But for himself the more immediate trouble came not from the enemy of the church but from its protector.

Though Adrian was an old officer of Charles V, it was really in the reign of Clement that the process began by which first Italy, then the papacy, then the whole church was put under the Spanish yoke.
[Sidenote: Spanish influence, 1525-6] After Pavia and the treaty of Madrid had eliminated French influence, Charles naturally felt his power and naturally intended to have it respected even by the pope.

Irritated by Clement's perpetual deceit and intrigue with France, Charles addressed to him, in 1526, a document which Ranke calls the most {380} formidable ever used by any Catholic prince to a pope during the century, containing passages "of which no follower of Luther need be ashamed." [Sidenote: Sack of Rome, May and September 1527] Rather to threaten the pope than to make war on him, Charles gathered a formidable army of German and Spanish soldiers in the north under the command of his general Frundsberg.

All the soldiers were restless and mutinous for want of pay, and in addition to this a powerful motive worked among the German landsknechts.

Many of them were Lutheran and looked to the conquest of Rome as the triumph of their cause.