Chapter XXV: The Road to Worms

So back again to the labor for the Cause. Events were marching. At Worms, the old Rhenish city, the Diet had met, and young Emperor Charles and his princes were deliberating upon all the complex affairs of the Holy Roman Empire. To Worms came two Papal nuncios in their red and purple, Monsignori Caracciolo and Aleander, with many demands from their Medici master, but chiefly requiring one great “Christian act,” the surrender to condign punishment of the new “monster,” “Arius,” “Mahomet,” whose other appellation was Martin Luther.

Already Charles with his Flemish and Spanish advisers had shown their hands. In the Low Countries where he ruled in person, bonfires of the heretical books were blazing. But when Aleander came with his request, objection met him. Before election Charles had made solemn promise that no German should be laid under the “ban” without a fair hearing, and who had tried Luther? The bland legate replied that “to the Pope belonged the condemnation of heretics, and if _his_ paternal mercy were satisfied, Holy Saints! would Cæsar and his princes appear more hard to please than the Pope?”

The Emperor, however, was scarce convinced. He had, besides, other questions to ask the reverend legates. Would the Pope confirm him in the entire control of that most convenient engine of political tyranny, the Inquisition in Spain? Would the Pope waive his claims to Ferrara? Would he aid Charles in the threatened war with France? Till these were answered the Emperor had no final decision as to Luther, and besides, with one voice was not Germany,--peasants, burghers, and ritters,--making itself heard; from the white Alps to the blue Baltic, the great cry sounding,--“Let not Luther perish without fair trial!” And Charles was no such fool as to be deaf to that cry.

As for me, each time I returned to Wittenberg after riding post, I would be mightily refreshed by the calm and cheer I found in the little city. The much discussed friar was still moving about his university routine. I can picture him touching his lute in the evenings, or walking by morn in the wintry weather beside the ice-girt Elbe. Friends and students went ever in and out the modest convent. News good and bad was always discussed with the uttermost freedom.

“I am very happy to-day,” he said once to a group of us, frowning over some heavy news; “surely God is bringing us very near to victory, or the Fiend would not find it needful to rage so horribly.”

Then in the long winter evenings I can see again his great quill flying over the paper at a new polemic, and the next morning the Wittenberg printers would be clanging their presses with redoubled fury.

“Will Charles summon Luther to Worms?” Germany was asking. And the millions who at first said “He must,” presently began more confidently to say “He will.” But after that came another question, “Will Luther go to Worms?” And there was hesitation even among those who loved the Cause right well. For at Worms would be all the puissance and majesty of Church and State, every hostile influence that could be invoked to crush the heretic, every glitter and threat of power invoked to overawe the peasant’s son who had ventured to gainsay the dictates of the mighty. “If Luther goes to Worms,” so not one, but many men told me, “he will either be sent to the stake, or dazzled into a recantation. Better stay away, and let the ban of the Empire issue.”

I knew that sober men were talking of carnal war. Franz von Sickengen, greatest of the Rhine ritters, and Hutten’s friend, who saw in Luther’s cause a noble pretext for warfare on the prince-bishops his soul hated, had long since written him, “My services, my lands, my person are at your summons.” And Hutten had written, urging recourse to “swords, bows, javelins, and bombs.” “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force,” so ran a favorite text in many mouths, but not in Luther’s. I saw what he wrote to Spalatin, wise Frederick’s confessor, touching such mad counsellings. “I do not wish that we fight for the Gospel with fire and sword. By the Word the world has been subdued, by the Word the Church has been upheld, and by the Word it will be reformed.” And again touching the question of going to Worms, “I will be carried to Worms if I cannot go well. If they intend violence, and no doubt they do, my case is commended to the Lord. The same Lord lives and reigns who preserved the three youths in the furnace of the King of Babylon, and if He does not choose to preserve me, my head is a small thing in comparison with the slaying of Christ. Amen.”

And now at last tidings came, ever more frequently, both from friends and foes in the Rhinelands, as to the fury of the legates when their hot demands met with no instant compliance, and the bitter counter-complaints of the assembled princes at the persistence of many confessed abuses in the Church, and of the endless negotiation and recrimination. Finally came the issue to it all; an imperial summons bidding Luther “come to Worms under safe-conduct, to give an account to the Emperor and the Diet of his books and his doctrines.”

I was in Wittenberg when the imperial herald, Caspar Sturm, whose official style was “Deutschland,” a noble-minded and lordly man, arrived with the formal mandate. With many of Luther’s friends I stood in the little study whilst he unrolled the formidable parchment. At last Melanchthon spoke hesitantly.

“Dear Doctor, what will you do?”

“Do, Philip?” was the deep-voiced answer, “I will go!”

And then a silence fell on all of us. To the Wittenbergers it seemed a time for sadness, even as to the disciples of Paul when they were “sorrowing most of all for the words which he spoke, that they should see his face no more.”

The time was short for the needful preparation. Luther must present himself at Worms by the 16th of April. He could not set forth before the second. I did my part in making everything ready. The good burghers of the city of Wittenberg were glad to provide a covered wagon and stout horses. After a painful consultation Luther picked the three who should go with him,--Amsdorf, a young nobleman studying at Wittenberg, Peter Swaven, and also a humble but very loyal friar, John Petzensteiner. That I was to accompany need not be told,--at least they had no means of preventing me. Tearfully and reluctantly Melanchthon consented to stay. “For who can fill your place, my Philip?” spoke his master, “and if you live when I die, the cause of Christ will have lost but little.”

All Wittenberg was in the streets, when on the morning of April 2, 1521, the man who had spread the name of the city from Muscovy to England was about to set forth. The professors of the university, the town notabilities, and certain friendly students, awaited in the convent garden as he came down from the upper chamber. His step was elastic, his eye calm and clear. Melanchthon went beside him and wrung his hand silently, every one drew back a little, and there was a hush as if expecting he would say something, nor were they disappointed.

“They have torn in pieces my honor and my good name. I have lost all hopes of worldly greatness. Only my poor body is left. But as for my soul, they shall not have that. He who is resolved to bear the word of Christ to the world must expect death every hour. Therefore I am well prepared.”

He took the brown cap from his head, and bowed right and left to the company.

“Christ keep us all, good Christian neighbors and brothers of Wittenberg, and bring us safe to heaven. And now--farewell.”

He entered the wagon. The others were already there before him. I mounted my palfrey, with a few retainers to bring up the rear. Before all rode Deutschland, his bright livery flashing, in his hand the streaming red, black, and gold banner, blazoned with the double eagle of the imperial Hapsburgs. The folk were in no mood for cheering. Silence held us staying or going, while we passed down the long Collegien-strasse, and even went by the gate where lay the mouldering ashes of the Papal Bull; then a bent old woman sprang from the crowd with a great wail.

“They are taking away the dear Dr. Martin! Dr. Martin, who taught my lads to live honest, who saved my maids from shame! They will burn him! They will burn him! We shall never see him more!”

Some one plucked her back roughly, all was too tense for gentle measures.

“God bless you, good Dame,” spoke Luther clearly, as he rolled past her. And for the first time I saw that his cheeks were wet with tears.

* * * * *

As we fared on that journey it was a marvel how the people of every class and clan ran out to us. They came to meet Dr. Martin outside the gates of their cities “to gaze upon the wonderful man,” said the friendly chronicler, “who was so bold as to set himself against the Pope and all who in opposition to Christ look upon the Pope as a god.” At Leipzig, despite the memories of Eck’s disputation, the magistrates received us right honorably. At Naumburg, on the third, we had another great concourse. A lusty band of young men, wandering students, apprentices, young petty nobles all came out to us, singing one of Hutten’s latest battle songs:--

“Take up your own, your righteous cause
O nation brave and strong,
Will ye not listen to my words,
And help avenge this wrong?
The die is cast
And I stand fast,
Whatever be my fate:
The cards I’ll play
As best I may,
And then the end await.

“Although the cunning priests I know
Their snares for me have laid,
The man who knows his cause is good
Needs not to be dismayed.
I’ll play the game,
And all the same
E’en though they seek my life:
Brave nobles all,
On you I call,
Join Hutten in the strife!”

Swinging verses these, well fitted to make the blood spring faster, but brave songs are not the whole of the battle. At this same Naumburg I was present when a certain priest came to Dr. Luther at the inn, bearing a picture of Savonarola, the prophet-martyr of Florence, but my master looked at it unmoved. “It is Satan,” spoke he, “who seeks by these terrors to hinder the confession of the truth in the assembly of the princes.”

“Not so,” answered the friendly priest; “stand fast in the truth thou hast confessed, and thy God will not forsake thee.”

At Erfurt, where Luther had been so long a humble student and friar, he was met on the confines of the city territory by forty horsemen led by the great Magister Crotus himself, and men laughed at their fears and listened.

As we approached Eisenach, to our great dismay a fit of sickness overtook the dear Doctor one evening. An anxious and prayerful night it was for his friends, but a skilful bleeding, a cordial, and a sound sleep made our master hale again. Thankfully we pressed forward.

But every day the danger seemed growing. Luther had the Imperial safe-conduct suffering him to return to Wittenberg unharmed. Excellent. But such a safe-conduct had the Bohemian heretic John Hus possessed, and the Council of Constance had burned him for all that. And Worms, every report bore, was swarming with Papalists,--politically minded courtiers ready to barter Luther’s life for Medici aid in Italy, fanatically minded Spaniards who detested all things German, and all the countless agents of Rome from legate down to valet, who were howling like wolves for blood. And last but not least was the cold, hard young Emperor, who saw in Luther mere insurrection against a time-honored authority it was his duty to defend.

All these were against us. Often on the way I meditated “what ought I to urge Dr. Luther to do? Will not the safe-conduct be violated?” Then wild visions would come of a flight with my master to the Regenstein, of calling all the Harzland ritters to my side, and of a red raging war whereof only God could tell the end. Then I would look upon that peaceful, smiling man, sitting on the straw, and bartering innocent Latin saws with Amsdorf, and my wild visions would fade.

At Weimar came tidings of an imperial edict ordering the burning of Luther’s books throughout Germany. The herald brought us the news while we were dining at an inn, and well I remember his searching interrogation.

“_Now_, Herr Doctor, will you proceed?”

“Yes,” answered Luther quietly, and in good color.

“The man rides to his death,” whispered young Swaven. “Beyond a doubt the Emperor is prejudged against him.”

“I feel it,” I rejoined, “but what are we to do?”

He shrugged his shoulders. The horses were reharnessed. Luther was the first to clamber into the wagon. For a while I rode gloomily in the rear. Presently I heard Dr. Martin’s voice upraised, and I caught up with the wagon to get his words. He was repeating with much merriment the story of godless Peter Luders, a notable scholar of the past generation who lost his character in Italy, and once when very drunk had uttered heretical opinions. So at Basel they accused him of denying the three members of the Trinity, to which he had unblushingly answered, “Gladly will I confess _four_ if you will but leave me alone.”

What could one say of such a man as our master? Whether God or fiend were guiding him, the matter was out of our hands. I put my horse at his speed, to race ahead to the next town and arrange for comfortable quarters and livery.