Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1507-1521.djvu/533

 have in all matters acted against God and the laws, against their own honor and the good of Christendom, now at least may remember God and his vicar and their own sworn duty, and do it. God grant that the appearance of this Antichrist, which we have always deprecated as unreasonable, may con- tribute to the peace and quiet of Christendom.

453. ALEANDER TO VICE-CHANCELLOR CARDINAL DF

MEDICI AT ROME.

Kalkoff : Aleander, 173. Worms (April 18 and 19)/ 1521.

Your Lordship will already have learned from the oral account of Lord RaphaeP the result of Luther's first appear- ance before the Emperor and Estates. From the present imperial courier your Lordship learns that this afternoon [April 18] at four o'clock Martin was summoned to the court, but as the Emperor and princes delayed in an upper room, he had to wait for his hearing more than an hour and a half in a great crowd. When the Emperor, Princes and Estates of the Realm had entered, the Official of Trier, who was spokesman for the Emperor at the first appearance, in a neat, impressive speech, asked this question: "Luther, although in such a matter, the purport of which was known to all the world, you really should not have had any time for considera- tion allowed you, yet his Imperial Majesty, according to his clemency and mercy, has given you a delay till this hour. Wherefore do you now openly and honestly declare whether you will recant all that you have written against the tradition of our Holy Church, and against the councils, decrees, law and ceremonies which our ancestors and we have held until this day, and whether you will also revoke the opinions con- demned by the present Pope. But see to it that your answer be not ambiguous, but clear."

Martin® declared that he had written books of three sorts, some against Roman abuses, and here he began venomously

^KalkoiT dates April 19, but Aleander apparently wrote the first part of the letter April i8.

'De' Medici who left Worms the preytous day and was in Florence April j6.

porated in it Luther's own notes of his speech. This, with Eck's speeches, is translated in Smith, op, cit., pp. ii5£F.
 * A fuller account of the proceedings was written down by Spalatin, who incor-

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