Italian War of 1521–1526

Common card · No. 241881

The Italian War of 1521–1526, sometimes known as the Four Years' War (French: Sixième guerre d'Italie, lit. 'sixth war of Italy'), was a part of the Italian Wars. The war pitted Francis I of France and the Republic of Venice against the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Henry VIII of England, and the Papal States. It arose from animosity over the election of Charles as Emperor in 1519–1520 and from Pope Leo X's need to ally with Charles against Martin Luther. The war broke out across Western Europe late in 1521, when a French–Navarrese expedition attempted to reconquer Navarre while a French army invaded the Low Countries. A Spanish army drove the Navarrese forces back into the Pyrenees, and other Imperial forces attacked northern France, where they were stopped in turn. In 1521 Charles V and Henry VIII signed the Treaty of Bruges in secret against France, and hostilities resumed on the Italian Peninsula. At the Battle of Bicocca on 27 April 1522, Imperial and Papal forces defeated the French...

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