As King of Italy, he had desolated the Lombard realm of which he sought the title.

As Emperor elect, he had ravished his bride, the Eternal City.

As suitor to the Pope for both of his expected crowns, he stood responsible for the multiplied insults to which Clement had been so recently exposed.

No Emperor had been more powerful since Charles the Great than this Charles V., the last who took his crowns in Italy.

It was significant that he man in whose name Rome had suffered outrage, and who was about to detach Lombardy from the Empire, was by his own will invested at Bologna.