By this time the question of electing a successor to Maximilian had been settled. When the Diet came together at Frankfort, in June, 1519, two prominent candidates presented themselves,--king Francis I. of France, and king Charles of Spain, Naples, Sicily and the Spanish possessions in the newly-discovered America. The former of these had no other right to the crown than could be purchased by the wagon-loads of money which he sent to Germany; the latter was the grandson of Maximilian, and also represented, in his own person, Austria, Burgundy and the Netherlands. Again the old jealousy of so much power arose among the Electors, and they gave their votes to Frederick the Wise, of Saxony. He, however, shrank from the burden of the imperial rule, at such a time, and declined to accept. Then Charles of Spain, who had ruined the prospects of Francis I. by distributing 850,000 gold florins among the members of the Diet, was elected without any further difficulty. The following year he was crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle, and became Karl V. in the list of German Emperors. Although he reigned thirty-six years, he always remained a foreigner: he never even learned to speak the German language fluently: his tastes and habits were Spanish, and his election, at such a crisis in the history of Germany, was a crime from the effects of which the country did not recover for three hundred years afterwards. Luther wrote to the new Emperor, immediately after the election, begging that he might not be condemned unheard, and was so earnestly supported by Frederick the Wise, who had voted for Charles at the Diet, that the latter sent Luther a formal invitation to appear before him at Worms, where a new Diet had been called, specially to arrange the Imperial Court in the ten districts of the Empire, and to raise a military force to drive the French out of Lombardy, which Francis I. had seized. Luther considered this opportunity "a call from God:" he set out from Wittenberg, and wherever he passed the people flocked together in great numbers to see him and hear him speak. On approaching Worms, one of his friends tried to persuade him to turn back, but he answered: "Though there were as many devils in the city as tiles on the roofs, yet would I go!" He entered Worms in an open wagon, in his monk's dress, stared at by an immense concourse of people. The same evening he received visits from a number of princes and noblemen. [Sidenote: 1521. LUTHER AT THE DIET OF WORMS.]