Towards noon on the Sixteenth of April, Fifteen Hundred Twenty-one, the watchers on the tower gate of Worms gave notice by sound of trumpet that Luther's cavalcade was drawing near. First rode Deutschland the Herald; next came the covered carriage with Luther and three friends; last of all, Justus Jonas on horseback, with an escort of knights who had ridden out from Worms to meet them. The news quickly spread, and though it was dinner-time, the streets were thronged, and two thousand men and women accompanied the heretic to his lodging in the house of the Knights of Saint John. Here he was close to the Elector, while his companions in his lodging were two Saxon councilors. Aleandro, the Papal Nuncio, sent out one of his servants to bring him news; he returned with the report that as Luther alighted from his carriage a man had taken him into his arms, and having touched his coat three times had gone away glorying as if he had touched a relic of the greatest saint in the world. On the other hand, Luther looked round about him, with his demoniac eyes, and said, "God will be with me."
The audience to which Luther was summoned was fixed for four P.M., and the fact was announced to him by Ulrich von Pappenheim, the hereditary marshal of the Empire. When the time came, there was a great crowd assembled to see the heretic, and his conductors, Pappenheim and Deutschland, were obliged to take him to the hall of audience in the Bishop's Palace through gardens and by back ways. There he was introduced into the presence of the Estates. He was a peasant and a peasant's son, who, though he had written bold letters to Pope and Prelate, had never spoken face to face with the great ones of the land, not even with his own Elector, of whose good-will he was assured. Now he was bidden to answer, less for himself than for what he believed to be the truth of God, before the representatives of the double authority by which the world is swayed. The young Emperor looked at him with impassive eyes, speaking no word either of encouragement or rebuke. Aleandro represented the still greater, the intrinsically superior, power of the successor of Peter, the Vicar of Christ. At the Emperor's side stood his brother Ferdinand, the new founder of the House of Austria, while round them were grouped six out of the seven Electors, and a crowd of princes, prelates, nobles, delegates of free cities, who represented every phase of German and ecclesiastical feeling.
It was a turning-point of modern European history, at which the great issues which presented themselves to men's consciences were greater still than they knew.
The proceedings began with an injunction given by Pappenheim to Luther that he was not to speak unless spoken to. Then John von Eck, Official-General of the Archbishop of Trier, champion of the Leipzig deputation, first in Latin, then in German, put, by Imperial command, two questions to Luther. First, did he acknowledge these books here present—showing a bundle of books which were circulated under his name—to be his own; and secondly, was he willing to withdraw and recall them and their contents, or did he rather adhere to and persist in them? At this point, Schurf, who acted as Luther's counsel, interposed with the demand, "Let the titles be read." The official, in reply, recited, one by one, the titles of the books comprised in the collected edition of Luther's works published at Basel, among which were the "Commentaries on the Psalms," the "Sermon of Good Works," the "Commentary on the Lord's Prayer," and besides these, other Christian books, not of a contentious kind.
Upon this, Luther made answer, first in German, then in Latin, that the books were his.
The form of procedure had been committed by the Emperor to Eck, Glapion, and Aleandro, and it may have been by their deliberate intention that Luther was now asked, whether he wished to defend all the books which he had acknowledged as his own, or to retract any part of them? He began his answer in Latin, by an apology for any mistakes that he might make in addressing personages so great, as a man versed, not in courts, but in monk-cells; then, repeating his acknowledgment of the books, proceeded to divide them into three classes. There were some in which he had treated the piety of faith and morals so simply and evangelically that his very adversaries had been compelled to confess them useful, harmless, and worthy of Christian reading. How could he condemn these? There were others in which he attacked the Papacy and the doctrine of the Papists, who both by their teachings and their wretched examples have wasted Christendom with both spiritual and corporal evil. Nor could any one deny or dissimulate this, since the universal experience and complaint bear witness that, by the laws of the Pope and the doctrines of men, consciences are miserably ensnared and vexed, especially in this illustrious German nation. If he should revoke these books, what would it be but to add force to tyranny, and to open, not merely the windows, but the doors to so great impiety? In that case, Good God, what a cover of wickedness and tyranny would he not become! A third class of his books had been written against private persons, those, namely, who had labored to protect the Roman tyranny and to undermine the piety which he had taught. In these he confessed that he had been more bitter than became his religion and profession. Even these, however, he could not recall, because to do so would be to throw his shield over tyranny and impiety, and to augment their violence against the people of God. From this he proceeded to ask for evidence against himself and a fair trial, adducing the words of Christ before Annas: "If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil." Then, with a touch of his native boldness, he told his audience that it needed to beware lest the reign of this most excellent youth, Prince Charles, should become unhappy and of evil omen. "I might," he continued, "illustrate the matter more copiously by Scriptural examples—as Pharaoh, the King of Babylon, the Kings of Israel—who most completely ruined themselves at the moment when by wisest counsels they were zealous to strengthen and pacify their kingdoms. For it is He who taketh the wise in their own craftiness, and overturns the mountains before they know it. Therefore it is needful to fear God. I do not say these things because my teaching or admonition is necessary to persons of such eminence, but because I ought not to withhold from Germany my due obedience. And with these things I commend myself to Your Most Serene Majesty, and to Your Lordships, humbly asking that you will not suffer me to be brought into ill repute by the efforts of my adversaries. I have spoken."
This speech, spoken as it was with steady composure and a voice that could be clearly heard by the whole assembly, did not satisfy the official. His first demand was that, like the question to which it was in answer, it should be repeated in German. Next, Eck proceeded to point out that Luther's errors, which were the errors of former heretics, Wyclif, Huss and the like, had been sufficiently condemned by the Church, and particularly by the Council of Konstanz. If Luther were willing to recant them, the Emperor would engage that his other works, in which they were not contained, should be tenderly handled: if not, let him recollect the fate of other books condemned by the Church. Then, with the customary exhortation to all theological innovators, not to set their own opinions against those of apostles, saints and martyrs, the official said that what he wanted was a simple and straightforward answer: was Luther willing to recant or not? To which Luther replied: "Since Your Most Serene Majesty and Your Lordships ask for a simple answer, I will give it, after this fashion: Unless I am convinced by witness of Scripture or plain reason (for I do not believe in the Pope or in Councils alone, since it is agreed that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am overcome by the Scriptures which I have adduced, and my conscience is caught in the Word of God. I neither can nor will recant anything, for it is neither safe nor right to act against one's conscience." Then having given this answer in both languages, he added in German, "God help me! Amen."
The semblance of trial, which alone was allowed to Luther, was now over; it only remained to pass sentence. Early on the morning of the Nineteenth of April the Emperor summoned the Diet once more to take counsel upon the matter. The Estates asked for time to deliberate; on which the Emperor, replying that he would first give them his own opinion, produced a document written in his own hand. Beginning with the statement of his descent from Emperors, Kings of Spain, Archdukes of Austria, and Dukes of Burgundy, all of whom had lived and died faithful sons of the Church and defenders of the Catholic faith, it announced the identity of his policy with theirs. Whatever his predecessors had decreed in matters ecclesiastical, whatever had been decided by the Council of Konstanz and other Councils, he would uphold. Luther had set himself against the whole of Christendom, alleging it to be, both now and for a thousand years past, in error, and only himself in possession of the truth. The Estates had heard the obstinate answer which he had made the day before; let him be no further heard, and let him be taken back whence he came, the terms of his safe-conduct being carefully observed; but let him be forbidden to preach, nor suffer to corrupt the people with his vile doctrine. "And as we have before said, it is our will that he should be proceeded against as a true and evident heretic."
The difference between heresy and treason, at one time, was very slight. One was disloyalty to the Church, the other disloyalty to the State.