Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1507-1521.djvu/489

 484 LUTHER'S CORRESPONDENCE AND Ut 4M

our and the Empire's severe displeasure and punishment This letter gives notice of our earnest purpose.

Charles.

Signed at the command of the Lord Emperor: Albert Cardinal of Mayence, Arch-Chancel- lor, with his own hand.

Nicholas Ziegler.

��414. LUTHER TO SPALATIN AT WORMS. Enders, iii. 106. Wittenberg, March 7, 1521.

Greeting. Dear Spalatin, this youth of good parts, Michael Creutzer,* wishes your support and mine in asking our most clement elector for a living. I owe him nothing, but would not refuse my aid, wherefore, do you try if anything can be done in your name or in mine. For you rightly believe that you have some influence in the court.

We have no other news except that the bull is getting more despised every day. I wrote previously what happened at Leipsic. It is said to have been posted up at Torgau, but secretly and it was soon torn. Posted at Dobeln, it was soon dirtied and torn, and these words written up: "The nest is here; the birds have flown,"^

Duke Henry of Saxony' strongly denounced it at Freiberg. I wrote him a letter for they said that he wanted one. The King of Denmark* also opposes the papists, having given a

^A scion of a noble family of Meissen. Spalatin apparenUy acceeded to Luther's request, and was later brought to regret it by the conduct of the youth. Cf. Luther's letter to Spalatin, January 22, 1522; Enders, iii. 287.

'German.

of Duke George of Albertine Saxony. From the first he was inclined to the Reformation, and when he succeeded to the ducal throne, in April, XS39, inTited Luther and Melanchthon to Leipsic to institute the erangelic faith. He died on August 18, 1 541, to be followed by his son Maurice.
 * Henry the Pious, born 1473, a son of Albert the Brave and younger brother

^Luther writes "Rex Daciae." He means Christian II. of Denmark, who suc- ceeded to the throne in 1513, but was driven out in April, 1521. In the summer of 1 52 1 he visited the Netherlands to get from Charles V. the dowry for his wife, a sister of that monarch. Brown: Calendar of Venetian Papers, iii. 24B, Here he met Durer, Erasmus and others sympathetic to the Reform, which he took up with zeal, visiting Wittenberg in October, 1523. He was reconciled to the Catholic Church in isap. He spent the rest of his life in exile and prison until his death 1559. Cambridge Modern History, ii. 608-14.

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