His holiness wrote a long remonstrance to the emperor on the injustice of those proceedings, and declared that he would assert his cause though he should lose his life in the contest.

He forthwith began to raise an army, and revived a plan of forming a league among the princes and states of Italy for their mutual defence.

Sir John Leake had received orders to bombard Civita-Vecchia, in resentment for the pope's having countenanced the pretender's expedition to Great Britain; but as the emperor and duke of Savoy hoped to effect an accommodation with the court of Rome, they prevailed upon the English admiral to suspend hostilities until they should have tried the method of negotiation.

The marquis de Prie, a Piedmontese nobleman, was sent as ambassador to Rome; but the pope would not receive him in that quality.

Elated with the promises of France, he set the emperor at defiance; and his troops having surprised a body of Imperialists, were so barbarous as to cut them all in pieces.