This light reading so worked on his constitution that fever laid him low, and after illness came destitution. He wrote exquisite verses to Cardinal Gurk, the imperial embassador in Bologna, where the pope for the moment resided; but he failed in his object of being raised to some office in the cardinal’s household. Poor Ulrich took the course often followed by men of his impulses and condition; he entered the army as a private soldier, and began the ladder which leads to knighthood at the lowest round.
Unutterable miseries he endured in this character; but he went through the siege of Pavia with honor, and he wrote such sparkling rhymes in celebration of German triumphs and in ridicule of Germany’s foes, that, when a weakness in the ankles compelled him to retire from the army, he collected his songs and dedicated them to the Emperor.
The dedication, however, was so very independent of tone, that Maximilian took no notice of the limping knight who had exchanged the sword for the lyre. Indeed, at this juncture, the man who could wield a sledge-hammer, was in more esteem with the constituted authorities than he who skilfully used his pen. The young poet could scarcely win a smile, even from Albert of Brandenburg, to whom he had dedicated a poem. Sick at heart, his health gave way, and a heavy fever sent him to recover it at the healing springs in the valley of Ems.
A short time previous to his entering the army, the young Duke Ulrich of Wurtemburg had begun to achieve for himself a most unenviable reputation. He had entered on his government; and he governed his people ill, and himself worse. He allowed nothing to stand between his own illustrious purpose and the object aimed at. He had for wife the gentle Bavarian princess, Sabina, and for friend, young Johan von Hutten, a cousin of our hero Ulrich.
Now, Johan von Hutten had recently married a fair-haired girl, with the not very euphonious appellation of Von Thumb. She was, however, of noble birth, and, we must add, of light principles. The duke fell in love with her, and she with the duke, and when his friend Johan remonstrated with him, the ducal sovereign gravely proposed to the outraged husband an exchange of consorts!
Johan resolved to withdraw from the ducal court; and this resolution alarmed both his wife and the duke, for Johan had no intention of leaving his lightsome Von Thumb behind him. Therefore, the duke invited Johan one fine May morning in the year 1515, to take a friendly ride with him through a wood. The invitation was accepted, and as Johan was riding along a narrow path, in front of the duke, the latter passed his sword through the body of his friend, slaying him on the spot.
Having thus murdered his friend, the duke hung him up by the neck in his own girdle to a neighboring tree, and he defended the deed, by giving out that ducal justice had only been inflicted on a traitor who had endeavored to seduce the Duchess of Wurtemburg! The lady, however, immediately fled to her father, denouncing the faithlessness of her unworthy husband, on whose bosom the young widow of the murdered Johan now reclined for consolation.
On this compound deed becoming known, all Germany uttered a unanimous cry of horror. The noblest of the duke’s subjects flung off their allegiance. His very servants quitted him in disgust. His fellow-princes invoked justice against him and Ulrich von Hutten, from his sick couch at Ems, penned eloquent appeals to the German nation, to rise and crush the ruthless wretch who had quenched in blood, the life, the light, the hope, the very flower of Teutonic chivalry.
The “Philippics” of Ulrich were mainly instrumental in raising a terrible Nemesis to take vengeance upon his ducal namesake; and he afterward wrote his “Phalarismus” to show that the tyrant excited horror, even in the infernal regions. The opening sentence—“Jacta est alea!” became his motto; and his family took for its apt device—“Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor!” From this time forward, Ulrich von Hutten was a public man, and became one of the foremost heroes of his heroic age. He was now scholar, poet, and knight.
His fame would have been a pleasant thing to him, but the pleasure was temporarily diminished by the death of his old benefactor, Eitelwolf von Stein. The latter was the first German statesman who was also a great scholar; and his example first shook the prejudice, that for a knight or nobleman to be book-learned was derogatory to his chivalry and nobility. Into the area of public warfare Ulrich now descended, and the enemies of light trembled before the doughty champion. The collegiate teachers at Cologne, with Hogstraten, the Inquisitor, Pfefierkorn, a converted Jew, and Ortuin—at their head, had directed all the powers of the scholastic prejudices against Reuchlin and his followers, who had declared, that not only Greek, but Hebrew should form a portion of the course of study for those destined to enter the Church. The ancient party pronounced this Heathenism; Reuchlin and his party called it Reason, and Germany, was split in two, upon the question.