night. Columns of Imperial soldiers then entered the park. At the same time, Leyva sortied from Pavia with what remained of the garrison. In the ensuing four-hour battle, the French heavy cavalry masked its own artillery by a rapid advance, and was surrounded and cut apart by landsknechts and a thousand massed Spanish arquebusiers, who attacked the French from concealed positions in the park's woodland. The French knights in their suits of armour were shot down with ease, and later butchered with daggers. A series of protracted infantry engagements resulted in the rout of the Swiss and French infantry. The French suffered massive casualties, losing the majority of their army. Bonnivet, Jacques de la Palice, La Trémoille, and Richard de la Pole were killed, while de Montmorency, de la Marck, and Francis himself were taken prisoner along with a host of lesser nobles. March 1525May 1526 Imprisonment and release of Francis I The night following the Battle of Pavia, Francis gave Lannoy a letter to be delivered to his mother in Paris, in which he related what had befallen him: "To inform you of how the rest of my ill-fortune is proceeding, all is lost to me save honour and life, which is safe." The broken remnants of the French forces, aside from a small garrison left to hold the Castello Sforzesco in Milan, retreated across the Alps under the nominal command of Charles IV of Alençon, reaching Lyon by March 1525. After Pavia, the fate of the French king, and of France itself, became the subject of furious diplomatic manoeuvring. Charles V, lacking funds to pay for the war, sought to marry Isabella of Portugal, who would bring with her a substantial dowry. Bourbon, meanwhile, plotted with Henry to invade and partition France, and at the same time the Milanese chancellor, , proposed to d'Avalos that he lead the Italians against their oppressors, and seize the Neapolitan crown for himself. Louise of Savoy raised a small army and funds to defend France against an expected attack upon its eastern borders by English troops. She also sent a first French mission to Suleiman the Magnificent, requesting assistance, but the mission was lost on its way in Bosnia. In December 1525 a second mission was sent, led by the Croatian nobleman John Frangipani, which managed to reach Constantinople with secret letters asking for the deliverance of Francis and an attack on