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Updated: June 11, 2025
Hutten also wrote now in German for the German people, both in prose and verse. During his stay with Sickingen in the winter at his Castle of Ebernburg, he read to him Luther's works, which roused in this powerful warrior an active sympathy with the doctrines of the Reformation, and stirred up projects in his mind, of what his own strong arm could accomplish for the good cause.
Nevertheless Sickingen entered into the proposal. The danger threatening Luther at Worms must have appeared still greater to him, and Luther could then have enjoyed the protection of his castle, which he had offered him before.
But at last he was compelled to retire from the cities, and he took up his abode in the Castle of Ebernburg, with Franz von Sickingen. Franz von Sickingen was one of the great nobles of Germany, and he ruled over a region in the bend of the Rhine between Worms and Bingen. His was one of the bravest characters of that time.
When I came to Oppenheim, in the Palatinate, not far from Worms, Bucer came unto me, and dissuaded me from entering into the town; for, said he, Sglapian, the Emperor's confessor, had been with him, and had entreated him to warn me not to go thither, for I should be burned; but rather that I should go to a gentleman there near at hand, Francis Von Sickingen, and remain with him, who willingly would receive and entertain me.
Rival intrigues were kept up; Sickingen and his troops were a clog upon deliberation; the electors were embarrassed and weary of their dissensions; and the Archbishop of Troves proposed by way of compromise the election of the Duke of Saxony, Frederick the Wise, who, at this crisis so shameful for his peers, had just given fresh proofs of his sound judgment, his honesty, and his patriotic independence.
For the furtherance of their objects and desires, in respect to the affairs of Germany and the Church these two knights placed high hopes in the new young Emperor, who had left Spain, and on the 1st of July landed on the coast of the Netherlands. Sickingen had earned merit in his election.
After heavy bombardment Sickingen was mortally wounded on May 6th, and the place was immediately surrendered. The next day the princes entered the castle, where, in an underground chamber, their enemy lay dying. He was so near his end that he could scarcely distinguish his three arch-enemies one from the other.
Again, when Francis von Sickingen, proceeding to punish a prince and redress a stranger, on turning sees the house, where his wife and children are, in flames, and yet goes on for the sake of his word how great humanity appears, how small the stern power of fate! Vice is portrayed on the stage in an equally telling manner.
Amid the decaying knighthood there was, as we have already intimated, one figure which stood out head and shoulders above every other noble of the time, whether prince or knight, and that was Franz von Sickingen.
The Circassian chieftain's blunt honesty and simple love of truth, his freedom from sordid selfishness and detestation of unmanly indulgences, give to his manners that stamp of heroism which all men admire in a Sickingen or a Cid.
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