On 6 May 1527 the military forces of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V sacked the city of Rome, kidnapping and looting and burning and murdering and raping as they went.
An army of 24,000 soldiers, half of whom were in the Imperial forces and half of whom were mercenaries under the command of Georg von Frundsberg, were near Bologna in the spring of 1527. The troops were close to starvation, and von Frundsberg knew he wasn’t going to be able to hold them under control much longer. Charles de Bourbon, von Frundsberg’s second-in-command, had the brilliant idea to tell the mercenaries they should sack Rome, and started southward while von Frundsberg sent Pope Clement VII an ultimatum: either surrender 60,000 ducats or the mercenaries would come and get it.
Pope Clement VII, far more interested in gold than God, was loathe to give up that much lucre. Surely, surely, the troops wouldn’t REALLY invade the Vatican … would they? By the time the army had marched past Florence and the Pope realised that YES they would invade the Vatican, it was almost too late. The Holy See sent out a carriage with the pay off, but when thieves almost got it (Italy wasn’t the safest place to travel, to be honest) the Pope had the carriage return, rather than risk losing the loot.
In hindsight, refusing to pay off the mercenaries was a big mistake. When the nobility of the Church and Rome saw the army massing at the Tiber they suddenly discovered they were eager to give the mercenaries whatever they wanted, but it was too late — men were already scaling the walls of the city. Worse, Charles de Bourbon was killed by the defenders almost immediately, leaving the troops without a commander. There was no one to control them, and no one to halt the rampage.
Once they were in the city, the leaderless mercenaries began to commit atrocities to their black hearts’ content. “According to one chronicler of the attack, the men dragged off sacks of gold and stabbed so many citizens “that one could no longer see the pavement while walking down the street, there were so many corpses” … In full view of paintings by Titian, they committed the large-scale rape of nuns, tortured bishops and urinated in front of baptismal fonts.”
The mercenaries also stormed St Peter’s Basilica, where most of the Swiss Guard died trying to protect the Holy Father. Their bravery gave the Pope time to escape to the Castel Sant’Angelo, which probably saved his life. However, the mercenaries weren’t going anywhere for a good, long while. For nearly a year, the invaders “imposed a regime of terror along the Tiber.” As many as 10,000 people were thought to have perished under the occupation of the Imperial troops, and the Pope was reduced to living on donkey meat. A few weeks after the intial attack the Pope officially surrendered to Charles V, agreeing “to pay a ransom of 400,000 ducati in exchange for his life; conditions included the cession of Parma, Piacenza, Civitavecchia, and Modena to the Holy Roman Empire.”
The Emperor kept Clement a prisoner at the Castle for another six months or so, and kept the Papacy under his thumb for the rest of his reign. Fear of another sack keep the Vatican in terror of Charles V and subject to his orders, which is the reason that King Henry VIII couldn’t convince the pope to grant his annulment — which would have been easily granted under most circumstances and with a sufficient amount of gold. Charles whistled a tune and the cowed See had no choice but to dance, but the Church would eventually lose all of England for the Emperor’s whims.