Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1507-1521.djvu/433

 cardinals were present, the Emperor of his own accord asked the meaning of the text: "Whatsoever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven,"* When he had heard the ex- planation he replied with disdain: "What will this wretdi of a Luther reply to that?"

Those two great lords,* whose names I dare not mention, always have Luther's German books in their hands and pub- licly defend them. When recently one of them spoke about them too freely in the Emperor's room, the Emperor said to him, although he was a powerful man who for many rea- sons had to be treated with consideration, that he did not care for such words, and if the lord insisted on repeating them he had better stay at home. This sounds even ruder in French, When the lord heard it he blushed deeply and held his peacx.

363. ALEANDER TO THE VICE-CHANCELLOR, CARDINAL

JULIUS DE' MEDICI. Kalkoff: Aleander, 56. Worms (December 18, is^o)-

. . . That basilisk, the Elector of Saxony, said to-day to three electors that he knew certainly that the Pope would give Luther a rich bishopric and the cardinal's hat to get hiro to recant. He said he knew this positively. The Archbishop of Trier assured me that he had heard from the Saxon UtaX the Pope had already made Luther such an offer. He asked me the facts, and opined that it would cause general scandals I told him the truth and said that if any man would know of^ such an offer I would be the one. Your Lordship must not be surprised that Frederic is conscienceless enough to invent a pack of lies, inasmuch as he does not fear to persecute the Church of God. He thinks every means right to accomplish his devilish end.

These scoundrels so honor Luther that some of them in a public debate with a Spaniard held in the crowded market- place, said that he was without sin and had never erred, and

office under Maximilian and in 1522 waa made President of the Privy ConndL He died in 1544.

^Matthew, xvi. 19.

2As a mere conjecture it may be suggested that one of these lords was Francis von Sickingen, with whom the Emperor had some words on this subject at Worms. Cf, Grisar, L 344f.

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