The Hansa Towns

by Helen Zimmern

Cologne then tried to shift its recriminations on to the religious ground. Glancing at the excesses committed in Münster by the Anabaptists, she ventured to question the benefits that had accrued to Lübeck and other Hanse cities from the Reformation, concluding with the shameless words, "In our city we hang, behead, or drown all heretics, and find ourselves very comfortable in consequence."

To most of these attacks Wullenweber as representative of Lübeck had to reply in person. He knew too well that many of them were aimed directly at himself. He strove hard to keep his hot temper in check and to reply with moderation and dignity.

The attitude of these Diet meetings, however, was but to prove the prologue to the intrigues which were to eject Wullenweber and his party from power, and to break not only the hegemony of Lübeck, but that of the whole Hansa—a consummation the opponents certainly did not intend. "Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first strike with blindness," says the Latin proverb, and its truth was once more made manifest by the attitude of the Hanseatic towns among themselves. They who had ever been so strong and so united, now no longer held together in brotherly concord, and weakness and disruption were the result.

The instrument that was to spring the chief mine on Wullenweber and his party was found in the person of Nicholas Brömse. This man was one of the leading personages of the Municipal Council of Lübeck in the early days of the sixteenth century, and was burgomaster of the town in the days when Gustavus Vasa arrived there as a fugitive. Indeed, he is said to have been one of the most zealous friends and protectors of the young Vasa. When the Reformation dissensions began to stir in the city, Brömse was among the most pronounced opponents of the purer creed, and repeatedly, by his personal interference, retarded its introduction. Indeed once, after it was officially introduced, he succeeded, in virtue of his personal influence with Charles V., in getting the Lutheran creed forbidden in the town. In so doing, however, he somewhat exceeded his limits; his action aroused suspicion in the council and hatred among the citizens; and finally, in 1532, he had to resign his post and fly secretly from Lübeck to escape the wrath of his enemies. He made his way to the imperial Court, at that time located in Brussels, and there he gained the ear and favour of Charles. Thence he watched with anxious curiosity the course which events were taking in his native town. He was biding his time to revenge himself upon the city that had ejected him, and upon the burgomaster who had supplanted him in popular favour.

When Nicholas Brömse learnt how the Hanseatic Diet had censured the action of Jürgen Wullenweber, he thought that the time for which he had long waited had come. He employed all his personal influence with the emperor to induce him to take a decisive step against the city of Lübeck, and with good result. For there issued from the imperial council chamber, June 7, 1535, a decree, stating that unless within six weeks and three days from the receipt of this document the town of Lübeck had abolished all democratic innovations and reinstated in the government Nicholas Brömse and other councillors banished together with him, the town would be declared under the imperial ban.

With Jesuitical astuteness not a word was breathed regarding Church reforms, but it was fully understood that a blow was aimed at the Lutheran creed quite as much as at Jürgen Wullenweber and the democratic party.

A Hanseatic Diet was sitting at Lübeck when this decree arrived. A committee was at once chosen to discuss the acceptance of the imperial mandate. It decided that obedience must be tendered to the dictates of the imperial council. In consequence the democratic party resigned power, and Wullenweber, who understood well that the whole was chiefly aimed at him, saw that there remained nothing for him to do but follow his party.

After delivering before the Diet a speech of great dignity marked by unusual moderation, in which he said if it were the will of God and were adjudged for the common weal that he should retire, he should certainly not refuse, he laid down in August, 1535, the office he had filled with such zeal and patriotic ambition.

It is characteristic of popular gratitude that when he returned from the guildhall, after completing the deed of renunciation, he was followed by a crowd that hissed and hooted him. This people of shopkeepers turned upon the man who was their true friend because the wars had impoverished them, had slackened their trade, and had brought distress within their walls. They did not recognize, or they forgot, that they themselves had encouraged the outbreak of these hostilities, and had applauded and sustained the man who proposed them; and that had he been better supported, his plans would have resulted in their pecuniary benefit.

It is evident that his fellow-rulers among the Lübeck Council knew that Wullenweber had been wronged, since they offered to bestow on him for six years the governorship of a neighbouring dependency. This he refused, but before he finally quitted office he took good care that the welfare and existence of the new creed should not be endangered by the return of the zealous Papist, Brömse, and also that an amnesty should be accorded to all political offenders.