I It lies outside the scope of this work to describe the series of events which led up to the sack of Rome in 1527.

Clement, by his tortuous policy, and by the avarice of his administration, had alienated every friend and exasperated all his foes.

The Eternal City was in a state of chronic discontent and anarchy.

The Colonna princes drove the Pope to take refuge in the Castle of S.Angelo; and when the Lutheran rabble raised by Frundsberg poured into Lombardy, the Duke of Ferrara assisted them to cross the Po, and the Duke of Urbino made no effort to bar the passes of the Apennines.

Losing one leader after the other, these ruffians, calling themselves an Imperial army, but being in reality the scum and offscourings of all nations, without any aim but plunder and ignorant of policy, reached Rome upon the 6th of May.
They took the city by assault, and for nine months Clement, leaning from the battlements of Hadrian's Mausoleum, watched smoke ascend from desolated palaces and desecrated temples, heard the wailing of women and the groans of tortured men, mingling with the ribald jests of German drunkards and the curses of Castilian bandits.