Rout Of Mohacz.
The young king, who saw his army destroyed, made his escape like the rest. A Silesian ran before him to guide him in his flight. When he reached the plain he came to a piece of black, stagnant water, which he was obliged to cross. He pushed on his horse to reach the opposite bank, which was very high; but in climbing the animal slipped and fell with the prince, who was buried in the marshy waters. Melancholy burial-place! Louis had not even the honor of dying arms in hand. All was lost! The crescent triumphed. The king, twenty-eight magnates, five hundred nobles, seven bishops, and twenty thousand armed men left their corpses on the field of battle.[[546]] Terror spread far and wide. The keys of the capital were brought to the Sultan. He pillaged Buda, set fire to the town, reduced the library to ashes, ravaged Hungary as far as the Theiss, and caused two hundred thousand Hungarians to perish by the hands of his Mussulmans.
This victory, which appeared to ensure the predominance of Islamism, filled Germany and all Europe with sorrow and alarm. There were some small compensations. Pempflinger, having no longer to fear either the priests or the king, saved the evangelical Christians who were threatened by the fury of the monks. But this deliverance of a few did not lessen the horror of the public disaster. At the sight of their smoking towns, their devastated fields, their slaughtered countrymen, and the crescent taking the place of the cross, the Hungarians wept over the ruin of their country. The unfortunate Mary, a widow still so young, lost at the same time her husband and her crown, and saw with distress of heart the Hungary which she loved ravaged by the Turks.
This terrible blow was felt at Wittenberg, where the Hungarian students had excited a warm interest in their native land. Luther on hearing of the affliction of the queen was moved with lively pity, and wrote to her a letter full of consolation: ‘Most gracious queen, knowing the affection of your Majesty, and learning that the Turk has smitten the noble young prince, your husband, I desire in this great and sudden calamity to comfort you so far as God may enable me, and I send you for this purpose four psalms (with reflections), which will teach your Majesty to trust solely in the true Father who is in heaven, and to seek all your consolation in Jesus Christ, the true spouse, who is also our brother, having become our flesh and our blood. These psalms will reveal to you in all its riches the love of the Father and the Son.’ ‘Dear daughter,’ said Luther further to the queen, ‘let the wicked oppress thee and thy cause; let them, wrapped in clouds, cause the rain and the hail to fall upon thy head and bury thee in darkness. Commend thy cause to God alone. Wait upon Him. Then shall He bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday. God permits indeed the righteous to fall into the hands of the wicked, but He does not leave them there.
‘The pope and his agents condemned John Hus, but that was of no avail. Condemnation, outcries, hypocritical tears, rage, tempest, bulls, lead, seal, excommunication, all was useless. Hus has still lived on gloriously, and neither bishops, nor universities, nor princes, nor kings, have been able to do any thing against him. This man alone, this dead man, this innocent Abel has struck a Cain full of life, the pope and all his party; and in consequence of his powerful words they have been acknowledged as heretics, apostates, murderers, and blasphemers, they could not but burst with rage at it.’[[547]] It is difficult for Luther to utter a word of consolation without adding a word of energy and of reprobation. He sometimes adds a violent word. He could be a lamb, but he was also a lion.
The Queen’s Hymn.
The trial and these consolations helped the young queen onward in the path of piety. It was with pain that Charles the Fifth observed her evangelical sentiments; and he and his ministers frequently made her sensible of it. They would fain have taken from her her Gospel. But the emperor loved her, and always finished by bearing with her. She gave expression in a beautiful hymn to the consolations which she found in communion with God. ‘If I can not escape misfortune,’ she says in her hymn, ‘I must endure dishonor for my faith; I know at least, and this is my strength, that the world can not take away from me the favor and the grace of God. God is not far off; if He hide His face, it is for a little while, and ere long He will destroy those who take from me His word.
‘All trials last but for a moment. Lord Jesus Christ! Thou wilt be with me, and when they fight against me, Thou wilt look upon my grief as if it were Thine own.[[548]]
‘Must I enter upon this path ... to which they urge me ... well, world, as thou wilt! God is my shield, and He will assuredly be with me everywhere.’
This path, this vocation of which she speaks, could not but alarm her. Charles the Fifth, knowing the great abilities of his sister, named her, in 1531, Governess of the Netherlands. She re-entered the palace of Brussels in which she was born. She had an evangelical chaplain; but while endeavoring to soften the persecuting orders of the emperor, she was often compelled to submit to their execution and to attend the Catholic ceremonies in the court chapel. She was doubtless afraid that if she offered any resistance to the inflexible will of her dreaded brother she would be cast into prison for life, like her mother Joanna, called the Mad.