Aleander in his attic room heard the shouts and the trampling in the
streets, and sent out one of his people to find out the cause, guessing
that it was occasioned by Luther’s arrival. The messenger reported that
the procession had made its way through dense crowds of people, and that
the waggon had stopped at the door of the House of the Knights of St.
John. He also informed the nuncio that Luther had got out, saying, as he
looked round with his piercing eyes, _Deus erit pro me_, and that a priest
had stepped forward, received him in his arms, then touched or kissed his
robe thrice with as much reverence as if he were handling the relics of a
saint. “They will say next,” says Aleander in his wrath, “that the
scoundrel works miracles.”(211)
After travel-stains were removed, Luther dined with ten or twelve friends.
The early afternoon brought crowds of visitors, some of whom had come
great distances to see him. Then came long discussions about how he was to
act on the morrow before the Diet. The Saxon councillors v. Feilitzsch and
v. Thun were in the same house with him: the Saxon Chancellor, v. Brück,
and Luther’s friend Spalatin, were at _The Swan_, a few doors away. Jerome
Schurf, the Professor of Law in Wittenberg, had been summoned to Worms by
the Elector to act as Luther’s legal adviser, and had reached the town
some days before the Reformer.
How much Luther knew of the secret intrigues that had been going on at
Worms about his affairs it is impossible to say. He probably was aware
that the Estates had demanded that he should have a hearing, and should be
confronted by impartial theologians, and that the complaints of the German
nation against Rome should be taken up at the same time; also that the
Emperor had refused to allow any theological discussion, or that the
grievances against Rome should be part of the proceedings. All that was
public property. The imperial summons and safe conduct had not treated him
as a condemned heretic.(212) He had been addressed in it as _Ehrsamer_,
_lieber_, _andächtiger_—terms which would not have been used to a heretic,
and which were ostentatiously omitted from the safe conduct sent him by
Duke George of Saxony.(213) He knew also that the Emperor had nevertheless
published an edict ordering the civil authorities to seize his books, and
to prevent more from being printed, published, or sold, and that such an
edict threw doubts upon the value of the safe conduct.(214) But he
probably did not know that this edict was a third draft issued by the
Emperor without consulting the Diet. Nor is it likely that he knew how
Aleander had been working day and night to prevent his appearance at the
Diet from being more than a mere formality, nor how far the nuncio had
prevailed with the Emperor and with his councillors. His friends could
tell him all this—though even they were not aware until next morning how
resolved the Emperor was that Luther should not be permitted to make a
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