Et les prêtres en paix guidaient ses faibles ans.
The wife, named Mary, aged eighteen years, was of quite a different character. A sister of Charles the Fifth, a daughter of the unfortunate Joanna, queen of Castile and Aragon, who was kept in prison till her death, partly perhaps because she preferred the Gospel to the pope, Mary like her mother and still more than her mother had tasted the doctrine of the Gospel. Of lofty character, with a kindly heart, a sound understanding, and high intellectual abilities, well informed and able to speak five languages, it was said of her that she was as competent to rule over minds in peace as to command armies in war. She did not actually march at their head, but she once caused a severe defeat to be given to Henry II., the son of Francis I.
While still very young and residing at the court of her grandfather Maximilian, she had read with delight the first works of Luther. ‘Her chamber was her oratory,’ said Erasmus. She loved the chase, but she did not start for this sport without taking with her her New Testament. She was equally fond of pursuing on horseback the hart and the hare, and of sitting under a tree to read the word of the Saviour. We have elsewhere mentioned the fact that while she was at Augsburg in 1530, in company with her brother Charles the Fifth and the archbishops, bishops, and legates of the papacy, she courageously had the evangelical services celebrated in her apartments. Melanchthon called her a woman of heroic genius. She would fain have given her protection to the Reformation in Hungary, but the influence of the priests over the king was stronger than her own. Subsequently also she entreated the emperor not to submit to the domination of the clergy.[[522]]
Beginning Of Reformation.
It was by a kind of thunder-clap that the Reformation began in Hungary. In 1518 there appeared a work entitled, De Horrendo Idololatriæ Crimine. In 1520 and 1521 the earliest writings of Luther, on Christian Liberty, on the Epistle to the Galatians, and others besides, were brought into the kingdom by traders who came from Germany. The Captivity of Babylon delighted the Hungarians, and led many of them to separate themselves from the ultramontane Roman Church. Other evangelical books explaining the doctrine of salvation were read with eagerness. Nobles and townsmen declared for the Reformation; and this they did with all the energy of their national character. The like events were taking place in Transylvania.
Progress so rapid could not but provoke persecution. It was to begin with anathemas, but it would soon go on to rigorous deeds, and would rage almost without intermission.
Szakmary, archbishop of Gran, hoping to annihilate Reform at one blow, assembled his scribes, and had a public document drawn up. In 1521 condemnation of Luther and of his writings resounded from the pulpits of the principal Hungarian churches.[[523]]
Most of the Hungarians who heard this were very much astonished; and the publication of the anathemas produced a contrary effect to that which the prelate had aimed at. It awakened in the hearers a consciousness of the important nature of the Reformation; so that its friends were encouraged, and many were led to seek after the truth who had not previously concerned themselves about it. Many ecclesiastics, especially, who had been oppressed by the higher clergy, and had long sighed for the time of justice and freedom, now lifted up their heads, read the sacred books, and declared that Luther’s doctrine, founded on the Word of God, alone was true. They did not remain inactive; but by their living and powerful words they enlightened the minds of men. Parishes, villages, and towns joyfully greeted the Reformation.
One of the first to proclaim the Gospel in Hungary appears to have been Thomas Preussner. Others followed him. Cordatus at Bartfeld, in 1522, Siklosy at Neustadt, Kopacsy at Sarospatak, Radan and Husser at Debreczin, and George at Hermanstadt, proclaimed the tidings of a salvation freely given to those who laid hold on Christ by faith. Learned men at the same time were bearing witness to the truth at the university of Buda. Simon Grynaeus, son of a simple Suabian peasant, and afterwards a friend of Calvin, having from childhood shown a remarkable disposition for study, had been sent at the age of fourteen to the famous school of Pforzheim. Thence he had passed to the university of Vienna, where he distinguished himself and took the degree of master of arts. The king then called him to Buda. Grynaeus did not confine himself to teaching letters there, but openly and boldly announced to the people the great doctrines of the Gospel which he had embraced with all his heart. Another doctor, Winsheim, also professed openly the same faith; and, what was an unlooked-for event, people were talking at Pesth, in the old capital of the kings, on the banks of the Danube, and near the borders of Turkey, of that same Word of God which was giving joy to so many Germans on the banks of the Elbe. The Reformation, like a broad river, brought life and prosperity into these vast regions which extend between the Alps, the Carpathian Mountains, and the Balkan. But, alas! the river, dried up here and there by the parching heat of persecution, was one day to shrink and be turned into a stagnant and sleepy body of water like that which runs to lose itself in the dry sands of the desert.[[524]]
Hungarians At Wittenberg.