Page 175 - sfogliabile 49

«No great glory in chasing a pirate». The manipulation of news during the 1535 441

From the imperial court, the English ambassador informed Henry VIII
that «Barbarossa ... invaded, with 30 galleys ... he slew and took 3,000,
sparing no age, besides setting everything on fy[re]» 134 . The Bishop of
Mâcon wrote that 1000 Christians had been impaled and more than
4,000 enslaved 135 . These reports circulated alongside other false news
that the Muslim forces had retaken Tunis and La Goleta, where the
imperial garrison had been massacred. This information was sent from
Rome to Portugal and France and thence to England 136 . It was
reported that Henry VIII had shown «great pleasure and joy» at the
news 137 . Other rumours in Rome that October described the situation
in La Goleta as untenable and the emperor was said to still be in Sicily
because he was too scared of Barbarossa to sail to Naples 138 . At the
end of that month, the French ambassador in England disseminated
news that Barbarossa had regained Tunis, Bona and La Goleta, to the
delight of Henry VIII and his court, and the disgust of Chapuys who
denounced this «false piece of intelligence» in vain 139 . On 3 October the
English ambassador in France reported that the emperor’s victory in
Tunis mattered little to Francis I and his advisers now. What would
make a real difference was whether Süleyman defeated the Sophy and
retaliated, at which point Francis I «will little esteem the Emperor’s
peace, and will begin to practise for the annoyance of the Emperor, as
formerly, and, as it is said, he now begins to do» 140 . Not long after this
they learnt that Süleyman had made a favourable peace with the
Sophy 141 .
The disaster in Mahón merged with and neutralised the positive
impact of the emperor’s victory in Tunis even in Spain. On 30
September 1535 the empress Isabel, governor of the Spanish realms,
reported that she had carried out the emperor’s instructions to
disseminate everywhere by letters and in print his victory in Tunis and
La Goleta, and the treaty with Mulay Hassan, as well as the emperor’s
explanation why he had not proceeded to attack Algiers. She warned
him, however, that as the devastating sack of Mahón and other
Ottoman-corsair attacks were already well known, these publications

134 LP, ix, n. 490, [A servant of Pate] to Master Philyp [Hoby?] who sent it to Cromwell,
Palermo, [30 September 1535].
135 V.-L. Bourrilly (ed.), Lettres Rabelais cit., p. 49, n. 2, 20 October 1535.
136 LP, ix, n. 526, Wallop’s News, 3 October 1535.
137 Csp Sp, 5(1), n. 222, Chapuys to Granvelle, 1 November 1535.
138 Du Bellay, II, pp. 125-126, Du Bellay to Chasseneuf, 20 October 1535.
139 Csp Sp, 5 (1), n. 222, Chapuys to Granvelle, 1 November 1535.
140 LP, ix, n. 526, Wallop’s News, Dijon, 3 October 1535.
141 Charrière, I, p. 277, Bishop Lavaur to Montmorency, Rome, 29 September 1535.

Mediterranea - ricerche storiche - Anno XVII - Agosto 2020
ISSN 1824-3010 (stampa) ISSN 1828-230X (online)