Louis II. acceded to this demand, and on the 15th of October, 1524, he issued a severe ordinance against the Reformation. ‘This thing displeases me greatly,’ he said. ‘We desire that our subjects should keep pure from all stain and all errors the faith which we have received from our ancestors; and we some time ago decreed that no one in our kingdom should embrace or approve this sect.’[[535]] Next, he commanded those whom he addressed, on pain of forfeiting life and goods, to do every thing possible to stay the Lutheran heresy.
The archbishop of Gran, who was returning from Rome, and Cardinal Szalkai caused commissaries to be appointed for the suppression of heresy; and, as Hermanstadt was causing the greatest uneasiness, they directed them first to this town. A good many people were astonished to see these agents of the pope intent at such a time on persecution. The Turks were threatening an invasion of Hungary; and was this the moment to breed division among the citizens? Was there not a necessity for establishing a good understanding among them all, and of uniting them in heart and in will? Ought Hungary to be exposed, by a division of its forces, to a frightful catastrophe? All these considerations were ineffectual. The Roman clergy shrank from nothing. Dreading the Gospel more than the Turk, they rashly flung their brands of discord into the midst of a generous people.
The fire, however, did not burn so well as had been hoped. When the commissaries arrived in Transylvania, they found opinions so decided in favor of the Gospel, that they renounced their intention of burning men and confined themselves to burning the books. The writings of the apostles and the reformers were taken by force from the townsmen; a huge fire was kindled in the market-place, and the best of the books were thrown into it. The archiepiscopal commissaries could not deny themselves the pleasure of being present at this execution, for want of others, and they watched the flames with a joy which they could hardly suppress. Meanwhile, a psalter on fire, caught up by the wind, fell upon the bald head of one of them, and the poor man was so dangerously injured that he died within three days. The death intended for the persecuted overtook the persecutors. Executions of a like kind took place in other Hungarian towns. The warden of the Franciscan convent at Oedenburg displayed extraordinary zeal and ordered the works of the great Luther to be burnt by the hangman. In the archives of the town may still be read the following entry—‘Anno 1525, Monday after New Year’s Day, paid to the hangman for burning the Lutheran books, 1 d. d.’[[536]]
This was not enough. What would it avail to have destroyed so many printed sheets, if there were still left in the kingdom many living voices to proclaim the salvation of Jesus Christ? There was one voice especially which they longed at any cost to silence. The evangelical light was shining brighter and brighter in the university of Pesth; and this was mainly owing to Grynaeus, who zealously taught the truth there. These Dominicans obtained a decree against him. This excellent man was seized and cast into prison. But some of the nobles took his part, and the prison doors were opened. ‘Depart,’ they said to him; ‘leave the kingdom.’ Hungary’s loss became Switzerland’s gain. Grynaeus became professor of philosophy at Basel; and twelve years later he welcomed Calvin there after his expulsion from Geneva. Winsheim, a man more prudent and more timid than Grynaeus, kept his post for two years longer, but was at length banished in 1525, and became professor of Greek at Wittenberg. It was mainly on the ground of their opposition to the worship of the Virgin that these two disciples of Christ were driven from Hungary. But neither prison nor exile could banish the Reformation. The fire within was increasing and no one was capable of extinguishing it.
Fresh students set out for Wittenberg. Martin Cyriaci of Leutschau returned thence, impressed and strengthened by Luther’s teaching, and applied himself immediately to the work. Some influential nobles and some of the cities also declared for the Reformation. In 1525, the five free towns of Upper Hungary pronounced themselves in its favor, namely, Leutschau, Seben, Bartfeld, Eperies and Kaschau. In Transylvania a Lutheran school had been founded; and while the priests were every Sunday excommunicating those whom they called heretics, laymen protected them against persecution. If any of the clergy wanted to erect scaffolds, merchants and artisans rose and prevented it.[[537]]
The archbishop of Gran and the legate of the pope, who had counted on destroying the Reformation by means of the royal edicts, were filled with grief when they saw that these documents availed them nothing; and they made more strenuous efforts still to use and to abuse the youth and weakness of the king.[[538]]
The archbishop had assumed in Hungary the part of persecutor of the Reformation; and he resolved, seeing that it was so hard to kill, to give it a fresh blow. He wished the persecution to be at once more general and more cruel. As a Diet was to meet in 1525, he determined, with the cardinal’s assent, to promote a new edict. Having been formerly governor to the king, the archbishop had great influence at court, and knew perfectly well how to proceed in order to gain over his old pupil. He manœuvred so cleverly that he got what he aimed at.[[539]] All that the pious queen could say to the young king was powerless before the influence of the two prelates and the sixty thousand ducats. The priests gained over also the Catholic members of the Diet. They were led to believe that if they once got rid of Luther it would be easier to effect their deliverance from Mohammed. They were not to be long, however, before they found out their mistake. Louis commanded Duke Charles of Munsterberg, governor of Bohemia, to banish thence all the Lutherans and the Picards; and an edict which became a law of the kingdom of Hungary ordered the general extirpation, by burning, of the evangelicals.
Burning Of Heretics.
They now set to work. At Buda lived a bookseller named George, a marked man with the pope’s party, as a seller of suspected books. George was apprehended, his Christian books were carried off, and the pious bookseller was burnt, together with his volumes, which served as his funeral pile.[[540]] Louis ordered that the same course should be pursued in all his dominions. He wrote to several magistrates at Oedenburg, Hermanstadt, and other places; and particularly addressed Count Pempflinger in Transylvania, enjoining him to extirpate heresy, threatening him with the severest punishments if he failed to do so, and promising him his royal favor if he executed his cruel edicts. Hungary was to be covered with scaffolds. But a storm, gathering in the East, was rapidly coming on, bringing Divine punishments. The sword of the persecutor was to be broken, the disciples of Christ saved, and the young and unfortunate prince, a victim of clerical intrigues, was to pay dear for all his cruelties.