For three months the Diet wrangled over the affair of Luther without reaching anything decided. The friends of Rome were the chief actors, struggling in every way and hesitating at nothing to induce the Diet and the emperor to acknowledge and enforce the pope's decree. But the influence of the German princes, especially that of the Elector Frederick, stood in the way; Charles would not act, as he had no right to act, without the concurrence of the states, and the princes of Germany held it unjust that Luther should be condemned on charges which had never been fairly tried, on books which were not proven to be his, and especially since the sentence itself presented conditions with reference to which no answer had been legally ascertained. To overcome these oppositions different resorts were tried. Leo issued a second Bull, excommunicating Luther absolutely, anathematizing him and all his friends and abettors. The pope's legate called for money to buy up influence for the Romanists: "We must have money. Send us money. Money! money! or Germany is lost!" The money came; but the Reformer's friends could not be bought with bribes, however much the agents of Rome needed such stimulation. Trickery was brought into requisition to entrap Luther's defenders by a secret proposal to compromise. Luther was given great credit and right, except that he had gone a little too far, and it was only necessary to restrain him from further demonstrations. Rome compromise with a man she had doubly excommunicated and anathematized! Rome make terms with an outlaw whom she had infallibly doomed to eternal execration! Yet with these proposals the emperor's confessor approached Chancellor Brueck. But the chancellor's head was too clear to be caught by such treachery. Then it was moved to refer the matter to a commission of arbitrators. This met with so much favor that the pope's legate, Aleander, was alarmed lest Luther should thereby escape, and hence set himself with unwonted energy to incite the emperor to decisive measures. Charles was persuaded to make a demonstration, but demanded that the legate should first "convince the Diet." Aleander was the most famous orator Rome had, and he rejoiced in his opportunity. He went before the assembly in a prepared speech of three hours in length to show up Luther as a pestilent heretic, and the necessity of getting rid of him and his books and principles at once to prevent the world from being plunged into barbarism and utter desolation. He made a deep impression by his effort. It was only by the unexpected and crushing speech of Duke George of Saxony, Luther's bitter personal enemy, that the train of things, so energetically wrought up, was turned.