The archbishop had assumed in Hungary the part of persecutor of the Reformation; and he resolved, seeing that it was so hard to kill, to give it a fresh blow. He wished the persecution to be at once more general and more cruel. As a Diet was to meet in 1525, he determined, with the cardinal’s assent, to promote a new edict. Having been formerly governor to the king, the archbishop had great influence at court, and knew perfectly well how to proceed in order to gain over his old pupil. He manœuvred so cleverly that he got what he aimed at.[539] All that the pious queen could say to the young king was powerless before the influence of the two prelates and the sixty thousand ducats. The priests gained over also the Catholic members of the Diet. They were led to believe that if they once got rid of Luther it would be easier to effect their deliverance from Mohammed. They were not to be long, however, before they found out their mistake. Louis commanded Duke Charles of Munsterberg, governor of Bohemia, to banish thence all the Lutherans and the Picards; and an edict which became a law of the kingdom of Hungary ordered the general extirpation, _by burning_, of the evangelicals. [Sidenote: Burning Of Heretics.] They now set to work. At Buda lived a bookseller named George, a marked man with the pope’s party, as a seller of suspected books. George was apprehended, his Christian books were carried off, and the pious bookseller was burnt, together with his volumes, which served as his funeral pile.[540] Louis ordered that the same course should be pursued in all his dominions. He wrote to several magistrates at Oedenburg, Hermanstadt, and other places; and particularly addressed Count Pempflinger in Transylvania, enjoining him to extirpate heresy, threatening him with the severest punishments if he failed to do so, and promising him his royal favor if he executed his cruel edicts. Hungary was to be covered with scaffolds. But a storm, gathering in the East, was rapidly coming on, bringing Divine punishments. The sword of the persecutor was to be broken, the disciples of Christ saved, and the young and unfortunate prince, a victim of clerical intrigues, was to pay dear for all his cruelties. Footnote 522: Spalatinus, _Relatio de Comitiis August_. 1530. Footnote 523: _Archiep. Strigon. comp. dat. Tyrnaviæ_, p. 96. Footnote 524: _Geschichte der Evangelischen Kirche in Ungarn, mit einer Einleitung von Merle d’Aubigné_, p. 35. Berlin, 1854. Footnote 525: ‘Incredibilem in multis accendit ardorem ad videndum Lutherum.’—Scultetus, _Annal. Ev. rinovati_, p. 51. Footnote 526: ‘Ex publicis academiæ matriculis constat.’—_Ibid._ Footnote 527: _Geschichte der Evangelischen Kirche in Ungarn_, p. 41. Footnote 528: Saint-Martin. Footnote 529: Paul Janet. Footnote 530: Seckendorf, _Hist. des Lutherth._, p. 603. _Geschichte der Evangelischen Kirche in Ungarn_, p. 45. Footnote 531: