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It is, however, in a manifesto published in July 1522, just before Sickingen's attack on the Archbishop of Trier, for which enterprise it was doubtless intended as a justification, that Luther expresses himself in unmeasured terms against the "biggest wolves," the bishops, and calls upon "all dear children of God and all true Christians" to drive them out by force from the "sheep-stalls."
The hero of the Reformation, Luther, with whom Melanchthon may be associated in this matter, could be no less pusillanimous on occasion than the hero of the New Learning, Erasmus. Luther undoubtedly saw in Sickingen's revolt a means of weakening the Catholic powers against which he had to fight, and at its inception he avowedly favoured the enterprise.
But, alas! the history does not run in that way; at least not till a hundred years of war had bathed the land in blood. For Hutten henceforth I have only misery and failure to relate. The union of knights and cities resulted in a ruinous campaign of Franz von Sickingen against Trèves. Sickingen's army was driven back by the Elector.
It had awakened his keenest interest; the falsehoods exposed in its pages confirmed him in his opinion that the Pope was the real Antichrist. Shortly after, a letter from Hutten reached Melancthon, containing Sickingen's offer of assistance; a similar communication forwarded to him some weeks before, had never reached its destination.
The Emperor, it so happened, was for the moment away in Spain, and Sickingen's colleagues of the knightly order were becoming clamorous at the unworthy position into which they found themselves rapidly being driven.
For many weeks afterwards even Frederick's brother John had no idea of it, on the contrary, he wrote to Frederick that Luther, he had heard, was residing at one of Sickingen's castles. Among his friends and followers the terrible news had spread, immediately upon his capture, that he had been made away with by his enemies.
After the fall of the Landstuhl all Sickingen's castles and most of those of his immediate allies and friends were of course taken, and the greater part of them destroyed.
He was anxious also to see whether a resort to force, after his own meaning of the term, would meet with any support from the Elector Frederick. He ventured even, when speaking of Sickingen's lofty mission, to refer to the precedent of Ziska, the powerful champion of the Hussites, who had once been the terror and abomination of the Germans.
The gates remained closed; and in answer to Sickingen's summons to surrender, Richard replied that he would find him in the city if he could get inside. In the meantime Sickingen's friends had signally failed in their attempts to obtain supplies and reinforcements for him, in the main owing to the energetic action of some of the higher nobles.
PRAY excuse my not having told you of my journey previous to leaving Paris. But I really cannot describe to you the way in which the whole affair was hurried forward, contrary to my expectations, wish, or will. At the very last moment I wanted to send my luggage to Count Sickingen's, instead of to the bureau of the diligence, and to remain some days longer in Paris.
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