the prisoners, surrounded with guards, slowly and sadly descended from the castle. The report rapidly ran through the whole town that the bishops, the nobles, and the councillors who had been guests of the king and had been so magnificently entertained, were being taken to the great square and were going to be put to death there. In a little while the square was strewn with the dead bodies of the most distinguished nobles and prelates of Sweden.[225] There seemed to be little chance of such a king ever being a favorer of the Reformation. Nevertheless, the enterprise undertaken by Luther, and the changes in states which resulted from it, struck him and excited his interest. He thought that a religious reform would restrict the power of the bishops, that the senate would be weakened by their exclusion from it, and that the crown demesnes would be the richer. At the same time his powerful understanding was impressed with the errors of Rome and the imposing truth of the Gospel. Nephew by the mother’s side of the elector Frederick of Saxony, the king took an interest in a religious movement which had the sanction of that illustrious prince. This strange man imagined that without separating from Rome he could introduce into his own country the evangelical doctrines. He determined to trust to the pope to rid him of the most powerful of his subjects, and to Luther to instruct the rest. He therefore wrote to his uncle and begged him to send some teacher competent to purify religion, which was corrupted by the gross indolence of the priests.[226] The elector forwarded this request to the theologians of Wittenberg, who nominated Martin Reinhard, a master of arts, from the diocese of Wurzburg, on the recommendation, as it appears, of Carlstadt. [Sidenote: Burlesque Of Reinhard.]