the person of the said duke wherever you find him—whether it be in a church, monastery or any privileged place, even though it may be outside your jurisdiction, and having done that keep a close watch on him with a strong guard until further orders. And be it known that if anyone hides him, he will incur the penalty of death."89
The alcalde of Santander successfully defended himself against the bribery charge, saving himself from the garrotte and, incidentally, providing a brief but vivid picture of Cesare's movements. On the night of November 29 Cesare's horse had become lame a short distance outside Santander. He sent his two companions ahead to find an inn and to charter a boat that would take them down the coast to Laredo. Still suffering from the escape injuries he limped into town. At the inn he met his companions and the three famished men ate a large meal, including "three chickens and a huge piece of meat." They were still at supper when an officer of the alcalde entered the inn and arrested them. Suspicions had been aroused by the large sum offered for the hire of a boat, an elementary mistake on the part of Cesare's companions which very nearly cost them their freedom. Brought before the alcalde, however, they succeeded in deceiving him with their cover story. They claimed they were wheat merchants, hurrying to take over a cargo of wheat that lay down the coast beyond Laredo and which would ;spoil if there was any delay. The story seemed to explain they were traveling with the large sum of money found on them and the haste which made them bid above the going rate for hiring a boat. The alcalde let them go.
Your Majesty may rest assured that if I or any of my officers had known of the escape when I had him in my power, even though he had given us all the treasures imaginable, it would never have entered my head to do anything against Your Majesty. I should certainly not have released the duke if I had known that it was he or if I had even suspected him. But when he was in my hands, I did not know that he had escaped and was not, indeed, even aware of his existence.90
On December 3, 1506, Cesare appeared "como un diabolo" in Pampeluna, capital city of his wife's brother, Jean d'Albret, the king of Navarre. The fact that Cesare had chosen—or rather, had been forced to choose—this obscure little court as his asylum was a more exact index to his fallen state than his imprisonment in the royal castle of Medina del Campo. Seven years had passed since Cesare had married Charlotte d'Albret, a time during which he had given her and her family scarcely a thought. There had been a few letters and an expensive gift of sweetmeats and fine wines sent on his behalf from Venice, but that was all. The Easter of 1502 there had been a plan to bring Charlotte and their two-year-old daughter Louise to Italy but that had fallen through, largely because King Louis had seemed reluctant to part with what was, in effect, a hostage. Life for Cesare had been too full, too rich, too triumphant then to trouble much about a grass widow. But during his late imprisonment, Navarre, so conveniently close, had emerged as a potential asylum. Its petty king, Jean, had been only too pleased to consider the overtures and also had probably contributed to Cesare's escape. Yet again Cesare's fame as a general had raised his value—Jean d'Al- bret was welcoming him as a condottiere, not a prince. The tiny kingdom of Navarre, caught between Castile and France, and existing only precariously as an independent state, was itself split between two warring factions. Cesare's task was to suppress his brother-in-law's enemies at home and afterward, perhaps, defend Navarre from the encroachments of its giant neighbors.
But there was heady talk, too, of supplying Cesare with troops to recommence his conquests. Impoverished Navarre could pay him only a token sum as condottiere, but in Italy and France there were, theoretically, Borgia assets totaling nearly one-half million ducats. Pope Julius had promptly impounded the two hundred thousand ducats which Cesare had banked in Genoa, on the reasonable enough grounds that they had been obtained from, or through, the Holy See. But there was that huge treasure which Michelotto Corella had taken from the Vatican while Alexander lay dying, treasure which included not only gold cups and plates and precious stones but also ceremonial robes of enormous value. Additionally, there were the various precious objects which Cesare had acquired as booty and which were in the safe-keeping of the Este family in Ferrara, a hoard conservatively estimated at being worth some three hundred thousand ducats. In January 1507 two of Cesare's servants went their separate ways from Navarre in an attempt to realize his assets. His secretary, Federigo, went to Italy, and his steward, Don Jaime de Requesnez, made the shorter journey to Bourges in France, where Louis was seated with his court. In Italy Federigo barely had time to greet Lucrezia in her brother's name before he was arrested on Julius's orders. The Borgia art treasure had, in any case, been seized by Giovanni Bentivoglio, lord of Bologna, and was already the subject of spirited litigation. In France Requesnez became the accidental instrument for the final and formal degradation of his master.
Requesnez could not have approached Louis at a worse time. Gone were the high hopes with which Louis an
d Cesare had set out to conquer Italy seven years before. Once, the French had all but ruled the peninsula; now they were penned into Lombardy, barely holding on to Milan while the tide of Spanish arms was at its flood. Outwitted by King Ferdinand of Spain, outgeneraled by Gonzalo de Cordoba; betrayed, as Louis thought, by the Italians, he turned, snarling, when Requesnez made his request of money on behalf of the Italo-Spanish duke. Some one hundred thousand ducats were owed Cesaie as part of Charlotte's dowry which Louis had royally promised but had never actually paid. There were also the rich revenues from Cesare's dukedom which now would help to re-establish him. Louis declined to pay either. He went further—in one last gesture of spite he revoked the proud title of Cesare Borgia of France, stripped him of the royal arms, and snatched away the dukedom of Valentinois. Louis's reasoning held a modicum of truth, padded out to give grounds for an act which not only placed some salve on his wounds but also saved his treasury an immense sum. "After the decease of the late Pope Alexander, when our people and our army were seeking the recovery of the Kingdom of Naples, he went over to the side of our enemies, serving, favoring, and assisting them at arms and otherwise against ourselves and our said people and army, which resulted to us in great and irrecoverable loss." The uninformed reader of that letter patent might have concluded that Cesare had led an entire army against the French, instead of merely plotting to take a company against the occupiers of the Romagna. But the letter served its purpose. Louis of France had little squeamishness about the propriety of kicking a fallen man.
By the beginning of March 1507, Cesare was a landless, penniless man; at the age of thirty-one he possessed infinitely less than he had at eighteen; and it was with this knowledge that Cesare rode out on what was to be his final foray. The action was unimportant even in the minuscule affairs of Navarre. The castle of Viana, a city on the Navarre-Castile frontier, was held by a rebel lord, Don Juan, count of Beaumont, and it was Cesare's task to capture it. He was well supplied with troops for the troubles in Navarre had attracted the usual free-ranging mercenaries. Under his immediate command he had perhaps one thousand cavalry, five thousand infantry and some artillery pieces. The artillery was far inferior in number and quality to what he had been accustomed to using in Italy but, in the present campaign it should have proved more than sufficient. The castle was expected to fall quickly, for it was badly provisioned.
The Fall of the House of Borgia Page 30