The next day, Thursday, April 18th, did not afford much time for deliberation. Luther was besieged by visitors. Familiar friends came to see him in the morning; German nobles thronged his hostel at midday; Bucer rode over from the Ebernberg in the afternoon with congratulations on the way that the first audience had been got through, and bringing letters from Ulrich von Hutten. His friends were almost astonished at his cheerfulness. “He greeted me and others,” said Dr. Peutinger, who was an early caller, “quite cheerfully—‘Dear Doctor,’ he said, ‘how is your wife and child?’ I have never found or seen him other than the right good fellow he is.”245 George Vogler and others had “much pious conversation” with him, and wrote, praising his thorough heroism.246 The German nobles greeted Luther with a bluff heartiness—“Herr Doctor, How are you? People say you are to be burnt; that will never do; that would ruin everything.”247
The marshal and the herald came for Luther a little after four o'clock, and led him by the same private devious ways to the Bishop's Palace. The crowds on the streets were even larger than on the day before. It was said that more than five thousand people, Germans and foreigners, were crushed together in the street before the Palace. The throng was so dense that some of the delegates, like Oelhafen from Nürnberg, could not get through it.248 It was six o'clock before the Emperor, accompanied [pg 285] by the Electors and princes, entered the hall. Luther and the herald had been kept waiting in the court of the Palace for more than an hour and a half, bruised by the dense moving crowd. In the hall the throng was so great that the princes had some difficulty in getting to their seats, and found themselves uncomfortably crowded when they reached them.249 Two notable men were absent. The papal nuncios refused to be present when a heretic was permitted to speak. Such proceedings were the merest tomfoolery (ribaldaria), Aleander said. When Luther reached the door, he had still to wait; the princes were occupied in reaching their places, and it was not etiquette for him to appear until they were seated.250 The day was darkening, and the gloomy hall flamed with torches.251 Observers remarked Luther's wonderful cheerful countenance as he made his way to his place.252
The Emperor had intrusted the procedure to Aleander, to his confessor Glapion, and to John Eck, who had conducted the audience on the previous day.253 The Official was again to have the conduct of matters in his hands. As soon as Luther was in his place, Eck “rushed into words” (prorupit in verba)254 He began by recapitulating what had taken place at the first audience; and in saying that Luther had asked time for consideration, he insinuated that every Christian ought to be ready at all times to give a reason for the faith that is in him, much more a learned theologian like Luther. He declared that it was now time for Luther to answer plainly whether he adhered to the contents of the books he had acknowledged to be his, or whether he was prepared to recant them. He spoke first in Latin and then in German, and it was noticed that his speech in Latin was very bitter.255
Then Luther delivered his famous speech before the Diet. He had freed himself from the web of intrigue that [pg 286] Aleander had been at such pains to weave round him to compel him to silence, and stood forth a free German to plead his cause before the most illustrious audience the Fatherland could offer to any of its sons.
Before him was the Emperor and his brother Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, destined to be King of the Romans and Emperor in days to come, and beside them, seated, all the Electors and the great Princes of the Empire, lay and ecclesiastical, among them four Cardinals. All round him standing, for there was no space for seats, the Counts, Free Nobles and Knights of the Empire, and the delegates of the great cities, were closely packed together.256 Ambassadors and the political agents of almost all the countries in Europe were there to swell the crowd—ready to report the issue of this momentous day. For all believed that whatever weighty business for Germany was discussed at this Diet, the question raised by Luther was one of European importance, and affected the countries which they represented. The rumour had gone about, founded mainly on the serene appearance of Luther, that the monk was about to recant;257 and most of the political agents earnestly hoped it might be true. That and that only would end, they believed, the symptoms of disquiet which the governments of every land were anxiously watching.
The diligence of Wrede has collected and printed in the Reichstagsakten258 several papers, all of which profess to give Luther's speech; but they are mere summaries, some longer and some shorter, and give no indication of the power which thrilled the audience. Its effect must be sought for in the descriptions of the hearers.
The specimens of his books which had been collected by Aleander were so representative that Luther could speak of all his writings. He divided them into three classes. He had written books for edification which he could truly say had been approved by all men, friends and foes alike, [pg 287] and it was scarcely to be expected that he, the author, should be the only man to recant the contents of such writings as even the Papal Bull had commended. In a second class of writings he had attacked the papal tyranny which all Germany was groaning under; to recant the contents of these books would be to make stronger and less endurable the monstrous evil he had protested against; he therefore refused to recall such writings; no loyal German could do so. He had also written against individual persons who had supported the Papacy; it was possible that he had written too strongly in some places and against some men; he was only a man and not God, and was liable to make mistakes; he remembered how Christ, who could not err, had acted when He was accused, and imitating Him, he was quite ready, if shown to be wrong, by evangelical or prophetic witnesses, to renounce his errors, and if he were convinced, he assured the Emperor and princes assembled that he would be the first to throw his books into the fire. He dwelt upon the power of the word of God which must prevail over everything, and showed that many calamities in times past had fallen upon nations who had neglected its teachings and warnings. He concluded as follows:
Luther had spoken in Latin; he was asked to repeat what he had said in German. The Hall had been packed; the torches gave forth warmth as well as light. Luther steamed with perspiration, and looked wan and overpowered; the heat was intense. Friends thought that the further effort would be too much for his strength. The Saxon councillor, Frederick von Thun, regardless of etiquette, called out loudly, “If you cannot do it you have done [pg 288] enough, Herr Doctor.”259 But Luther went on and finished his address in German. His last words were. “Here I stand (Hic bin Ich).”
Aleander, the papal nuncio, who was not present, relates that while Luther was speaking of the books in which he had attacked the Papacy, and was proceeding “with great venom” to denounce the Pope,260 the Emperor ordered him to pass from that subject and to proceed with his other matters. The Emperor had certainly told the Estates that he would not allow the question of Luther's orthodoxy and complaints against the Holy See to be discussed together; and that lends some support to Aleander's statement.261 But when it is seen that not one of the dozen deputies present who write accounts of the scene mentions the interruption; when it is not found in the official report; when it is remembered that Charles could not understand either German or Latin, the story of the interruption is a very unlikely one. Aleander was not remarkable for his veracity—“a man, to say the least, not bigotedly truthful (non superstitiose verax)” says Erasmus;262 and the nuncio on one occasion boasted to his masters in Rome that he could lie well when occasion required it.263
Several letters descriptive of the scene, written by men who were present in the Diet, reveal the intense interest taken by the great majority of the audience in the appearance and speech of Luther. His looks, his language, the attitude in which he stood, are all described. When artists portray the scene, either on canvas or in bronze, Luther is invariably represented standing upright, his shoulders squared, and his head thrown back. That was not how he stood before Charles and the Diet. He was a monk, [pg 289] trained in the conventional habits of monkish humility. He stood with a stoop of the head and shoulders, with the knees slightly bent, and without gestures. The only trace of bodily emotion was betrayed by bending and straightening his knees.264 He addressed the Emperor and the Estates with all respect,—“Most serene Lord and Emperor, most illustrious Princes, most clement Lords,”—and apologised for any lack of etiquette on the ground that he was convent-bred and knew nothing of the ways of Courts; but it was noticed by more than one observer that he did not address the spiritual princes present.265 Many a witness describes the charm of his cheerful, modest, but undaunted bearing.266 The Saxon official account says, “Luther spoke simply, quietly, modestly, yet not without Christian courage and fidelity—in such a way, too, that his enemies would have doubtless preferred a more abject spirit and speech”; and it goes on to relate that his adversaries had confidently counted on a recantation, and that they were correspondingly disappointed.267 Many expected that, as he had never before been in such presence, the strange audience would have disconcerted him; but, to their surprise and delight, he spoke “confidently, reasonably, and prudently, as if he were in his own lecture-room.”268 Luther himself was surprised that the unaccustomed surroundings affected him so little. “When it came to my turn,” he says, “I just went on.”269 The beauty of his diction pleased his audience—“many fair and happy words,” say Dr. Peutinger and others.270
When Luther had finished, the Official, mindful that it was his duty to extract from Luther a distinct recantation, addressed him in a threatening manner (increpabundo similis), and told him that his answer had not been to the point. The question was that Luther, in some of his books, denied decisions of Councils: Would he reaffirm or recant what he had said about these decisions? the Emperor [pg 290] demanded a plain (non cornutum) answer. “If His Imperial Majesty desires a plain answer,” said Luther, “I will give it to him, neque cornutum neque dentatum, and it is this: It is impossible for me to recant unless I am proved to be in the wrong by the testimony of Scripture or by evident reasoning; I cannot trust either the decisions of Councils or of Popes, for it is plain that they have not only erred, but have contradicted each other. My conscience is thirled to the word of God, and it is neither safe nor honest to act against one's conscience. God help me! Amen!”271
When he had finished, the Emperor and the princes consulted together; then at a sign from Charles,272 the Official addressed Luther at some length. He told him that in his speech he had abused the clemency of the Emperor, and had added to his evil deeds by attacking the Pope and Papists (papistæ) before the Diet. He briefly recapitulated Luther's speech, and said that he had not sufficiently distinguished between his books and his opinions; there might be room for discussion had Luther brought forward anything new, but his errors were old—the errors of the Poor Men of Lyons, Wiclif, of John and Jerome Huss (the learned Official gave Huss a brother unknown to history),273 which were decided upon at the Council of Constance, where the whole German nation had been gathered together; he again asked him to retract such opinions. To this Luther replied as before, that General Councils had erred, and that his conscience did not allow him to retract. By this time the torches had burnt to their sockets, and the hall was growing dark.274 Wearied with the crowd and the heat, numbers were preparing to leave. The Official, making a last effort, called out loudly, “Martin, let your conscience alone; recant your errors and you will be safe and sound; you can never show that a Council has erred.” Luther declared that Councils had erred, and that he could prove it.275 Upon this the Emperor [pg 291] made a sign to end the matter.276 The last words Luther was heard to say were, “God come to my help” (Got kum mir zu hilf).277
It is evident from almost all the reports that from the time that Luther had finished his great speech there was a good deal of confusion, and probably of conversation, among the audience. All that the greater portion of those present heard was an altercation between Luther and the Official, due, most of the Germans thought, to the overbearing conduct of Eck, and which the Italians and Spaniards attributed to the pertinacity of Luther.278 “Luther asserted that Councils had erred several times, and had given decisions against the law of God. The Official said No; Luther said Yes, and that he could prove it. So the matter came to an end for that time.”279 But all understood that there was a good deal said about the Council of Constance.
The Emperor left his throne to go to his private rooms; the Electors and the princes sought their hotels. A number of Spaniards, perceiving that Luther turned to leave the tribunal, broke out into hootings, and followed “the man of God with prolonged howlings.”280 Then the Germans, nobles and delegates from the towns, ringed him [pg 292] round to protect him, and as they passed from the hall they all at once, and Luther in the midst of them, thrust forward arms and raised hands high above their heads, in the way that a German knight was accustomed to do when he had unhorsed his antagonist in the tourney, or that a German landsknecht did when he had struck a victorious blow. The Spaniards rushed to the door shouting after Luther, “To the fire with him, to the fire!”281 The crowd on the street thought that Luther was being sent to prison, and thought of a rescue.282 Luther calmed them by saying that the company were escorting him home. Thus, with hands held high in stern challenge to Holy Roman Empire and mediæval Church, they accompanied Luther to his lodging.
Friends had got there before him—Spalatin, ever faithful; Oelhafen, who had not been able to reach his place in the Diet because of the throng. Luther, with beaming face, stretched out both his hands, exclaiming, “I am through, I am through!”283 In a few minutes Spalatin was called away. He soon returned. The old Elector had summoned him only to say, “How well, father, Dr. Luther spoke this day before the Emperor and the Estates; but he is too bold for me.” The sturdy old German prince wrote to his brother John, “From what I have heard this day, I will never believe that Luther is a heretic”; and a few days later, “At this Diet, not only Annas and Caiaphas, but also Pilate and Herod, have conspired against Luther.” Frederick of Saxony was no Lutheran, like his brother John and his nephew John Frederick; and he was the better able to express what most German princes were thinking about Luther and his appearance before the [pg 293] Diet. Even Duke George was stirred to a momentary admiration; and Duke Eric of Brunswick, who had taken the papal side, could not sit down to supper without sending Luther a can of Einbecker beer from his own table.284 As for the commonalty, there was a wild uproar in the streets of Worms that night—men cursing the Spaniards and Italians, and praising Luther, who had compelled the Emperor and the prelates to hear what he had to say, and who had voiced the complaints of the Fatherland against the Roman Curia at the risk of his life. The voice of the people found utterance in a placard, which next morning was seen posted up on the street corners of the town, “Woe to the land whose king is a child.” It was the beginning of the disillusion of Germany. The people had believed that they were securing a German Emperor when, in a fit of enthusiasm, they had called upon the Electors to choose the grandson of Maximilian. They were beginning to find that they had selected a Spaniard.
Next day (April 19th) the Emperor proposed that Luther should be placed under the ban of the Empire. The Estates were not satisfied, and insisted that something should be done to effect a compromise. Luther had not been treated as they had proposed in their memorandum of the 19th February. He had been peremptorily ordered to retract. The Emperor had permitted Aleander to regulate the order of procedure on the day previous (April 18th), and the result had not been satisfactory. Even the Elector of Brandenburg and his brother, the hesitating Archbishop of Mainz, did not wish matters to remain as they were. They knew the feelings of the German people, if they were ignorant of the Emperor's diplomatic dealings with the Pope. The Emperor gave way, but told them that he would let them hear his own view of the matter. He produced a sheet of paper, and read a short statement prepared by [pg 294] himself in the French tongue—the language with which Charles was most familiar. It was the memorable declaration of his own religious position, which has been referred to already.285 Aleander reports that several of the princes became pale as death when they heard it.286 In later discussions the Emperor asserted with warmth that he would never change one iota of his declaration.
Nevertheless, the Diet appointed a Commission (April 22nd) to confer with Luther, and at its head was placed the Archbishop of Trier, who was perhaps the only one among the higher ecclesiastics of Germany whom Luther thoroughly trusted. They had several meetings with the Reformer, the first being on the 24th of April. All the members of the Commission were sincerely anxious to arrange a compromise; but after the Emperor's declaration that was impossible, as Luther himself clearly saw. No set of resolutions, however skilfully framed, could reconcile the Emperor's belief that a General Council was infallible and Luther's phrase, “a conscience bound to the Holy Scriptures.” No proposals to leave the final decision to the Emperor and the Pope, to the Emperor alone, to the Emperor and the Estates, to a future General Council (all of which were made), could patch up a compromise between two such contradictory standpoints. Compromise must fail in a fight of faiths, and that was the nature of the opposition between Charles v. and Luther throughout their lives. What divided them was no subordinate question about doctrine or ritual; it was fundamental, amounting to an entirely different conception of the whole round of religion. The moral authority of the individual conscience confronted the legal authority of an ecclesiastical assembly. In after days the monk regretted that he had not spoken out more boldly before the Diet. Shortly before his death, [pg 295] the Emperor expressed his regret that he had not burned the obstinate heretic. When the Commission had failed, Luther asked leave to reveal his whole innermost thoughts to the Archbishop of Trier, under the seal of confession, and the two had a memorable private interview. Aleander fiercely attacked the Archbishop for refusing to disclose what passed between them; but the prelate was a German bishop with a conscience, and not an unscrupulous dependant on a shameless Curia. No one knew what Luther's confession was. The Commission had to report that its efforts had proved useless. Luther was ordered to leave Worms and return to Wittenberg, without preaching on the journey; his safe conduct was to expire in twenty-one days after the 26th of April. At their expiry he was liable to be seized and put to death as a pestilent heretic. There remained only to draft and publish the edict containing the ban. The days passed, and it did not appear.
Suddenly the startling news reached Worms that Luther had disappeared, no one knew where. Aleander, as usual, had the most exact information, and gives the fullest account of the rumours which were flying about. Cochlæus, who was at Frankfurt, sent him a man who had been at Eisenach, had seen Luther's uncle, and had been told by him about the capture. Five horsemen had dashed at the travelling waggon, had seized Luther, and had ridden off with him. Who the captors were or by whose authority they had acted, no one could tell. “Some blame me,” says Aleander, “others the Archbishop of Mainz: would God it were true!” Some thought that Sickingen had carried him off to protect him; others, the Elector of Saxony; others, the Count of Mansfeld. One persistent rumour declared that a personal enemy of the Elector of Saxony, one Hans Beheim, had been the captor; and the Emperor rather believed it. On May 14th a letter reached Worms saying that Luther's body had been found in a silver-mine pierced with a dagger. The news flew over Germany and beyond it that Luther had been done to death by emissaries of the Roman Curia; and so persistent was the belief, that [pg 296] Aleander prepared to justify the deed by alleging that the Reformer had broken the imperial safe conduct by preaching at Eisenach and by addressing a concourse of people at Frankfurt.287 Albert Dürer, in Ghent, noted down in his private diary that Luther, “the God-inspired man,” had been slain by the Pope and his priests as our Lord had been put to death by the priests in Jerusalem. “O God, if Luther is dead, who else can expound the Holy Gospel to us!”288 Friends wrote distracted letters to Wittenberg imploring Luther to tell them whether he was alive or imprisoned.289 The news created the greatest consternation and indignation in Worms. The Emperor's decision had been little liked even by the princes most incensed against Luther. Aleander could not get even the Archbishop of Mainz to promise that he would publish it. When the Commission of the Diet had failed to effect a compromise, the doors of the Rathhaus and of other public buildings in Worms had been placarded with an intimation that four hundred knights had sworn that they would not leave Luther unavenged, and the ominous words Bundschuh, Bundschuh, Bundschuh had appeared on it. The Emperor had treated the matter lightly; but the German Romanist princes had been greatly alarmed.290 They knew, if he did not, that the union of peasants with the lower nobility had been a possible source of danger to Germany for nearly a century; they remembered that it was this combination which had made the great Bohemian rising successful. Months after the Diet had risen, Romanist partisans in Germany sent anxious communications to the Pope about [pg 297] the dangers of a combination of the lesser nobility with the peasants.291 The condition of Worms had been bad enough before, and when the news of Luther's murder reached the town the excitement passed all bounds. The whole of the Imperial Court was in an uproar. When Aleander was in the royal apartments the highest nobles in Germany pressed round him, telling him that he would be murdered even if he were “clinging to the Emperor's bosom.” Men crowded his room to give him information of conspiracies to slay both himself and the senior Legate Caraccioli.292 The excitement abated somewhat, but the wiser German princes recognised the abiding gravity of the situation, and how little the Emperor's decision had done to end the Lutheran movement. The true story of Luther's disappearance was not known until long afterwards. After the failure of the conferences, the Elector of Saxony summoned two of his councillors and his chaplain and private secretary, Spalatin, and asked them to see that Luther was safely hidden until the immediate danger was past. They were to do what they pleased and inform him of nothing. Many weeks passed before the Elector and his brother John knew that Luther was safe, living in their own castle on the Wartburg. This was his “Patmos,” where he doffed his monkish robes, let the hair grow over his tonsure, was clad as a knight, and went by the name of Junker Georg. His disappearance did not mean that he ceased to be a great leader of men; but it dates the beginning of the national opposition to Rome.
After long delay, the imperial mandate against Luther was prepared. It was presented (May 25th) to an informal meeting of some members of the Diet after the Elector of Saxony and many of Luther's staunchest supporters had [pg 298] left Worms.293 Aleander, who had a large share in drafting it, brought two copies, one in Latin and the other in German, and presented them to Charles on a Sunday (May 26th) after service. The Emperor signed them before leaving the church. “Are you contented now?” said Charles, with a smile to the Legate; and Aleander overflowed with thanks. Few State documents, won by so much struggling and scheming, have proved so futile. The uproar in Germany at the report of Luther's death had warned the German princes to be chary of putting the edict into execution.
The imperial edict against Luther threatened all his sympathisers with extermination. It practically proclaimed an Albigensian war in Germany. Charles had handed it to Aleander with a smile. Aleander despatched the document to Rome with an exultation which could only find due expression in a quotation from Ovid's Art of Love. Pope Leo celebrated the arrival of the news by comedies and musical entertainments. But calm observers, foreigners in Germany, saw little cause for congratulation and less for mirth. Henry viii. wrote to the Archbishop of Mainz congratulating him on the overthrow of the “rebel against Christ”; but Wolsey's agent at the Diet informed his master that he believed there were one hundred thousand Germans who were still ready to lay down their lives in Luther's defence.294 Velasco, who had struck down the Spanish rebels in the battle of Villalar, wrote to the Emperor that the victory was God's gratitude for his dealings with the heretic monk; but Alfonso de Valdès, the Emperor's secretary, said in a letter to a Spanish correspondent:
Valdès, like Gattinara and other councillors of Charles, was a follower of Erasmus. He lays the blame of all on the Pope. But what a disillusion this Diet of Worms ought to have been to the Erasmians! The Humanist young sovereigns and the Humanist Pope, from whom so much had been expected, congratulating each other on Luther's condemnation to the stake!
The foreboding of Alfonso de Valdès was amply justified. Luther's books became more popular than ever, and the imperial edict did nothing to prevent their sale either within Germany or beyond it. Aleander was soon to learn this. He had retired to the Netherlands, and busied himself with auto-da-fés of the prohibited writings; but he had to confess that they were powerless to prevent the spread of Luther's opinions, and he declared that the only remedy would be if the Emperor seized and burnt half a dozen Lutherans, and confiscated all their property.295 The edict had been published or repeated in lands outside Germany and in the family possessions of the House of Hapsburg. Henry viii. ordered Luther's books to be burnt in England;296 the Estates of Scotland prohibited their introduction into the realm under the severest penalties in 1525.297 But such [pg 300] edicts were easily evaded, and the prohibited writings found their way into Spain, Italy, France, Flanders, and elsewhere, concealed in bales of merchandise. In Germany there was no need for concealment; the imperial edict was not merely disregarded, but was openly scouted. The great Strassburg publisher, Gruniger, apologised to his customers, not for publishing Luther's books, but for sending forth a book against him; and Cochlæus declared that printers gladly accepted any MS. against the Papacy, printed it gratis, and spent pains in issuing it with taste, while every defender of the established order had to pay heavily to get his book printed, and sometimes could not secure a printer at any cost.