From the Diet of Worms to the Augsburg Confession - James Aitken Wylie

of death, and the feux-de-joie were succeeded by
funeral bells and mornming plumes. Leo had
reigned with magnificence–he died deeply in debt,
and was buried amid manifest contempt. The
Romans, says Ranke, never forgave him "for dying
without the Sacraments. They pursued his corpse to
its grove with insult and reproach. 'Thou hast crept
in like a fox,' they exclaimed, 'like a lion hast thou
ruled us, and like a dog hast thou died.'"
The nephew of the deceased Pope, Cardinal
Giulio de Medici, aspired to succeed his uncle. But
a more powerful house than that of Medici now
claimed to dispose of the tiara. The monarchs of
Spain were more potent factors in European affairs
than the rich merchant of Florence. The conclave
had lasted long, and Giulio de Medici, despairing
of his own election, made a virtue of necessity, and
proposed that the Cardinal of Tortosa, who had
been Charles's tutor, should be elevated to the
Pontificate. The person named was unknown to the
cardinals. He was a native of Utrecht. He was
entirely without ambition, aged, austere.
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