Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1507-1521.djvu/545

 540 LUTHER'S CORRESPONDENCE AND Let ^

contrary resolutions on their part. It turned out splendidly, for on the same day, as the Archbishop of Trier announced to us by his official, the princes decided in all points to follow the Emperor's will. But an unexpected incident brought everything again into confusion. The following night, the Lutherans, in fierce anger at the Emperor's expression of his will, and as though with the intention of frightening the ortho- dox from executing it, affixed on the door of the town hall and other public places a notice, the contents of which, as can be seen from the enclosed copy, will be extremely dangerous, if it expresses the real facts. For the three German words^ with which it is signed, which cannot be translated into Latin, are the token of the peasants and signify their calling out for war against the government and the nobles. Also, on the same night these words were shouted out through the whole city, but as no movement whatever followed, we may surmise that the conspiracy does not rest on very broad foundations. However, a certain prince [Albert of Mayence] who ought to make common cause with us, was put into such a fright by that notice, partly on account of his native discretion or cow- ardice, partly on account of the advices of his Lutheran retinue, whom we suspect of being the authors of that notice, that, before the break of day he sent to the Emperor, to the other princes and to us. The Emperor only laughed and said that he was a bit too timorous, and that as it was inciunbent on him to summon the princes to a session, he would do well to get Luther off in a hurry first. Then smiling the Emperor said to us that this conspiracy of four hundred nobles was like that of Mucius Scaevola, who thought he had three hun- dred companions with him when he stood quite alone. But still that anxious friend could not keep from sending his brother [the Elector Joachim] to the Emperor with a pro- posal diametrically opposite to that made in writing the day before by the four electors. According to the latter his Im-

^This placard, posted up on the night of April 20, annotinced that four hundred knights had sworn enmity to the Romanists and especiaUy to the Arch- bishop of Mayence. It was signed "Buntschuch, buntschuch, btmtschuch/' t. e., "tied shoe," the emblem of a large peasant secret society. According to KaUcoif (Archiv fur ReformationsgeschichU, viii. d4iff, i9ix)» the author of this notice was Hermann yon der Busche. See also: T. M. Lindsay. History of the Reformation, i. 296,

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