It would, however, have been surprising if the enemies of Luther had passed in silence his marriage with a former nun. The most outrageous slanders and abominable falsehoods might have been anticipated. Their hatred of the man who had shaken the pillars of their spiritual despotism, was also to be vented against the woman whom he had chosen for his wife. “See,” cried out these despicable slanderers, “see the real design of his apostasy from the Catholic Church! It was only that he might marry.” And yet Luther was not married until eight years after he had taken the first step towards the Reformation. They loaded Catharine with the most opprobrious and disgraceful epithets, and endeavored to cover her husband with shame and contempt. But they did not reflect that if Luther had been inclined to an irregular course of life, he might more easily, with much less excitement and much less censure too, have indulged his evil propensities as an unmarried monk than as a married clergyman. Even King Henry VIII. and Duke George of Saxony sent him letters most bitterly censuring his course. The language of the royal slanderer of England is especially vulgar, and his accusations are infamous. But his more recent enemies have not been less virulent. Luther, in dealing such a terrible blow on their forefathers, has fearfully wounded them also, and that wound will never heal. They most dishonestly perverted his language, and endeavored to dishonor the name of Catharine by the most wretchedly contrived and disgraceful fables. The principal object of Luther’s enemies was to sever the matrimonial bond which united him and his wife. They exerted all their diabolical cunning to gain Catharine over by their machinations, and induce her to separate herself from Luther in order to return to the convent. Two young men, members of the University of Leipzig, were employed to write _Eulogies on Monastic Life_, and send them to Luther in the hope that they would fall into Catharine’s hands, and induce her, as a penitent sinner, to resume the veil. But neither he nor his wife honored these writings with much attention at that time. They were sent back to their authors in not quite as good a condition as when received, for the servants, without Luther’s knowledge, had taken special pains to deface them. They accompanied the papers with the Latin word _asini_ (asses), so ingeniously arranged in a square, that beginning in the centre the same word could be read in forty different directions. Some time after, Luther answered these writings and constructed several amusing fables on them. The treatment of these eulogies by Luther and his wife, and especially by the servants, created such an excitement in Leipzig that Jerome Walther, a councillor, found it necessary to communicate a full report of the whole transaction to the Court Chancellor of Duke George. The infamous attempt, however, to separate Luther and his wife signally failed.