Ulrich having been obliged to renounce the protection of the Archbishop of Mayence, applied for that of Charles V, who had at this time quarrelled with the pope, and accordingly repaired to Brussels, where Charles was holding his court. But so far from obtaining anything, he learned that the pope had required the emperor to send him to Rome bound hand and foot. The inquisitor, Hochstraten, Reuchlin's persecutor, was one of those whom Rome had charged to pursue him. Ulrich, indignant that such a demand should have been made to the emperor, quitted Brabant. When a short way from Brussels, he met Hochstraten on the highroad. The inquisitor, frightened out of his wits, falls on his knees, and commends his soul to God and the saints. "No," said the knight, "I will not soil my sword with such blood as yours!" and giving him several strokes with the flat of his sword, allowed him to depart.
Hütten took refuge in the castle of Ebernbourg, where Francis de Seckingen offered an asylum to all who were persecuted by the Ultramontanists. It was here that his ardent zeal for the emancipation of his country dictated the remarkable letters which he addressed to Charles V, Frederick Elector of Saxony, Albert Archbishop of Mayence, and the princes and nobles, and which entitle him to a place among the most distinguished authors. Here too, he composed all those works119 which, being read and comprehended by the people, inspired Germany with a hatred of Rome and a love of freedom. Devoted to the cause of the Reformers, his object was to induce the nobility to take up arms in favour of the gospel, and fall with the sword on that Rome which Luther only wished to destroy by the Word, and by the invincible force of truth.
Still, amid all this fondness for war, we are pleased at finding tenderness and delicacy of sentiment in Hütten. On the death of his parents, though he was the eldest son, he gave up all the family property to his brothers, and prayed them not to write him or send him any money, lest, notwithstanding their innocence, they might be brought into trouble by his enemies, and fall into the ditch along with him.
If the truth cannot own Hütten for one of her children, (for her companions are ever holiness of life and purity of heart,) she will, at least, make honourable mention of him, as one of the most readoubtable adversaries of error.
A similar testimony may be borne to François de Seckingen, his illustrious friend and patron. This noble chevalier, whom several of his contemporaries deemed worthy of the imperial crown, holds first place among the warriors who were the antagonists of Rome. While delighting in the noise of arms, he had an ardent love of science, and a high veneration for its professors. When at the head of an army which threatened Wurtemberg, he gave orders, in the event of Stuttgard being taken by assault, to spare the property and house of the celebrated scholar, John Reuchlin. He afterwards invited him to his camp, and, embracing him, offered to assist him in his quarrel with the monks of Cologne. For a long time chivalry had gloried in despising literature, but this period presents us with a different spectacle. Under the massy cuirass of the Seckingens and Hüttens, we perceive the intellectual movement which is beginning to be everywhere felt. The first fruits which the Reformation gives to the world are warriors enamoured with the arts of peace.
Hütten, who, on his return from Brussels, had taken refuge in the castle of Seckingen, invited the valorous knight to study the evangelical doctrine, and made him acquainted with the foundations on which it rests. "And is there any one," exclaimed Seckingen in astonishment, "who dares to overturn such an edifice? Who could do it?"
Several individuals, who afterwards became celebrated as Reformers, found an asylum in this castle; among others, Martin Bucer, Aquila, Schwebel, and Œcolampadius, so that Hütten justly styled Ebernbourg "the hotel of the just." Œcolampadius had to preach daily in the castle, but the warriors there assembled began to weary hearing so much of the meek virtues of Christianity, and the sermons of Œcolampadius, though he laboured to shorten them, seemed too long. They, indeed, repaired to the church almost every day, but, for the most part, only to hear the blessing and offer a short prayer. Hence Œcolampadius exclaimed, "Alas! the Word is here sown on stony ground."
Seckingen, longing to serve the cause of truth in his own way, declared war on the Archbishop of Treves, "in order," as he said, "to open a door for the gospel." In vain did Luther, who had by this time appeared, endeavour to dissuade him; he attacked Treves with five thousand knights and a thousand common soldiers, but the bold archbishop, aided by the Elector Palatine and the Landgrave of Hesse, forced him to retreat. The following spring, the allied princes attacked him in his castle of Landstein. After a bloody assault, Seckingen, having been mortally wounded, was forced to surrender. The three princes, accordingly, make their way into the fortress, and, after searching through it, at last find the indomitable knight on his death-bed, in a subterraneous vault.
He stretches out his hand to the Elector Palatine, without seeming to pay any attention to the other princes, who overwhelm him with questions and reproaches: "Leave me at rest," said he to them; "I am now preparing to answer a mightier than you!..." When Luther heard of his death he exclaimed, "The Lord is just, yet wonderful! It is not with the sword that he means to propagate the gospel!"
Such was the sad end of a warrior, who, as emperor or elector, might, perhaps, have raised Germany to high renown, but who, confined within a limited circle, wasted the great powers with which he was endowed. It was not in the tumultuous spirit of these warriors that Divine truth, which had come down from heaven, was to take up her abode. Theirs were not the weapons by which she was to conquer; God, in annihilating the mad projects of Seckingen, gave a new illustration of the saying of St. Paul, "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God."
Another chevalier, Harmut of Cronberg, a friend of Hütten and Seckingen, appears to have had more wisdom and more knowledge of the truth. He wrote with great moderation to Leo X, beseeching him to give up his temporal power to its rightful possessor, viz., the emperor. Addressing his dependants like a father, he endeavoured to make them comprehend the doctrines of the gospel, and exhorted them to faith, obedience, and confidence in Jesus Christ, "who," added he, "is the sovereign Lord of all." He resigned a pension of two hundred ducats into the hands of the emperor, "because he was unwilling," as he expressed it, "to continue in the service of one who lent his ear to the enemies of the truth." I have somewhere met with a beautiful saying of his, which seems to place him far above Hütten and Seckingen. "The Holy Spirit, our heavenly Teacher, is able, when he pleases, to teach us more of the faith of Christ in one hour than we could learn in ten years at the University of Paris."
Those who look for the friends of reformation only on the steps of thrones,120 or in cathedrals and academies, and maintain that no such friends exist among the people, are under a serious mistake. God, while preparing the heart of the wise and powerful, was also preparing, in retirement, many simple and humble-minded men,