Chapter XIX: Part 19

He wandered through Bohemia and Moravia, thankfully accepting bread from peasants, and diamond rings from princes. He had not a maravedi in his purse, nor clean linen on his back; but he made himself welcome everywhere. One night he slept, thankfully, on the straw of a barn; and the next sank, well-fed, into the eider-down of a bishop’s bed. He entered Olmutz ragged, shoeless, and exhausted. He left it, after enjoying the rich hospitality he had laughingly extracted from Bishop Turso, on horseback, with a heavy purse in his belt, a mantle on his shoulder, and a golden ring, with a jewel set in it, upon his finger. Such were a student’s vicissitudes, in the days of German wandering, a long time ago.

The boy, for he was not yet twenty years of age, betook himself to Vienna, where he kept a wide circle in continual rapture by the excellence of his poetical productions. These productions were not “all for love,” nor were they all didactic. He poured out war-ballads to encourage the popular feeling in favor of the Emperor Maximilian, against his enemies in Germany and Italy. Ulrich was, for the moment, the Tyrtæus of his native country. Then, suddenly recollecting that his angry sire had said that if his son would not take the monk’s cowl, his father would be content to see him assume the lawyer’s coif, our volatile hero hastened to Pavia, opened the law books on an ominous 1st of April, 1512, and read them steadily, yet wearied of them heartily, during just three months.

At this time Francis the first of France, who had seized on Pavia, was besieged therein by the German and Swiss cavalry. Ulrich was dangerously ill during the siege, but he occupied the weary time by writing sharp epitaphs upon himself. The allies entered the city; and Ulrich straightway departed from it, a charge having been laid against him of too much partiality for the French. The indignant German hurried to Bologna, where he once more addressed himself to the _Pandects_ and the _Juris Codices Gentium_.

This light reading so worked on his constitution that fever laid him low, and after illness came destitution. He wrote exquisite verses to Cardinal Gurk, the imperial embassador in Bologna, where the pope for the moment resided; but he failed in his object of being raised to some office in the cardinal’s household. Poor Ulrich took the course often followed by men of his impulses and condition; he entered the army as a private soldier, and began the ladder which leads to knighthood at the lowest round.

Unutterable miseries he endured in this character; but he went through the siege of Pavia with honor, and he wrote such sparkling rhymes in celebration of German triumphs and in ridicule of Germany’s foes, that, when a weakness in the ankles compelled him to retire from the army, he collected his songs and dedicated them to the Emperor.

The dedication, however, was so very independent of tone, that Maximilian took no notice of the limping knight who had exchanged the sword for the lyre. Indeed, at this juncture, the man who could wield a sledge-hammer, was in more esteem with the constituted authorities than he who skilfully used his pen. The young poet could scarcely win a smile, even from Albert of Brandenburg, to whom he had dedicated a poem. Sick at heart, his health gave way, and a heavy fever sent him to recover it at the healing springs in the valley of Ems.

A short time previous to his entering the army, the young Duke Ulrich of Wurtemburg had begun to achieve for himself a most unenviable reputation. He had entered on his government; and he governed his people ill, and himself worse. He allowed nothing to stand between his own illustrious purpose and the object aimed at. He had for wife the gentle Bavarian princess, Sabina, and for friend, young Johan von Hutten, a cousin of our hero Ulrich.

Now, Johan von Hutten had recently married a fair-haired girl, with the not very euphonious appellation of Von Thumb. She was, however, of noble birth, and, we must add, of light principles. The duke fell in love with her, and she with the duke, and when his friend Johan remonstrated with him, the ducal sovereign gravely proposed to the outraged husband an exchange of consorts!

Johan resolved to withdraw from the ducal court; and this resolution alarmed both his wife and the duke, for Johan had no intention of leaving his lightsome Von Thumb behind him. Therefore, the duke invited Johan one fine May morning in the year 1515, to take a friendly ride with him through a wood. The invitation was accepted, and as Johan was riding along a narrow path, in front of the duke, the latter passed his sword through the body of his friend, slaying him on the spot.

Having thus murdered his friend, the duke hung him up by the neck in his own girdle to a neighboring tree, and he defended the deed, by giving out that ducal justice had only been inflicted on a traitor who had endeavored to seduce the Duchess of Wurtemburg! The lady, however, immediately fled to her father, denouncing the faithlessness of her unworthy husband, on whose bosom the young widow of the murdered Johan now reclined for consolation.

On this compound deed becoming known, all Germany uttered a unanimous cry of horror. The noblest of the duke’s subjects flung off their allegiance. His very servants quitted him in disgust. His fellow-princes invoked justice against him and Ulrich von Hutten, from his sick couch at Ems, penned eloquent appeals to the German nation, to rise and crush the ruthless wretch who had quenched in blood, the life, the light, the hope, the very flower of Teutonic chivalry.

The “Philippics” of Ulrich were mainly instrumental in raising a terrible Nemesis to take vengeance upon his ducal namesake; and he afterward wrote his “Phalarismus” to show that the tyrant excited horror, even in the infernal regions. The opening sentence--“Jacta est alea!” became his motto; and his family took for its apt device--“Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor!” From this time forward, Ulrich von Hutten was a public man, and became one of the foremost heroes of his heroic age. He was now scholar, poet, and knight.

His fame would have been a pleasant thing to him, but the pleasure was temporarily diminished by the death of his old benefactor, Eitelwolf von Stein. The latter was the first German statesman who was also a great scholar; and _his_ example first shook the prejudice, that for a knight or nobleman to be book-learned was derogatory to his chivalry and nobility. Into the area of public warfare Ulrich now descended, and the enemies of light trembled before the doughty champion. The collegiate teachers at Cologne, with Hogstraten, the Inquisitor, Pfefierkorn, a converted Jew, and Ortuin--at their head, had directed all the powers of the scholastic prejudices against Reuchlin and his followers, who had declared, that not only Greek, but Hebrew should form a portion of the course of study for those destined to enter the Church. The ancient party pronounced this Heathenism; Reuchlin and his party called it Reason, and Germany, was split in two, upon the question.

At the very height of the contest, a lad with a sling and a stone entered the lists, and so dexterously worked his missiles, that the enemy of learning was soon overcome. The lad was Von Hutten, who, as chief author of those amusing satires, “Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum,” ruined Monkery and paralyzed Rome, by making all the world laugh at the follies, vices, crimes, and selfish ignorance of both.

Leo X. was so enraged, that he excommunicated the authors, and devoted them to damnation. “I care no more,” said Von Hutten, “for the bull of excommunication than I do for a soap-bubble.” The reputation he had acquired, helped him to a reconciliation with his family; but the members thereof had only small respect for a mere learned knight. They urged him to qualify himself for a chancellor, and to repair to Rome, and study the law accordingly.

Something loath, he turned his face toward the Tyber, in 1515. The first news received of the law-student was to the effect, that having been attacked, dagger in hand, at a pic-nic, near Viterbo, by five French noblemen, whom he had reproved for speaking ill of Germany and the Emperor Maximilian, he had slain one and put the other four to flight. From this fray he himself escaped with a slash on the cheek. He recounted his victory in a song of triumph, and when the law-student sat down to his books, every one in Rome acknowledged that his sword and his pen were equally pointed.

His French adversaries threatened vengeance for their humiliating defeat; and he accordingly avoided it, by withdrawing to Bologne, where he again, with hearty disgust, applied himself to the severe study of a law which was never applied for justice sake. He found compensation in penning such stirring poetry as his satirical “Nemo,” and in noting the vices of the priesthood with the intention of turning his observation to subsequent profit. A feud between the German and Italian students at Bologna soon drove our scholar from the latter place. He took himself to Ferrara and Venice; was welcomed everywhere by the learned and liberal, and, as he wrote to Erasmus, was loaded by them with solid pudding as well as empty praise.

From this journey he returned to his native country. He repaired to Augsburg, where Maximilian was holding court, and so well was he commended to the emperor, that on the 15th of June, 1517, that monarch dubbed him Imperial Knight, placed a gold ring, symbolic of chivalrous dignity, on his finger, and crowned him a poet, with a laurel wreath, woven by the fairest flower of Augsburg, Constance Peutinger.

After such honors, his father received him with joy at his hearth; and while Von Hutten went from his native Stackelberg to the library at Fulda, yet hesitating whether to take service under the Emperor or under the Elector of Mayence, he bethought himself of the irrefutable work of Laurentius Valla against the temporal authority and possessions of the Popedom. He studied the work well, published an improved edition, and dedicated it, in a letter of fire and ability, to Leo X.;--a proof of his hope in, or of his defiance of, that accomplished infidel.

Luther and Von Hutten were thus, each unconscious of the other, attacking Popery on two points, about the same moment. Luther employed fearful weapons in his cause, and wielded them manfully. Von Hutten only employed, as yet, a wit which made all wither where it fell; and an irony which consumed where it dropped. In the handling of these appliances, there was no man in Germany who was his equal. Leo could admire and enjoy both the wit and the irony; and he was not disinclined to agree with the arguments of which they were made the supports; but what he relished as a philosopher, he condemned as a Pontiff. The Florentine, Lorenzo de’ Medici, could have kissed the German on either cheek, but the Pope, Leo X., solemnly devoted him to Gehenna.

As a protection against papal wrath, Von Hutten entered the service of Albert, Elector-Archbishop of Mayence. Albert was a liberal Romanist, but nothing in the least of an Ultra-Montanist. He loved learning and learned men, and he recollected that he was a German before he was a Romanist. In the suite of the elector, Von Hutten visited Paris, in 1518. He returned to Mayence only to carry on more vigorously his onslaught against the begging monks. He accounted them as greater enemies to Germany than the Turks. “We fight with the latter, beyond our frontier for power; but the former are the corrupters of science, of religion, of morals--and they are in the very midst of us.” So does he write, in a letter to Graf Nuenar, at Cologne.

The building of St. Peter’s cost Rome what the building of Versailles cost France--a revolution. In each case, an absolute monarchy was overthrown never again to rise. To provide for the expenses of St. Peter’s, the Dominican Tetzel traversed Germany, selling his indulgences. Luther confronted him, and denounced his mission, as well as those who sent him on it. Von Hutten, in his hatred of monks, looked upon this as a mere monkish squabble; and he was glad to see two of the vocation holding one another by the throat.

At this precise moment, Germany was excited at the idea of a projected European expedition against the Turks. The Imperial Knight saw clearly the perils that threatened Christendom from that question, and was ready to rush, sword in hand, to meet them. He declared, however, that Europe groaned under a more insupportable yoke, laid on by Rome, and he deprecated the idea of helping Rome with funds against the Moslem. What a change was here from the Imperial crusading knights of a few centuries earlier. “If Rome,” he said, “be serious on the subject of such a crusade, we are ready to fight, but she must pay us for our services. She shall not have both our money and our blood.” He spoke, wrote, and published boldly against Rome being permitted to levy taxes in Germany, on pretence of going to war with the unbelieving Ottomans. At the same moment, Luther was denouncing the monks who thought to enrich the coffers of Rome by the sale of indulgences. One was the political, the other the religious enemy of the power which sought to rule men and their consciences from under the shadow of the Colosseum.

There was little hope of aid from the emperor, but Von Hutten looked for all the help the cause needed in a union of the citizen classes (whom he had been wont to satirize) with the nobility. To further the end in view, he wrote his masterly dialogue of “The Robbers.” In this piece, the speakers are knights and citizens. Each side blames the other, but each is made acquainted with the other’s virtues, by the interposition of a _Deus ex machinâ_ in the presence of the knight, Franz von Sickingen. The whole partakes of the spirit and raciness of Bunyan and Cobbett. Throughout the dialogue, the vices of no party in the state find mercy, while the necessity of the mutual exercise of virtue and aid is ably expounded.

The knight, Franz von Sickingen, was author of a part of this dialogue. His adjurations to Von Hutten not to be over-hasty and his reason why, are no doubt his own. By the production of such papers, Germany was made eager for the fray. This particular and powerful dialogue was dedicated to John, Pfalzgraf of the Rhine, Duke of Bavaria, and Count of Spanheim. This illustrious personage had requested Ulrich that whenever he published any particularly bold book, in support of national liberty, he would dedicate it to him, the duke. The author obeyed, in this instance, on good grounds and with right good will. There is in the dialogue an audible call to war, and this pleased Luther himself, who was now convinced that with the pen alone, the Reformation could not be an established fact.

Ulrich longed for the contact, whereby to make his country and his church free of Romanist tyranny. But he considers the possibility of a failure. He adjured his family to keep aloof from the strife, that they might not bring ruin on their heads, in the event of destruction falling on his own. The parents of Ulrich were now no more; Ulrich as head of his house was possessed of its modest estates. Of his own possessions he got rid, as of an encumbrance to his daring and his gigantic activity. He formally made over nearly all to his next brother, in order that his enemies, should they ultimately triumph, might have no ground for seizing them.

At the same time, he warned his brother to send him neither letters nor money, as either would be considered in the light of aid offered to an enemy, and might be visited with terrible penalties.

Having rid himself of what few would so easily have parted from, he drew his sword joyously and independently for the sake of liberty alone, and with a determination of never sheathing it until he had accomplished that at which he aimed, or that the accomplishment of such end had been placed beyond his power.

“Jacta est alea,” cried he, viewing his bright sword, “the die is thrown, Ulrich has risked it.”

In the meantime Von Hutten remained in the service of the Elector-Archbishop of Mayence. The courtiers laughed at him as a rude knight. The knights ridiculed him as a poor philosopher. Both were mistaken; he was neither poor nor rude, albeit a _Ritter_ and a sage. What he most cared for, was opportunity to be useful in his generation, and leisure enough to cultivate learning during the hours he might call his own. His satirical poems, coarsely enough worded against a courtier’s life, are admirable for strength and coloring. Not less admirable for taste and power are his letters of this period. In them he denounces that nobility which is composed solely of family pride; and he denounces, with equally good foundation, the life of “Robber Knights,” as he calls them, who reside in their castles, amid every sort of discomfort, and a world of dirt, of hideous noises, and unsavory smells; and who only leave them to plunder or to be plundered. He pronounces the true knights of the period to be those alone who love religion and education. With the aid of these, applied wisely and widely, and with the help of great men whom he names, and who share his opinions, he hopes, as he fervently declares, to see intellect gain more victories than force--to be able to bid the old barbarous spirit which still influenced too many “to gird up its loins and be off.” Health came to him with this determination to devote himself to the service and improvement of his fellow-men. It came partly by the use of simple remedies, the chief of which was moderation in all things. Pen and sword were now alike actively employed. He put aside the former, for a moment, only to assume the latter, in order to strike in for vengeance against the aggressive Duke of Wurtemburg.

The crimes of this potentate had at length aroused the emperor against him. Maximilian had intrusted the leadership of his army to the famous knight-errant of his day, Franz von Sickingen. This cavalier had often been in open rebellion against the emperor himself; and Hutten now enrolled himself among the followers of Franz. His patron not only gave him the necessary permission but continued to him his liberal stipend; when the two knights met, and made their armor clash with their boisterous embrace, they swore not to stop short of vengeance on the guilty duke, but to fight to the death for liberty and Christendom. They slept together in the same bed in token of brotherly knighthood, and they rose to carry their banner triumphantly against the duke--ending the campaign by the capture of the metropolis, Stutgardt.

Reuchlin resided in the capital, and the good man was full of fear; for murder and rapine reigned around him. His fear was groundless, for Von Hutten had urged Sickingen to give out that in the sack of Stutgardt, no man should dare to assail the dwelling of Reuchlin. The two knights left the city to proceed to the spot in the wood where still lay buried the body of the murdered John von Hutten. “It had lain four years in the grave,” said Ulrich, “but the features were unchanged. As we touched him, blood flowed afresh from his wounds; recognise in this the witness of his innocence.” The corpse was eventually transported to the family vault at Esslingen.

The cities of the hard-pressed duke fell, one after the other, and the guilty prince was driven from his inheritance. Von Hutten remained with the army, busily plying his pen; his sword on the table before him, his dagger on his hip, and himself encased in armor to the throat. Erasmus laughingly wrote to him to leave Mars and stick to the Muses. He scarcely needed this advice, for his letters from the camp show that fond as he was of the field, he loved far better the quiet joys of the household hearth. Amid the brazen clangor of trumpets, the neighing of steeds, the rolling of the drum, and the boom of battle, he writes to Piscator (Fischer), his longing for home, and his desire for a wife to smile on, and care for him; one who would soothe his griefs and share his labors--“One,” he says, “with whom I might sportively laugh and feel glad in our existence--who would sweeten the bitter of life and alleviate the pressure of care. Let me have a wife, my dear Friederich, and thou knowest how I would love her ... young, fair, shy, gentle, affectionate, and well-educated. She may have some fortune, but not excess of it; and as for position, this is my idea thereon: that _she_ will be noble enough whom Ulrich von Hutten chooses for his mate.” As a wooer, it will be seen that the scholar-knight had as little of the faint heart as the audacious “Findlay” of Burns, and I might almost say of Freiligrath, so spiritedly has the latter poet translated into German the pleasant lines of the Ayrshire ploughman.

Well had it been for Ulrich had he found, in 1519, the wife of his complacent visions. The gentle hand would have saved him from many a cruel hour.

On his return to Mayence he had well-nigh obeyed the universal call addressed to him, to join openly with Luther against Rome. He was withheld by his regard for his liberal patron, the archbishop. He remained, partly looking on and partly aiding, on the outskirts of the field where the fray was raging. He published a superb edition of Livy, and to show that the reforming spirit still burned brightly in the bosom of the scholar, he also published his celebrated “Vadiscus, sive Trias Romana.” This triple-edged weapon still inflicts anguish on Rome. Never had arrow of such power stricken the harlot before. Its point is still in her side; and her adversaries knew well how to use it, by painfully turning it in the wound.

The knight now hung up his sword in his chamber at Stackelberg, and devoted himself to his pen. In the convent library at Fulda he discovered an ancient German work against the supremacy of the Pope over the princes and people of Germany. Of this he made excellent use. His own productions against Rome followed one another with great rapidity. Down to the middle of 1520 he was incessantly charging the Vatican, at the point of a grey goosequill. He had at heart the freeing of Germany from the ecclesiastical domination of Italy, just as the men of Northern Italy have it at heart to rescue her from the cruel domination of Austria.

To accomplish his ends, Von Hutten left no means untried. Knight and scholar, noble and villain, the very Emperor Charles V. himself, Ulrich sought to enlist in the great confederacy, by which he hoped to strike a mortal blow at the temporal power of the “Universal Bishop.” His books converted even some of the diocesans of the Romish Church; but Rome thundered excommunication on the books and their author, and directed a heavy weight of censure against his protector, Albert of Mayence.

The archbishop admonished Von Hutten, and interdicted his works. This step decided Ulrich’s course. He at once addressed his first letter to Luther. It began with the cry of “Freedom for ever!” and it offered heart, head, soul, body, brains, and purse, in furtherance of the great cause. He tendered to Luther, in the name of Sickingen, a secure place of residence; and he established his first unassailable battery against Rome, by erecting a printing-press in his own room in the castle of Stackelberg, whence he directed many a raking fire against all his assailants. “Jacta est alea!” was his cry; “Let the enemies of light look to it!”

From Fulda he started to the court of the Emperor Charles V. at Brussels. But his enemies stood between him and the foot of the throne, and he was not allowed to approach it. His life, too, was being constantly threatened. He withdrew before these threats, once more into Germany, taking compensation by the way, for his disappointment, by a characteristic bit of spirit. He happened to fall in with Hogstraten, the heretic-finder, and the arch-enemy of Reuchlin. Ulrich belabored him with a sheathed sword till every bone in the body of Hogstraten was sore. In return, the knight was outlawed, and Leo X. haughtily commanded that hands should be laid upon him wherever he might be found, and that he should be delivered, gagged, and bound, to the Roman tribunals.

Franz von Sickingen immediately received him within the safe shelter of his strong fortress of Ebernberg, where already a score of renowned theological refugees had found an asylum. The colloquies of the illustrious fugitives made the old walls ring again. Von Hutten reduced these colloquies to writing, and I may name, as one of their conclusions, that the service of the mass in German was determined on, as the first step toward an established reformation.

The attempt of the Pope to have Ulrich seized and sacrificed, was eagerly applied by the latter to the benefit of the cause he loved. To the emperor, to the elector, to the nobles, knights, and states of Germany, he addressed papers full of patriotism, eloquence, and wisdom, against the aggression on German liberty. Throughout Germany this scholar-knight called into life the spirit of civil and religious freedom, and Luther, looking upon what Ulrich was doing, exclaimed: “Surely the last day is at hand!”

These two men, united, lit up a flame which can never be trodden out. One took his Bible and his pen, and with these pricked Rome into a fury, from which she has never recovered. The other, ungirding his sword, and transferring his printing-press to Ebernberg, sent therefrom glowing manifestoes which made a patriot of every reader.

The lyre and learning were both now employed by Von Hutten, in furtherance of his project. His popular poetry was now read or sung at every hearth. Not a village was without a copy, often to be read by stealth, of his “Complaint and Admonition.” His dialogues, especially that called the “Warner,” in which the colloquists are a Roman alarmist and Franz von Sickingen himself, achieved a similar triumph. It was to give heart to the wavering that Von Hutten wrote, and sent abroad from his press at Ebernberg, those remarkable dialogues.

Franz von Sickingen, his great protector, was for a season apprehensive that Ulrich’s outcry against Rome was louder than necessary, and his declared resolution to resent oppression by means of the sword, somewhat profane. Ulrich reasoned with and read to the gallant knight. His own good sense, and the arguments of Luther and Ulrich, at length convinced him that it was folly and sin to maintain outward respect for Rome as long as the latter aspired to be lord in Germany, above the kaiser himself. Franz soon agreed with Hutten that they ought not to heed even the Emperor, if he commanded them to spare the Pope, when such mercy might be productive of injury to the empire. In such cases, not to obey was the best obedience. They would not now look back. “It is better,” so runs it in Von Hutten’s “Warner,” “to consider what God’s will is, than what may enter the heads of individuals, capricious men, more especially in the case wherein the truth of the Gospel is concerned. If it be proved that nothing satisfactory, by way of encouragement, can come to us from the Emperor, they who love the Church and civil liberty must be bold at their own peril, let the issue be what it may.”

The dialogue of the “Warner” was, doubtless, not only read to Sickingen during the progress of its composition, but was unquestionably a transcript of much that was talked about, weighed, and considered between the two friends, as they sat surrounded by a circle of great scholars and soldiers, for whose blood Rome was thirsting. It ends with an assurance of the full adhesion of Franz to the views of Ulrich. “In this matter,” says the “Warner” to the knight of Ebernberg, “I see you have a passionate and zealous instigator, a fellow named Von Hutten, who can brook delay with patience, and who has heaped piles upon piles of stones, ready to fling them at the first adversary who presents himself.” “Ay, in good sooth,” is the ready answer of Franz, “and his service is a joy to me, for he has the true spirit requisite to insure triumph in such a struggle as ours.”

Thus at Ebernburg the battery was played against the defences of Rome, while Luther, from his known abodes, or from his concealment in friendly fortresses, thundered his artillery against the doctrines and superstitions of Rome. The movement had a double aspect. The Germans were determined to be free both as Christians and as citizens. The conducting of such determination to its successful issue could not be intrusted to worthier or more capable hands than those of Luther, aided by the Saxon Frederick the Wise, and Ulrich von Hutten, with such a squire at his side as hearty Franz von Sickingen.

In 1521 the young emperor, Charles V., delivered a speech at Worms, which seemed to have been framed expressly to assure the reformers that the emperor was with them. It abounded in promises that the kaiser would do his utmost to effect necessary reforms within the empire. The reformers were in great spirits, but they soon learned, by the summoning of Luther to Worms, and by the subsequent conduct of the emperor, that they had nothing to expect from him which they could thankfully acknowledge.

Ulrich only wrote the more boldly, and agitated the more unceasingly, in behalf of the cause of which Luther was the great advocate. To the kaiser himself he addressed many a daring epistle, as logical as audacious, in order to induce him to shake off the yoke of Rome, and be master of the Roman world, by other sanction than that of German election and papal consent. Von Hutten was more bold and quite as logical in his witheringly sarcastic epistles addressed to the pope’s legates at Worms. These epistles show that if at the time there was neither a recognised liberty of the press nor of individual expression, the times themselves were so out of joint that men dared do much which their masters dared not resent.

To the entire body of the priesthood assembled at Worms to confront Luther, he addressed similar epistles. They abound in “thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.” In every word there is defiance. Every sentence is a weapon. Every paragraph is an engine of war. The writer scatters his deadly missiles around him, threatening all, wounding many, sometimes indeed breaking his own head by rash management, but careless of all such accidents as long as he can reach, terrify, maul, and put to flight the crowd of enemies who have conspired to suppress both learning and religion in Germany.

In unison with Sickingen, he earnestly entreated Luther to repair to Ebernburg rather than to Worms, as there his knightly friends would protect him from all assailants. The reply of the great reformer is well known. He would go to Worms, he said, though there were as many devils as tiles on the roofs, leagued against him to oppose his journey thither. We can not doubt but that Luther would have been judicially assassinated in that ancient city but for the imposing front assumed by his well-armed and well-organized adherents, who not only crowded into the streets of Worms, but who announced by placards, even in the very bedchamber of the emperor, that a thousand lives should pay for the loss of one hair of the reformer’s head.

Had it depended on Von Hutten, the reformers would not have waited till violence had been inflicted on Luther, ere they took their own revenge for wrongs and oppressions done. But he was overruled, and his hot blood was kept cool by profuse and prosaic argument on the part of the schoolmen of his faction. He chafed, but he obeyed. He had more difficulty in reducing to the same obedience the bands of his adherents who occupied the city and its vicinity. These thought that the safety of Luther could only be secured by rescuing him at once from the hands of his enemies. The scholar-knight thought so too; and he would gladly have charged against such enemies. He made no signal, however, for the onslaught; on the contrary he issued orders forbidding it; and recommended the confederates to sheathe their swords, but yet to have their hands on the hilt. The elector of Saxony was adverse to violence, and Luther left Worms in safety, after defying Rome to her face.

Then came those unquiet times in which Charles V. so warmly welcomed volunteers to his banner. Seduced by his promises, Franz von Sickingen, with a few hundreds of strong-sinewed men, passed over to the Imperial quarters. The old brotherly gathering at Ebernberg was thus broken up; and Ulrich, who had offended both pope and emperor by his denunciations of ecclesiastical and civil tyranny, betook himself to Switzerland, where he hoped to find a secure asylum, and a welcome from Erasmus.

This amphibious personage, however, who had already ceased to laud Luther, affected now a horror against Von Hutten. He wrote of him as a poor, angry, mangy wretch, who could not be content to live in a room without a stove, and who was continually pestering his friends for pecuniary loans. The fiery Ulrich assailed his false friend in wrathful pamphlets. Erasmus loved the species of warfare into which such attacks drew or impelled him. He replied to Ulrich more cleverly than conclusively, in his “Sponge to wipe out the Aspersions of Von Hutten.” But the enmity of Erasmus was as nothing compared with the loss of Von Sickingen himself. In the tumultuary wars of his native land he perished, and Ulrich felt that, despite some errors, the good cause had lost an iron-handed and a clear-sighted champion.

There is little doubt that it was at the instigation of Erasmus that the priestly party in Basle successfully urged the government authorities to drive Ulrich from the asylum he had temporarily found there. He quietly departed on issue of the command, and took his solitary and painful way to Muhlhausen, where a host of reformers warmly welcomed the tottering skeleton into which had shrunk the once well-knit man. Here his vigor cast aloft its last expiring light. Muhlhausen threw off the papal yoke, but the papist party was strong enough there to raise an insurrection; and rather than endanger the safety of the town, the persecuted scholar and soldier once more walked forth to find a shelter. He reached Zurich in safety. He went at once to the hearth of Zuinglius, who looked upon the terrible spectre in whom the eyes alone showed signs of life; and he could hardly believe that the pope cared for the person, or dreaded the intellect, of so ghostlike a champion as this.

Ulrich, excommunicated, outlawed and penniless, was in truth sinking fast. His hand had not strength to enfold the pommel of his sword. From his unconscious fingers dropped the pen.

“Who will defend me against my calumniators?” asked the yet willing but now incapable man.

“I will!” said the skilful physician, Otto Brunfels; and the cooper’s son stoutly protected the good name of Ulrich, after the latter was at peace in the grave.

The last hours of the worn-out struggler for civil and religious liberty, were passed at Ufnau, a small island in the Lake of Zurich. He had been with difficulty conveyed thither, in the faint hope that his health might profit by the change. There he slowly and resignedly died on the last day of August, 1523, and at the early age of thirty-eight.

A few dearly-loved books and some letters constituted all his property. He was interred on the island, but no monument has ever marked the spot where his wornout body was laid down to repose.

Through life, whether engaged with sword or pen, his absorbing desire was that his memory might be held dear by his survivors. He loved activity, abhorred luxury, adored liberty; and, for the sake of civil and religious freedom, he fought and sang with earnest alacrity. Lyre on arm, and sword in hand, he sang and summoned, until hosts gathered round him, and cheered the burthen of all he uttered. “The die is thrown! I’ve risked it for truth and freedom’s sake.” Against pope and kaiser, priest and soldier, he boldly cried, “Slay my frame you may, but my soul is beyond you!” He was the star that harbingered a bright dawn. His prevailing enemies drove him from his country; the grave which they would have denied him, he found in Switzerland, and “after life’s fitful fever,” the scholar-knight sleeps well in the island of the Zurich-Zee.

From the Zurich-Zee we will now retrace our steps, and consider the Sham Knights.

SHAM KNIGHTS.

Between Tooting and Wandsworth lies a village of some celebrity for its sham knights or mayors--the village of Garrat. The villagers, some century ago, possessed certain common rights which were threatened with invasion. They accordingly made choice of an advocate, from among themselves, to protect their privileges. They succeeded in their object, and as the selection had been originally made at the period of a general election, the inhabitants resolved to commemorate the circumstance by electing a mayor and knighting him at each period of election for a new parliament. The resolution was warmly approved by all the publicans in the vicinity, and the Garrat elections became popular festivities, if not of the highest order, at least of the jolliest sort.

Not that the ceremony was without its uses. The politicians and wits of the day saw how the election might be turned to profit; and Wilkes, and Foote, and Garrick, are especially named as having written some of the addresses wherein, beneath much fustian, fun, and exaggeration of both fact and humor, the people were led to notice, by an Aristophanic process, the defects in the political system by which the country was then governed. The publicans, however, and the majority of the people cared more for the saturnalia than the schooling; and for some years the sham mayors of Garrat were elected, to the great profit, at least, of the tavern-keepers.

The poorer and the more deformed the candidate, the greater his chance of success. Thus, the earliest mayor of whom there was any record, was Sir John Harper, a fellow of infinite mirth and deformity, whose ordinary occupation was that of an itinerant vender of brick-dust. His success gave dignity to the brick-dust trade, and inspired its members with ambition. They had the glory of boasting that their friend and brother “Sir John” sat, when not sufficiently sober to stand, during two parliaments. A specimen of his ready wit is given in his remark when a dead cat was flung at him, on the hustings during the period of his first election. A companion remarked with some disgust upon the unpleasant odor from the animal. “That’s not to be wondered at,” said Sir John, “you see it is a pole-cat.”

But Sir John was ousted by an uglier, dirtier, more deformed, and merrier fellow than himself. The lucky personage in question was Sir Jeffrey Dunstan. He was a noted individual, hunched like Esop, and with as many tales, though not always with the like “morals.” He was a noted dealer in old wigs, for it was before men had fallen into what was then considered the disreputable fashion of wearing their own hair, under round hats. Sir John was a republican; but he did not despise either his office of mayor or his courtesy title of knight. Had he possessed more discretion and less zeal, he probably would have prospered in proportion. In the best, that is, in the quietest, of times, Sir Jeffrey could with difficulty keep his tongue from wagging. He never appeared in the streets with his wig-bag on his shoulder, without a numerous crowd following, whom he delighted with his sallies, made against men in power, whose weak points were assailable. The French Revolution broke out when Sir Jeffrey was mayor, and this gave a loose to his tongue, which ultimately laid him up by the heels. The knight grew too political, and even seditious, in his street orations, and he was in consequence committed to prison, in 1793, for treasonable practices. This only increased his popularity for a time, but it tamed the spirit of the once chivalrous mayor. When he ceased to be wittily bold, he ceased to be cared for by the constituents whose presence made the electors at Garrat. After being thrice elected he was successfully opposed and defeated, under a charge of dishonesty. The pure electors of Garrat could have borne with a political traitor; but as they politely said, they “could not a-bear a petty larcenist,” and Sir Jeffrey Dunstan was, metaphorically and actually presented “with the sack.”

When Manners Sutton ceased to be Speaker, he claimed, I believe, to be made a peer; on the plea that it was not becoming that he who had once occupied the chair, should ever be reduced to stand upon the floor, of the House of Commons. Sir Jeffrey Dunstan had something of a similar sense of dignity. Having fallen from the height of mayor of Garrat, what was then left for Sir Jeffrey? He got as “drunk as a lord,” was never again seen sober, and, in 1797, the year following that of his disgrace, the ex-mayor died of excess. So nice of honor was Sir Jeffrey Dunstan!

He was succeeded by Sir Harry Dimsdale, the mutilated muffin-seller, whose tenure of office was only brief, however brilliant, and who has the melancholy glory of having been the last of the illustriously dirty line of knighted mayors of Garrat. It was not that there was any difficulty in procuring candidates, but there was no longer the same liberality on the part of the peers and publicans to furnish a purse for them. Originally, the purse was made up by the inhabitants, for the purpose of protecting their collective rights. Subsequently, the publicans contributed in order that the attractions of something like a fair might be added, and therewith great increase of smoking and drinking. At that time the peerage did not disdain to patronize the proceeding, and the day of election was a holyday for thousands. Never before or since have such multitudes assembled at the well-known place of gathering; nor the roads been so blocked up by carts and carriages, honorable members on horses, and dustmen on donkeys. Hundreds of thousands sometimes assembled, and, through the perspiring crowd, the candidates, dressed like chimney-sweepers on May-day, or in the mock fashion of the period, were brought to the hustings in the carriages of peers, drawn by six horses, the owners themselves condescending to become their drivers.

The candidate was ready to swear anything, and each elector was required to make oath, on a brick-bat, “quod rem cum aliquâ muliere intra limites istius pagi habuissent.” The candidates figured under mock pseudonyms. Thus, at one election there were against Sir Jeffrey, Lord Twankum, Squire Blowmedown, and Squire Gubbings. His lordship was Gardener, the Garrat grave-digger, and the squires were in humble reality, Willis, a waterman, and Simmonds, a Southwark publican. An attempt was made to renew the old saturnalia in 1826, when Sir John Paul Pry offered himself as a candidate, in very bad English, and with a similarly qualified success. He had not the eloquent power of the great Sir Jeffrey, who, on presenting himself to the electors named his “estate in the Isle of Man” as his qualification; announced his intention of relieving the king in his want of money, by abolishing its use; engaged to keep his promises as long as it was his interest to do so, and claimed the favorable influence of married ladies, on the assurance that he would propose the annulling of all marriages, which, as he said, with his ordinary logic, “must greatly increase the influence of the crown, and vastly lower Indian bonds.” He intimated that his own ambition was limited to the governorship of Duck Island, or the bishopric of Durham. The latter appointment was mentioned for the purpose of enabling the usually shirtless, but for the moment court-dressed knight, to add that he was “fond of a clean shirt and lawn-sleeves.” He moreover undertook to show the governors of India the way which they ought to be going, to Botany Bay; and to discover the longitude among the Jews of Duke’s Place.

Courtesy was imperative on all the candidates toward each other. When Sir Jeffrey Dunstan opposed Sir William Harper, there were five other candidates, namely--“Sir William Blaze, of high rank in the army--a corporal in the city train-bands; Admiral Sir Christopher Dashwood, known to many who has (_sic_) felt the weight of his hand on their shoulders, and showing an execution in the other. Sir William Swallowtail, an eminent merchant, who supplies most of the gardeners with strawberry baskets; Sir John Gnawpost, who carries his traffic under his left arm, and whose general cry is ‘twenty-five if you win and five if you lose;’ and Sir Thomas Nameless, of reputation unmentionable.” Sir John Harper was the only knight who forgot chivalrous courtesy, and who allowed his squire in armor to insult Sir Jeffrey. But this was not done with impunity. That knight appealed to usage, compelled his assailant to dismount, drop his colors, walk six times round the hustings, and humbly ask pardon.

Sir William Swallowtail, mentioned above, “was one William Cock, a whimsical basket-maker of Brentford, who, deeming it proper to have an equipage every way suitable to the honor he aspired to, built his own carriage, with his own hands, to his own taste. It was made of wicker work, and was drawn by four, high, hollow-backed horses, whereon were seated dwarfish boys, whimsically dressed, for postillions. In allusion to the American War, two footmen, tarred and feathered, rode before the carriage. The coachman wore a wicker hat, and Sir William himself, from the seat of his vehicle, maintained his mock dignity, in grotesque array, amid unbounded applause.” It should be added that Foote, who witnessed the humors of the election more than once, brought Sir Jeffrey upon the stage in the character of _Doctor Last_; but the wretched fellow, utterly incapable and awfully alarmed, was driven from the stage by the hisses of the whole house. Let us now look abroad for a few “Shams.”

If foreign lands have sent no small number of pseudo-chevaliers to London, they have also abounded in many by far too patriotic or prudent to leave their native land. The Hôtel Saint Florentin, in Paris, was the residence of the Prince Talleyrand, but before his time it was the stage and the occasional dwelling-place of an extraordinary actor, known by the appellation of the Chevalier, or the Count de St. Germain. He was for a time the reigning wonder of Paris, where his history was told with many variations; not one true, and all astounding. The popular voice ascribed to him an Egyptian birth, and attributed to him the power of working miracles. He could cure the dying, and raise the dead; could compose magic philters, coin money by an impress of his index finger; was said to have discovered the philosopher’s stone, and to be able to make gold and diamonds almost at will. He was, moreover, as generous as he was great, and his modest breast was covered with knightly orders, in proof of the gratitude of sovereigns whom he had obliged. He was supposed to have been born some centuries back, was the most gigantic and graceful impostor that ever lived, and exacted implicit faith in his power from people who had none in the power of God.

The soirées of the Hôtel St. Florentin were the admiration of all Paris, for there alone, this knight-count of many orders appeared to charm the visiters and please himself. His prodigality was enormous, so was his mendacity. He was graceful, witty, refined, yet not lacking audacity when his story wanted pointing, and always young, gave himself out for a Methuselah.

The following trait is seriously told of him, and is well substantiated. “Chevalier,” said a lady to him one night, at a crowded assembly of the Hôtel St. Florentin, “do you ever remember having, in the course of your voyages, encountered our Lord Jesus Christ?” “Yes,” replied the profane impostor, without hesitation and raising his eyes to heaven. “I have often seen and often spoken to Him. I have frequently had occasion to admire his mildness, genius, and charity. He was a celestial being; and I often prophesied what would befall Him!” The hearers, far from being shocked, only continued to ply the count with other questions. “Did you ever meet with the Wandering Jew?” asked a young marquiss. “Often!” was the reply; and the count added with an air of disdain:--“that wretched blasphemer once dared to salute me on the high-road; he was then just setting out on his tour of the world, and counted his money with one hand in his pocket, as he passed along.” “Count,” asked a Chevalier de St. Louis, “who was the composer of that brilliant sonata you played to-night, on the harpsichord?” “I _really_ can not say. It is a song of victory, and I heard it executed for the first time on the day of the triumph of Trajan.” “Will you be indiscreet, dear count, for once,” asked a newly-married baronne, “and tell us the names of the three ladies whom you have the most tenderly loved?” “That is difficult,” said the honest knight with a smile, “but I think I may say that they were Lucretia, Aspasia, and Cleopatra.”

The gay world of Paris said he was, at least two thousand years old; and he did not take the pains to contradict the report. There is reason to suppose that he was the son of a Portuguese Jew, who had resided at Bordeaux. His career was soon ended.

There was a far more respectable chevalier in our own country to whom the term of Sham Knight can hardly apply; but as he called himself “Sir John,” and _that_ title was not admitted in a court of law, some notice of him may be taken here.

There was then in the reign of George III., a knight of some notoriety, whose story is rather a singular one. When Sir John Gallini is now spoken of, many persons conclude that this once remarkable individual received the honors of knighthood at the hands of King George. I have been assured so by very eminent operatic authorities, who were, nevertheless, completely in error. Sir John Gallini was a knight of George III.’s time, but he was so created by a far more exalted individual; in the opinion, at least, of those who give to popes, who are elective potentates, a precedence over kings, who are hereditary monarchs. The wonder is that Gallini was ever knighted at all, seeing that he was simply an admirable ballet-dancer. But he was the first dancer who ever received an encore for the dexterous use of his heels. The Pope accordingly clapped upon them a pair of golden spurs, and Gallini was, thenceforth, Cavaliere del Sperone d’Oro. Such a knight may be noticed in this place.