This letter must have been written after some rather keen discussion between Maximilian and Frederick. The same day, the Elector wrote to Raphael de Rovere. He had doubtless learned that the Emperer was addressing the Roman pontiff, and to parry the blow he put himself in communication with Rome. "I can have no other wish," said he, "than to show myself submissive to the universal Church. Accordingly, I have never defended the writings and sermons of Doctor Martin Luther. I understand, moreover, that he has always offered to appear with a safe-conduct before impartial, learned, and Christian judges, in order to defend his doctrine, and submit, in the event of being convinced by Scripture itself."[497] [497] Luth. Op. (L.) xvii, p. 169. Leo X, who had hitherto allowed the affair to take its course, aroused by the cries of theologians and monks, instituted an ecclesiastical court, which was to try Luther at Rome, and in which Sylvester Prierio, the great enemy of the Reformer, was at once accuser and judge. The charge was soon drawn up, and Luther was summoned by the court to appear personally in sixty days. Luther was at Wittemberg, calmly awaiting the good effect which his humble letter to the pope was, as he imagined, to produce, when, on the 7th of August, only two days after the despatch of the letters of Maximilian and Frederick, he received the citation from the Roman tribunal. "At the moment," says he, "when I was expecting the benediction, I saw the thunder burst upon me. I was the lamb troubling the water to the wolf. Tezel escapes, and I must allow myself to be eaten." This citation threw Wittemberg into consternation; for whatever course Luther might adopt, he could not avert the danger. If he repaired to Rome he must there become the victim of his enemies. If he refused to go, he would, as a matter of course, be condemned for contumacy, without being able to escape; for it was known that the legate had received orders from the pope to do everything he could do to irritate the Emperor and the German princes against him. His friends were in dismay. Must the teacher of truth go with his life in his hand to that great city, _drunk with the blood of the saints and martyrs of Jesus_? Is it sufficient to ensure any man's destruction that he has raised his head from the bosom of enslaved Christendom? Must this man, whom God appears to have formed for resisting a power which hitherto nothing has been able to resist, be also overthrown? Luther, himself, saw no one who could save him unless it were the Elector, but he would rather die than endanger his prince. His friends at last fell on an expedient which would not compromise Frederick. Let him refuse a safe-conduct, and Luther will have a legitimate cause for refusing to appear at Rome.