[149] Ibid., on the same day (June 11, 1540), Luther’s statement. Above, p. 44.
[150] Rockwell, ibid., p. 159, n. 2; p. 4, n. 1.
[151] Ibid., p. 102.
[152] Mathesius, “Tischreden,” p. 175, 7-24 Aug., 1540.
[153] To the Elector Johann Frederick, March, 1543, see Rockwell p. 199 f., from archives. Rockwell quotes the following from a passage in which several words have been struck out: “I have always preferred that he [...?] should deal with the matter, than that he should altogether [...?].” Was the meaning: He preferred that Luther should be involved in such an affair rather than that he [the Landgrave] should desert their party altogether? Other utterances of Melanchthon’s and Luther’s, given above, would favour this sense.
[154] Rockwell, ibid., p. 194. Text of Camerarius in “Corp. ref.,” 3, p. 1077 seq.
[155] Ibid., p. 103.
[156] “Ergründete ... Duplicä ... wider des Churfürsten von Sachsen Abdruck,” etc. The work is directed primarily against the Elector Johann Frederick, the “drunken Nabal of Saxony,” as the author terms him.
[157] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 26², p. 58.
[158] Ibid., p. 77: “Concerning the Landgrave, whom he abuses as bigamous, an Anabaptist and even as having submitted to re-baptism, though in such ambiguous terms as to suit a cardinal or a weather-cock, so that were his proofs asked for he could twist his tongue round and say, that he was not sure it was so, but merely suspected it ... of this I will not now say much. The Landgrave is man enough and has learned men about him. I know of one Landgravine in Hesse [one only bore the title], who is and is to be styled wife and mother in Hesse, and, in any case, no other will be able to bear young Princes and suckle them; I refer to the Duchess, daughter of Duke George of Saxony. And if her Prince has strayed, that was owing to your bad example, which has brought things to such a pass, that the very peasants do not look upon it as sin, and have made it difficult for us to maintain matrimony in honour and esteem, nay, to re-establish it. From the very beginning none has abused matrimony more grievously than Harry of Wolffenbüttel, the holy, sober man.” That is all Luther says of the Hessian bigamy.