Meanwhile the Emperor began to reflect whether Luther, who lay already under the ban and interdict, ought to be admitted to the place of the Diet. As to what proceedings should be taken against him, if he came, long, wavering, and anxious negotiations now took place between the Emperor, the Estates, and the legate Aleander, at Worms, where the Estates assembled in January, and the Diet was opened on the 28th. A Papal brief demanded the Emperor to enforce the bull, by which Luther was now definitely condemned, by an imperial edict. In vain, he wrote, had God girded him with the sword of supreme earthly power, if he did not use it against heretics, who were even worse than infidels. His advisers, however, were agreed in the conviction that he could not move in this matter without the consent of his Estates. Aleander sought to gain them over in an elaborate harangue. He, according to whose principles the appeal to a Council was a crime, cleverly diverted from himself the comparison and retort which his present arguments suggested, and insisted all the more on his complaint, that Luther always despised the authority of Councils and would take no correction from anyone. Glapio, then the Emperor's confessor and diplomatist, addressed himself, with expressions of wonderful friendship, to Frederick's chancellor, Brück. Even he found much that was good in Luther's writings, but the contents of his book, the 'Babylonian Captivity,' were detestable. All that need be done was that Luther should disclaim or retract that offensive work, so that what was good in his writings might bear fruit for the Church, and Luther, together with the Emperor, might co-operate in the work of true reform. He might be invited to meet some learned, impartial men at a suitable place, and submit himself to their judgment. This, at all events, would be a happy means of preventing his having to appear before the Emperor and the Estates of the Empire, and if he persisted in refusing to recant, of deciding then and there his fate. We must leave it an open question, how far Glapio still seriously thought it possible, by dint of threats and entreaties, to utilise Luther for effecting a reform in the Spanish sense, and as an instrument against any Pope who should prove hostile to the Emperor. But the Elector Frederick would undertake no responsibility in this dark design: he refused flatly to grant to Glapio the private audience he desired.