On that very day Brück, the Electoral Chancellor, discussed the matter with both of them at Wittenberg. He acquainted them with his sovereign’s fears. They had gone too far, and the publication of the affair had had the most disastrous results; a young Princess and Landgravine had appeared on the scene, which was not at all what the Elector had expected; the Court of Dresden was loud in its complaints and spared not even the Elector; the Dresden people were bringing forward against Luther what he had taught in favour of polygamy thirteen years before; the door had now been opened wide to polygamists. Not long after Luther wrote, that, were it necessary, he would know how to “extricate himself.”[97] Even before dropping this curious remark he had shown himself very anxious to make his position secure. It was with this object in view, that, after his interview with Brück, probably on the same day, he proceeded to explain the case to his sovereign in the lengthy letter[98] in which he appeals to Confession and its secrecy. “Before the world and against the laws of the Empire it cannot be defended,” but “we were desirous of glossing it over before God as much as possible with examples, such as that of Abraham, etc. All this was done and treated of as in Confession, so that we cannot be charged as though we had done it willingly and gladly, or with joy and pleasure.... I took into consideration the unavoidable necessity and weakness, and the danger to his conscience which Master Bucer had set forth.” Luther goes on to complain, that the Landgrave, by allowing this “matter of Confession” and “advice given in Confession” to become to a certain extent public, had caused all this “annoyance and contumely.” He relates in detail what Bucer, when seeking to obtain the Wittenberg sanction, had recounted concerning his master’s immorality, so contrary to the Evangel, “though he should be one of the mainstays of the party.” They had at first looked askance at the idea, but, on being told that “he was unable to relinquish it, and, should we not permit it, would do it in spite of us, and obtain permission from the Emperor or the Pope unless we were beforehand, we humbly begged His Serene Highness, if he was really set on it, and, as he declared, could not in conscience and before God do otherwise, that he would at least keep it secret.” This had been promised them [by Bucer]; their intention had been to “save his conscience as best we might.”