The earnestness with which Cronberg espoused the Lutheran ideas is shown by the fact of his resigning, after the Diet of Worms, a yearly stipend of 200 gold gulden, promised him by the Emperor, when he entered his service with Sickingen in 1519.[961] The assistance he lent to Sickingen’s treacherous machinations against the Empire proved his undoing. His castle of Cronberg was seized on October 15, 1522. He sought to console himself for the loss of his property by a passionate devotion to his religious and political aims. After a life of “undismayed attachment to what he deemed his duty,” says H. Ulmann, this man, “whose fidelity to conviction verged on puritanism,” died at Cronberg on August 7, 1549.[962] This Lutheran had demanded of the Emperor that he should convince the Pope by “irrefragable proofs” that he was the viceroy of the devil, nay, himself Antichrist. But should the Pope, owing to demoniacal possession, not admit this, then the Emperor had full right and authority and was bound before God to proceed against him by force, as against “an apostate, heretic and Antichrist.”[963] Some of his admirers, and likewise a eulogist of modern times, have extolled Hartmuth von Cronberg as a “Knight after God’s own heart.” His fanaticism, however, went so far that few dared to follow. The most unjust acts of violence, not merely against the Papal Antichrist, but also against church property which he declared everyone free to appropriate, were exalted by him to principles. In a circular-letter to Sickingen he wrote: “All ecclesiastical property has been declared free [i.e. ownerless] by God Himself, so that whoever by the grace of God can get some of it may keep it with God’s help, and no creature whether Pope or devil can harm such property.” He warns the Frankfurt priest, Peter Meyer, in a printed letter, that unless he is converted to the “Evangel” any man may, with a good conscience, take action against him, “just as it is lawful to fall upon a ravening wolf, a sacrilegious thief and murderer, with word and deed.”[964] _Wittenberg. The Saxon Electorate_ The abolition of the last remnants of Catholic worship in Wittenberg was characterised by violence and utter want of consideration. Only in the Collegiate Church, which was ruled by Provost and Chapter, had it been possible to continue the celebration of Mass. On April 26, 1522, at the instance of Luther, the Elector Frederick determined that the solemn exposition of the rich treasury of relics belonging to the Church should be discontinued, in spite of the fact that the relics were in great part his own gift to a Church which had enjoyed his especial favour. Luther, however, was anxious completely to transform this “Bethaven,” this place of idolatry, as he called the Church,[965] and in this matter the Prior and some of the Canons were on his side.