Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/26

 hoboam of Dresden^ rejoices, fairly panting to execute such

a decree; the Emperor has been petitioned also to write to the King of Denmark," asking him not to receive the remnants

of the Lutheran heresy, and they are singing that Psalm-verse, "When shall he die and his name perish?"' Hartmuth von Cronberg* has given up the imperial stipend of two hundred gulden, unwilling to serve one who listens to these impious people. I verily believe that the edict will not rage anywhere except under Rehoboam and that other neighbor of yours,' who is troubled with vainglory.

The Lord has smitten me with a grievous affliction.* ... I did not sleep all night, and still have no peace. Please pray for me, for this malady will become unbearable, if it goes on as it has begun. The Cardinal of Salzburg^ went with Ferdi- nand ' to meet his bride at Innsbruck on the vig^l of St. Philip and St. James, i.e., the fourth day after our departure [April 30]. It is said that his company displeased Ferdinand, and the Emperor, too, as Spalatin writes. But read his letter for yourself. Be sure to write all that is going on there and how everything is. Farewell to you and yours.

Yours, Martin Luther.

^ Duke George of Saxony. Cf, Vol. I, passim. His life by H. Preiherr t. Welck: Ceorg d*r Bortige, Brunswick, 1900.

'Chrittian II. Cf. Vol. I, p. 547, and Acta pontificum Danica, VI (1513-1536), Kjobenham* 1915.


 * Psalm xli, 5.

and was head of the family after 1506. He was a member of the intimate circle of knights that gathered around Francis Ton Sickingen and was inToWed in the catastrophe which overtook Sickingen in 1522, losing all his property in the war with Treves, the Count Palatine and Philip of Hesse. It was not until 1 54 1 that he received it back from the Landgrave. His last years were a time of comparative inactivity, and he remained neutral in the Schmalkaldic War. He died in 1549. He was one of the first of the German knights to espouse the cause of Luther, and his devotion to the Reformation, which is shown by a series of publications between 1521 and 1525, seems to have been from purely religious motives. His biography, by W. Bogler (Halle, 1897). His writings edited by E. Kuck (Plugschriften, XIV, Halle, 1899). H. Werner tries to show that Cronberg wrote the well-known revolutionary pamphlet, "The Reformation of the Emperor Frederic III,*' at the Sandorn Ritterstag of 1522. See Westdeutsche Zeitschfift, 28 and 29. This has been doubted by W. Kohler.
 * Hartmuth von Cronberg was born 1488, of a noble family in the Rhinelands,

■The Margrave Joachim of Brandenburg, brother of Albert of Mayence. Cf. Smith, 104.


 * An acute form of the constipation from which Luther was a chronic sufferer.

V Matthew Lang.

'Ferdinand of Austria, brother of Charles V, married Anne of Hungary in

IS2I.

�� �